Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sy Borg]

The concerns of the elite *are* the concerns of the human race. The rest of us and our genetic lines are doomed - for all the reasons you mentioned. All the nice animals die first. What will remain will mostly be cockroaches, rats, germs, billionaires and their machines.

Greta, Do you believe that if the collective does have a mind, that it is of this elite? This is where pressure need be applied if that is the case. They then need to have their world rocked for them, quite literally.

That would be akin to chimps throwing stones at established human settlements. With technology, the US's infamous Second Amendment has been rendered obsolete, now only good for terrorising citizens. Individuals with rifles and sticks cannot compete with radar tracking, automated drones and guided missiles. Further, the greater the upheaval caused by the masses, the more harsh the retribution - setting undesirable precedents, eg. Tiananmen Square.

As one who sees space exploration as critically important, I accept that some pooling of wealth is necessary. Loose aggregations of self-interested individuals do not build space programs - or decent infrastructure, for that matter.

[popeye1945]

Greta, You have a most interesting perspective, so the masses best just sit on their hands? I agree that it is necessary to have the elite, most often it is only they you advance our civilization mainly due to their leisure and advanced education. I am getting the impression that you believe the population is utterly powerless, perhaps your right. The support Trump received in this past election, has convinced me that the mentality of at least half the population of the United States is rather pathetic. The conservatives have done a wonderful job dummying down the population. Perhaps democracy by the people has become a bad joke. Even if I have not got a perfect slant on your perspective it does seem a little depressing.

[Sy Borg]

Popeye, the masses need not sit on their hands. They can do anything they like within reason, just that it won't make much difference. What people do may change how things transpire to some extent, but when 20-odd people own about as much as half of the world, it's pretty clear that there is a major division occurring in humanity.

To that end, the Trump CIVID case was illuminating. An obese, 74 year-old man contracts an illness that has killed millions, including many young and ostensibly healthy people. Yet this ageing fat man in a high stress job - with a level of help that only a billionaire can have - shrugged COVID off in three days, and was back on the campaign trail - work that could exhaust healthy young people. The advantages are widening rapidly behind the scenes, with advantages over the rest of us in every small transaction.

I don't find any of this depressing, just as I don't find the relative incompetence of children depressing. Like children, humanity in 2020 is not yet capable of achieving anything close to its loftiest aims. If our biosphere does not produce entities capable of broad wisdom and awareness, probabilities suggest that, a biosphere somewhere in the universe will at some stage break through The Great Filter*. Probably more than one, possibly millions.

So I don't see the stakes as being as great as I otherwise would have done. In a personal and short-term sense, sure, there's much to consider and fuss about, but I don't think that progress will cease. Imagine the scale of cataclysm needed for billionaires to be exposed to the same level of danger faced by the poor today. Perhaps an asteroid strike or a supervolcano eruption could do it. Not too much else, it seems.

It is clear that humanity is going to breed and consume until diverse and complex ecosystems are broken down to simple ones. There will be incredible death and destruction over time, and I would rather that some people (post-humans?) survive than all of humanity either dying our or reverting to primal lifestyles.

Many people would rather see humanity erased from the Earth. Not me. What happens if you remove humanity? Just more life surviving on others' deaths. SNAFU. With technology in the future, at least the most privileged of us may have a chance to transcend this harsh state of affairs. After all, once people have decimated everything, they will have to learn to consume exclusively non sentient life!


* The hypothesis that civilisations always reach a stage of self-destruction.

[Sculptor1]

Recent scientific discoveries increasingly indicate that plants are intelligent creatures that can "talk" to animals, including humans. Plants may even be capable of interspecies "love" (i.e. the forming of meaningful relationships in real-time).

This does not amount to anything remotely deserving of moral status.

[popeye1945]

''This does not amount to anything remotely deserving of moral status.

arjand, Perhaps it would be helpful if you stated, what in your opinion necessitates a moral standing, if a given level of intelligence does not.

[popeye1945]

Greta, It is to me rather depressing, that the eons of suffering and death necessary to bring us to this level of civilization was all for not. If we are to meet our end however, there will be no one left to have regrets.



My previous post, should have been directed to Sculptor.

[Sy Borg]

How do you know it's all for naught? The universe has another trillion years of forming stars ahead, and it will take another trillion and more for them to burn out. In all that time, any beings that manage to keep solving survival challenges could evolve to become more extraordinary than we can even imagine. We don't understand the big picture any more than a toddler comprehends his or her nation.

[Sculptor1]

''This does not amount to anything remotely deserving of moral status.

arjand, Perhaps it would be helpful if you stated, what in your opinion necessitates a moral standing, if a given level of intelligence does not.

Being human, or at least being capable of pain and suffering.

[popeye1945]

Sculptor, I believe there is enough new science to indicate that consciousness is most definitely there, there is even indications of them caring of other individuals. They certainly nurture and raise their young and have amazing properties of self defense, so certainly harm registers. Google "Brilliant Green" A science and history of plant intelligence. It is an amazing journey you'll never experience the woods in quite the same way.

