"Venus Project" Has anyone ever heard of this?

[Elthy]

none promise no taxes and free beer

There is the "Anarchistische Pogo-Partei Deutschland", they promise exactly this. No idea how many people voted for them, but i assume its not that much. The party seems to be a joke that got to serious...

[vger]

Could work, basically you select an budget, that is the most important part to vote for.

The problem is that lots of decisions are far to mundane for people to get interested in, or it might just affect some people who then would be most of the voters. Or it might be very complex like an trade agreement, the problem that complex issues pass without comments are an well known issue in stockholders' meetings and similar settings.

Agree that more direct democracy is an good idea, however it might be better to elect bureaucrats to do the bureaucracy and replace them then we don't think they do that we want them to do.

These are the kinds of things that computers are good at, which again, if we DON'T want a master dictator, computers can still play a crucial role. An advanced A.I. can still show us the results of a prospective change, using graphical aids. The kinds that practically anyone can understand.

Remember, even though issues may be complex, we have a tendency to over complicate them further using language that no "outsider" can comprehend. It borders on an immature secret club wanting to use a special code, just because it's "cool." This is the main thing that makes self-representation in court proceedings impossible. The operation of computers used to be this way. Now we have GUI's and WYSIWYG editors, completely eliminating the "secret code." Imagine if there was a way to do the same thing to legalese.

If someone tries to impose a change process to make you "better" depending their view, then you start with a war against the people who oppose to this change. Then racism, discrimination and persecution; all arise.

We're already running into this problem actually. But "preservation of culture" is not an excuse for defending agressive behavior. We are ALL imposing changes to try to "make people better," and have been ever since the first monkey cracked a skull with a femur. If we weren't trying to force changes to improve society, we wouldn't even have laws against murder.

Now you want us to trust in "someone" who think that found a perfect way of behavior? With what experience? Evolution has 2000 millons years of experience..

Unless this was actually a historical documentary...

...evolution has zero experience with the kind of environment that humans have created. Evolution has us geared for raw survival in the most violent environments imaginable. In our current society, much of that programming is harmful instead of beneficial. Hawking was just recently quoted as saying that aggression is our worst enemy, and has the capacity to destroy us completely. Before advanced civilizations it was absolutely necessary though.

This fear, of coarse, can be abused by employers, but it is probable one the main motivations people have to go to a job they don't like. If you have guaranteed employment and housing, how does the AI keep people from goofing off all day at work.

Heh, we already have this problem now, but for the exact opposite reason. People are unmotivated because they know that their work has an insignificant impact on their chances of success. Even working your hardest in a dead-end job can have no impact on whether you will have that job tomorrow.

There can still be consequences for people NOT doing their share. But work should never equate to misery. In a strictly capitalistic sense, I have always believed that NO job should pay a wage that is lower than what is necessary to live comfortably. How many more people would be fine with sweeping floors or cleaning toilets if they knew that it would earn them enough that they wouldn't have to worry about tomorrow? All jobs out there are necessary for one reason or another, yet there is an unbelievable wage disparity, and I'm not talking about CEO pay here. Farmers for instance, are barely able to scrape by, but the work they do is so crucial to our survival, that what they are paid for it is laughable. Then of course the argument shifts to, "but if we paid them well, it would cost os $50 for a gallon of milk." Even the actual cost of doing that job isn't factored in. Blue collar work typically get paid far less than white collar, but it actually costs a person more to do heavy labor. I could sit at a desk all day just eating bread and water and do my job fine. Last time I did a labor job, I had to eat four times as much, and it had to be more costly high-protein food, or I would've wasted away to nothing. So I had to SPEND MORE to do my job, while getting PAID LESS.

Conflicts like this are why doing away with money is probably a better (and simpler) option than trying to balance it.

Edited March 5, 2015 by vger

[VincentS]

In my opinion, Venus Project may be correct about one point : currency is no longer the best way to organize production.

The current currency+market system has too many well known drawbacks. During industrial revolution, it may have been one of the best system available. Resources available were limited by human labor and production tools, and providing basic goods and sustenance for everyone was a challenge. Maximizing the profit implied maximizing utility through optimal resource exploitation.

But we live in a closed world, and most resources that could be used are currently in use, to the point where we harm our environment in order to get more. The problem is, maximizing profit is still done by maximizing resources exploitation, although those are growing scarcer. Hence, resource prices increase with respect to human labor, in a never ending loop.

Getting rid of the money as an implicit organization tool maybe one way to resolve this problem, but I think that fixing it is more easily achievable. In order to do that, you'd have to "split" the currency in two : one for work, and one for natural resources. Those two currency would have to be kept distinct, and there should be no way to change one for the other. The "work" money may be exchanged freely, much like current money. The resource money would be granted monthly or yearly (the same value for everyone) per capita, with some mechanism to avoid hoarding it. Anything you buy would have two prices, one for the work involved, another for the resources used.

The trick is, even if your work is valued 1,000 time more than your neighbor's is, you still cannot afford to damage the environment more than he can. People will want better quality, greener things, because cheap (work-wise) goods will be useless if you cannot afford it's environment price. What good will be pair of shoes that lasts 10 month when you can only buy one every year ? A well crafted five year lasting pair of shoes will be much better, even if the work-price is much higher (x6). Thus, any industry wishing to turn a profit would have to minimize environment damage, and increase durability.

In other words, the current market system failed at optimizing usefulness through individual profit maximization not because profit maximization is inherently a bad thing, but because the metric used (money) has not been engineered (yet) according to what we would consider the best result (human-wise and environment-wise).

Whenever you can, design your system so that desired behavior is a stable equilibrium and a global optimum… . Do not fight greed. Make it work for you !

[lajoswinkler]

There is the "Anarchistische Pogo-Partei Deutschland", they promise exactly this. No idea how many people voted for them, but i assume its not that much. The party seems to be a joke that got to serious...

That's called populism, and such people are often followed by criminals who, when these dumb ones carve the way, destroy them and take over. It happened in early 20th century Germany and it's happening again in certain countries, including mine.

