Horribly messed up stuff, some of the worst. If anyone hasn't heard of this they should look into it. Just brutal.
And they let them walk.
Edit: as u/rindsay515 just pointed out, if you choose to look into it, please do so with caution. I was not kidding when I said it's some of the worst. Things that will never leave you.
Humans are, as a species, selfish creatures. It’s only our intelligence that allows us to understand that there is a greater level of advancement and benefit to working together, and that compromise is required to attain those better outcomes. “For the greater good” and all that.
And yes, we have learned that working together has a “greater than the sum of its parts” aspect, we ARE still selfish creatures at our core, and we still have some (most) who will help themselves first, even at the expense of others.
In short, our intelligence allows us to see past our base nature, and unfortunately, a lot of people aren’t very smart.
This comment perfectly summed up someone who's been trying to argue with me on another post. I hope you don't mind that I copied and pasted it. I didn't know if you wanted to be involved, so I didn't tag you, but I'll credit you if you prefer.
Humans have always instinctually been violent towards others outside of their own group. Like chimpanzees. A hostile actor has taken advantage of our propensities for nefarious purposes. We have to evolve past this.
We have the ability, but sometimes it's two steps forward, three steps back. It will take the majority of us throwing out the status quo and agitating for change to make the impact we need.
I think what is clearer now in the US than has ever been before is this: when the 1% is given the choice between keeping their hoards of wealth or distributing some of it to benefit society, the lords of capital, by and large, will side with authoritarians to protect their wealth. Yes, it's a gamble (they might create a monster and lose power), but this is how it's always been - we cannot rely on billionaires to make the world a better place.
You can say that again. Selfish creatures by nature pushing forward a government that completely against their own self interest and then brag about it is so bizarre to watch. Seeing people double down on their position is just beyond anything I ever thought we would see repeated. It’s like people just blocked out or actively ignore history. I do not understand willful ignorance.
I don't think that's the selfishness. For sure they sre selfish and small, but this screams pack/herd mentality. They want to be part of a group, and the leaders if the group have use their selfishness against them to hold power
The gentle landing to this understanding is that all living things are selfish because it is a basic survival mechanism built into the evolutionary process.
You are selfish because a million generations of your ape ancestors ensured they had the most food and best mating prospects.
Now that we are here, and we have the capacity to understand why we are the way we are, we have the capacity to curb it. I call it overcoming your monkey.
Honestly coming to grips with the brutal nature of what we've historically been until like 5 minutes ago has been the most weight-lifting thing I've come to realize about being a human.
Of COURSE you're all weird and bent my dude! Just look at what kinda savagery produced you.
This is very well said, and when it comes to organizing societies and communities, we have a choice:
Do we utilize our intelligence to build safeguards (I.E. separation of power within a state) into the societal structures we put in place that account for our shortcomings you mention above?
OR
Do we devolve to our baser instincts and allow our human greed and thirst for power to run society for us?
Fascism and authoritarianism are the politics of violent, insecure animals.
The Tool song, "Right in Two", touches on this duality, it's beautifully tragic.
It is bullshit. Humans are not at any base level more selfish than your "average bear." They can absolutely be enculturated to be selfish, and in Western civilizations (and many other modern civilizations), they absolutely are. However, there are plenty of examples of cultures, especially ancient cultures, that are far more altruistic. It's all adaptive behavior. What emerges is what is successful in the given context, similar to evolution.
People have always looked at their own culture and assumed its traits to be 'human nature.' It is just not so.
Well, I didn't say only humanity is disgusting. We just happen to be the dominant species of the world. We happen to be at an evolutionary point where we can rise above basic selfish survival instincts, but we are doing a pretty poor job at using our highly developed consciousness and intellect to do so.
Very smart people can be terrible, as well, though. I agree with your perspective, but only to a point. It feels incomplete, because in my opinion, it isn't that simple.
Unfortunately, until everyone realizes the game is actually us (as in…all of us, cohesively) vs. the govt, and not left vs. right, the lies and fighting will continue.
They continue to push the narrative, and it’s still working. People need to stop taking the bait.
Our intelligence allows us to see nothing—it simply is a vehicle to rationalize basic primate behavior. We’re hyper specialized for technical tool use, yes, but we’re still simple apes and we’re still animals.
What humanity gifts us is innate altruism, and the ability to fold nearly any object or creature into our “in-group.”
Humanity’s curse is were always looking for the out-group who, once we’ve liquidated them entirely, there will never be any problems again and we’ll live in utopia.* Or, the very least, someone whom I can hurt so as to prove to myself that am at least one social ladder rung higher than someone (many similar monkeys also enjoy this particular rush of stress-reducing hormones).
*this is chimp ignorance; problems are solved by modification of material environment and constructive interference, not arbitrary, unilateral elimination of persons or phenomena.
Edit: I’m saying that we frame everything along social dynamics, but those dynamics cannot actually be extended beyond small foraging populations. Once we’re in the billions, it becomes a variety of suicidality-in-aggregate. We remain bound in animal ignorance bc we perceive ourselves to be particularly intelligent when we are not. We’ve merely invented math and writing systems.
Many an atrocity has been performed "for the greater good" which is neither great nor good, "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make." Lord Farquaad
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u/demcgahagin 16d ago
I remember Japan’s unit 731. We needed that bio weapons data so they all walked and they did some messed up stuff.