At 05:59 PM 5/1/97 -0400, Don DeBar wrote:
>> Studies show that most people are not rational.
>
>OK, let's grant that. Hopefully, most people here will also concede that we
>are the sum of what is called in short-hand "nature and nurture". Since we
>are capable of doing and or learning many "rational" things, including
>systematically building an understanding of the world and the universe, we
>must have some capacity for being "rational". Wouldn't it follow, then,
>that our irrationality may be rooted somewherein our socialization? And if
>so, wouldn't the appropriate remedy be to construct a "rational" social
>order that promotes the "rational" deelopment of "rational" human beings?
I think "rational" (as I have defined the word) decisions are, for
all practical purposes, beyond individuals. People do not calculate
probabilities except in special cases. However, institutions DO
routinely make "rational" decisions by using experts and technology.
The trick is to make our most sophisticated institutions -- the
corporations -- work FOR humanity instead of AGAINST humanity.
Let me put try to put the issue into a wider context so you can
see where I am going. I am essentially arguing that humanity
desperately needs a new worldwide "organizing principle".
Here is a list of some of my assumptions:
A. Our present organizing principle is the Neoclassical
Economic normative [1] which claims that people are
"better off" through "maximum efficient consumption".
B. Modern evolutionary theory has shown that humans have
evolved for deception, self-deception, and exploitation.
My essay, "The Fatal Freedom" [2], builds on these
insights and shows how humans, under laissez-faire
ideology, [3] will ultimately self-destruct.
C. The earth is now far over carrying capacity and may have
as little as 35 years before the "functional integrity"
of the ecosystem is destroyed. [4]
Billions of people could die this coming century from
starvation and disease (called "crash and die off"
by ecologists, it is common in nature). [5]
D. Carrying capacity is an "aggregate" problem. An aggregate
problem can only be addressed on the "aggregate" level:
some sort of worldwide central planning.
E. My normative claim is that human "crash and die off" is
the WORST possible outcome for humanity.
Therefore, I suggest that we adopt a new worldwide organizing
principle that attempts to "minimize human suffering" [6] by,
among other things, requiring economic activity to serve
social ends. Moreover, this new principle MUST be based on
objective [7] measures of human welfare, otherwise political
accountability is not possible.
I think that's most of it.
Jay -- http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/
-------
Notes:
1 Neoclassical economics admits to NO objective measures
of human welfare. Thus, the economist's claim that
economic growth makes people "better off" must be seen
as only a political ideology.
Here is an example of Nobel Prize-winning politics:
"Adam Smith's key insight was that both parties to an
exchange can benefit and that, so long as cooperation
is strictly voluntary, no exchange will take place
unless both parties do benefit." [ p. xv, FREE TO CHOOSE,
Milton Friedman; Avon, 1980; ISBN 0-380-52548-8 ]
2 http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/hanson/page79.htm
3 Laissez-faire ideology is like Marxism in that they
are both ideologies masquerading as science. See:
http://www.soros.org/personal.html
4 http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/hanson/page5.htm
5 http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/hanson/page14.htm
6 "Animal lovers and professional biologists should be able
to agree on the ultimate goal of game management: to minimize
the aggregate suffering of animals. They differ in their
time horizons and in the focus of their immediate attention.
Biologists insist that time has no stop and that we should
seek to maximize the wellbeing of the herd over an indefinite
period of time. To do that we must 'read the landscape,'
looking for signs of overexploitation of the environment by
a population that has grown beyond the carrying capacity.
"By contrast, the typical animal lover ignores the landscape
while focusing on individual animals. To assert preemptive
animal rights amounts to asserting the sanctity of animal life,
meaning each and every individual life. Were an ecologist to
use a similar rhetoric he would speak of the 'sanctity of
carrying capacity.' By this he would mean that we must consider
the needs not only of the animals in front of us today but also
of unborn descendants reaching into the indefinite future.
"Time has no stop, the world is finite, biological reproduction
is necessarily exponential: for these combined reasons the
sanctity strategy as pursued by animal lovers in the long
run saves fewer lives, and these at a more miserable level
of existence, than does the capacity strategy pursued by
ecologically knowledgeable biologists."
-- Garrett Hardin
7 "Of or having to do with a material object."
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