[Scotius]

Yeah. It's easy to listen to a guy who says: "I will give you free xxxxxx". But hard fact is - nothing is free. Lower taxes? Government will have less money for schools. Free medical treatment? Government will have to pay lower wages to their employees. Or will have to postpone building new roads. Or *gasp* increase taxes. Everything is connected to something, and there is a finite amount of "money" in the system. Sure, you can make more currency, but it's value will not increase with the amount.

Nothing is free.

[AngelLestat]

I didn't know about ZG copying TVP ideas, but they are not the same, if only because zeitgeist sided with global warming denial, while TVP figures GW is one of the greatest threats to mankind.

Peter Joseph (founder of zeitgeist movement) one day visit and stay some days with Jack Fresco and her Wife to learn about their vision.

He leaves and take those ideas to make 2 "documentary" to promove its "movement".

They were pretty similar (almost equal), but Jack Fresco took distance from Peter because he was becoming the face and leader behind this vision.

Funny, both argue about the need of the scientific method and a sociaty without possessions, but they can not share the "idea" or let it evolve.

Such a hypocrites.

Recomendation: If some of you had an idea and you want this idea to spread and grow (without earn any profits). Then let it free, share it, do not constrain the idea under a label, ideology or your name. Let everyone use it and modify as they want, everyone may choose to use it and how to use it. That way the idea can evolve and spread.

The population boom is pretty much canceled.

main reason is that the majority of people live in cities, birth control also help however if you do low tech farming you want lots of kids to help you. If you live in an small apartment in a city you don't want lots of kids.

Correction, 54 % of the population lives in urban areas.. not cities. There is a difference.

Only the people who lives in cities on high develope countries had this low birth effect.

We can call India almost a full urban area, and even in the cities the childs by couple is not low.

I always place global warming as the second major threat, the first is over population. We are the root of all problems and we have limit resources.

If you keep the population constant as today and you try include all in the same way of living than medium class, then the world can not sustain any more this number of people.

And no status will not go away even in an utopia with free gods,

Of course not, this is another nature denial that TVP followers need to believe. If you want to call some girl/guy attention to go out with you instead someone else. What do you do?

At least this is an asset that is also share it... totally nonsense.

People love its personality and distinguished from others (even if the distinction seems negative).

In fact, we feel attractive to certain level of distinction by nature.

We're already running into this problem actually. But "preservation of culture" is not an excuse for defending agressive behavior. We are ALL imposing changes to try to "make people better," and have been ever since the first monkey cracked a skull with a femur. If we weren't trying to force changes to improve society, we wouldn't even have laws against murder.

I am not defending any behavior, I am saying that differences are good, leaving the ambient/system to filter and select those with more chances.

Being too aggresive is not a good survival strategy, you had more chances to die young or be jail, so you can not transmit your genes.

But that kind of behavior also helps to not aggresive individuals to not be too naive or down the defenses. They can fight using its own coperative methods without lose that will to live. Which is something that you lose if all is too easy without goals.

This concept is used (exaggerated) in the movie Serenity, the clip:

...evolution has zero experience with the kind of environment that humans have created. Evolution has us geared for raw survival in the most violent environments imaginable. In our current society, much of that programming is harmful instead of beneficial. Hawking was just recently quoted as saying that aggression is our worst enemy, and has the capacity to destroy us completely. Before advanced civilizations it was absolutely necessary though.

Instead things as feelings that with experience and we dont understand yet, are the ones that still keep us alive.

But now some few think that they may know what of those feelings are benefic and which are not... And force everyone to be changed under its vision. I have no words to describe how wrong at some many levels is this.

If people wants to take something to change in their own way, I guess they can do it.. Some may want cat reflex or better audition, extra force or more intelligence. It will be their choice and the ambient/system will filter those that are good for humanity.

People are unmotivated because they know that their work has an insignificant impact on their chances of success. Even working your hardest in a dead-end job can have no impact on whether you will have that job tomorrow.

And a IA making all the important decisions will improve that or make it worst?

In my opinion, Venus Project may be correct about one point : currency is no longer the best way to organize production.

here we have a resemblance to Scott Manley explaning why you can not remplace currency and some of the problems of venus project.

http://youtu.be/hxjwBZjADiM?t=7m27s

[Azimech]

You dint read my first post telling that zeitgeist movement is the same thing than venus project which founder (a 25 years old kid who work as an audio visual artist) copy all venus project ideas and make its own "church".

Zeitgeist Movement doesn't bite the Venus Project and vice versa, the have the same main goals.

Those people in the video knows NOTHING about human nature. Ask to real scientist!

There is not scientific method there (even if they said that the movement is base on that), because they ignore and reject all the evidence and reasons which work against the movement.

Robert Maurice Sapolsky (born 1957) is an American neuroendocrinologist, professor of biology, neuroscience, and neurosurgery at Stanford University, researcher and author. He is currently a Professor of Biological Sciences, and Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences and, by courtesy, Neurosurgery, at Stanford University. In addition, he is a Research Associate at the National Museums of Kenya.

Gabor Maté is a Hungarian-born Canadian physician who specializes in the study and treatment of addiction and is also widely recognized for his perspective on Attention Deficit Disorder and his firmly held belief in the connection between mind and body health. He has authored four books exploring topics including attention deficit disorder, stress, developmental psychology and addiction. He is a regular columnist for the Vancouver Sun and the Globe and Mail.

I can tell you and explain with full detail and examples how our behavior works, the amount that comes from culture and the part that comes from instincts. But the thing is that our culture is sculpt by our instints.

Or you can point me to the work of these scientists you are quoting? Less work :-)

- - - Updated - - -

I didn't know about ZG copying TVP ideas, but they are not the same, if only because zeitgeist sided with global warming denial, while TVP figures GW is one of the greatest threats to mankind.

ZM sided with global warming deniers? Where did you get that crazy idea?

http://blog.thezeitgeistmovement.com/category/tags/global-warming

[vger]

They can fight using its own coperative methods without lose that will to live. Which is something that you lose if all is too easy without goals.