[Pattern-chaser]

Greta, You have a most interesting perspective, so the masses best just sit on their hands? I agree that it is necessary to have the elite...

Necessary? Just as it is necessary to have cancer? The elite are parasites; they do not earn the money they own; others do that for them. But they alone reap the benefits. No, the "elite" are far from necessary, IMO.

[Sy Borg]

Greta, You have a most interesting perspective, so the masses best just sit on their hands? I agree that it is necessary to have the elite...

Necessary? Just as it is necessary to have cancer? The elite are parasites; they do not earn the money they own; others do that for them. But they alone reap the benefits. No, the "elite" are far from necessary, IMO.

The personal angle is not important. Major projects - dams, buildings, drainage, sewerage and clean water systems, power grids - can only be achieved by pooling assets.

[LuckyR]

Greta, You have a most interesting perspective, so the masses best just sit on their hands? I agree that it is necessary to have the elite...

Necessary? Just as it is necessary to have cancer? The elite are parasites; they do not earn the money they own; others do that for them. But they alone reap the benefits. No, the "elite" are far from necessary, IMO.

The 1% are in fact necessary, statistically. If you measure anything among large groups, there will be outliers (just as there will be a median, both are going to happen). Rather than deny this reality the goal should be to limit (as many countries have done) the relative inequality between the 1st percentile and the 50th percentile, as opposed to fantasize that there isn't a difference between the two.

BTW cancer is also necessary, logically. That is, if there is a complex system, there will be malfunctions in the various steps in the complex system (since nothing runs 100% correctly). When there is a malfunction in the genetic repair mechanism, that's most cancers.

Perhaps we are using "necessary" differently, one use could be "preferred" and the other "inevitable".

[Pattern-chaser]

The elite are parasites; they do not earn the money they own; others do that for them. But they alone reap the benefits. No, the "elite" are far from necessary, IMO.

The 1% are in fact necessary, statistically. If you measure anything among large groups, there will be outliers (just as there will be a median, both are going to happen). Rather than deny this reality the goal should be to limit (as many countries have done) the relative inequality between the 1st percentile and the 50th percentile, as opposed to fantasize that there isn't a difference between the two.

[...]

Perhaps we are using "necessary" differently, one use could be "preferred" and the other "inevitable".

Yes, "the 1%" colloquially refers to the super-rich, not to ~80 million humans. It's not literal. And I referred anyway to "the elite", but it's much the same thing, I suppose. So yes, limits should be in place. While it is expected that people will benefit from their labours, it is not acceptable for people to own and control so much money that they couldn't spend it even in a hundred lifetimes. No-one can 'earn' that kind of money alone, so it is unreasonable for them to corner so much of the available wealth for themselves.

But even limits won't work on their own. If we say that the gap between the highest and lowest wages should be (say) a factor of 100, companies will emerge where all the workers will receive huge salaries, while those from other companies do much less well. The underlying problem seems to be greed, nurtured and fuelled by American Capitalistic mindsets. It affects individuals, it affects communities, and it affects our race as a whole, not forgetting what it does to an environment already under huge stress, when individuals stockpile money that is needed by all.

Our (global) pie is too small to make everyone rich...

[LuckyR]

The elite are parasites; they do not earn the money they own; others do that for them. But they alone reap the benefits. No, the "elite" are far from necessary, IMO.

The 1% are in fact necessary, statistically. If you measure anything among large groups, there will be outliers (just as there will be a median, both are going to happen). Rather than deny this reality the goal should be to limit (as many countries have done) the relative inequality between the 1st percentile and the 50th percentile, as opposed to fantasize that there isn't a difference between the two.

[...]

Perhaps we are using "necessary" differently, one use could be "preferred" and the other "inevitable".

Yes, "the 1%" colloquially refers to the super-rich, not to ~80 million humans. It's not literal. And I referred anyway to "the elite", but it's much the same thing, I suppose. So yes, limits should be in place. While it is expected that people will benefit from their labours, it is not acceptable for people to own and control so much money that they couldn't spend it even in a hundred lifetimes. No-one can 'earn' that kind of money alone, so it is unreasonable for them to corner so much of the available wealth for themselves.

But even limits won't work on their own. If we say that the gap between the highest and lowest wages should be (say) a factor of 100, companies will emerge where all the workers will receive huge salaries, while those from other companies do much less well. The underlying problem seems to be greed, nurtured and fuelled by American Capitalistic mindsets. It affects individuals, it affects communities, and it affects our race as a whole, not forgetting what it does to an environment already under huge stress, when individuals stockpile money that is needed by all.

Our (global) pie is too small to make everyone rich...

It is natural human psychology to both compare and be envious, hence competition. In any competition there will be winners and losers (by definition). This is inevitable. As we both agree there should be limits on the amount of resource control, not bsed on hard work, but based on cleverness and luck.

[Pattern-chaser]

As we both agree there should be limits on the amount of resource control, not based on hard work, but based on cleverness and luck.

You believe success (in accumulating wealth) is justified by cleverness and luck, but not by "hard work"? Is that what you're saying?