CopyRight @ 1996
08/21/94 good stuff, patterns and models, but where to put
FOCUS ON THE SOCIETY
behaviors,
beliefs-life, growth..self,
institutions- tech, family, education, rel, cities, society
space
Cities in the future.
Models
Consider the model of human society as an organism. It takes
in resources, distributes them, converts them, uses them and then
removes their waste products. This is a very useful description
of the stratified society. As such, each class and caste serves a
specialized function like an organ. Consider it from the point of
view of the parts.
It is like the old joke about the organs of the body
arguing about which has the most important function and should
therefore run the body. A farmer says let them eat dirt. I am the
only source of the basis of life - food. The craftsman says "you
can only have your homes, tools, products and businesses if I
create them". The scribe, teacher and priest say "try to exist,
grow, organize or raise your children without my help". The
economic and military ruling class simply say that they must
ultimately provide the critical executive guidance to the society
and anyway they have the power to make things as they desire or
believe.
The nature of this problem was examined long ago. Plato
described Utopia as having farmers, warriors and priests-kings,
to fulfill all of the necessary functions of the society. There
are older descriptions of the functional parts of the society
such as in the bible. In the tribal society, the differentiation
of occupations was relatively much less, but did exist, though it
was based differently than in the stratified (multi-tribal)
society.
Humans have gotten where we are by cooperation, though you
might not think it possible, judging from observation.
How about a little expansion of the views of the related
economic and ruling class. In either case, the rule is by power
or by agreement. In a mechanistic view, this evokes no value
judgement. It is not right or wrong, it is survival.
Many brilliant writers and ideologists have provided us with
discussions of the potentials of leadership of the society by
different groups.
There are two points of view that the ruling class can take,
that are not mutually exclusive. One relates to actions that
serve as leadership for the society and the other relates to the
exploitation of the rest of he society for their exclusive
benefit. They can view themselves as the leaders of their people
or as the owners and masters of them.
To a member of a tribal society, those of a civil society
are subjugated, controlled and domesticated. To a member of the
civil society, a tribal individual is narrow, unadaptive and
lacking in discipline.
The issue really comes down to the beliefs of the society.
Is the city and society a cooperative venture for mutual benefit
or is it an arena for provincialism. A modern society requires a
great amount of cooperation and organization. If the balance
between social interest and self interest becomes to much towards
the individual, the society fragments and fails as a community.
Each group considers itself separate and all other groups are
different and to be exploited.
It would be expected that in the next ecology, genetics and
beliefs would be such as to make the society much like a
community. The overall attitude would be cooperative, because
you would be more interested in another persons potentials rather
than competing with them.
#####If the environment is nasty, it forces excessive
competition and no one is happy, but the privileged classes.
#####
Families, communities and tribes are natural sizes and types
of human social groups. Cities will be one of the most important
forms in the future. In any case, the nature of the physical
social space will greatly depend on the forms of transport and
communication available. The more efficient the transportation
technology, then the larger the physical space of the social
groupings can be. The ultimate form of the idea is the case where
cheap instantaneous transportation could be accomplished and then
there would be no coherent physical structure to the social
group. More likely, transportation efficiency is going to grow,
but have limitations qualitatively similar to present systems.
Faster cars could be built, but the drivers are near their limit.
The next question about transport technology could be about
resources, but that does not apply to social forms.
In any time frame of nature, it can be seen that the idea of
nations will develop into a world political body. the timing and
nature of this will depend on many things, including
communication and transportation technology. With present habits
and technology this is already rapidly happening. National
boundaries are usually based on geographical or ethnic divisions.
The United States is a political entity that is a nation with
local political divisions. This is very possibly how the world
will look.
Consider the interaction of two groups of people. A group
that lives in a forest and a group that logs the forest. It is
clear that the one group is removing the niche of the other. In
North America it was done to some Indian tribes by removing the
buffalo that they were dependent on. Much the same thing is done
in more subtle ways and forms presently, as different groups
interact and compete in our present society. Competition is one
thing, removal of an ecology is another.
Another case is the farmer. There is no niche for the
peasant farmer. That role has been replaced by the technician
farmer and the mortgage holder. The rise of ownership has removed
the space of the itinerant farmer and herder.
This may be considered cultural competition or thievery, but
it shows a common result of technological development and social
competition. That is an extreme case of what the competition can
cause. There is less extreme, but much more common and constant
competition within the species. When talking about aggression,
one must differentiate between displays and physical attacks. Is
the aggression to gain advantage or for extermination?
In any specie, the main use of energy must be for
reproduction. If too much energy is devoted to competition within
the specie, it is wasted energy and the specie can be replaced in
its niche by a specie that uses the available resources more
efficiently. In nature, most species use displays instead of more
serious real aggression, so as to not waste too much energy on
competition. Display strategies save energy that can be used for
reproduction. and cut down on much of the stress the specie has
to deal with. This would apply to sub-species as well.