This concept is used (exaggerated) in the movie Serenity

Heh, I had a feeling Serenity would come into this sooner or later.

I doubt there's any solid evidence that all "drive" is strictly fueled by aggression though. The behavior of children is evidence enough of that. And there are people who grow into their upper teens with a form of arrested development (physically/chemically I mean, not mentally) and then need hormonal treatment to complete their transition into "adulthood." These are people who already had ambition. The main purpose for medically "forcing" further development seems to be strictly sexual. The people who experience this transition rapidly, instead of the "frog on a hot plate" process that children experience at puberty, are often in total shock by what they experience. Some have reported feeling like they have been turned into uncontrollable monsters. Uncontrollable monsters; the final phase of development to adulthood. People who have undergone hormone therapy for ... changes have reported similar experiences.

Clearly ambitions and desires are not directly linked to aggression. And there are children who are plenty aggressive. But at a certain stage of development, hormones seem to take that aggression and make it far worse.

Is there a good balance that can be reached? Maybe, maybe not. But the Serenity tragedy I would hope is not something that would ever happen. If someone wants to experiment with this, they can get volunteers to undergo the treatments. What happened in Serenity was the experiment, "chemtrailed" into an unsuspecting population just to see what would happen. Initial tests of whatever they were developing would have revealed the problems before it was deployed on such a large scale. I understand the concern, but Serenity doesn't prove that there is no solution to this. Besides, the government in Serenity was simply trying to prevent uprisings by making everyone submissive. There's a TON of gray area between submissive and aggressive.

[AngelLestat]

Zeitgeist Movement doesn't bite the Venus Project and vice versa, the have the same main goals.

Are they?

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=37421

http://www.helpfreetheearth.com/news468_zeitgeist.html

Robert Maurice Sapolsky (born 1957) is an Amer......

Gabor Maté is a Hungarian-born C.....

Now let list the people who think that genes had a big effect in behavior:

Rest of the world: (Born XXXX) they are .......

This discrepancy is even bigger than between global warming scientist, which only 0.1% believe that there is not.

I just post the first results of on google search on "influence genes behavior culture"

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-imagination/201305/genes-affect-culture-culture-affects-genes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_behavior

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Human_Development_Center/pubs/l5respns.html

https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/biological-foundations-of-psychology-3/genetic-basis-of-psychology-31/genes-influence-behavior-137-12672/

http://web.stanford.edu/group/CCB/Pubs/paulpdfs/2003_EhrlichandFeldman_whatcreatesour.pdf

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1230873.files/CulturalInfluences.pdf

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1987/5/87.05.03.x.html

I dint read them to be honest, But I am sure that nobody will said such a thing as genetics does not influence behavior.

Or you can point me to the work of these scientists you are quoting? Less work :-)

Already did, but I can also be in a discussion with the 2 "scientist" that you name and win that discussion showing infinite evidence and logic (which will depend on my time).

I cant lose. the true is on my side.

I doubt there's any solid evidence that all "drive" is strictly fueled by aggression though.

I am very carefull with the things that I said or not. I never said that aggression is (or may be) the only behavior that give us "drive".

I said that it may contribute, the same as other feelings. And we can not know with certain the consequences on remove aggression. Not even with studies, because it may be events where aggression is the only way to survive.

I also did some examples of how aggression can be benefic to improve others altruist behaviors.

The behavior of children is evidence enough of that.

Evidence of what? of not aggression? I guess they show aggression, also there is genes inactive at that age. Some genes get activate on certain age, hormons levels, circustance, etc.

And there are people who grow into their upper teens with a form of arrested development (physically/chemically I mean, not mentally) and then need hormonal treatment to complete their transition into "adulthood." These are people who already had ambition.

Ok lets cut here.. first aggression is not a trait of "adulthood", also is not the only drive that we have. So this example does not help us in anything.

Clearly ambitions and desires are not directly linked to aggression. And there are children who are plenty aggressive. But at a certain stage of development, hormones seem to take that aggression and make it far worse.

Is very difficult to separate the effects on genes vs culture, and how these influece the other.

Now for scientist is a rough half and half. But TVP hypothesis needs NO-influence on behavior by genes to have sense.

[Vanamonde]

Please remember that the discussion of politics seems to invariably go bad, and so has been ruled off-limits for this forum.

[vger]

Ok lets cut here.. first aggression is not a trait of "adulthood", also is not the only drive that we have. So this example does not help us in anything.

Weren't you arguing that any attempt to remove aggression would invariably do away with "will to live" or "desire to work?"

Edited March 5, 2015 by vger

[magnemoe]

Peter Joseph (founder of zeitgeist movement) one day visit and stay some days with Jack Fresco and her Wife to learn about their vision.

He leaves and take those ideas to make 2 "documentary" to promove its "movement".

They were pretty similar (almost equal), but Jack Fresco took distance from Peter because he was becoming the face and leader behind this vision.

Funny, both argue about the need of the scientific method and a sociaty without possessions, but they can not share the "idea" or let it evolve.

Such a hypocrites.

Recomendation: If some of you had an idea and you want this idea to spread and grow (without earn any profits). Then let it free, share it, do not constrain the idea under a label, ideology or your name. Let everyone use it and modify as they want, everyone may choose to use it and how to use it. That way the idea can evolve and spread.

More fun then your message is sharing, only not my ideas (probably also the other things I have)

Correction, 54 % of the population lives in urban areas.. not cities. There is a difference.

Only the people who lives in cities on high develope countries had this low birth effect.

We can call India almost a full urban area, and even in the cities the childs by couple is not low.

I always place global warming as the second major threat, the first is over population. We are the root of all problems and we have limit resources.

If you keep the population constant as today and you try include all in the same way of living than medium class, then the world can not sustain any more this number of people.

UN predictions disagree, google too, birth rate in India is around 2.6, it was 3.6 in 1997, graph is pretty linear, India will be below replacement before 2030.

