hubert wrote:I think that the point of anarchy is to establish a society without a ruler, not one without order. In any case, when I said propagation I meant an increase in the population, not in prosperity. If your goal is not the propagation of the human race, what is it? Are you suggesting that anything that is a "steady state" is good? The steadiest state that I can think of can be achieved quite easily with a few hundred nuclear bombs. Of course, if you want an option that retains the society you are trying to protect, I encourage you to seriously consider establishing your own totalitarian regime. And any society is "based on helping one another within reason," the question is: which one is preferable? I guess it is all a matter of what your goals are.
I have no such goals when it comes to world domination at least (not publically viewable ones anyway). Yes, anarchy does seek to have a society without any rule, but it also, inevitably, turns to chaos. The continent of Africa stands as testament to this.
Total stability wouldn't come from nukes. You'd get a lot less people, but now you have a lot less incentive for people to really be charitable for the most part, depending on how well you ruined their little world.
Prosperity for who we have on the planet at the moment would be the choice, since we don't actively encourage people to go out and breed like rabbits,. We do go out and try and make sure a certain standard of living exists for all, and this has been rising in the first world, and remained quite still in the lesser developed areas, for obvious reasons.
This all seems nice and good and I agree with what you said, but I doubt your fellow humanists would. Humans have a tendency to expand beyond established boundaries, and it is because of this tendency that we have gone so far in exhausting the earth's resources. How far are you willing to go to preserve animal and plant species while preserving human society? And do you believe that any such established limit will be honored a few thousand years from now?
Every species expands beyond its boundaries. If ever there is a period of additional resources such as space and food going untouched, some organism will expand to conquer it and then you have your brief prosperity brought down by the struggle of life again. Humans are no different, but we can restrain ourselves, something we're trying to do against economic mindsets such as rabid consumerism today.
Looking purely at a utilitarian way of going about this, keeping as many plants and animals alive as possible is productive given the benefits in terms of fighting disease, for instance, they offer. It is in our best interests to keep biodiversity high, and while the Average Joe may not care for what a "keystone species" is when he wants his latest designer goods, he soon will when our biosphere collapses as consequence. In anycase, nature is very good at controlling any species that goes too far. HIV is a perfect little tool in keeping our numbers down, at least in the countries where it matters.
Ideas are tolerated, but not necessarily accepted. But this does not necessarily hold any relevance. Society resides in long-established social norms, and although they change slowly over time, it is always dangerous to go against them.
Quite, but that is the risk of defying convention. If we didn't have the free radicals out there to bring on a revolution such as ending slavery, giving women the vote and accepting homosexual partnerships, we'd never progress socially. You will always have bigots, however, society has moved a long way in the last century, or I'd like to think.
Exactly, people work together only when it provides some benefit to the individuals involved. Why do you think the economic system based on greed (capitalism) works better than the one based on the common good (communism). Animals of a group work together so that the hunting goes more efficiently. The same is true for humans. Why did the early humans specialize in different jobs? Was it because of a conscious desire for the advancement of human society? No, of course not. It was because of human greed. The baker is the baker not to feed the people of his village, but rather because it is something that he is good at and will thus provide him with the most material wealth (or more importantly, the most food).[/i]
Actually, there are a number of studies that show ourselves, and our closer cousins have some strange social psychology going on compared to other animals. It's not as cut & dry as simply getting benefits from working together. There are instances when primates such as ourselves do something with no obvious reward in sight. To most creatures, that would be a waste of energy. I'll see if I can dig up one of the studies, but it is disputed that we are only as level, morally speaking, as your average cat or dog.