The society must allow competition for the health and
development of the society, but try to keep it in a form that is
not too lethal or that produces too much constant stress for the
society. As it is presently, though it is more subtle, the level
and result of competition within our civil society can be similar
to the removal of the forest of a forest tribe. It seems to be
getting worse, as might be expected with a rise in population
without other adequate adjustments.
***** 9
As we live in situations of higher population density,
education about sanitation habits and techniques become more
important. Conceivably, many social situations may have to be
modified to reduce the spread of nuisance or critical diseases.
The institution that is presently called school, might have to
change to reduce some contacts. To a certain extent a school is
like a community, but it is not closed, so diseases that
come from outside the school are then spread through that
"community".
********
9 Intelligence includes the ability to learn well and quickly.
it is easier to teach an intelligent person. In our technically and
socially complex world, a child's education must be very extensive and
complete. One of the greatest values of intelligence in evolution,
will be simplification of the education process. This would be
especially noticeable if we ever again enter a niche that demands a
high birth rate.
Winning can be for the sake of winning or for what is to be won.
Sometimes, therefore, losing can be a way to win. Winning for the
sake of winning is a self perpetuating habit, common to various
value systems. Priorities must be remembered.
9## Humans are very responsive to ceremony. Our development is long
and complex. Rites of passage, ceremonies of development and
maturity, are important to the organization of the society and to the
way the individual matures. We are developing a promiscuous ecology.
Humans widely consider "easy living" to be a desirable goal. We are
also stimulus and response systems. Humans respond to their
environment. For a human to fully develop, it takes a lot of stimulus
or education, as we call it. Humans rise to challenge. What
challenges will humans find to raise themselves? What stimulus,
education or challenge will develop and release individual human
potential and maturity? One possibility is concious internal
reconciliation of the conflicts of a hybrid psychology.
9## Human psychology operates in strange and mysterious ways. One
point of it that seems reasonable is role models. Children and
adults both will imitate an individual that they respect. This is
something that is going to be impacted by media. In a smaller world,
human idols were parents or relatives. Media presents superstars and
larger than life archetypes. That is mostly a quantitative change,
but the portrayal of family forms, among other things, is going to be
significant. Back to psychology, people often imagine themselves as
their role model. Interesting and hopefully quite healthy, but the
reason this is mentioned is to illustrate something about our social
form. Society, as well as individuals, models itself after media.
R and K Strategies
In terms of ecology, r and k refer to contrasts in the
strategies of organisms that thrive in undisturbed, stable
ecologies, verses organisms that thrive in relatively unstable,
changing environments. Well, humans thrive in both. That calls
for a description of more consequences. We are products of a very
chaotic history. In history, many cultures failed due to excess
conservatism in the face of dramatic changes. In a space of a few
years, a stable culture could be transformed by war, disease or
drought. Before the time of the big game hunters, the pace of
change would have been set by climatic changes. For millions of
years before the recent changes, human ecology and habit changed
extremely slowly. It takes different strategies to adapt to the
stable or unstable situation. In a relatively short time, humans
are going to be one population with a relatively stable size and
stable resource utilization. This is a situation that is and
will be reached by any population that is able to widely
communicate. This is true for both natural and artificial
habitats as a product of their external isolation and internal
communication.
When a population has resources, room to grow and a growing
size, it is in an unstable ecology. In general, we have well
developed methods for living in chaotic situations and natural
selection picks up the loose ends, but stability will present new
problems. Stability refers to a time frame, resources and
resource utilization by a society. To survive, humans must
develop many new ideas to stabilize resource production and
population number. It is possible that civilization may go
through cycles of growth and collapse, but it seems likely that
the attendant environmental damage and resource depletion would
make it harder to regrow after each collapse. It will be
necessary to utilize social forms that can last a long time.
This discussion is largely redundant, but it is a basic
factor when constructing an ecological analysis.
Space.. In The Future Of Humans
We may find a need for space exploration for reasons that we
would not usually expect. We may need it most for the frontier
that it offers. Many people are not going to desire a stable
ecology. The nature of the people that have expanded in the
cities and created technology are products of a dynamic and
expanding society. Only by expansion into space can we continue
to provide an environment that is suitable to modern, dynamic
humans. It might be better or necessary for there to be an
evolutionary adjustment period while humans adapt to technology,
before they adapt to living in space. If we are not forced to
adapt to a semi-stable ecology, before progressing into the
potentially huge niche offered by space, we may develop habits
that could be uncomfortably or even lethally dynamic. It is
another balance that will have to be struck.
There are many possible points of view and gravity does rule
development, but it could easily be argued that living in
artificial habitats is as natural as living on the natural
habitat of a planet. Those habitats might even be underground. It
may be analogous to the community isolation of religious groups
and so critical to survival, but underground living would never
lead to the population isolation that living in space could.