Most of middle east and Latin America is in the same situation except that most are lower than 2.6 today.

Population increases the 1997 generation is now having their 2.6 children while their grandparents and older during the start of the population boom is still alive.

it will still increase in 2035 then the babies born today have their 1.5 kids.

Of course not, this is another nature denial that TVP followers need to believe. If you want to call some girl/guy attention to go out with you instead someone else. What do you do?

At least this is an asset that is also share it... totally nonsense.

People love its personality and distinguished from others (even if the distinction seems negative).

In fact, we feel attractive to certain level of distinction by nature.

I am not defending any behavior, I am saying that differences are good, leaving the ambient/system to filter and select those with more chances.

Being too aggresive is not a good survival strategy, you had more chances to die young or be jail, so you can not transmit your genes.

But that kind of behavior also helps to not aggresive individuals to not be too naive or down the defenses. They can fight using its own coperative methods without lose that will to live. Which is something that you lose if all is too easy without goals.

This concept is used (exaggerated) in the movie Serenity, the clip:

Being too aggressive is not good, combine with low impulse control and you tend to end up in jail most of the time.

And about cooperation, the difference between warriors and soldiers is that warriors see themselves as most important, warriors see the group as most important, they also win any larger fights.

Instead things as feelings that with experience and we dont understand yet, are the ones that still keep us alive.

But now some few think that they may know what of those feelings are benefic and which are not... And force everyone to be changed under its vision. I have no words to describe how wrong at some many levels is this.

If people wants to take something to change in their own way, I guess they can do it.. Some may want cat reflex or better audition, extra force or more intelligence. It will be their choice and the ambient/system will filter those that are good for humanity.

This, nothing wrong about changing humans as long as you do it to yourself.

And a IA making all the important decisions will improve that or make it worst?

here we have a resemblance to Scott Manley explaning why you can not remplace currency and some of the problems of venus project.

http://youtu.be/hxjwBZjADiM?t=7m27s

[Azimech]

Already did, but I can also be in a discussion with the 2 "scientist" that you name and win that discussion showing infinite evidence and logic (which will depend on my time).

I cant lose. the true is on my side.

With this you completely undermined everything, and I'm not going to waste 1 second to discuss with you. This display of arrogance is one of the few I've met in my life. Even if you are right, you write like a Romulan. I'm sorry. Good luck, live long and prosper.

[lajoswinkler]

Please remember that the discussion of politics seems to invariably go bad, and so has been ruled off-limits for this forum.

You do understand that the whole thread's topic is politics?

Anyhow, this thing is recycling of things Marx and Engels were talking about. This is exactly what happens when you have hippies who are ignorant of history.

And the whole Zeitgeist thing is a mashup of conspiracy theories (of which global warming denialism is one of the most dangerous) and other kooky material with some obvious and good ideas to make the blend more palatable.

Edited March 6, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[AngelLestat]

Weren't you arguing that any attempt to remove aggression would invariably do away with "will to live" or "desire to work?"

If I said that, please quote me. It was a bit different.

More fun then your message is sharing, only not my ideas (probably also the other things I have)

When you said "yours" it means "me?"

I guess you misread something.

UN predictions disagree, google too, birth rate in India is around 2.6, it was 3.6 in 1997, graph is pretty linear, India will be below replacement before 2030.

Most of middle east and Latin America is in the same situation except that most are lower than 2.6 today.

Population increases the 1997 generation is now having their 2.6 children while their grandparents and older during the start of the population boom is still alive.

it will still increase in 2035 then the babies born today have their 1.5 kids.

Thanks for the info, it saids something about how much the world population would grow in the next years and what are the estimations?

How about Africa, I know there are a lot of births there but the mortality is very high. How can you increase the welfare and resource of all without a impact in our populations and resources?

This is not a nice topic, but I never find a solution to it, birth control politics with rewarding those who has only 1 child? Education to all... Find others planet to live and get resources.. All this sound so hard to do, that may all be called dreams.

With this you completely undermined everything, and I'm not going to waste 1 second to discuss with you. This display of arrogance is one of the few I've met in my life. Even if you are right, you write like a Romulan. I'm sorry. Good luck, live long and prosper.

If there is a topic in what I feel with the most confidence, it will be this, Evolution and bahavior.

Since kid I watch lots of documentary, I read lots of books, I saw ton of evidence, I clear all my questions and doubts finding answers when I was not sure.. I think a lot in this, trying to understand why we feel things in certain way and what it will be the differences for each kind of animal and why. This knowledge alow me to make many predictions which I saw confirmed or discover by the scientific community over time.

Some of this predictions were from topics that I dint have any clue. Like one time, 15 years ago, I discuss with a respected nutritionist that sugar should be the biggest problem, not fat, that a diet base in food that we could eat 30000 years ago with a similar physical activity must be ideal for our body.

Now that was confirm, the paleo diet is the best for any sportsman.

Evolution is one of the most important tool that we have to understand all about us.

So yes, I would not get down my head and let a wrong statement pass just because there is 2 guys with better academy curriculum than mine saying the opposite. I know that my word had not value for you, that is why I also post the first articles that I could fine.

And there is many "documentaries" that the only thing they do is pick evidence and interpret it as best suits them, just interviewing 1 or 3 who think similar, ignoring all the facts and logic that might point to a different answer.

Edited March 6, 2015 by AngelLestat

[vger]

If I said that, please quote me. It was a bit different.

My bad, I got it mixed up.

You were objecting to it on the grounds of protecting diversity and letting evolution take care of this for us.

Instead things as feelings that with experience and we dont understand yet, are the ones that still keep us alive. But now some few think that they may know what of those feelings are benefic and which are not... And force everyone to be changed under its vision. I have no words to describe how wrong at some many levels is this.

I am not defending any behavior, I am saying that differences are good, leaving the ambient/system to filter and select those with more chances.

First of all, trying to reduce aggression is WAY off from removing diversity. Giving people less of incentive to fight over everything is NOT the same as "forcing everybody to become the same." In fact, it would probably actually PROMOTE diversity, because less aggression means that people are less likely to react negatively or violently when they encounter something or someone that is different from them.

As for letting evolution take care of the problem for us, we've already made a conscious effort to remove natural selection from our civilization. There are sad exceptions to this but we generally do not leave people to die in the streets just because they are weaker than us, or not adapted to whatever the "job skill of the decade" is. The debate of natural selection's place in our society was blatantly put to rest when we decided to using medicines to fight off disease. Instead of letting 99% of the population die, we killed the diseases so they could live. Natural selection COULD have worked in those circumstances. The tiny percentage of survivors who were capable of withstanding the plagues would have lived on and given birth to a population that had a natural resistance. If this is what you want, then we would have to do away with a LOT of the civilization that we have already built. Every time an "event" came around that results in the elimination of most of our population, our civilizations would fall into complete ruin, leaving us to more or less start all over from a pre-industrial age.

There is not a perfect state, just a diversity of behavior that can or not be prepared to a change of events that we never imagine "EVOLUTION".

Those kinds of events are not something that evolution can prepare us for either. The kinds of catastrophic events that we as humans typically face, are events that come quickly within years or perhaps centuries. The amount of time required for natural selection to bring about an adapted variant of our species is not going to save us from catastrophes such as global warming, asteroid impacts, famines, etc. When problems arise, we no longer adapt through natural selection; we adapt using our science and technology.

The only real exception I can think of where reduced aggression MIGHT become a problem for us, is an extra-terrestrial invasion. That is a scenario that I am not particularly concerned about.

"Natural selection is a good object lesson in how NOT to organize a society. As I have often said before, as a scientist I am a passionate Darwinian. But as a citizen and a human being, I want to construct a society which is about as un-Darwinian as we can make it. I approve of looking after the poor (very un-Darwinian). I approve of universal medical care (very un-Darwinian). It is one of the classic philosophical fallacies to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'."

- Richard Dawkins

Edited March 6, 2015 by vger

[sal_vager]

(Looks at site)

Oh dear...

That looks very pie-in-the-sky, I expect it's really just a few people (or maybe only one) with big ideas but completely detached from reality in regards to realising those ideas.

Probably not a deliberate scam per se, but if you never wanted to see your money again or any results from actually donating it's just the ticket.

It's also too idealogical for the KSP forums, sorry guys, you need to tune up your cattle excrement detectors.

I have to close this one.

Had some more time to think on this one (sleep is good), it wasn't causing a problem so I'm reopening it, the rules on politics are meant to prevent the flamewars we used to get, not to stifle speech.

Edited March 7, 2015 by sal_vager

[AngelLestat]

Thanks Sal_Vager, and yeah, I have a similar opinion about this.

First of all, trying to reduce aggression is WAY off from removing diversity. Giving people less of incentive to fight over everything is NOT the same as "forcing everybody to become the same." In fact, it would probably actually PROMOTE diversity, because less aggression means that people are less likely to react negatively or violently when they encounter something or someone that is different from them.

But you are removing a key trait of what made us humans, which may be very related to survival in more ways that we can imagine.

As for letting evolution take care of the problem for us, we've already made a conscious effort to remove natural selection from our civilization. There are sad exceptions to this but we generally do not leave people to die in the streets just because they are weaker than us, or not adapted to whatever the "job skill of the decade" is. The debate of natural selection's place in our society was blatantly put to rest when we decided to using medicines to fight off disease. Instead of letting 99% of the population die, we killed the diseases so they could live.

First, Survival of the fittest does not means "stronger, aggresive, selfish, etc", it means whatever the traits and strategy which work for certain species at certain enviroment.

This may also be "cooperative, altruism, intelligence, empathy (which all animals has, is a key factor for survival), etc"

So what I am saying: before bet and comprimise the whole species to changes which nobody can predict with enoght certainty (even with tests), lets not ignore the method that never fail over 2000 millons of years.

Natural selection COULD have worked in those circumstances. The tiny percentage of survivors who were capable of withstanding the plagues would have lived on and given birth to a population that had a natural resistance. If this is what you want, then we would have to do away with a LOT of the civilization that we have already built. Every time an "event" came around that results in the elimination of most of our population, our civilizations would fall into complete ruin, leaving us to more or less start all over from a pre-industrial age.

If we can not solve "X" problem of any other way.. then yeah... better a 10% or 1% than extinction. But it does not need to reach that state to help, as I said, some of our traits (even aggression) can help the development of other traits which can get us ready to solve problems or take hard decisions.

Those kinds of events are not something that evolution can prepare us for either. The kinds of catastrophic events that we as humans typically face, are events that come quickly within years or perhaps centuries. The amount of time required for natural selection to bring about an adapted variant of our species is not going to save us from catastrophes such as global warming, asteroid impacts, famines, etc. When problems arise, we no longer adapt through natural selection; we adapt using our science and technology.

Why we can not use both? Right now technology can not help us either against an asteroid impact of several km on diameter, but life survive in the past. Maybe this time it will with intelligence (living underground for some time) and with some aggresive traits, as take hard decisions over that time.

Evolution (genes) give us all day at all moment tips of how to survive. We feel a strong force to reproduce our selfs, we know by smell or taste if something is good or bad for us. what we need at all moment, what we should fear or not, how to react, feel empathy for our alike (kill our relatives or the beings with more similar ADN to us, is not a good strategy for mostly all cases), then we have more complex feelings and mechanism which if you study them carefull, all are there to help us to survive.

Right now, we feel that we are smart enoght to ignore some of our mom tips, and decide what may be good or not for us.. the problem is that we dont realize that we only have four years, and the house is full of knifes.

The only real exception I can think of where reduced aggression MIGHT become a problem for us, is an extra-terrestrial invasion. That is a scenario that I am not particularly concerned about.

What happen in all the sceneries that you can not imagine?

Also if the first guy who came for this idea (to remove aggression) and then force everyone to the treatment.. how it will do it in case he was treaty before?

Because to force someone to do something they dont want it, is needed "aggression". So if really this is need it to save the humanity, how you accomplish this?

