HOW THE FUCK DO I COUNTER THE "HUMAN NATURE" ARGUMENT?

"Not an argument"

I've got an experiment for you: try spending a year doing nothing. Watch shows, jerk off, do a bunch of drugs, and do whatever you want except work. You'll likely find out that it's pretty unsatisfying to not do any work. And anyways there's so many unnecessary jobs in our modern economy anyways, it's not like there aren't unproductive people in the status quo, user.

This is not a logical view. If you are shaped by your environment then you are shaped by the hormones and nutrition of your mother during gestation in addition to your genes which are environment. Your intelligence both emotional and rational have been decided by the time of your birth. No men are born equal.

I did that for years without getting bored. I work now but I only because I want to retire one day so I can go back to smoking weed, eating pizza, and playing video games all day.

What happens to someone like me who's part of the commune and refuses to work?

Well I've bedn doing this for over 10 years and I like it. Really making me think tbh.

That is what 90% of us do now anyway.

Predicting how future societies will handle these things is a little utopian, but in a lower stage of communism where production is not yet fully automated a worker probably won't be able to acquire the products society has produced without putting in work themselves. i.e. via something like labor vouchers.
In higher stages of development working becomes more voluntary.

.t brainlet

Yes, humans are naturally altruistic.

Le gulag le gas xDDDDD

No but seriously stop taking the opinions of mentally ill people seriously. Nobody on this site will ever have real power.

Well I've got good news for you: under communism you'd likely be able to continue this lifestyle, except probably more self-sufficiently. Being a NEET under communism would rule tbh.

Nice. I hope you guys win because work sucks haha xD

just wanna watch anime all day and eat pizza rolls TBQH

I don't get how this isnt a point on side of socialism

I wish I had the mental fortitude to be a slacker, but I'm a neurotic, anally retentive person who can't stand to do nothing. I get really depressed if I'm not doing something productive :/

But I don't live a "NEET lifestyle". In fact I very rarely use the internet and only to talk to people. I just use public wi-fi and a solar charger for my phone. I only eat wild roots, flowers, leaves and fish. I drink stream water. I live in a tent.

How does communism benefit me personally?

Free healthcare.

Uh, idk, there'd probably be less of a stigma against people like yourself who live a more transient lifestyle under communism. Also free healthcare, free media, and less laws against living transiently.

Well, really no laws if we're talking about full-blown stateless, classless communism.

My healthcare costs are negligible at best due to my stellar fortune 500 employer insurance.

It probably won't help you personally so vote dem or rep and leave us alone. We don't give a shit.

Dude stop youre just taking the piss.

Haven't been to a doctor in over 10 years though, and don't consume media. Even if I assume communism would result in legitimization of my way of living there is no reason I should exert effort to bring about communism since the net gain would be less than the energy expended.

Why does communism have to benefit you personally for you to support it? If capitalism is less efficient, more crisis prone, and more hierarchical than communism is, why can't you just support communism on that basis then?

Then don't support it, I don't give a shit what you do. I was just answering your question.

Because I'm honest. I'm #1 in life.

If you were in a good position in life you wouldn't be a communist. Communism would probably benefit a poorfag like you.

If you're at the top of the hierarchy under capitalism (which is overwhelmingly unlikely) you're completely dependent upon the people under you to survive and maintain your status. The people on the top have no idea how to make/repair 90% of the shit they use, they're like children who can't do anything for themselves. And in addition to that their lives are devoid of any challenge or meaning, so they'll never be able to make anything of themselves. Their purpose in life is to maintain the structures that help them accumulate capital. That sounds depressing as fuck.

In actuality you're probably not #1 in life and you'll likely never reach anywhere near the top tho, but whatever user.

Then dont? Jesus stop being autistic. We dont need the symbolic support of every hobo in the world. If you dont care either way, neither oppose or support us, that is fine. Lots of people are neutral when political struggles happen.

It's a strawman/Not An Argument. Human nature is defined by a culture's understanding of the human subject, which is defined by the material conditions under which said culture exists and reproduces under. Hence, "human nature" is malleable and easily shaped into something that just happens to conform to the capitalist mode of production. Those same arguments were used to justify feudalism and most famously, slavery.

There are certain biological imperatives we cannot override e.g. we *must* acquire energy externally, but an inquiry into something like the mechanism of action for gene expression should reveal how environmental/(psycho)sociological triggers influence (but not determine as in determinism) personal, emotional, cognitive, etc. development on an individual basis so pervasively that it presents as universal.

Ideological superstructure.

