Re: More on jobs & immigrants

Thomas Bartkus wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 18:47:13 -0500, Straydog wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On Wed, 14 Dec 2005, Thomas Bartkus wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Are human beings pre-disposed to behave thus?
> >> Are there socio-economic forces turning them into this?
> >> Contrary to or in sympathy with their wills?
> >> Is it possible to create such people sans the use of whips and chains?
> >> Are these productive, inventive, people who contribute to society, earn
> >> their own $ only to so wastefully surrender it thus?
> >>
> >> I'm not being rhetorical here.
> >> I'm dumbstruck! I don't understand.
> >> Thomas Bartkus
> >
> > I'll give you the following line(s) of thinking to mull over:
> >
> > 1. While we can all blame guys like Hitler, Ghengis Khan, Saddam, etc.,
> > etc. for lots of bad things happening to innocent people, we also need to
> > remember that the soldiers (and quite a bit, maybe the majority of, the
> > rest of the people "went along" with the leaders on their rampages against
> > innocent [but not always, WW 2 was the good war, right?]. So, maybe half
> > the blame needs to be placed on the underlings who blindly followed the
> > leader. The US did bad things, too, in South East Asia decades ago and
> > most US people went along. History is full of this phenomenon.
> >
> > 2. Why does it happen? Its a version of the "pecking order" and
> > sociologist-psychologists, many years ago, discovered that chickens in the
> > farmer's barnyard organized themselves in a real pecking order and its
> > reproducible. Actually, this is an phenomenon among all animals that are
> > "social" (that means they travel in packs, herds, etc., and in all the
> > studies, they can find either an "alpha" male or, in maternalistic
> > societies, an "alpha" female. The "beta" mate is always #2 in the herd).
> > All the rest of the members of the social unit are farther down. Horses,
> > cattle, dogs, elephants, etc., are among those species which are
> > domesticated or domesticatable. Even the dolphin is social and can easily
> > be trained.
> >
> > 3. Jared Diamond, in his book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (a brilliant book)
> > pointed out --as part of the reasons why some societies progressed and
> > others did not--that the societies that progressed had animals around that
> > were social animals and that meant they could be -- ready for this? --
> > _domesticated_! That means a human being could _train_ an animal of the
> > spiecies which is social to substitute the human _leader_ for the alpha
> > animal _leader_ and thus, the animal became domesticated and do what it
> > was told or trained to do. Diamond listed all the social-domesticable
> > animals (about ten), and all of the non-social animals (eg. hippopotomas,
> > rhinocerous, alligator, and about ten others) and the non-social animals
> > were never domesticated.
> >
> > 4. Now, I will extrapolate: humans are also social, and all through
> > history leaders (whatever their rank) become established (by a variety of
> > methods, some nice, some not nice, some by birth, etc) and--guess
> > what?--most of the time, eveyone else follows orders from these leaders.
> > Its part of _our_ need for structure in our life. We become "docilized" or
> > "obedientized" or "passivized" as we try and succeed in living a life as
> > far as possible from chaos. We all navigate from home to work, work to
> > home, most of the time over the exact same routes. Obey the bosses (or we
> > don't get paid, and we all NEED the pay because if we don't get that pay,
> > then we can't pay the rent, buy hamburgers, or buy iPods). Social animals
> > can't live in chaos (this is very distinct from _anarchy_ which is far
> > from chaos, there is as much organization in anarcy as there is in
> > heirarchy [but this is a different topic]). You should know, also, that
> > most if not all sub-human but higher animals also make for their home a
> > place where they sleep at night which is different from the place where
> > they forage for food (their "work"?).
> >
> > 5. So, now that we have all of these passive, obedient, docile human
> > beings, its not hard to understand that most of us (except for
> > trouble-makers like me) prefer to NOT "rock the boat" in most if not all
> > contexts (unless your iPod craps out 91 days after you bought it and your
> > warranty is good for 90 days) where "order" is present in our _expected_
> > and _permitted_ interactions with each other. So, in the medical context,
> > we are already TRAINED to _wait_ patiently in the doctor's waiting room
> > (where he has either overbooked his appointments or spends more time than
> > he thought per patient) and no one (or almost no one) complains, and with
> > the doctor no one (or almost no one) challenges the doctor to give a
> > better explanation than "Well, I say you need this operation, period", and
> > when the clerck presents you with the bill (you can't argue with the
> > insurance company, and the insurance company also tells you what your
> > deductable and co-pay are and you can't argue with that either) and if you
> > don't pay the bill, the doctor calls the lawyer who will make a lot of
> > trouble for you and may get a court _judgement_ against you, or garneshee
> > your paycheck (about the same as the IRS _seizing_ your paycheck if you
> > owe back taxes or some big mistake takes place).
> >
> > Now, I'm not advocating that people go wild, do random things (good or
> > bad), or be defiant (Bart Simpson? Y-generation?), but it is helpful to
> > understand that, for the most part, our economic lives are much closer to
> > slavery than we might think, and our political lives may have lots of nice
> > rights (political) that might not be worth more than a few bucks worth of
> > self-amusement, here on a newsgroup, where each of us is, alas, finailly
> > free to spout-off on anything we want, any way we want (be fiesty, etc),
> > and not get the guillotine or sentenced to the rest of our lives in
> > Siberia.
> >
> > I can name a few other books that might be helpful in understanding what
> > makes human beings and human society tick. Otherwise, you may prefer to
> > shake your head (as opposed to nodding your head).
> >
> > 6. (this space reserved for future comments, caveats, revisions,
> > retractions, waffling, or other relevant use). I did leave a few things
> > out.
>
> You paint a grim picture of what one radio commentator calls "sheeple" (as
> opposed to "people").
>
> I have no solid ground to stand on when I disagree with you on
> this. I've only my own libertarian soul that rebels against the above
> scenario. I observe the stories you relate about doctors and dentists and
> suspect you are rather like myself in having no difficulty canning them
> for reasons of poor service and excessive costliness. It is hard for me to
> imagine that, perhaps, most (other!) people are actually "sheeple".
>
> In any case, I think that "sheeple" are trying to trade self initiative
> for security. And it will be quite difficult not to notice that the
> security they sacrifice their freedoms for is but an illusion. Pensions
> lost either outright or through gross debasement of currency. Health care
> not provided. Minimum living standards not met. Sheep never rise up and
> rebel but people do.
>
> Sheeple? I'm still skeptical.
> Thomas Bartkus

It has been fairly well established (as well as can be done in
the field of psychology) that many (IIRC a solid majority of)
people are to some extent risk adverse. That could account
for some people's tendencies as far as security is concerned.
To my mind the question then becomes why? My hypothesis
is that at some time in the distant past it was a good trait,
evolutionarily. (It seems to me that we went over this ground
recently, but maybe I'm having déjà vu all over again. :-) ) At
some level isn't society just people trading self initiative for
security?

Cheers,
Russell

.

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