On Tue, 27 Nov 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
On Tue, 27 Nov 2001, Thomas Lyon Gideon wrote:
The point about emergent behavior is excellently made. A corollary that occurs to me is that one of the prime motivators in the emergent quality of human society may well be the pursuit of non-zero sum games.
Of course people want to take advantage of others. This realization is what is behind the CACL objection to 'government' (which after all is an emergent behaviour - ponder that one for a moment and your thrill may fall away quickly). Their failure is recognizing that the 'government' is itself an emergent behaviour (albeit an intentional one now - one can't really speak to how they first came about, it very well could have been very ant-like with respect to large family groups).
Um, I'm not sure I can follow Choatatian Prime logic here. Where did Thomas's posting state that "of course people want to take advantage of others?" Then again, it doesn't matter at all. If your assumption is that all people take advantage of each other, then it's still "Freedom for me, and Freedom for you" rewritten as "I'm free to take advantage of you, you're free to take advantage of me." No, government isn't an emergent behavior of individuals. It's based on leaders and followers in certain percentages. There can be no leaders if no one is willing to follow them. But of course this isn't the case. Therefore there is some measure of consent on the part of the followers, whether it was in the form of guns pointed at their heads, or free choice. However, once you read up on ants, you'll find, there is no ant government at all. I also fail to follow your Choatian-Prime logic that connects "of course people want to take advantage of each other" to the emergence of governments.
This assumption is based on my reading of Robert Wright's _Non Zero_. I think Sunder hits this on the head as well when he goes off about how self interest does not necessarily harm others, that as humans we are not typically bound by win-lose scenarios. Rather some behavior may result in poor or no gains on a societal scale and others may result in increased benefits for all.
Actually it isn't a well made point at all. To compare programmed behaviour and biological caste systems to a bunch of humans with self-referential views is the worst case of begging the question. He's certainly made a hypothesis, no evidence has been forthcoming for it and there is a very large body that would argue against it.
What proof do you have that ants don't have self referential views, or that humans don't have biological hard wired behaviors? I in fact did not make a hypothetis comparing humans to ants, I instead provided an example where a central authority is not needed. The hypothesis is that individuals may act in their own self interest, and still derrive benefits for the group by doing so. There was no direct comparison of ants and humans, and I in fact stated that you shouldn't even attempt to do so.
In addition, emergent behavior may or may not actually help the individual components of the population.
It's very simple. This is where evolution in action comes in. If the emergent behavior is harmful to the individuals, they will cease to contribute to it, or cease to exist. Therefore the rest of the following paragraph is moot.
Remember the concept of 'evolution'. To get the ants and bees we have now required a bunch of ants and bees which didn't survive because their programming didn't work.
It's also worth noting that the understanding we have of emergent systems are for reletively simple systems.
Absolutely true. However that does not in any way take away from my original point. Individuals acting in self interest in large groups can benefit most of the group members, and possibly even outsiders. You've yet to come up with a logical counterpoint against this.
Something that can't be said about any group of humans irrespective of size.
But it can, and is very obvious that humans are social - that is that they interact with other humans for mutual benefit, and that through this interaction most members of said society will benefit. Where hermits living solitarily in caves will toil, societies that work together will benefit one another - and do so without the need to enslave their members.
This 'evolution' argument could actually be used against CACL theories because governments didn't always exist, at some point they emerged.
Evolution isn't emergence. They're two distinct theories. They can work together, just as you can have apples and orages in a fruit salad. But they're not the same thing. However, governments started to exist as soon as weapons did.
Sunders comparison is fundamentaly flawed, the only thing he hit on the head was himself.
Confusing yourself with others again? Must suck to be you.
In this light, seemingly altruistic behavior can be re-interpreted as banking favors against future need. One of Wright's better examples is the practice in certain tribal societies of giving away excess food. Usually the food wouldn't keep long, anyway, and by helping a neighbor out today help is usually secured against future need when a neighbor may be the one with the excess.
Altruistism is cloaked self-interest. The only reason one helps another is because at some level it helps themselves (you can talk about % of genes passed to next generations, getting laid after the prom, or you can talk about helping another buy a car and getting rides as a result - makes no diff).
Absolutely correct. See, you are agreeing with the theory. Since altrusim is self interest, everyone is free to help each other to their own benefit. I help you with something, you later return the favor with something else. Thus is born a contract. I do X, in exchange you do Y. Tim helps me with something, you help Tim with something, I help you with something even out the debt, and thus the sum grows to be bigger than it's parts, but all of the parts benefit. I had a contract with Tim, you had a contract with Tim, we can aggregate them. So I say, "I'm looking out for my interests, you're free to do the same" so does Tim, and so does Jim. As a "society" all its members benefit. Say Joe comes along and begs for food. We may help him get some food, but we'd want something in return later on, thus another contract. It's still "Freedom for me and freedom for you." Say Jeff comes along and puts a gun to our heads and demands all our food. At this point, it's "Freedom for Jeff, none for us." ----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--------------------------- + ^ + :Surveillance cameras|Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\ \|/ :aren't security. A |share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\ <--*-->:camera won't stop a |monitor, or under your keyboard, you \/|\/ /|\ :masked killer, but |don't email them, or put them on a web \|/ + v + :will violate privacy|site, and you must change them very often. --------_sunder_@_sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------