There's no such thing as human nature, and the only reason why people are greedy is because capitalism rewards greed.

human nature is real but not in the way its used to apologize for capitalism. Read an anthropology book

Either a shitpost or a false-flag. Either way OP should kill himself.

Most human nature arguments are just critiques of the idea that people will be naturally charitable without a financial incentive. And socialism has nothing to do with altruism or charity.

Treat human nature as a scientific question. If some behaviors are biologically hardwired in our brains, it's an ethology problem.
"Humans can't do this beacause of human nature" is like "ducks can't do this because of their instinct" : when a random dude says it, it's probably bullshit.

Epic

Tabula rasa is as bad if not worse than a generic "muh human nature" tbh. Of course there's at least some level of behavioral information carried by genes.

It's also in human nature to go out and hunt for our own food, but we don't do that anymore

Prove that it's bullshit. Be vegan. Show them that we can be good people, that we can transcend nature.

Many ways comrade

Personally, I always avoid making arguments that appeal to nature, but there are new studies that shows that humans are naturally co-operative rather than competitive. I think there was a recent psychological study that showed that humans are innately prone to helping others, they only begin to act selfishly when they start thinking about their choices.

It really supports the point that we are not naturally inclined to greedy behavior unless the conditions make us think about our current position and whether or not we'd benefit from it i.e., society creates limited resources that makes us choose between helping others or ourselves

cooperative amongst their in-group, competitive amongst the out-group.

It's not though. Finding some way to eat is human nature. What way that happens depends on the conditions around them, not on their nature.

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Human nature is very varied. Humans can be selfish. They can also be empathetic and cooperative. All of that and more is in their nature. Conservatives love the "human nature" argument because it allows them to frame the current modes of society and economy that they seek to conserve as some kind of immutable force of nature that can't be changed.

They are also fond of the notion of incentives in other areas, but then somehow fail to grasp that if your economy is set up to reward selfishness and greed and to punish empathy and cooperation, you're going to get more of the former and less of the latter. Instead, they'd prefer to just chalk it up to "human nature".

At the same time, humans are not a blank slate. There are evolutionary and biological characteristics that influence how we tend to behave. But the scope of human nature is so broad that trying to support or oppose something like different economic systems on those grounds is mostly sophistry.

He was saying "human nature" is molded by social conditions.

Why do children need to be indoctrinated into their own nature?

Really makes me think. 🤔 🤔 🤔

Kek this is genius.

i would talk about the mental gymnastic stunt you just pulled off but the I remember what board im on
Human nature has been sin ever since the apple was first bitten

Nice ghost story, really gave me a chill down my spine.

You mean money?

If your definition of money is "da boss man give me da paperz wit da numbers on em and I give em to da store people to get stuff", sure, it's "money"

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If you want to know the truth, don't have an opinion.

If "human nature" was absolute how would socialism have came into existence?

There's your answer. Our brains are all born different, some are just similar.

Capitalism is at best 400 years old, mankind has existed for hundreds pf thousands of years. Many of the aspects of capitalism like production for profit, limitless capital accumulation, usury, private property etc. Would have shocked many people throughout varioud points history, it would have seemed completely illogical and immoral to them.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Well, what is the human nature argument?

Not quite, but it still fits with the notion of cooperation > competition

Usury, capital accumulation and private property have existed ever since Jesus time though.

Humans are never truly altruistic, if you understand altruism in a non-naive way. Fortunately altruism is in no way a prequisite for socialism.

So where'd capitalism come from if not from humans? Outer space? lol.

*prerequisite

From feudalism.

So where'd feudalism come from if not from humans? Outer space? lol.

The consolidation of power into the hands of local landlords after the collapse of classical slave society.

Here's the thing, the classical slave society was a consolidation of local landlords too.

In fact, that's a thing since agriculture becomes a thing.

Okay, surely landlords are human, and consolidating power into their hands is in their nature?

I'd argue slave society was primarily in the hands of the military caste. Though high-ranking members typically came from landowning families, they pretty much held exclusive control over the supply of slaves and fertile land. That's a little different from feudal society where landlord and military leader became the same thing, and military castes were much more centralized entities than the administrations of individual feudal lords.

So, yes landlords, but not "local" landlords.

Only if by "nature" you mean "economic self-interest."

They'll just say the participation trophies indoctrinated them away from their nature.

so…

Communists are only interested in themselves?
That makes sense, because all they do is talk about how the other person has more than they have.

you are really stupid my dude

No, they're interested in mutual aid an solidarity. Communism is not about selfless altruism, it's about cooperation and helping each other "to each according to their abilities, to each according their needs"

It's not exactly a secret.

the human nature argument is one of the weakest one's that people have against socialism lol

no, it's called material conditions

I like how right wingers flip between hard-nosed pragmatists and bleeding-heart moralists based on whatever is convenient at the time. It's almost like you guys are more concerned about maintaining the current order and sucking off the ruling class than your supposedly beloved "principles".

