Well, concentration of power is always the goal for any polity, nobody would last long without it. As far as nation states go — I think they have only been an improvement in Western Europe, and maybe Japan. Everywhere else they seem to be more trouble than not.Really? That's the goal? And here I was thinking that being fruitful and multiplying was the goal. Silly me for believing Peter Seeger and thinking progress is about expanding our circle of caring.Beltrane is just one of those guys who reply No it isn't when you say the sky is blue. He just disagrees to disagree. Of course nations are arbitrary and cultures too. They may have come about as a result of basically stationary groups of people, but over time, as we're already seeing, cultures dissolve. I imagine some day humans will look back a giggle when they see some old 21st century maps.No surprise you don’t know what “arbitrary" means, which reminds me that it seems like the people who don’t like being disagreed with are the ones who are often wrong.I know exactly what arbitrary means and your description "Culture is the more formative of the two and is basically the interaction of genes + environment" is way off. The genes and environment one has been handed are arbitrary. Had g and e been different for a given person things would have developed differently, and same for a group.Nobody is handed their genes and environment, a person is their genes and environment — oneself doesn’t exist outside of that. E.g Darwin could not exist without being the product of his particular genes and environment, it’s not like he was waiting to be assigned a temporary body before he was born and that specific one was chosen at random. I think this site explains what I am getting at: http://www.viewonbuddhism.org/wisdom_emptiness.html
Well, concentration of power is always the goal for any polity, nobody would last long without it. As far as nation states go — I think they have only been an improvement in Western Europe, and maybe Japan. Everywhere else they seem to be more trouble than not.Really? That's the goal? And here I was thinking that being fruitful and multiplying was the goal. Silly me for believing Peter Seeger and thinking progress is about expanding our circle of caring.I guess you’re being sort of serious so I’ll play: being fruitful seems like a bigger goal for individuals in the group, whereas the group as a whole pursues power, not necessarily with the intent to destroy others but simply because being powerful is better than not being powerful. Evolutionarily speaking, powerful groups have better reproductive fitness which is basically the ultimate goal of life. Well I would say that is what life does, but to call it a goal seems a bit off for me. It’s like a machine that fulfills a task, it merely does what it does but it wouldn’t be right to call it a goal. It’s like rolling a boulder up a hill. Agree, goal is the wrong term. It’s too teleological.
But you don’t really make a good point against the arbitrary ness of culture or borders. These might be distinctions we make that exist only to us (and even that is debatable). From what I can see certain cultures are only “Chinese" and Japanese based on little more than our says so and agreeing that this difference we make is real. Unless I am wrong.Buy “us" do you mean humanity in general or a specific nationality/ethnic group?
Well, concentration of power is always the goal for any polity, nobody would last long without it. As far as nation states go — I think they have only been an improvement in Western Europe, and maybe Japan. Everywhere else they seem to be more trouble than not.Really? That's the goal? And here I was thinking that being fruitful and multiplying was the goal. Silly me for believing Peter Seeger and thinking progress is about expanding our circle of caring.Beltrane is just one of those guys who reply No it isn't when you say the sky is blue. He just disagrees to disagree. Of course nations are arbitrary and cultures too. They may have come about as a result of basically stationary groups of people, but over time, as we're already seeing, cultures dissolve. I imagine some day humans will look back a giggle when they see some old 21st century maps.No surprise you don’t know what “arbitrary" means, which reminds me that it seems like the people who don’t like being disagreed with are the ones who are often wrong.I know exactly what arbitrary means and your description "Culture is the more formative of the two and is basically the interaction of genes + environment" is way off. The genes and environment one has been handed are arbitrary. Had g and e been different for a given person things would have developed differently, and same for a group.Nobody is handed their genes and environment, a person is their genes and environment — oneself doesn’t exist outside of that. E.g Darwin could not exist without being the product of his particular genes and environment, it’s not like he was waiting to be assigned a temporary body before he was born and that specific one was chosen at random. I think this site explains what I am getting at: http://www.viewonbuddhism.org/wisdom_emptiness.htmlBuddhism is total bullshit. Stick with science.
There’s a reply to that as well: