there's so many conversations that can come from realizing that human beings aren't great. it immediately calls out so many flaws. it's like 'why are people racist?', 'why are people xenophobic?', 'why do we people intrinsically trust systems that place them at odds with each other?', 'why do people seem to lack empathy for other species, despite their tendency towards pets?'
people even have the nature of thinking we are the last step in the evolutionary ladder. that' logic' simply wouldn't exist if it weren't for human beings.
if you accept this, then you must accept the ego is an invention of the human being. the idea or concept of a 'you' in itself is a fucking creation.
and so i come back to the point, if you have to subscribe to the point that human beings are 'the most amazing things in the universe' then i say fuck you. you as the 'individual' specifically.
I think loving your fellow human beings is a prerequisite for communist ideology. "Fuck human beings" is an inherently reactionary thought you're having in reaction to something.
If you didn't give a fuck about human beings you wouldn't care about destroying this system to make it better for them. You would instead spend your time getting ahead for you.
Communism is in contradiction with the thought "fuck human beings".
I agree. Misanthropy can be appealing in bleak times like these but it is also reactionary and completely contrary to our goals as communists.
Right? If I REALLY thought "fuck humans" then why would I be spending all of my time trying to change the system? To what end? For myself? No. I could be pursuing my own interests just fine if I genuinely didn't give a fuck about all the people around me, even the ones I don't like.
Communism is inherently about bettering the system for everyone, and recognising that the system inherently creates most of these human ills, not the humans themselves. Our goal as communists isn't to just say "fuck these people". It's to move them to our side and together -- as a united group -- make things better.
You have to have a lot of love to spend your time building that instead of pursuing personal achievement. Our ideology is in contradiction with hating human beings. We hate what systems can do to human beings, not human beings themselves.
I am pro complex life.
We are the universe attempting to realise itself, to become self aware, to gain mastery over itself. Our destiny is to do so, or die trying.
surely. if we don't make it, i don't see the universe giving up tho.
We haven’t seen any other life get as far as we have, and the universe is on a clock.
If other life manages to do it better, great. I’m not gonna be a human supremacist. But so far, we seem like the best bet.
Maybe we’ll singularity something better into existence instead.
The question is how do you define better. Our evolution to this point was build on the paradigm of survival of the fittest. Maybe Neanderthals were way more empathetic than homo sapiens and that's why we erased them. However, I don't think human nature is bad per se. It's just that what was needed to come to this point is subjectivity dissapointing. It is, for example, biologically possible to feel like on heroin all the time. But if it were like that, our species might not have made it through colder periods, or whatnot. Or at least the ones that feel cold worse, would have mated with the partners of the ones that froze to death, because their serotonin was so high, they didn't feel that cold.
The question is, can there be a shift of the evolutionary paradigm. If, for example, we reach fully automated gay communism, maybe traits like compassion and empathy become the new paradigm and the next evolutionary stage would be a kind of super nice human (source: waking life).
As long as we have to concentrate on survival, our species in doomed to be an asshole.
i don't know about all that. i don't think the universe is necessarily on a clock, in that even if it stops there's nothing to say it doesn't start again like a new day. and i'm not sure what 'gaining mastery over itself' even means, but it sounds nice. i know that we don't treat our environment right, we don't treat other species right, and we don't even treat other members of our own species right.
i don’t think the universe is necessarily on a clock
Entropy’s a bitch. Everything trends towards heat death. Who knows, though? Maybe we’re a simulation and someone will hit the reset button.
gaining mastery over itself
As in, becomes able to use all of itself for any purpose.
You know how humans, in absence of any need for urgent survival, like to gain mastery over everything through sports, study, exercise, etc? Basically that, except on a universal scale. Mastery exercised for the sake of mastery. Full comprehension of all that was and all that will be. In other words pan-psychic godhood.
decent.
but while it may be hard to justify the view that humans are the most amazing things in the universe when it comes down to it...
it doesn't seem to be particularly hard, but overly common, without any reasoning actually
the point isn't to condemn humanity, but more to reject the entire idea of superiority in itself. the utility is described in the top post. it immediately leads to fundamental questions of 'why is it this way that ____, and what do we do about it?'
the systems that you're describing, particularly capitalism, are largely driven by the promotion of the individual above the rest. 'dog eat dog' mentality is not prevalent in socialist societies, and yet they remain prevalent, particularly because they appeal to the self. not just philosophically, but functionally to the point of creating apathy for others societally.
it's easy to only fault the system it self, but why is it so easy for this system to appeal to the worst part of human nature?
Nah people are good and have endless potential. Humans can create meaning better than anything else we know, and the self being a creation doesn't make it any less real or important.
decent take, i kind of disagree with the second paragraph, but other than that not bad.
