seawasp: Musings on worldviews, worldbuilding, and writing…
One of the reasons that I love reading is because I run across people who say what I’m thinking so much more eloquently than I can do so myself. Ryk E. Spoor writes of a discussion he had with a poster on USENET in seawasp: Musings on worldviews, worldbuilding, and writing…
He truly believes that people are inherently nasty, evil creatures who are only kept in line by threat of force, by fear and intimidation.I come from the opposite camp; I believe most people are basically decent, nice people. I think the very EXISTENCE of a high technology society is a complete and irrefutable PROOF of this, because the amount of voluntary cooperation — any of which could be destroyed by “defectors”, in the Prisoner’s Dilemma sense — necessary for the development of such a civilization is immense. I don’t think you could get much above the tribal level in a species that had a basically sociopathic outlook. You have to have some capability, intellectual or emotional or both, for empathy and interest in the well-being of others beyond yourself.
I was discussing this worldview with Jaimie last night as we were cleaning the house. For me, this is the refutation of Ayn Rand’s recommended lifestyle (as I understand her position). It is not just or even primarily ubermenschen that change and improve the world, it is the actions and choices of many, many people from across all categories. To paraphrase James Burke in his interview with Dan Carlin, history is becoming less about the actions of the few and more about the interactions of the many.