Nature vs. Nurture on the Ecological Battlefield

[GliderGuider]

This is the text of a new article I just posted on my web site:

I’m in the process of rethinking my position on the genetic underpinnings of human consumption, competition and reproduction. For the last year or so I’ve been of the opinion (informed by the writings of Jay Hanson and Reg Morrison) that humanity’s genetic inheritance was the primary driver of growth, as manifested in these three aspects of human behaviour.

Recently I’ve been softening my position as a result of being reminded of the existence of potlatch and gift economies, and the widespread evidence of altruism around the world. The existence of altruism-based social institutions has made me realize that more is going on in our civilization than just the bald influence of genetics on behaviour.

It now appears to me that the feedback between our biological predispositions and our institutions is a critical determinant of human societies. In societies where institutions support the altruistic (oxytocin-driven?) aspects of our biological makeup we find gift economies. In societies where institutions support the competitive (dopamine-driven?) side of our nature, barter or market economies are the rule. In turn, the support of those aspects of our nature receives causes us to strengthen the supporting institutions.

One of the interesting comments in the Wikipedia article on gift economies is this: “Marshall Sahlins writes that Stone Age gift economies were, by their nature as gift economies, economies of abundance, not scarcity, despite their typical status of objective poverty.” The implication is that our modern market economy, with all its institutions promoting the ethics of growth, competition and zero-sum, is a response to perceived scarcity even in the face of objective abundance. If that is true, then a couple of implications spring to mind.

The first is that as we move into a time of actual scarcity, the social grip of our current economic religion will be strengthened rather than relaxed. Events will “prove” to our power-holders that their perceptions and responses are correct, even axiomatic. That conviction will translate into ever more corporate support for the educating institutions - including schools, think-tanks and media - that promote this worldview. We are likely to see a rapid devolution into authoritarian and repressive regimes that can legitimately be characterized as fascist in the original sense of the term as used by Mussolini – the control of the state by corporations. These corporations and their support systems will fight to the death to preserve the status quo.

The second implication is that the only real hope humanity has of shaking off the shackles that bind our nature to our institutions is if the institutions themselves disappear. Fortunately for the ecosphere, since they are all predicated on the existence of the growth economy, anything that brings about a disruption of that economy will disrupt their structure at the same time. If, as I expect, the convergence of peak oil, climate change and ecological collapse results in a permanent reversal of global economic growth, such disruptions will be inevitable.

This, then, is the tarnished silver lining inside the dark cloud of economic collapse and human die-off. We can only regain our balance with nature if global consumption is reduced. Having fewer people would accomplish that, and die-off would guarantee it. We can only hope to establish a truly sustainable civilization on the far side of the bottleneck if the values emblematic of gift economies can find room to flourish.

The collapse of the present market and growth economy would provide the needed social room. This collapse is virtually guaranteed in the face of the permanent economic reversals brought on by increasing resource scarcity and declining net energy.

If we can embed the required values (though Gaia's antibodies) and preserve enough knowledge through the coming involuntary interregnum, humanity will have a chance.

Paul Chefurka

[phantom power]

1. Are there any examples of gift societies successfully competing with market societies?

[GliderGuider]

3. No.

That's heartening, isn't it? OTOH, we are approaching a set of circumstances never before seen in human history. Pat a singularity anything is possible...

[GliderGuider]

7. The reason is given in "The Parable of the Tribes"

Societies with gift economies tend to be much less aggressive (not as a consequence but as a correlation based on the common roots of the two behaviours). As a result they will always be out-competed by societies with market economies based on competition, hierarchical status and a zero-sum worldview. Here is the parable, as developed by Andrew Schnmookler:

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC07/Schmoklr.htm">The Parable Of The Tribes

Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. But what if all but one choose peace, and that one is ambitious for expansion and conquest? What can happen to the others when confronted by an ambitious and potent neighbor? Perhaps one tribe is attacked and defeated, its people destroyed and its lands seized for the use of the victors. Another is defeated, but this one is not exterminated; rather, it is subjugated and transformed to serve the conqueror. A third seeking to avoid such disaster flees from the area into some inaccessible (and undesirable) place, and its former homeland becomes part of the growing empire of the power-seeking tribe. Let us suppose that others observing these developments decide to defend themselves in order to preserve themselves and their autonomy. But the irony is that successful defense against a power-maximizing aggressor requires a society to become more like the society that threatens it. Power can be stopped only by power, and if the threatening society has discovered ways to magnify its power through innovations in organization or technology (or whatever), the defensive society will have to transform itself into something more like its foe in order to resist the external force.

I have just outlined four possible outcomes for the threatened tribes: destruction, absorption and transformation, withdrawal, and imitation. In every one of these outcomes the ways of power are spread throughout the system. This is the parable of the tribes.

This is the reason I feel that the destruction of our power institutions through economic and social collapse is the only possible way out of the growth-economy box we're in. Even then, as Schmookler demonstrates, it wouldn't be a sure thing. It would give us a chance, though.

[phantom power]

9. The Spanish prisoner. "Always Defect" is the Nash Equilibrium.

[GliderGuider]

10. Are you saying that defection = "attack or otherwise abrogate your peace agreement"?

If so, I agree. I was part of a discussion salon a while ago that examined global greenhouse gas emissions in the context of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Our conclusion was that in a world of independent sovereign nations it would be impossible to achieve global CO2 reductions for precisely that reason.

The Nash Equilibrium combined with a growth-based economic system with uncosted externalities, all played out on the surface of a sphere, means that a Tragedy of the Commons and a crash of civilization are unavoidable.

[phantom power]

11. Yes, that's the gist of it.

I'm not sure if it means total hopelessness, but I think it does mean that any peaceful society must defend itself. And that means, that the defense mechanisms are vulnerable to being usurped from the inside, by agressive agents. Kind of like what we have happening right now here in my beloved country.

I also think it means that the destruction of our current civilization doesn't imply any particular opportunity for the creation of a stable peaceful "something new." There will always be aberrations of aggression (and I'm being optimistic by calling them aberrations), and those aberrations will always enjoy short-term advantage. And in the long-term, we're all dead.

That is why I feel our best, slim hope is for the survival of our current knowledge, in defensible city-states. They might preserve enough knowledge about how we all went so wrong, and also be able to defend against the barbarian hordes, who would wipe out any memory of how to prevent a repeat performance, a la the burning of the Library of Alexandria.

[Az]

2. There is this strange embracement of nature

As if nature were some static thing that will ever preserve our ecosystem if we learn to live in harmony with it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nature is just life on this planet responding to the environment. Nature allows life to be obliterated and continues on its merry way. Extinction is a part of nature. Species come and go. 99% of every species that ever existed is no extinct. Nature kept on going.

Environments change. Life adapts to it and jetsons the bits of life the cannot adapt. And that is the problem. We as a species are dependent on the particular web of life we find ourselves within. If nature were to have its way it would change that balance in favor of a new one based on the changing environment. This would be bad for us. Particularly since we are affecting the environment ourselves.

So here is the thing. We are not friends with nature. Nature doesn't give a wet slap about any particular life. Just the idea of life. And life will continue with us or without us. What we are concerned with is this environment and these conditions. If this particular ecosystems collapses we go with it. We need to learn to either give up and be run over by nature or we need to learn how to harness nature. And being that we have these unusually big brains I think we should probably make a go of harnessing nature. Even at the worst case scenario nature will survive. Just not how we want it to. But its going that way right now anyway. So its not like we have a lot to lose.

[GliderGuider]

4. I find that to be a profoundly immoral position.

You say "...being that we have these unusually big brains I think we should probably make a go of harnessing nature. Even at the worst case scenario nature will survive. Just not how we want it to. But its going that way right now anyway. So its not like we have a lot to lose."

