IF CHE WAS ALIVE TODAY

[Fucky McFuckerson]

It's very relevant when discussing human nature, especially when you say "everything we do is for self" or imply that humans are greedy by nature.

I believe humans ARE somewhat greedy by nature. And everything we DO is motivated to PLEASE ourselves, regardless of what it is, period.

Mr. Nice Guy gave a good example in another thread in where you have two infants playing with the same toy. You give one infant a bigger, shinier toy, and the other infant now wants that very same toy. Why is the infant without the bigger toy satisfied with what it has? Why does he now want that bigger, shinier toy? These are infants that have gained LITTLE external experience and are mostly driven on innate traits at this point.

I know you do some charity stuff, right? Does it make you feel good that you help out? If so, then you are still doing that for self, as well as helping others out. As I said, EVERYTHING we do is to either gain pleasure or avoid pain...it is the basic rule of motivation and incentive. EVERYTHING we do has motivation behind it, and every motivation is followed by an incentive. Therefore, every action we take is to gain incentive.

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Mr. Nice Guy gave a good example in another thread in where you have two infants playing with the same toy. You give one infant a bigger, shinier toy, and the other infant now wants that very same toy. Why is the infant without the bigger toy satisfied with what it has? Why does he now want that bigger, shinier toy? These are infants that have gained LITTLE external experience and are mostly driven on innate traits at this point.

Props for remembering that, because I had forgotten about it lol.

I know you do some charity stuff, right? Does it make you feel good that you help out? If so, then you are still doing that for self, as well as helping others out. As I said, EVERYTHING we do is to either gain pleasure or avoid pain...it is the basic rule of motivation and incentive. EVERYTHING we do has motivation behind it, and every motivation is followed by an incentive. Therefore, every action we take is to gain incentive.

Another good reason why humans tend to do good things for others or essentially practice altruism is that our brains have not had time to evolve out of the tribal, small community mentality. In other words, we have lived in large, connected societies for such a short time relative to our otherwise that our brains have not yet evolved to change our characteristics to maximize our survival and reproduction in these circumstances.

In the same way that we have an inherent fear of snakes but not of cars even though cars kill many more people a year then snakes, our brains have not evolved at the same pace as our societies, leaving us with characteristics and impulses best suited for life in a small, hunter/gather or possibly nomadic community.

Therefore, our brains tells us to be altruistic because while you may help someone and never see them again in a big city, in a small community, you can expect your favor to be remembered and returned; and our brains still live in that small community.

This is the same thing many sociologists look to when analyzing humans interest and sometimes over the top emotional attachment to sports teams. In our mind we identify with those teams like we were part of the same tribe, and sports plays off our evolved characteristic to fight for our tribe and dislike other tribes, which explains why people will sometimes fight and kill over something as irrelevant and arbitrary as watching other humans compete in some athletic activity.

 

[The Duke of Earl]

you two always with the people are naturally greedy. i hate you

 

[m.w.merlino]

Before we as a people engage in any serious discussion about the next revolution/political system, I think we need to recognize that most of our population is under educated, incapable of critical thinking, and emotionally malnourished. This country is quickly becoming a slum under which multi-national corporations are landlord and law maker.

If Che was alive today, I believe he would've learned from his failed attempt to revolutionize Bolivia by focusing on education of the people. He had no base in Bolivia, and the peasants in the area had no education what so ever. A key strategy in guerrilla warfare, as stated in his book, is to have the support of the people you mean to liberate. To do so, there has to be education and understanding of what will happen to a country that remains zombified under bourgeois luxury. The Cuban revolution was orchestrated and won by a lawyer (Castro) and doctor (Che). In the middle of that revolution you had Che teaching classes on politics interpreting Marx and Lenin to 18 year old soldiers.

So I think he would've realized that success began with education of the population before mobilization of the population and had he waited would've had many opportunities to do so considering U.S involvement in South America in the 70's.