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Thank you for your response. You bring up some good points, but I would like to contest others. First, I agree that humans should probably not "devolve" into f

Thank you for your response. You bring up some good points, but I would like to contest others. First, I agree that humans should probably not "devolve" into flowers (although "devolve" is a funny word -- technically, evolution, like entropy, is a one-way process, where even parasites can be said to evolve in their own way). Second, I agree that exceptional individuals like the Greek scholars you mentioned contributed enormously to the human progress in the past two thousand years. Third, I agree that average human condition in Africa is currently deplorable compared to average human condition on all other Earth's continents. Where we seem to disagree is in the way we frame our questions and our solutions. Assuming I am an individual of significant wealth with altruistic motives, I would like to produce as many Aristotles, Platos, and Socrates in as short of a time frame as possible. Africa seems like a terrible, terrible place to invest my money with that goal in mind. First, as an individual investor, I can only invest during a timeframe of no more than approximately 20-30 years. Second, even if I open a foundation in my name that would continue doing my work after my death for centuries, Africa still looks bad (the worst in fact) because what happens if, for example, the country I invest in is taken over by a dictator or a warlord some fifty years from now (of which there is an extremely high risk throughout the entire continent of Africa) who brings the country back to the Middle Age or worse, while taking advantage of the invested results. Dictators have a common tendency of "cutting the tall poppies" when they come to power, which means that the African Aristotle I invested into will most likely be imprisoned or dead before he even becomes anything close to Aristotle. I (as well as my foundation) would get a much better return on investment in a country like Romania that is "almost there" in terms of development and whose political situation is kept secure by a strong supranational organization like EU or NATO. Finally, let me explain what I mean by the difference between individual and supra-individual. If you look at humanity's history over the past 3000 years, you will see that our attitude to things concerning politics was very different throughout. We had had pluralistic societies like Ancient Greece which simultaneously condoned slavery. Aristotle, for example, believed that certain individuals are superior "by natural right", and that others were better off serving their superiors, i.e. he was anti-egalitarian. I consider myself more egalitarian than Aristotle was, however I do not believe that our current fashion of rather extreme egalitarianism represents some final development; to me it appears as more of a "moral fashion" that always occurs at a certain phase of an outward wave of what I call "literatization" (as opposed to "civilization"). So to an individual mind in the early 21st century some truths (such as that societies have to be structured in one way and not another) may seem to be self-evident, but that's because an individual is always anchored to his or her historical epoch. Moreover, the desire to structure the society in a particular way seems to follow one's biological idiosyncrasies. For example, the primary driver of intellectual activities of a tall person may be an internalized wish to arrange the society in such a way that tall people are not discriminated against. Similarly, the primary driver of intellectual activities of a department of economics of a country X might be a motivation that the elite of that country stays in power. For that reason, I tend not to trust neither egalitarians nor anti-egalitarians when it comes to evaluating whether a particular society is good or bad. Unfortunately, the only truly useful measure of a society's success (its ability to spread itself while maximizing the number of potential paths of realization of its individuals) is somewhat beyond of what can be measured over one's lifetime. So I tend to prefer to stay close to natural laws, and assume that if a particular gamete is "lucky", it is perhaps lucky for some reason that is unknowable to me.

