Hey comrades, I'm looking for some empirical data/sources I can help use to disprove asinine arguments about humans being "naturally competitive," evolution showing how base we are & thus Capitalism is the fixed order, or about a fixed "human nature," & other related "scientific" arguments. A lot of the people I know who I'm looking to discuss this with make a big fuss about having sources and "evidence," so for that & general educational/propaganda use it'd be nice if we could collect a repository of studies/statistics/info/research/etc to demonstrate social truths about humanity in this area.
If you want to collect data on other useful topics too, that's fine. This isn't about political theory necessarily, but just gathering of hard facts & evidence which we can use to demonstrate theory's validity in motion, or to just build an agreeable discussion base to launch into politics.
You may have heard this before but normally we point to the Mutual Aid essay by Kropotkin. I don't think this has the hard data you are looking for though.
Richard Wolff has mentioned on DaW that most Silicon Valley startups are ran on cooperative principles rather than the ancom principles they think they run on. It may be interesting to check out a few case studies on startups.
You may be able to find some psych studies on cooperation versus selfishness if you search for them. Babies do show preference to cooperative individuals over those that are selfish.
On the other side, you might argue that work simply gets done we people cooperate: more work gets done when people work on one goal.
On the emotional side, I really think most good memories are tied to when a human was good to someone else. These memories usually aren't tied to competition.
There's lots of human natures, there's not just one human nature thar people will act every single time. That's why the "It's human nature" argument doesn't work.
One example of differing human natures in the case of meeting the "other" is early American and Spanish conquistador encounters. As you probably know, the natives went out to greet the ships with gifts while the Spanish met them with disease, slavery, rape, and murder.
It does seem that humans have the ability for cooperation and competition. That's why some socialists opt for a market within socialism. This keeps the competitive spirit alive. Competition isn't exclusively for capitalism. That's a silly assumption they are making.
Finally: isn't competition better on a equal playing ground?
It's such a bullshit claim wrapped in so many layers of ruling class ideology it's nearly impossible to refute. Arguing against this with a normie would be like arguing against humans being created in the image of God during the dark ages. And if you ask said normies to back up their claim they'll most likely just post some study about how chimpanzees compete in flinging shit because "that's their nature" while ignoring the vast amounts of nurture and cooperations that these animals engage in.
Obviously some degree of competitiveness exists in human nature since it's a thing we humans do. However, there's equally an amount of mutual aid and communism in human nature, as it is also an aspect of human day-to-day behaviour. For example, when waiting for the bus does everyone fight to death for a first place or line up in order? Or when a co-worker asks for your help do you offer it without thinking or ask "what do I get in return on the market?"
The question should not be "what is the most prominent aspect of human nature?" but "what aspects of human nature should we as a society encourage?"
tl:dr there's no use throwing data and statistics about when the proof about communist behaviour is in our day to day life
Levi Rodriguez
Honestly, I feel that way about the "human nature is a spook" arguments.
Any counter-examples just get dismissed with the trite, "that's a result of capitalism". You point out how people were still fucking each other over back in the days of feudalism and even earlier systems, and it becomes, "it wouldn't be the case under socialism". No matter how many examples of humans being awful to each other are provided, you will always find some excuse for why it won't be the same under your super special brand of quasi-Fingolian Monastic Anarcho-Monarchist Socialism.
I fully believe that socialism is a desirable system which should be implemented immediately, but this myth that humans are flawless angels tainted only by the corrupting influence of capitalism is just insane. Yes, economic and political systems are easier to design if you can assume that everyone acts benevolently, but you can't apply that assumption to the real world.
At best this thread is just a bunch of people arguing against the strawman that humans are all exclusively evil. Worse you might actually be taking issue with the statement that humans have a tendency to fuck each other over and sacrifice the wellbeing of others for personal gain.
Juan Kelly
Bumping to agree. I think, against my wishes, that human nature is more encompassing than I'm comfortable with. Not to the point of orc bullshit, obviously, but enough to be a factor to be considered in any large-scale plan of any field, be it economic, social or whatever.
Also morality isn't a spook, but rather a facet of human nature, like creativity and such. I'm sure there's plenty of literature proving me wrong, ut I'll get to them one day.
