The 'herd' basis of irrationality and democracy

Last edited by on Sun Feb 17, 2008 5:33 pm; edited 1 time in total

Posted on Reddit by liminaltimes. :idea:

The belief that what is common must not be bad has been ingrained to homo sapiens for a long, long time.

Partially, this is because they were/are herd creatures whose survival relied/s upon social inclusion, and whose success was interlaced with a higher ranking in the social hierachy.

The herd would observe what the others were doing and replicate, while the innovators would go experiment with some new berries, or keys attached to kites.

This was fine with the herd because they knew that if the innovator was a failure, he would be removed from the scene. If he was successful, he would invariably return to the herd with his discovery, and improve life for them all.

The herd was collectively in no rush since, obviously, they were all still living and things were relatively as not bad as they always had been. The herd thus demonstrates not much ambition for exerting effort to improve their status quo.

Thus, societal, civic and economic institutions that suck are often seen as the logical evolution, and acceptable for that point in time. ie; "We did the best we could with what we had."

Which is patently false.

Rational thought and logic suffer limitations as does any language or set of programming parameters, but they are far quicker and of higher utility in the fields of research, design and implementation than the slow-moving bulkhead required for the herd.

Nevertheless, these social creatures attempt to benefit the species by refraining from improving themselves. (partly because the widespread misconception of improving oneself is placed in the context of improving oneself to be better than one's neighbor, and that is far too close to declaring oneself superior to the herd standard. For a national illustration of this difference, visit Japan and Korea. Korea wants to be better than you. Japan simply wants to be the best they can be.)

If they would just improve themselves to the greatest common factor, humans wouldn't rely on the lowest common denominator to make connections. They do because sustaining their place in society is easier if society doesn't change very much. This is what is meant by "creatures of habit".

Nerds are not the future.

Yet.

If they were, humanity would have robots in many more places, food for everyone, a hunter-gatherer mindset of craft-specialization and apprentices instead of institutions for education, asteroids would be currently mined, the world would run on clean energy (yes we have enough), there would have been a moon-base decades ago, and the bulwark of humanity's resources would be poured into anti-aging or AI technology.

But the herd is scared shitless of that because if everyone comes out of the tree at the same time and didn't realize that those large cats want to eat them, we're extinct.

That herd mentality presupposes the superiority of fear-based evolutionary paradigms over intelligent, rational design.

Science has already mastered the photosynthesis process more efficiently and effectively than Nature's leaves.

But could those plants have arisen in the wild?

Could they now, if introduced to the wild?

If we use science to remove ourselves from the bloody, pathologic mess that is "natural" evolution, do we open the door to our own extinction upon encountering an inter-stellar species who did not master pacifism?

Or will embracing rational thought and logic give us the capacity to out-maneuver, out-tech and out-strategize them?

What if life on their planet developed before ours and even though our methodology is superior, we cannot catch up to their tech before the encounter?

What if we are the first interstellar life in the Universe, and all other life will follow the example of our advanced tech and methodology? Wouldn't it be wonderful to teach the universe a better way than mindless evolution?

Despite the glorious multi-utopic promise of that last possibility, humans err on the side of caution, because, as what got us here, they are herd creatures.

So they tolerate democracy.

For its many failings.

And some intelligent humans forego science, and manipulate the herd to their own private advantage. We call them businessmen and politicians.

But the herd is still there. Their genetic database is not eliminated. The protein remains. And until/unless there is a critical mass of people who choose to enact obesiance of rational thought alone, they will continue to live, and their 'democracy' with them.

Well if he cleans up the spelling errors and the crap about businessmen... fine!

The 'herd' basis of irrationality and democracy

The 'herd' basis of irrationality and democracy

Anarcho-Capitalist Categorical Imperatives

AnCaps In Science, Technology & Environment