Societal / cultural evolution often operates on different principles and mechanisms from biological evolution. The two aren’t really the same thing at all, except in a general “change” sort of way.
Depends on how you define a modern world. The problem with the poorest people in the 3rd world isn’t that they’re living in a modern world. Because they’re not.
This is a hugely complex problem but just as a point to consider: some of the world’s largest cities now have huge associated areas of slums. This is not because those cities are turning into slums, it’s because slums offer better opportunities for people to get income, food, products, education and health care when compared to the rural areas. The slums are growing because they’re hugely attractive to people.
You can’t really cast this as evolution like that. Biological evolution happens all the time. The rate of change just speeds up under stress or the population dies out (both for the same reasons - i.e. individuals dying before they can effectively procreate at a higher rate than normal). The sort of societal change you’re talking about happens using much faster and flexible mechanisms.
That’s why nobody sends their kids to school and everybody leaves people to die on the street, steals and kills people they don’t like? Surely you’re exaggerating.
Humans aren’t psychologically used to caring about millions of other people. (I know this is armchair evolutionary psychology and should be suspect) on the evolutionary scale, we’ve always dealt pretty much exclusively with the people directly around us who we see pretty much every day. We - mentally healthy people - just don’t care as much about people we don’t know or see personally.
In what way is the system failing? Haven’t there been massive improvements in the third world over the past generation? Aren’t people in almost all third-world countries living longer, healthier lives with more wealth, more food, and more of just about everything than they were 40 years ago?
I would think that if the system does need to change then we will run the risk of extinction. At least one level of extinction. Possibly the collapse of civilization (or at least some of them).
Maybe you’re not looking in the right places. There are millions of schools, hospitals, clinics, hospices, and other charities operating in the third world while funded from the first world.
What about them? Are you suggesting that they aren’t passing on their genes? That they are going extinct? If not, then what’s your point exactly? You are coaching all this in evolutionary terms, and in those terms people in the 3rd world, bad as their lives seem FROM OUR PERSPECTIVE, are orders of magnitude better (in terms of survival to breeding age and the ability to pass on their genes) than our ancestors had.
Huh? Their society hasn’t evolved? Relative to what? Again, you seem to be under the impression that evolution (societal or biological) has some kind of optimal direction. The fact that many 3rd world countries have poorer standards of living than we of the West has zero to do with whether they are able to breed and pass on their genes. In fact, as John Mace pointed out, from a purely evolutionary perspective you could make a case that THEY are the ones with the more successful strategy, since their own population rates are higher than ours…which translates into their genes carrying over better to future generations than ours in the west.
I think you are confusing a bunch of different things here…and I think that your skewed perspective is getting in the way of whatever it is you are trying to say.
Huh? What system? What change? Evolve to what? What are you talking about?
Wha? On what basis do you think that humanity is running the risk of extinction? And what has this got to do with anything you are talking about? Whether or not Western Civilization collapses or doesn’t collapse is irrelevant to whether or not humans become extinct. And I don’t see any indications that Western Civilization is on the brink of collapse OR that humans are headed toward extinction. In fact, quite the opposite, from all appearances.
Again, I think your skewed worldview is getting in the way of rational thought.
Case in point. How can you not see that today more people are kept alive due to society and civilization than ever before?? It’s pretty much self evident…unless you think there were 6 billion people on this mud ball 10,000 years ago…a 5000…or 1000…or 100.
As for greed and materialism…sheesh. Welcome to the human species. These are and have always been aspects of human culture and the human makeup. As in all things, we have good and bad points…and as in all things even ‘greed’ and ‘materialism’ can be both, depending on where one takes them.
I’m not even going to get into the whole ‘fascism’ meme…
In what past? There are plenty of examples of people who were disabled or crippled living to relatively high ages (for the times). So…it would vary. Does the tribe have enough for everyone to eat? No? Well then some steps might have been necessary. But this wasn’t always the case…even when our species were hunters and gatherers and lived nomadic lifestyles.
