Capitalism in its current form has existed for the last 2% of human civilization. 5% if you count mercantilism as a form of capitalism. For the vast majority of history, people owned their own means of production.
You are giving our species too much credit. For almost all of our history, we merely lacked the technologies capable of terraforming our planet against us for short term profit.
If the kings and feudal lords of yore had the capability to burn the long term future to goose their short term greed disease hoards, they would have.
We’re a gaggle of monkeys just barely capable, with great effort, of devising tools with complexities and consequences we’re still far too primitive to wield responsibly, nothing more.
I’m of the opinion this is one of those theoretical Great Filters that explains the lack of a loud universe filled with the signals of other civilizations.
Evolution is slow. If complex life is common and eventually leads to intelligence, maybe there’s just a common chasm between when when a species becomes… clever enough, because we’ve proven as a species we aren’t intelligent… To split atoms or otherwise alter the habitat of their world technologically, but still sit biologically in the tribal, zero sum, rival monkeys have to lose so we big win! mentality that is necessary in nature but harmful to a civilization, that inevitably leads to self-destruction.
What was the FIRST thing we sought to do with the awesome power of the atom again? Wasn’t even a hundred years ago. That’s who we are. We could have made a warm light for all mankind, instead we made big boomie boom rival monkey tribe, wheeeeee!
Human nature is game theory driven by greed. Billions of people are too much chaos.
Only in a social framework that rewards greed. “Human nature” is almost impossible to understand because it can’t be studied with a control group.
Incinerating the planet in the name of profit is a very recent concept.
Capitalism in its current form has existed for the last 2% of human civilization. 5% if you count mercantilism as a form of capitalism. For the vast majority of history, people owned their own means of production.
You are giving our species too much credit. For almost all of our history, we merely lacked the technologies capable of terraforming our planet against us for short term profit.
If the kings and feudal lords of yore had the capability to burn the long term future to goose their short term greed disease hoards, they would have.
We’re a gaggle of monkeys just barely capable, with great effort, of devising tools with complexities and consequences we’re still far too primitive to wield responsibly, nothing more.
I’m of the opinion this is one of those theoretical Great Filters that explains the lack of a loud universe filled with the signals of other civilizations.
Evolution is slow. If complex life is common and eventually leads to intelligence, maybe there’s just a common chasm between when when a species becomes… clever enough, because we’ve proven as a species we aren’t intelligent… To split atoms or otherwise alter the habitat of their world technologically, but still sit biologically in the tribal, zero sum, rival monkeys have to lose so we big win! mentality that is necessary in nature but harmful to a civilization, that inevitably leads to self-destruction.
What was the FIRST thing we sought to do with the awesome power of the atom again? Wasn’t even a hundred years ago. That’s who we are. We could have made a warm light for all mankind, instead we made big boomie boom rival monkey tribe, wheeeeee!
I guess feudalism was technically not capitalism…