anigbrowl 12y ago
Aristotle should not be your only point of reference here. Socrates had his life cut off early by an intellectually intolerant cabal, but we're certainly much better of for having had him around for a while, even if not as much as we might have hoped for. It's also arguable that breakthroughs (philosophical, technological, or whatever) often take place in less-than-ideal contexts, because adversity is often synonymous with necessity. In a society where the majority of the population has it pretty good, there's opportunity for many flowers to flourish but it's hard to say whether any of them are very tenacious since the soil and growing conditions are ideal. If you're on the lookout for a rare flower, you're not likely to discover it in a greenhouse.
- EGreg 12y ago
  How do you know Socrates even existed? As an aside - Socrates and Jesus seem to have many things in common. Socrates never wrote anything himself, his teachings challenged the status quo, he was accused of "corrupting the youth" and executed for blasphemy by the religious ruling group from his own people...
cubancigar11 12y ago
> I can only invest during a timeframe of no more than approximately 20-30 years What you have concluded in you comment can be summed up in one word - short-sightedness. The only way to defend that position (which, in fact, you use) is to say that most people are and historically have been short-sighted, hence it is 'natural' ergo correct. You further imply that this... process... is out of our control. This is disingenuous, and I will tell you why. You question egalitarianism because historically societies can be seen as contrarian among themselves. But you whitewash over the fact that we ARE in fact much much better-off than most people who have ever lived. We are better off than Aristotle himself and a large part of it can be attributed to the fact that he existed. He obviously didn't foresee the future and how he is going to literally effect it, but he did contribute to it because he was egalitarian. But you already agree that you want more Aristotles, Platos and Socrates. What is disagreeable that you want them in a short of time frame at the cost of everything else because of 'particular gamete being lucky' or some other factor you don't know. In short, you are looking for profit and explaining away the lack of moral imperatives by invoking Darwinism. But: 1. There is no immediate pressure on us to produce Aristotles et. al. because they are not going to bring immediate benefit. We CAN plan for a long term future, though, and that means we can improve our chances of survival. 2. Darwinism requires diversity. Hence it is simply better to invest in disadvantaged, if you were egalitarian. Let us be honest - the truth is that you are coming from a position of an individual with significant wealth who is looking for next Aristotle to increase his personal wealth by taking his, and you don't really care about Aristotle or his effect on anyone else. All the arguments are simply dressings to make that short-sightedness and greed look good.

anigbrowl 12y ago

Aristotle should not be your only point of reference here. Socrates had his life cut off early by an intellectually intolerant cabal, but we're certainly much better of for having had him around for a while, even if not as much as we might have hoped for. It's also arguable that breakthroughs (philosophical, technological, or whatever) often take place in less-than-ideal contexts, because adversity is often synonymous with necessity. In a society where the majority of the population has it pretty good, there's opportunity for many flowers to flourish but it's hard to say whether any of them are very tenacious since the soil and growing conditions are ideal. If you're on the lookout for a rare flower, you're not likely to discover it in a greenhouse.

EGreg 12y ago
How do you know Socrates even existed? As an aside - Socrates and Jesus seem to have many things in common. Socrates never wrote anything himself, his teachings challenged the status quo, he was accused of "corrupting the youth" and executed for blasphemy by the religious ruling group from his own people...

cubancigar11 12y ago

> I can only invest during a timeframe of no more than approximately 20-30 years What you have concluded in you comment can be summed up in one word - short-sightedness. The only way to defend that position (which, in fact, you use) is to say that most people are and historically have been short-sighted, hence it is 'natural' ergo correct. You further imply that this... process... is out of our control. This is disingenuous, and I will tell you why. You question egalitarianism because historically societies can be seen as contrarian among themselves. But you whitewash over the fact that we ARE in fact much much better-off than most people who have ever lived. We are better off than Aristotle himself and a large part of it can be attributed to the fact that he existed. He obviously didn't foresee the future and how he is going to literally effect it, but he did contribute to it because he was egalitarian. But you already agree that you want more Aristotles, Platos and Socrates. What is disagreeable that you want them in a short of time frame at the cost of everything else because of 'particular gamete being lucky' or some other factor you don't know. In short, you are looking for profit and explaining away the lack of moral imperatives by invoking Darwinism. But: 1. There is no immediate pressure on us to produce Aristotles et. al. because they are not going to bring immediate benefit. We CAN plan for a long term future, though, and that means we can improve our chances of survival. 2. Darwinism requires diversity. Hence it is simply better to invest in disadvantaged, if you were egalitarian. Let us be honest - the truth is that you are coming from a position of an individual with significant wealth who is looking for next Aristotle to increase his personal wealth by taking his, and you don't really care about Aristotle or his effect on anyone else. All the arguments are simply dressings to make that short-sightedness and greed look good.