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"Escape from Freedom" by Erich Fromm has stuff about human nature and its relation to Communism in it. Has anyone read it, or willing to offer some insight from it? I'm beginning it now.

This is plain wrong and a denial of evolution. We aren't blank slates. We are born with mechanisms that are the same as every other carbon based life form plus traits we inherit from previous generations. If anything, we are clones of our parents, right down to personalities (see epigenetics). Of course, we have some wiggle room for adaptation in our present environment, which in turn rubs off on our offspring.

You would be at a serious evolutionary disadvantage if nothing were passed onto you.

Blank slatism is unscientific horse shit.

Flat out saying "There is no human nature. There is no abstract, codified notion of how humans acts." implies tabula rasa.

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youtube.com/watch?v=hhE5-zBlmcw

Well, it was Marxist-Leninist doctrine.

This, I don't get why so many people on the left insist that human behavior is entirely culturally driven, since it should be obvious that biology has to come before culture, not the other way around. I.e. culture is a property that emerges from biological rules.
Can someone explain this to me?

If you want to counter the human nature argument OP, just point out that it's human nature to want to eat everything you see, fuck every hot girl you see, etc, but you don't because becoming a fatass is bad and rape is bad. Also point out that pretty much every culture has a religion which attempts to restrain the excesses of natural human behavior.

well luckily, nigger, there actually isn't that much work to be done in the age of automation. so useless NEETs like you won't be numerically enough to collapse society

True. Biology is a spook.

Just type
and watch your opponents' arguments fall apart. If it doesn't work the first time, repeat it as necessary.

these two statements contradict each other

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Veering dangerously close to 'organic society' there buddy, essentialism and genetic determinism is idealistic nonsense and belongs quite literally with the nazis.
Either way it is quite easy to disprove: do you think Britain, Portugal and Japan are maritime nations because of the genetic makeup of the population, or perhaps the material reality in which they exist? Biology determines the fundamental limits but not the course of human existence.

It didnt become the embers of a science until the 1300s though.

epigentics cuts short after a few generations, and they would only continue if they were in some sort of behavioral-environmental cycle. On the upside a fair deal of our dna is hereditary so you're still in with a chance for biological determinism ;)

>Britain was exclusively a maritime nation throughout all of it's history
That's really reductionist fam

also
there is no non-essence either you tard

nice jesus trips nazinigger
doesn't make it false

the opposite of essentialism isn't everything being constructed of a 'non-essence', you big dummy
essences and essential categories are pure idealism, the essences or their categories do not exist outside of human conception of reality

humans have been assholes for about 5000 years, while we exist as homo sapiens sapiens for about 25000 years, competition is part of life in most of europe and the americas for even less than that, we are cooperative people.

The real question is how this information is encoded into the genetic sequence.

More specifically

BRB reading on Drosophila embryogenesis to understand the information transfer mechanisms.

And you should read a book on cybernetics, and biology.

Or if I am mistaken and such mechanism exists, please link me to a wikipedia article or a scientific article where such mechanism is explained, observed and shown to exist.

If you watched Stargate SG1, then we are not Goauld parasites.

Correction, if you mean that traits contributing to behaviour are transmitted to next generation, then yes I agree.

To claim that learned behaviour is encoded and then transmitted, that is highly questionable, and from current observations, it is unlikely to even exist.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics#Fear_conditioning

So the conclusion, where behaviour is a result of genetic predisposition, then it gets transmitted. Where it is learned, then it does not get transmitted.

thanks tito, but please don't use that awful slur on me again. I'm a Not Socialist, not a nazi :'(

false in the sense that it is only true within a carefully constructed system of presuppositions. It would be like saying America is civilization of hunter - gathers because rednecks are "successful" hunters.

This is in of itself is idealism - there is no escaping from it, at least not in a way humans are capable of understanding it. There is only the Whole and the manifold unique expressions of it.

furthermore anyone arguing for biological determinism would not be arguing that the aptness of maritime nations is driven directly through primary biological factors. It would the secondary factors more specifically cognitive which then have a myriad range of knock on effects which would then effect sailing ability. I doubt that the conditions would allow for selection to promote genes for sailing ability even given the the acceleration of such a process through intelligent selection and so on.

Because "leftism" is the Rousseaunian response to the classical Hobbesian problem. The fundamental basis for it is unfounded retardation imo