Hello,
I really love engaging with comments so let me say thank you to Greg for this one. I have a few thoughts, and know I could reply below the comment, but wanted to say more than simply a few lines.
So, whether or not humans are inherently any thing—good or evil or you name it—has been a question thought about, debated about, obsessed over, and killed about for centuries. You can find hundreds of philosophers or thinkers in both categories, “yes, humans are selfish, competitive, and have a desire for power” believed Hobbes, an argument he unpacks in his book Leviathan (1651) A leader in the “no, humans are inherently good, just messed up by society,” camp is Jean-Jacques Rousseau, made particularly urgently in his essay-cum-book The Social Contract (1762). This all gets messy very quickly. As a student of both history and political science, I am looking for consistent institutions that bring out the so-called “better angels of our nature.” I believe that when people feel safe, loved, and cared for, then we achieve impossible feats of greatness. I also believe when people feel scared, fearful, and like no one care about them, then we are possible of great calamity and destruction.
I don’t believe people are inherently good or evil though I do take the stance that since we are an evolved species, and the mechanism of natural selection works through “selfish genes,” as Richard Dawkins put it in his magisterial work, The Selfish Gene (1976), that, consciously and unconsciously, we are drawn towards staying alive to pass on our genes, which, produces behavior than can look both “selfish” or altruistic. People respond to incentives; they live by example, for better and for worse; and, again, we are all capable of immense pro-social or pro-other behavior and also anti-social and anti-other behavior.
Greg, you hint at another important point: “it’s easy to lose sight of our collective good will in a society that promotes a kind of capitalist Darwinism to measure our worth in society.” I can’t stress enough that due to the deliberate weakening of our social welfare systems, people are forced to be self-interested and take on risks that should be socialized. If you only have 2-3 sick days to use at work, you might sometimes lie, and come in, because you want to save those days for lesiure. Or, certainly even more important to this point: if you have already used your sick days, you know you shouldn’t come in, but you do otherwise because you need the money. And as Alasdair Roberts explains in The End of Protest: How Free-Market Capitalism Learned to Control Dissent (2013), even though we see pockets of resistance, protests, and movements that achieve goals that are pro-social, egalitarian, fair, and more socialistic in nature, “the neoliberal age made us more allergic to disruption than ever before.” When social and economic security is seen as one of personal responsibility and risk, it’s hard to be a good neighbor or citizen. It wasn’t true when Margaret Thatcher said “there is no such thing as society” but what was true during her time in power and that is still true now, in the U.K. but also in the U.S.—and looks to be true in your homeland, Greg, Australia—is that neoliberal/libertarian policies championed by conservatives and then sheepishly followed by (neo)liberals absolutely are designed to shift economic, familial, and social security risks onto individuals and away from government. It’s also obvious that this has produced terrible consequences that we will continue to live with and suffer from until neoliberal hegemony is weakened and replaced by social democracy, both in the workplace and without.
When survival costs so much money, we will do what it takes, producing a race to the bottom that is bad for us, collectively. Capitalism absolutely depends on an underclass: sure, individuals can become mobile, but a majority must stay selling their labor, and, ultimately, “must live with the consequences of employers’ decisions from which it is excluded,” as Richard Wolff explains in his perfectly titled article “Massive Inequality Is a Feature of Capitalism, Not a Bug,” in In These Times.
As far as A.I. goes, which is what prompted your thoughts, I’ll leave with your remarks, Greg, because I thought you put it quite well:
“AI is the hot topic when its said to be smarter than most humans but AI cant taste chocolate, cant appreciate music, cant empathize with bad spellers, cant feel love.”
Ok, I’ll add one more thing: A.I. in the form of chatbots are also not smart because they aren’t conscious and they can’t think; they are merely an extremely interesting proof of concept of “machine learning.” ChatGPT specializes in description and prediction and is, I’ve been told, impressive in terms of digital computation and algorithmic complexity. When A.I. gets more and more specialized, it will continue to be a helpful potentially revolutionary tool in science, medicine, therapy, and so on.
We, humans, the ones that matter in this discussion, think, and therefore, are. What are we? Everything. Good, evil, and in-between. We are dynamic, complicated, and full of competing impulses, desires, and moral choices that require terrible tradeoffs that leave us feeling less than great. We are beings truly capable of learning, changing, and making decisions. And, truly, I don’t think reducing us to an either/or; yes, or no; more or less, etc. helps us think about or helps us overcome the biggest challenges we face, either within, or without. Either as individuals or as members of a family, or polity.
Although the butterfly and caterpillar are completely different, they are one and the same, Patrick M. Foran
Lots of ideas to digest Patrick! Will get back to you later after more consideration. I will say one thing that I think is relevant to the conversation now and that is that the"poor" and the working class is so busy trying to get by that they are often unable to live truly fullfilling lives . It amazes me that many in the USA consider Government Healthcare some kind of communist plot. In Australia you get treated for injuries and health problems through "Medicare" regardless of your economic situation. To my way of thinking health and education should be free to all citizens. Education(tertiary and private) has to be paid for by individuals,although fees are defered until you are working in a job over a certain income. It used to be free. We as citizens paying taxes deserve free health and education. A healthy and smarter population is best for everyone.....less crime, less people dying from treatable ailments, more happiness and feeling of security,etc. People dont blink an eye whenso much tax dollars goes into the military war machines but free healthcare is wrong!? ahhhhh! I believe that goverments should strive for egalitarianism especially in health and education. Got more to think about but thanks for your considered thoughts.