It is worth considering, as a model, the genetic and social
consequences of cheap spaceflight in the next 50 years verses the
consequences if it developed in perhaps 2000 years. One situation
would continue the utilization of the traits we have used until
recently. If we stay as a population on this planet for 2000
years, we would be much more adapted to a stable ecology. The
different situations would result in great differences in human
nature.
Another point of note about living in space is quite well
worth considering. Two key points in this analysis relate to the
effect of human development in small isolated tribes and then the
common intermingling of these tribes. Unless some easy method to
move between two points, faster than light, can be found,
populations outside solar systems will be relatively isolated.
In any case it is unlikely that space flight is going to be
a solution to the population or social problems of the human
system on the earth. The earth is a system reaching or past a
carrying capacity.
SOCIETY - NICHE CONSIDERATIONS
Inheritence is a social law about a multi-generation effect.
Deference can be a form of respect based on ancestry.
Many times, humans have inhabited niches with a predictable,
constant mortality level. Seafarers are good examples. Any group
or tribe that subsists by fishing or navigating the oceans, such
as the Portugese, had to absorb a certain mortality rate. They
must adapt to this biologically and by beliefs.
In ways, this type of occupational niche with a predictable
mortality rate may seem odd to many "modern" people. Still, it
has always been that way for childbirth.
A tribe may exist in a niche where only 30 percent of the
population ever reproduces. All the rest pay the price of the
continued existance of the society and their genes...... This is
the way frontiers are pushed back.
Changes In Beliefs
Observation shows the significance of ideologies and
beliefs. This is the main area that humans must start to resolve
very soon. The change of humans developing beliefs, values and
habits appropriate to a non-militarist social structure is very
basic because it will completely change much of the basis of the
social system, not just add or modify. It is the change that
people are intuitively tuned into, because it reflects the desire
to live in a social world like it was in the time of the tribes.
We can live in a peaceful, comfortable world with the best
features of family and community. The antithesis of the military
society is democracy. The only way to survive is to learn and
think, rather than to react.
There are other vital lessons and beliefs that are going to
have to become common if humans are to grow and survive. None are
as basic as the first change mentioned, but they are essential
none the less.
One attitude that humans must learn and developed is a
global perspective of society and the environment. The world has
become smaller due to technology. What happens on the other side
of the world or the plains of Russia, can effect you. To survive,
we must take a long term perspective of preserving the earth to
live on.
########
Power is the ability to control the will and actions of
others. Power tends to corrupt people and offers the potential
for great harm to the society. We must avoid allowing too much
power to exist, unless some emergency occurs or some goal is
chosen by the society, that requires the focused energy of the
society. The society must insure that power brings benefit to the
society.
#########
#######
It is interesting to think of some comparisons, perhaps
between conditions for an individual in the present technological
civil society and a king in days of yore. As far as material
comforts go, we do pretty good. Hot showers have got to be one of
the greatest creations of any age. What Soloman would have given
for a refrigerator - perhaps some word of wisdom. Our teeth do
not rot out, we smell pretty good, we do not go hungry and
there are pretty girls everywhere.
xxxxxxxx
We will require political forms that will serve locally,
regionally and globally. Advanced forms of constitutional law
will be developed. Constitutional law is redundant. Present
institutions, including education, technology, politics,
economics and moralities will be grow and develop new tools. A
useful science of economics would be quite helpful as would a
more developed knowledge of psychology and sociology.
Since our present choices will form the future, what kind of
futures do we desire presently and how can they be achieved? A
good starting point might be the preamble to the American
Constitution. We the people, of the United States of America, in
order produce a more perfect union
Examination of the views of Plato, Rousseau, give us other
suggestions.
In comparison to the republic described by Plato, with its
priest kings, warriors and agricultural class, we seem to be
developing a world of technicians. People have diverse talents
that may differ greatly from those of their parents. Instead of
just following the occupation of the parents, the individual must
find their technical strength and develop it. Farmers, warriors,
priests and economic leaders are technicians. The individual must
bring what inspiration they have, to their chosen occupation.
It seems that the only practical way to prevent war is
deterrence. Even becoming one tribe wmay not accomplish that.
Depending on "better human nature" is a dangerous route.
I will entertain other suggestions, but that statement
seems nearly inescapable. Other possibilities could exist though,
such as the society having no exploitable wealth.. It is
considered that the genetic component of deterrence is already
common in occidentals. Most can fight back, but this primarily
refers to a response to violence, usually from outside of the
society. How does this apply to the predator that we call a
criminal. How can we respond to criminal violence and even more
importantly how can we deal with non-violent criminal (predatory)
action such as fraud. Education will help prevention, but
techniques will have to be developed.
The only thing that prevents aggression is resistance.
Appeasement always fails in the end, when choice is up to the
aggressor.
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