this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
280 points (92.7% liked)
Asklemmy
43916 readers
953 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
But humans have short memories. As soon as the pressure is off and the complacency sets in, someone will abuse it.
Humans have long memories when they want to. Some of the longest surviving cultures are very egalitarian. The San peoples of Africa for instance. Oral traditions have long told stories that impart moral lessons about how to treat the environment, animals, and other people. Anti-authotitarian traditions and education are quite effective. The idea that a person can own a hundred acres was, and could be again, as absurd as claiming a pig can fly not all that long ago.
You site a tribe of 65,000 primitives in Africa in a conversation about the modern, internet level, instant communication, spacefaring society of eight billion people. Their culture doesn't scale.
You may have the right idea but you're on the wrong path to proselytize for it. Eight billion people can't return to a hunter/gatherer society and squat down in the dust to grind grain on a rock for dinner.
I'm definitely not advocating for a return to hunter gathering. Billions would die. But I do think they have things to teach us.