Popular opinion not always so popular: http://www.physorg.com/news119201971.html

“An unnatural culture of greed and fear has brought the global economy to its knees. We need to start playing to our pro-social strengths, says Frans de Waal.”

“The deeper problem, however, was Skilling’s view of human nature. The book of nature is like the Bible: everyone reads into it what they like, from tolerance to intolerance and from altruism to greed. But it’s good to realise that, if biologists never stop talking about competition, this doesn’t mean that they advocate it, and if they call genes selfish, this doesn’t mean that genes actually are. Genes can’t be any more ‘selfish’ than a river can be ‘angry’ or sun rays ‘loving’. Genes are little chunks of DNA. At most, they are self-promoting, because successful genes help their carriers spread more copies of themselves.”

“The evolutionary spirit? In the social sciences, human nature is typified by the old Hobbesian proverb Homo homini lupus (‘Man is wolf to man’), a questionable statement about our own species based on false assumptions about another species. A biologist exploring the interaction between society and human nature isn’t doing anything new. The only difference is that, instead of trying to justify a particular ideological framework, the biologist has an actual interest in the question of what human nature is and where it came from. Is the evolutionary spirit really all about greed, as Gekko claimed, or is there more to it?”

“In a recent presidential debate, no fewer than three Republican candidates raised their hand in response to the question: “Who doesn’t believe in evolution?” American conservatives are social Darwinists rather than real Darwinists. Social Darwinism argues against helping the sick and poor, since nature intends them either to survive on their own or perish. Too bad if some people have no health insurance, so the argument goes, so long as those who can afford it do. This year, senator Jon Kyl of Arizona went one step further – causing an outcry in the media and protests in his home state – by voting against coverage of maternity care. He himself had never had any need for it, he explained.

The competition-is-good-for-you logic has been extraordinarily popular ever since Reagan and Thatcher assured us that the free market would take care of all of our problems. Since the economic meltdown, this view is obviously not so hot anymore. The logic may have been great, but its connection to reality was poor. What the free-marketeers missed was the intensely social nature of our species. They like to present each individual as an island, but pure individualism is not what we have been designed for. Empathy and solidarity are part of our evolution – not just a recent part, but age-old capacities that we share with other mammals.”

“Human nature obviously can’t be understood in isolation from the rest of nature, and this is where biology comes in. If we look at our species without letting ourselves be blinded by the technical advances of the past few millennia, we see a creature of flesh and blood with a brain that, albeit three times larger than a chimpanzee’s, doesn’t contain any new parts. Superior our intellect may be, but we have no basic wants or needs that cannot also be observed in our close relatives. Like us, they strive for power, enjoy sex, want security and affection, kill over territory and value trust and cooperation. Yes, we use cellphones and fly aeroplanes, but our psychological make-up is essentially that of a social primate.

Without claiming other primates as moral beings, it is not hard to recognise the pillars of morality in their behaviour. These pillars are summed up in our golden rule, which transcends the world’s cultures and religions. “Do unto others as you would have them do to you” brings together empathy (attention to others’ feelings) and reciprocity (if others follow the same rule, you will be treated well). Human morality could not exist without empathy and reciprocity – tendencies found in our fellow primates.”

“Bad biology exerts an irresistible attraction. Those who think that competition is what life is all about, and who believe that it is desirable for the strong to survive at the expense of the weak, eagerly adopt Darwinism as a beautiful illustration of their ideology. They depict evolution – or at least their cardboard version of it – as almost heavenly. John D Rockefeller concluded that the growth of a large business “is merely the working out of a law of nature and a law of God”, and Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs – the biggest money-making machine in the world – recently depicted himself as merely “doing God’s work”.”

“Instead of falling for false ideas about nature, why not pay attention to what we actually know about human nature and the behaviour of our near relatives? The message from biology is that we are group animals: intensely social, interested in fairness and cooperative enough to have taken over the world. Our great strength is precisely our ability to overcome competition. Why not design society such that this strength is expressed at every level?”

See: http://www.thersa.org/mobile/fellowship/journal/archive/winter-2009/features/how-bad-biology-killed-the-economy

Again:
“Our great strength is precisely our ability to overcome competition. Why not design society such that this strength is expressed at every level?”

This is exactly what Bill Mollison said decades ago: http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC28/Mollison.htm

Thank you!

In a sustainable democracy it’s important that we replace the UN’s HDI-index (where Norway uses to be number one, something I feel ashamed of) with the HPI-index (where Norway last year was ranked as number 88, but here I should have been proud to see my country on the top of the list).

What is interesting is that last year 10 of the 11 countries topping the HPI-index were from Latin America.

And in the tribal like entities our future communities must be built around, it’s very important to develop good group decisions: http://www.goodgroupdecisions.com/

See: http://p2pfoundation.net/Franz_Nahrada_on_A_Pattern_Language_for_the_Postindustrial_Society

As I see it, to integrate Internet in democracy is complitely in harmony with permaculture.