Again, you make sweeping statements that really aren’t this cut and dried. What makes you think that people living in a settlement would necessarily be more inclined to (or disinclined to) help people who wouldn’t possibly be contributing to the community? I’d say that, as with our earlier hunter and gatherer ancestors, it would vary on a case by case basis.
That said, humans are almost hard wired to associate with smaller groups of people…the family, the tribe, the clan, the town, the city, the kingdom, the nation, etc, in ever decreasing emotional attachment. This has, again, pretty much always been true.
What are you talking about? We (the US) sends billions of dollars in aid, food, material, medicine, etc all over the world. Europe sends billions of Euros. Nearly ever well off country does the same.
As to your later point, no…I would strongly disagree. It’s not a matter of food, it’s a matter of political unrest, infrastructure and distribution. We SEND tons of food to places like Africa, and the food either sits on a dock somewhere rotting, is looted or destroyed by some local warlord band, or is taken and sold on the black market by some local corrupt official or potentate.
And compare that to the billions that the US has given in aid to Haiti and…well, what’s your point? Haiti is dysfunctional due to a whole series of problems and issue that are to long to get into in this thread. But what has any of this to do with evolution? Surely you realize that the population growth in Haiti is positive? They aren’t in any danger of going extinct, even if their lives are plenty miserable.
What does this have to do with the price of opium in Afghanistan??
-XT
I think he/she is engaged in the common fallacy of assuming that “evolutionarily successful” equals “desirable from a human viewpoint”. Or possibly the broader one of assuming that natural is synonymous with good, which means evolution must be good because it’s natural.
Of course, evolution doesn’t care about happiness or morality; it’s an amoral natural process like gravity or metabolism. It’s not good, it’s not evil; it has no goals. It’s just how biology works.
It’s funny because if I were to argue this in a way such as I say:
People who suffer birth disfigurement, physical and mental handicaps, hereditary disease should be killed… I might have people argue the morality of such a statement, but not argue the logic.
When I say the world is full of evil greedy people siphoning wealth while there are people who can barely get by… then it would be the opposite for you people. You’d say morals have nothing to do with it.
Okay. So if I understand correctly population growth which exceeds the supply of food for those people in a good thing. Wow… you guys blew my mind, because I always thought that was sort of bad and only exasperated the issue. Good thing you people are always right and will defend that point 'til your death bed even though it’s blatantly WRONG.
Not to mention the countries that are overwhelmed with AIDS, that have the poverty stricken and morally deprived males raping the female dwindling population… well, I can understand why you people think they are so much better off than us. Abundant reproduction is definitely the best way…
Again, you are confusing evolution with something moral. It’s not. Evolution doesn’t care how much people ( or anything else ) suffers; it doesn’t care about anything. Evolution is just a description of how biology works. While the suffering of the less fortunate is bad, evolution is not the reason why it is bad.
To paraphrase the great sage Inigo Montoya…I dinna thin’ people are saying what you thin’ they are saying, nilum. As I noted in other threads where you were posting, I really don’t think you are tracking the argument very well, frankly. And I think the reason this is the case is because you aren’t really reading them…you are skimming them and putting the arguments into a context of your own world view.
Basically, if you wanted to talk about inequality in the 3rd world, or how evil the West is, you should have started a thread on THOSE topics…then you might have gotten a bit more support, and had your mind blown a bit less when people responded to what you were asking for…instead of the alphabet soup of topics you seem to want to go off on tangents about.
-XT
It really has nothing to do with evolution. It’s poverty. You think the same things would happen if these people had money, jobs, food, clean water, and medicine? These are problems society has created.
Calm down there. You’re new here, and your not going to get a good debate going by referring to “you guys”. If you want to join this community, you’re welcome to do so, in which case you’re one of “you guys”, too. If you want to set yourself apart in some adversarial position, you’re not going to get very far. There are a lot of really smart people here, and you can learn a lot by hanging around and asking questions.
Here’s the deal. You’re jumping back and forth between evolution and morality. There is no good or bad in evolution except as measured by the success of the species. Evolution just happens.