You may said.. ah ok.. maybe certain grade of aggression is needed, just a %. Then this same fact is refuting the hypothesis.

Nature already made the experiment to measure what is the right value of aggression and all the enviroment triggers which it needs to activate, and still it makes tests all the time with few differences to improve it.

"Natural selection is a good object lesson in how NOT to organize a society. As I have often said before, as a scientist I am a passionate Darwinian. But as a citizen and a human being, I want to construct a society which is about as un-Darwinian as we can make it. I approve of looking after the poor (very un-Darwinian). I approve of universal medical care (very un-Darwinian). It is one of the classic philosophical fallacies to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'."

- Richard Dawkins

Yeah I read that quote many times, Richard use these words as a shield against religious critics and to avoid explain them in more detail his opinion.

In his book "the selfish gen" is very well explained how species shape their behavior and even morals.

This was something that Darwin could not explain very well from the point of view on the individual or species as a group. From the point of view of genes, all has sense, that is why Richard is so famous for.

But the expression "darwinian sociaty" was usually used to describe the hardest aspect of life, that is why he use it here.

The fact that even its books seems as if nature would not really care "the selfish gene", but that is just a title, genes has not will or conscience, is just matter that follow physics rules.

If you look that from our perspective, the mechanism may looks selfish, but that mechanism produce all kind of behaviors and strategies which some are totally contrary to selfishness.

To finish, intelligence is just another trait we receive from evolution. So is a tool that we use and we should not ignore.. But the same goes for our others traits.

Edited March 7, 2015 by AngelLestat

[magnemoe]

When you said "yours" it means "me?"

I guess you misread something.

No not you the zeitgeist movement

Having an ideology about sharing, then refuse other from taking or modifying your ideology don't make much sense to me.

Thanks for the info, it saids something about how much the world population would grow in the next years and what are the estimations?

How about Africa, I know there are a lot of births there but the mortality is very high. How can you increase the welfare and resource of all without a impact in our populations and resources?

This is not a nice topic, but I never find a solution to it, birth control politics with rewarding those who has only 1 child? Education to all... Find others planet to live and get resources.. All this sound so hard to do, that may all be called dreams.

The high birthrate and mortality Africa is becoming more of an historical thing. Most people in the 3rd world has cell phones. Yes some places has high birthrates however they are mostly behind on the trends and the initial population is too low to have serious impact globally.

China is in the process of phasing out the on child policy as it was underway to create an very serious issue with lack of workers and too many old people.

No we don't know the birthrate for the next generation but the trend of birthrates falling is pretty universal and its hard to increase it again.

[Sampa]

As I said earlier, this seems too much like the failed utopia experiment. I believe that this too will fail.

[vger]

First, Survival of the fittest does not means "stronger, aggresive, selfish, etc", it means whatever the traits and strategy which work for certain species at certain enviroment.

So what I am saying: before bet and comprimise the whole species to changes which nobody can predict with enoght certainty (even with tests), lets not ignore the method that never fail over 2000 millons of years.

These two statements almost contradict one another.

The key here is "traits and strategy which work at a certain environment."

We have drastically altered our environment to such a point that the survival instincts that got us here has almost no clue of what to do with itself. As far as our evolution is concerned, this high-tech and safe world is completely alien. It's a quantum leap and practically no less foreign to what we were 'designed' for than another planet.

Psychology can even show you examples of how our instincts now manifest in completely undesirable ways. One classic example is anxiety and panic attacks. That is a manifestation of our "flight or fight" instinct, but that instinct is almost NEVER needed in our world (except in the off chance that some jerk with a gun decides to shoot up a grocery store - and that too by the way may be a manifestation of the same behavior).

Why we can not use both? Right now technology can not help us either against an asteroid impact of several km on diameter, but life survive in the past. Maybe this time it will with intelligence (living underground for some time) and with some aggresive traits, as take hard decisions over that time.

"Technically" we can use both. But to "evolve" into something better is not even remotely reasonable, given our pathetically short life-spans. Wait a few million years for aggressive behavior to leave, so we can FINALLY start working as a unified species instead of a bunch of selfish independent factions? Just... why?

What happen in all the sceneries that you can not imagine? Also if the first guy who came for this idea (to remove aggression) and then force everyone to the treatment.. how it will do it in case he was treaty before? Because to force someone to do something they dont want it, is needed "aggression".

That's just a question of intent, really. If people find themselves in a situation where they have to "fight" to execute the plan, then would they refrain from using the inhibitor until everyone else had been treated? Maybe. But that doesn't mean they won't do it to themselves afterward. If someone in "power" DID forgo the treatment after implementation, that would just be someone who wanted a world on its knees, not someone who wanted a utopia.

Also, you're assuming that this bio-hack is permanent. If we did it by hacking our DNA, then sure. But if it was something like regular hormone treatments, then the effects would only persist while treatments were still being administered. If it turned out that things weren't working the way we had hoped, we could just stop the treatments and everything goes back to the way it was before.

Anyway, on the 'darwinian' issue, here's a reason why I think that "eliminating" aggression may be more selectable than you think it is. The other big one is territoriality. That in my opinion is much closer to the kind of negative aggression that we have. The ability to fight off an attacker is technically different. Self-preservation is not the same as openly attacking foreigners (and I say foreign in the most general sense, I'm not referring just to people from other nations). That kind of aggression is territoriality. In nature, the main purpose of that was fighting over females or resources. The macho man patriarchal system has already been openly condemned by society, so obviously we don't need THAT behavior anymore. The resource problem would have a much better chance at being fixed if we focused on ourselves as one race, instead of going to war over every little thing. That is where "the selfish gene" becomes a problem. The problem isn't really about getting humans to stop fighting. The problem is getting humans to fight AS ONE.

[RainDreamer]

Psychology can even show you examples of how our instincts now manifest in completely undesirable ways. One classic example is anxiety and panic attacks. That is a manifestation of our "flight or fight" instinct, but that instinct is almost NEVER needed in our world (except in the off chance that some jerk with a gun decides to shoot up a grocery store - and that too by the way may be a manifestation of the same behavior).