Joshua Thomas
Human nature is a spook
Jose Collins
the result of class society and material scarcity you dumb idiot
Human nature is a spook and you're haunted
Eli Wright
Dumb and proud
Easton Williams
Next you gonna tell me art, philosophy and politics are spooks too, right? They manifest from man's wants and needs and are universal, thus they're manifestations of human nature. All your whiny dogma that boils down to "NO HUMAN NATURE, PERIOD" is nod an argumend.
These are immaterial things that emerge from the material conditions of humans, but that doesn't mean they are spooks, but instead are important, even vital, to human well-being. Fuck, part of the whole point of socialism is to free people of material want so someone can fill the roles they can be accomplished in, including fields that are not materially, economically productive.
I'd tell you to read a book nigga but both of us know you have to start way lower. Try Rationalwiki or something, I don't know. So long as it keeps you from posting here.
Jacob Stewart
What you want is history and anthropology. Psychological studies are limited by what can be observed and experimented with, which tends to mean that it studies the psychology of people who don't know anything but capitalism and who have been told all their lives that rational people always act to maximize profits because it's in their self-interest. And I think trying to derive an ideal, natural, or necessary society from basic principles is way too complicated to do well and would involve oversimplifying a lot about life. Better to forget trying to define exactly what human nature is or trying to show that it is or isn't fixed, and just show how societies have been organized before. Most people don't even know that primitive communism is a thing and I bet learning about it would change some of their worldviews.
This book is good for that sort of thing. I also recommend accounts of the native americans and the utopian socialists. People mostly know about the native americans through the conquest of them and liberals talking about racism, instead look for things about how they actually lived.
Samuel Collins
You wrote a bunch of dumb words I ain't gonna read my dude, but the important thing is that you're able to feel superior despite being wrong. GG;no re
WTF you dumbasses don't tell someone what you think the 'real' human nature is. That's laughably retarded. The person saying that it is human nature to be greedy is not making an incorrect observation. They are completely correct - in our current society the path to success is dependent on selfishness and greed.
Just explain to them that in different social systems of the past like slave society if you asked a slave owner 'what is human nature?' They would say it is natural to own slaves, and simply the way the world works and will always work. And so 'human nature' is dependent on the material conditions of the social system of the time.
If they are using the human nature argument against communism just let them know that success will be defined differently in communism, and so people will behave differently.
this might be useful. The researcher Robert Sapolsky found that primate in the lower rungs of the social hierarchy have poor health.
This could be useful in demonstrating that hierarchy creates stress and harms the ones that are lower in the social order; therefore a society which has an economic hierarchy (ie capitalism) in human society is bad for the well being of a society as it is damaging to its members.
Jacob Price
All animals are "naturally competitive" and programmed to pass on their genes while fucking the chances of others do to the same. Sorry but science won't help you here, only abstract feels > reals philosophy that has no base on reality.
Jack Fisher
While this element exist, humans are also inclined to cooperate with other humans for survival. What porkies are saying is that the urge to fuck each other over is the only factor in human nature, they use this to excuse their exploitation and greed.
People intentionally segregate into classes in order to control others for their own benefit. There is literally nothing socialism can do about this.
Brandon King
Sounds like we need a fleet of youtube leftists in the same vein of the youtube atheists, combating the ruling ideology through autistic analysis and ridicule.
Chase Wood
The larger problem here is that people want to either chalk everything up to biological determinism or to culture. The reality is it's a complex mix. Biology drives culture, since culture exists to meet our needs within the constraints of biology. Similarly, culture shapes biology through selection - heritable traits that are conducive to the functioning of a culture will be selected for within that culture.
Jason Rodriguez
Pretty much this.
Example: Alchoholism has a genetic basis. Does that mean you are pre-destined to become an alchoholic? No, obviously if you never encounter alchohol you won't become addicted. Through a complicated set of behaviors you're just more likely to become addicted due to a biochemical pathway being slightly different than others.
If I say "it's human nature to rape", I'm obvously not saying all humans rape or that rape should be legal, but rather rape exists in 100% of human cultures and complicated behaviors and situations, both natrual and nurtured, lead to a induviduals raping at rate where you can say it's a normal human behavior.
I don't understand why this is so hard to grasp, I don't understand why so many on this board insist on being science deniers but just at the opposite end of Holla Forums.
