| ▲ | Henchman21 6 days ago |
| They were really smart guys. But smart guys don’t stand a chance in the face of all that money because it attracts people who know how to manipulate and control smart people. Smart people think they’re at the top of the totem pole. But really its those without ethics who sit at the top in our society. This is a conundrum humanity must address if we’re to survive over the long term, IMO. |
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| ▲ | lanstin 6 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| A powerful argument against excessively large corporations. When the companies are competing fiercely, the amoral folks can't game the system. |
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| ▲ | imiric 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You're implying that smart people are somehow inherently ethical, but were manipulated by unethical (and less smart?) people. Whereas some of the least ethical people in history were also very smart. Intelligence is practically a requirement for truly abhorrent behavior. Greed is humanity's greatest weakness. When faced with the opportunity of unimaginable wealth, most people would sacrifice their ethics and morals, assuming they had any to begin with. |
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| ▲ | Henchman21 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Well, I can see where you get that from what I wrote. I didn’t mean it quite like that, so allow me to clarify: I don’t think they are inherently ethical, but they were young and naive with good intentions (Do No Evil, and all that). The position they put forward is ethical. But that youthful naivety is what the less-ethical (though still quite intelligent, as you point out) take advantage of. Further, again as you said, greed is at the root of it. Hopefully that clarifies my point? |
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| ▲ | moshegramovsky 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is seriously one of the best things I've ever read here. Extremely well said. |
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| ▲ | foobarian 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > This is a conundrum humanity must address if we’re to survive over the long term, IMO. Who's to say that this is not actually an evolutionary adaptation that allows the more ruthlessly led tribes to dominate their enemies? The stat about 1/25 of individuals being sociopaths is very telling |
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| ▲ | Henchman21 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Each and every one of us has the ability to choose to be better. That so many just “go along with whatever” is why I personally think we’re unlikely to survive over the long term, unless a more enlightened species leads us by the hand. | | |
| ▲ | pyfon 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Can we get to human or better intelligence through evolution without tribal behaviours? |
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| ▲ | moshegramovsky 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Even if you're correct, is that the world you want? (And to be clear, I'm not saying it's the world you want.) DNA isn't destiny. | | |
| ▲ | foobarian 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Right, I don't. It's an interesting conundrum because on an evolutionary scale the civilized era is so short it probably hasn't had an effect yet, which means that getting to a Star Trek style utopia would require a conscious struggle against our nature. | | |
| ▲ | mtlmtlmtlmtl 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Problem with that logic is, humans don't just evolve genetically, we evolve culturally, and that cultural evolution ends up affecting our biology as well. So it doesn't really matter how slow genetic evolution is. Cultural evolution is what defines the human species. It's much more rapid because it includes planning and foresight, unlike the blind watchmaker of biological evolution. It is also lamarckian in that it incorporates the experiences of the previous generation into the cultural phenotype of the next one. That's precisely how we've changed so drastically is an evolutionary blink of an eye. And now, our cultural evolution has reached the point where we're even able to change our own genetics with planning and foresight in a single generation. So it seems to me that the blind watchmaker is essentially irrelevant now. |
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| ▲ | dboreham 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Psychopathopoly. |
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