Or phobia. some certain manifestation of phobia doesn't really make sense logically like fear of balloon(Globophobia), but it happens and it triggers the same "flight or fight" reaction. Our survival instinct is like that seasoned adventurer saying "It is quiet...Too Quiet." and be all twitchy about everything in this unfamiliar environment.

[magnemoe]

First of all, trying to reduce aggression is WAY off from removing diversity. Giving people less of incentive to fight over everything is NOT the same as "forcing everybody to become the same." In fact, it would probably actually PROMOTE diversity, because less aggression means that people are less likely to react negatively or violently when they encounter something or someone that is different from them.

As for letting evolution take care of the problem for us, we've already made a conscious effort to remove natural selection from our civilization. There are sad exceptions to this but we generally do not leave people to die in the streets just because they are weaker than us, or not adapted to whatever the "job skill of the decade" is. The debate of natural selection's place in our society was blatantly put to rest when we decided to using medicines to fight off disease. Instead of letting 99% of the population die, we killed the diseases so they could live. Natural selection COULD have worked in those circumstances. The tiny percentage of survivors who were capable of withstanding the plagues would have lived on and given birth to a population that had a natural resistance. If this is what you want, then we would have to do away with a LOT of the civilization that we have already built. Every time an "event" came around that results in the elimination of most of our population, our civilizations would fall into complete ruin, leaving us to more or less start all over from a pre-industrial age.

First I don't think its lots of connections between some genetic aggression level and violence.

1000 years ago we Scandinavians was infamous for vikings, today we er more known for being peaceful, level of impulse control is probably far more important, its not moral just why don't do the first need to kick in. Most criminals who rob others on the street has not planned where to run after the hit.

High chance that aggressiveness is essential for success in sport and business , not something you want to remove unless your goal is an slave species, even so its probably better ways. Dogs are both loyal and aggressive.

[AngelLestat]

The high birthrate and mortality Africa is becoming more of an historical thing. Most people in the 3rd world has cell phones. Yes some places has high birthrates however they are mostly behind on the trends and the initial population is too low to have serious impact globally.

China is in the process of phasing out the on child policy as it was underway to create an very serious issue with lack of workers and too many old people.

No we don't know the birthrate for the next generation but the trend of birthrates falling is pretty universal and its hard to increase it again.

Ok, what you said on too many old people vs young is a problem that I dint thoght before.

The biggest increase of population would happen in Africa and Asia-Oceania

By 2050 would increase a 40%, which it means 2,8 billons more.

We are already depleting many of all the not renowable resources, we are also taking more of the renowable resources which the earth can produce it.

Of course there are intelligent ways to get resources without taking them to exhaustion, but theory differs greatly from the practice.

So what happen if this amount of people start to consume what an average medium class does. The answer is: not possible.

You can keep feeding them.. But to what cost? Each extra human which born it means that it will be less terrain and resources for other species.

We are the root of all problems, and this root will increase a 40% by 2050. Even right now we can not deal with our resources in a eco-friendly way.

These two statements almost contradict one another.

The key here is "traits and strategy which work at a certain environment."

We have drastically altered our environment to such a point that the survival instincts that got us here has almost no clue of what to do with itself. As far as our evolution is concerned, this high-tech and safe world is completely alien. It's a quantum leap and practically no less foreign to what we were 'designed' for than another planet.

Do not underestimate the help that our genes still give us. Is a lot, more that we can imagine. We can sit and start to make a list and we would not finish that list even in 10 years. Of course some of these behavior-feelings-instincs are not helping us.

That is why we have our culture-intelligence, to solve those things and know when we need to listen our instincs or not.

But this does not means that we need to open our body and start to see what may be usefull or not, if someone wants to do it with him/her self.. Perfect, But not with all the Humanity. Is crazy.. And the true is that you can not be sure that it will be an improvement.

Differences is the key, yes it may die few thousands on the world due aggression. But how many can survive thanks to that in a different enviroment which we are not used.

There are Tigers which live with human families in their own house. The key is that many of the aggression instincts are not being activated in under some enviroments.

Psychology can even show you examples of how our instincts now manifest in completely undesirable ways. One classic example is anxiety and panic attacks. That is a manifestation of our "flight or fight" instinct, but that instinct is almost NEVER needed in our world (except in the off chance that some jerk with a gun decides to shoot up a grocery store - and that too by the way may be a manifestation of the same behavior).

In human behavior, Where complex enviroments, culture and instincts merge in ways impossible to predict, disjoin or quantify; saying that some insticts that are related to panic attacks needs to be removed, is like remove KERNEL32.DLL from windows because is the file that pop up an error when we try to execute a particular game.

"Technically" we can use both. But to "evolve" into something better is not even remotely reasonable, given our pathetically short life-spans. Wait a few million years for aggressive behavior to leave, so we can FINALLY start working as a unified species instead of a bunch of selfish independent factions? Just... why?

Now you are mixing aggression with selfishness (which a good grade of this is very important), that is why we feel attractive to some selfish mates.

Also if an event X happens which only aggressive and resistant (against some kind of virus) may survive, lets said that only 1 of 1000 or 10000 had those characteristics.

After that event, almost the 100% of the remaining population are inmune to those kind of events.

see how fast evolution can work?

That's just a question of intent, really. If people find themselves in a situation where they have to "fight" to execute the plan, then would they refrain from using the inhibitor until everyone else had been treated? Maybe. But that doesn't mean they won't do it to themselves afterward. If someone in "power" DID forgo the treatment after implementation, that would just be someone who wanted a world on its knees, not someone who wanted a utopia.

Lol.. so all the humanity needs to trust in someone like that?

if he is bad, the humanity is doom.. Lets take the risk...

That is the problem of socialism, in theory may sound ok.. the rulers promise that kind of things. But as we see in practice, nothing good come out when you deposit so much power in one person.