Whether or not rich people help poor people is a moral question. If we were all selfless worker bees, then we’d be social insects… which, btw, is a group of incredibly successful species. The fact of the matter is, we are an extremely successful species of great ape-- one that has blown away the other great apes in terms of numbers. And we did that all with our “greedy” human nature.
Hmm because if I read back, it wasn’t me who went off on the tangent. There were statements made that I had to counter.
Here is one of them:
Yes, but this thread is about medicine & social class affecting evolution; not about social justice or poverty or clean water. If evolution has nothing to do with it, then start a thread about it that doesn’t talk about evolution from the start.
I was responding to what someone else said. Where is that not obvious?
That quote from Xtisme’s post was about evolution. You had posted about “the system” failing, and we didn’t know what you meant by “the system”. Evolution, the subject of this thread, isn’t a system.
I think it best that you restate what you want to debate here. You’ve got a lot of us confused.
Um…no. What you are quoting there is about talking about positive population growth, and isn’t a tangent at all…in fact, it’s pretty much on topic. You are treating it as a tangent because you don’t see to understand the point that was being made there (as an aside, when you quote from someone, could you please use a tag to indicate who wrote what you are quoting? Please?). Also, I suspect, that you don’t really want to talk about the position you stated in your original OP, and instead you want to talk about social injustice. So…why don’t you start from scratch and ask the questions you seemed to really want to ask initially, instead of the ones you actually asked and got answers too? It would really be helpful if you want to have a true discussion…
-XT
And yet, people have debated the logic and morality of that statement already. Even when you approached it “from the other side” (i.e. much more confusedly). Evolution is amoral. Nature is amoral. Gravity is amoral. Humans determine morals. We decide based on logic and a big helping of instincts what is moral and what’s not. We can’t look at evolution or nature or gravity to help us decide what is the moral thing to do.
No, I said you were exaggerating.
Crap. We’ve already got more food on the planet than is needed to feed the current population. Yes, it’s not distributed in such a way that everybody has enough to eat, and that is something that we in the rich countries of the world IMHO have an obligation to do something about. This has nothing to do with “the modern world” or “evolution” or “nature”. By most measures the situation used to be much worse. It’s also not nearly as simple a problem as you seem to think. As has been pointed out to you already, the biggest problems of poverty and appalling health are not actually caused by natural disasters and the like, but by people; warfare, discrimination, corruption and bad policy can’t be solved by dropping some bags of food.
You are the one proposing that nature is so much better than the modern world. Not me. I hate that people get taught that AIDS is spread via condoms or that fucking a virgin will cure you. It’s disgusting and evil. Again, this has nothing to do with evolution.
I will point to the title of this thread that you started. Do not come to us claiming that you weren’t talking about evolution. Also, if these people you’re talking about were living in “the modern world” (another topic you pulled from your hat during the discussion) they would have money, jobs, clean water and medicine.
Pick your topic and stick to it. Don’t cram your whole world view into one post about one aspect of nature that you clearly only partially understand.
Gravity in its most basic sense is the force of attraction between two objects, correct? So why if a baby were falling out a third floor window would you try to catch him?
The question really is that badly conceived.
Of course we could argue the logic - I already did. My argument was “Stephen Hawking”.
OK, no, it was “*Steven *Hawking”, but still…
“Society” didn’t create those people, didn’t bring them into a world where there was no support for them. their parents did. Look to them for the blame.
Also, don’t blame society for “poverty stricken and morally deprived” rapists - they have the choice not be rapists, other men in the exact same circumstances are moral and don’t rape (I live in South Africa, I see it every day)
Look, I can see where some of this is coming from, every young Anarchist at some point listens to one RATM song too many, and wants to smash the system. I know, I’ve been there. But as that great modern philosopher, Paul Weller, once said:
“its the system - Hate the system - what’s the system?”
Those poor Third World people aren’t being oppressed by anything as nebulous as a system. They’re being oppressed by people. The kind of fucker who will die old and rich, in their exile bed in London, Paris or Dubai. That’s who you should rail against, not capitalism. I agree, Capitalism is a horrible system, but systems are just symptoms. Fix the disease, the symptoms go away. What’s the disease?
Greed?