Just going on the basic logic of your post: If humans aren't supreme, then we aren't better than other species. In other words, we aren't morally superior, or more evolved or any of that. We are the same as other species other than we have traits that make us human. If you accept that premise then you can't suggest humans are uniquely terrible either. Our infighting is not morally different from lions infighting. Our treatment of other species is not inferior to the way any animal treats other species. So thinking that humans are worse than other species because we have racism and lack empathy is at odds with thinking that humans aren't any better than any other species. Either we're superior in our flaws or our perfections. If we're the ultimate evil, then we are superior. We're just superior in our malice.
i mean, you're not really contradicting anything i'm saying, just stating that we definitely are 'superior' in our heinousness. which i guess i'll concede on.
So the people you're telling to fuck off are correct then, humans are superior.
no, they're heinous for believing that that's a decent way by which to judge things.
You can be heinous and be correct though. And you said in your other post that you're rejecting the idea of superiority. But you're claiming and agreeing that humans are superior in their evil. If we kill all other animals on Earth, and dominate everything, and eachother, then we are superior. It's just not good. You can agree it's not good, and not nice, and not moral. You can say that it will end in ruin. But that doesn't contradict the notion of superiority. It's like you're only accepting the description of superior on the basis that it correlates to something positive. Just like you're now conflating being heinous with being incorrect. This is both a linguistic and conceptual issue with your argument. Not liking a hierarchy doesn't mean hierarchies don't exist.
i guess my criteria for amazing is just a lot different than a kill count
Superior isn't always positive though. It's not a synonym for amazing. And again, you can have different criteria. That's fair. But you have to be aware of how you're using categories and ideas. These things exist outside of what you're feeling at the moment. All I'm pointing out, as others here have done, is that you're probably not thinking this all the way through. It's not a particularly clear idea and it seems to be based on a lot of narrow assumptions and emotions. I'm just trying to approach it by form rather than content, as others have done.
i don't think you've really poked any kind of holes in the actual argument, being that humans are shit, based on a the moral criteria that can be derived from the questions listed.
You're saying a lot more than "humans are shit". I can tell because there's a lot more than three words in your posts. If you don't even know what you're saying, maybe take a beat.
Your argument wasn't just that humans are shit. It's that humans are wrong for thinking they're superior than other species. Which means you think humans aren't superior than other species. Which means you can't think that humans are superior at being evil. Because if we're all just animals, and no better than them, then you're inventing an ego and a moral system just like the people you're criticizing. It's also not a leftist argument to make, as others have pointed out and you can't seem to address. My argument isn't that humans are great or that you shouldn't be be angry, it's just that you want to believe humans are unnaturally evil while using naturalistic assumptions/premises about evolution and other things.
it means that 'superior' shouldn't be judged by a kill count. lots of animals don't kill indiscriminately. are you arguing that they do?
the entire argument is that the idea that 'humans are superior' take leads to a lot of shitty policies. the argument is that morality isn't an invention, and that those who think that it is think that humans fucking invented it, and if they did don't even abide by 'their own' fucking system.
Bro I'm not actually arguing that superiority should be judged by a kill count. That's not my personal belief. However, my personal belief doesn't change the definition of a word or the way its used. The word means what it means. Superior evil is superiority. Superiority doesn't just mean being nice. I'm not sure why that's hard for you to understand.
Now, here's what I personally believe, morality is definitely an invention. I'm not even sure how you're here and think that. Are you religious? Are you one of those Sam Harris "moral landscape" people? This is a whole 'nother discussion that wasn't apparent in your original post. It's also an example of what I meant when I said you're saying a lot more than "humans are shit." To use a shitty phrase, there's a lot to unpack here.
Stop watching videos of people getting beat up, or animals being killed, or whatever it is you've overconsumed that got you angry enough to make this thread. Understand there's a difference between what you see online and the real world. You have to love your fellow human and all their flaws if you want the leftist project to succeed. I'm not saying you can never be violent or dislike capitalists. But you have to recognize that people as a whole are salvageable and can fit into your ideal communist world.
Everyone makes judgements. You've already done it many times in this thread. Everyone makes a system of morality. Again, something you're doing right now when you say that killing a lot of shit isn't the goal. You can't escape that ever. Having judgment isn't the issue. Thinking things are superior isn't the issue. I would certainly hope you think being a good person is superior to being a bad person. It's all about how you form those judgments and what your criteria are. I think you're trying to understand that, but just don't have the dialectics for it yet. And I think you're committing the same fallacy as those you criticize by assuming your criteria are or should be more universal than they are.
Lol.
Op's virgin take vs Kim Il Sung's absolute Chad take:
Man is the greatest being endowed with independence, creativity and consciousness and, at the same time, a beautiful creature who champions justice. Man, by nature, aspires to virtue and ennobling qualities and detests all that is evil and dirty. These unique features constitute his human traits.
i'm not really into the idea that human beings are inherently evil, just that we're shitty at existing in a much more substantial way as a species than we are at working towards a cohesive society for ourselves and other life forms, and this is particularly due to narcissism.