Self-preservation is not the same as openly attacking foreigners

Are you saying that kill someone in self preservation it does not need aggression instincts?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok I will cut a bit with negatives, lets see the good things about the project that can be applied even in a free market world.

Sharing resources:

If urban zones are well designed from the begining, a lot of efficienct characteristics may be added.

There is something call "simultaneity coefficient" that saves a lot of energy and resources when is taken it into account.

No everyone is using internet, Bicycles, lawnmower, hot water or many others common items at the same time.

Here where I live, as the country has some security issues, people is starting to live in gated neighborhoods.

The cost is similar, but are well organize. 5 or 10 from the neighborhoods people are democraty choosen to solve the problems.

There is not more than 400 houses by neighborhood, so they know each other. Then you have people who is good with law, or with finance, or to care the green spaces, etc. So is easier to join forces to solve problems, even for act as 1 to push request leaded to local politicians.

Not only that, there are many neighborhood each one with its administrations that join forces to make requests and control companies or local rulers.

In my neighborhood we had all that, we have internet that is paid between all and share it with wifi.. That is how we get the same service but at 1/10 of the cost.

Other neighborhood had sustainable energy solutions, for example for hot water, cooling, etc.

If you want to have that only for you, you need to expend a huge amount of money in storage and hardware.

However for a big community all that is easy and very cheap. You can estimate what it will be the average consumption to determ storage and the hardware is cheaper.

Is like drop 1 coin to the air or 1000 coins to the air. In the first case, some days you dont use hot water and others lack.

But in the 1000 coins case, you are sure that it will be head a 46% to 54%.

This way resources are consumed more efficient, and the political power is decentralized.

Edited March 8, 2015 by AngelLestat

[vger]

Do not underestimate the help that our genes still give us. Is a lot, more that we can imagine. We can sit and start to make a list and we would not finish that list even in 10 years. Of course some of these behavior-feelings-instincs are not helping us.

Aggression helps individuals. It isn't helping society as a unit. It intentionally stands in the way of peace and cooperation as often as it can.

That is why we have our culture-intelligence, to solve those things and know when we need to listen our instincs or not. But this does not means that we need to open our body and start to see what may be usefull or not, if someone wants to do it with him/her self.. Perfect, But not with all the Humanity. Is crazy.. And the true is that you can not be sure that it will be an improvement.

We're already listening to our instincts when we shouldn't We have an entire financial system that is based on AGGRESSION. The trouble with aggressive behavior isn't as simple as "trying to get people to not be violent." It makes us overcompensate in all sorts of ways. It's that nature that encourages us to hoard more of ANYTHING than we could possibly need in our lifetimes. There are people who have enough money to live off of it for 10,000 years, even if you factor inflation into it. They don't spend it. They don't do anything productive with it, even for themselves. And they don't use it to help those in need. And they keep hoarding more. That's an instinctive behavior trying to protect the body from a threat that no longer exists - most likely the one that presided over the storage of food for surviving the winter months. Most of us in technologically-advanced nations have NEVER faced such a thing, yet we keep behaving like we do; even to the point of ignoring REAL current threats like global warming. Think about that for a moment. Major shareholders (who already have more money than they can spend) of large oil corporations don't want to switch from fossil fuels to attack an existing problem, because of an instinct to hoard money that stems from a problem that no longer threatens us. How much more obvious can the aggression problem be?

Also if an event X happens which only aggressive and resistant (against some kind of virus) may survive, lets said that only 1 of 1000 or 10000 had those characteristics. After that event, almost the 100% of the remaining population are inmune to those kind of events. see how fast evolution can work?

It will make our bodies stronger, but it will also rip our civilization to shreds. A lot of civilizations have fallen to these kinds of things, regardless of whether or not there are survivors, because there simply aren't enough people remaining to sustain the infrastructure that the society required to survive. The negative impact of massive plague isn't limited to JUST the number of lives lost. It's the knowledge that those people had attained and the contribution they were making to society.

Even a social system as selfless as a bee hive cannot sustain itself if too many workers are lost. And I can guarantee you that if a huge plague hits humanity, those survival instincts are going to kick right in again and send people killing each other for food, and who knows what else. Another step backward that will AGAIN result in the aggressive genes being passed on, while the weak get filtered out.

Basically, if humanity is to move forward, we need to not be jerks. The trouble is that being jerks (personally I would use a more vulgar word than 'jerk') is at the very foundation of the evolution of life. We're going to have a permanent plateau that can never be surpassed if something isn't done about it. In spite of all the different systems of government that have been tried over the years to prevent such things, the jerks always find a way to exploit it and cause it to fail. The "jerkocracy" has remained dominant above every government that humans have ever devised. Do away with the "jerK" tendencies, and something like communism or socialism might actually stand a chance at succeeding.

To me, something like "communism" isn't about forcing everyone to be equal. We would still be a million times better off if everyone wasn't obsessed with being "better" than everyone else just to satisfy their own egos. Heck, Capitalism TRIED to work with it. As someone said a while back in this thread -- might've been you, can't remember now, "use the aggression to our advantage." The idea of using competition to advance our race was a brilliant concept. We got to the freaking moon because of it. But STILL, it's starting to fail now. The system gets hacked like all the others, with the end goal being a monopoly. Capitalists who claim to like competition, but doing everything within their power to make sure that competition can never happen.

Lol.. so all the humanity needs to trust in someone like that? if he is bad, the humanity is doom.. Lets take the risk... That is the problem of socialism, in theory may sound ok.. the rulers promise that kind of things. But as we see in practice, nothing good come out when you deposit so much power in one person.

You asked

And if the research all pointed to beneficial results, the people resisting it would be like "anti-vaxxers." And there isn't a lot of respect these days for people who opt out of scientific advancements; putting everyone else in danger in the process.

Are you saying that kill someone in self preservation it does not need aggression instincts?

That's like suggesting that all acts of violence are fueled by pure emotion. There's nothing "aggressive" about deer hunting, for example. Many who do it find it relaxing and tranquil.

Edited March 9, 2015 by vger