Quote from: deisik on November 22, 2013, 02:54:39 PM

So each for himself and devil take the hindmost? Cool

That is one possible interpretation. This loops back to what I was saying about "human nature" and the different ways of perceiving it.

If you think, that people are selfish and crooked, it makes sense to believe in this interpretation. But at the same time you need to explain how handing the reins of government to these selfish and crooked people helps improve the situation.

The other way of looking at it is to perceive the other evolutionary strategy, the one who is so often overlooked in face of "darwinism" and social darwinism: symbiosis/cooperation.

Today most people believe in evolution. And evolution is being described as a process of random mutation and natural selection.

There is a meme in our culture, which equates the "natural selection" part of the equation with "survival of the fittest". But this misses the whole picture. Survival of the fittest is a survival strategy employed mainly by predators. Much of the rest of nature employs the "survival of the most useful" strategy with a great degree of success. In fact, the more evolved and complex a biosphere is, the more of this second type of strategy you can find in there.

So to answer your question: no, not each for himself and devil take the hindmost. I don't like that idea.

What I like instead: everyone together with anyone, taking personal responsibility. Have a problem that people are starving? Go take your friends and feed them. Worried that they're uneducated - go educate them! That sort of deal

But it's easy for me to have faith in such a scenario, because I am what can be described in terms of (sorry for bringing this up again, but it's such a useful model) the 8 circuit model of consciousness as a "neophile". One who has received an imprint from his environment saying that the world is an OK place, new things are amazing and people can generally be trusted unless they've been corrupted somehow.

My approach is about closing the experiential gap between decision and consequence. The further away we are from the consequences of our actions, the worse decisions we do - from pragmatic AND moral standpoints. Look at people, who eat meat every day, yet have great trouble even watching a video from one of the chicken factories.

It needs to feel like YOUR responsibility. Not some unelected panel of "experts". Alternatively you can elect to just don't give a fuck, but you don't need government for that, do you?