That is a utilitarian, anthropocentric (not to mention fatalistic) argument, a straight-line extension from the pre-Copernican geocentric view of the universe: if we mess up a million species in our efforts to subdue nature, it really doesn't matter, since they are not us.

Humanity is a part of life, not apart from it. Our self-awareness gives us the illusion that our species is fundamentally different from all the others that have inhabited the planet, and the outcome of our actions has significance only to us.

Deep Ecology is a philosophy developed by Arne Naess in 1972 precisely as a response to this sort of argument. Its principles include:

* The richness and diversity of all life on Earth has intrinsic value, independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes.
* Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital human needs.

This is the only system of thought I've found that directly and fully addresses the reason why our behaviour towards the rest of the life on our planet must be considered immoral. It also recognizes that in damaging other life we damage ourselves on many different levels.

Our self-awareness, our ability to reason abstractly and to direct our actions on the basis of that reasoning gives us the ability to understand the impact our actions have on other beings. In other words, "We know better." That comprehension confers on us the responsibility to refrain from action if we recognize that it will be harmful. I define acting despite the recognition of a harmful outcome as immoral.

Humans have been re-engineering the planet since the development of agriculture 10,000 years ago. We have the intrinsic capacity to alter the environment on a global scale, which other animals don't. We have taken over from Mother Nature as the dominant force for ecological change on the planet. Assuming a fatalistic posture such as you express would only magnify the immorality of such actions, wouldn't it?

[The2ndWheel]

5. Also a strange fear of it

"We need to learn to either give up and be run over by nature or we need to learn how to harness nature."

The more we end up trying to harness it, the more it seems to run us over.

But like you said, we're too far down the road to stop. We've become too dependent on the harness. There is only so much energy to go around, and we want it all for ourselves. So we'll end up continuing to experiment on other living things for our benefit, directly controlling the evolution of certain species for our benefit, creating an ever larger footprint by trying to mold every environment to fit our needs, etc, etc. Basically consciously destroying as much diversity as we possibly can. Then doing it again when we hit the limit of our first try. Then doing it again when we hit the next wall. Then again, and again, and again, until nothing lives outside of our control, ultimately including every human(since we've seen what actual diversity can do if we don't control it). It's either that or death I guess, which is really the reason for our relentless desire for control.

[GliderGuider]

6. "So we'll end up continuing to experiment on other living things for our benefit"

Yes, we will.

No matter how hard we try to convince ourselves that Dr. Mengele was an aberration, evidence continues to mount that he was merely a hyperbolic expression of our own nature. The only real difference is that due to our inability to feel cross-species empathy, his experiments on humans arouse our revulsion while our experiments on other species evoke little more than a vague regret.

[ramapo]

8. Humans seem unable to live within the bounds

There is no doubt of the tremendous carnage that 20th century humankind inflicted on all of nature (humans included). And yes, there is a gathering torrent of deleterious effects of our industrial society on the global ecosystem. But the solution is not necessarily just fewer humans.

Unfortunately, humans have been efficient destroyers of life for many hundreds, if not thousands of years. Even without benefit of today's efficient technology of destruction, humans of yesteryear managed to wipe out a number of species whose population was so vast that they seemed impossible to decimate.

Just a few examples include the bison, dodo, and passenger pigeon. The enormous gift of cod has been essentially destroyed. Vast areas of the Northeast were clearcut during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Indians of the Northeast killed off many species of animals in the Northeast to satisfy European demand. Caribou, for example, was at one time common in NJ but no more.

Getting the Earth's population down to two or three billion (hard to believe but I remember it turning three billion and I'm not that old) will not relieve the pressure on those species that manage to survive the interim period. There would need to be an amazing change in the level of respect that humans currently have for other species along with a widespread realization that we need to share the planet and its resources, and restrain our use of and impact on all the resources that our planet offers.

Nature may teach us that ultimately we cannot survive without her cooperation but without nurturing future generations to protect the Earth as they would their own family, we will leave whatever species are left here in a hundred years in as desperate situation as they are in today.