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by colordrops 3353 days ago
The idea that the status quo is "nature's way" is utterly wrong. Whatever we do as humans is "nature's way", as we are not separate from nature. Many different social structures have worked now and in the past. There is an enormous body of debate that our current system is terribly and perhaps fatally flawed (e.g. unable to act on climate change), so writing off people who want change as hippies that should go away is actually really rude.
1 comments
Radim 3353 days ago
Any example of a radically different social structure that has worked for humans in the past?

Btw I agree 100% that change is necessary and "natural". Vacuous hippie statements are not "it" though -- rational discourse and careful simulation is. This cannot be another "Oh, I had an idea in the bathtub, how about we try this ideology on the entire world's population?".

Given the room for disaster, and history's record of emotionally-loaded ideologies not backed by facts leading to such disaster quite reliably, that rhetoric is utterly unconvincing (as well as scary).

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colordrops 3353 days ago
I don't think you are really understanding the context of the original quote. I would hope that most people with a reasonable thought process would recognize that building social structure is a very complex and difficult problem, but the path from here to "there", wherever "there" is requires "there" to be defined. I think the quote is talking about the ends, not the means. You seem to be talking about the means. The goal is building as peaceful, productive, happy, innovative, exploratory, fulfilled society as possible. Perhaps capitalism is our best mechanism at the moment, but as we evolve, we will hopefully get closer to that goal of not needing to spend money on war and being able to feed everyone, whether through better capitalism, or something else.
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Radim 3352 days ago
I see you're attempting to shift the goal posts :)

Instead of veiled insults, just re-read the original utopian quote. It's nothing like what you're describing. In fact, it's exactly the opposite -- a direct call to action.

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