A Note on Nature

June 23rd, 2012

Definitions :

Subsistence- the minimum (as of food and shelter) necessary to support life

Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary 11th edition

There is a train of thought I have seen here and there that I would like to address. It is the concept that we must somehow commune with nature and the concept that we are one with the planet. This kind of we are all one hands clasping around the world peace and unity idea.

Nature and the Organism

The overwhelmingly vast majority of planets observed are thought to be hostile to live as we know it. Most of even this planet is hostile to many forms of life. Organisms are subjected to the elements, the seasons, comets.  Summer heat, winter cold, rain, snow, sleet, hail, blizzards, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, and floods continuously change the landscape. These elements often send animals into a mad dash for shelter.

The very Universe itself has elements that are hostile towards life such as asteroid impacts, cosmic rays, radiation, the vacuum of space, black holes and supernovas, to name a few.

The organism in nature lives a life of coldness, misery, starvation, solitude, brutality, forced reproduction, and often brutal and sudden death.

Given such a harsh environment, the organism tends to exploit any resource or opportunity it can.

This arrangement existed, according to fossil records, unchanged for HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS. It is this way now. It will be this way indefinitely, as far as I can tell, until the basic laws of nature change to be more suitable for life or until all life is extinct.

Most organisms in the wild roam around with one primary concern in mind, food. Animals in the wild are often half starving at any given time. They must avoid predators or they are mercilessly slaughtered and consumed. They must find prey or edible substances and mercilessly consume it or starve. When they have surplus they must both consume it and store it as fat, horde it in a den, or trade it for sex (for mating.)They follow their instinct to mate, even if the sexual interaction by human standards, would be called rape (this is very true in many species of the animals known as insects). This is necessary in order to avoid extinction. The niceties of courtship are a luxury for many species. If you observe the mating rituals of some species, a male finds a female and harasses her until she stops struggling or resisting.

Yes, most animals roam around with the primary intent of killing for food or to reduce rivals, stealing resources or mates, and ‘raping’. It should be noted here that animals treat other animals as their property very often, as ‘property’ is a behavior one organism exerts towards other objects (other organisms included) in one’s environment. For example, many animals control what their mates do and where they can do, defend their mates from others, and mark their mates, nests, and territory.

Animals live off of previously living matter because we lack the ability to absorb sunlight and use the energy to convert raw dirt into amino acids and proteins and other organic molecules. Killing, for us, whether it be plant or animal, is necessary to live. Animals cannot get around killing whether it be plants, animals, or microorganisms.

The human body is omnivorous, and is set up to thrive off of animal fats and proteins. It is well known that vegetarians and vegans often have trouble with nutrients and maintaining a healthy BMI (Body Mass Index- google it).

Humans are animals. Humans are people. Animals are not people.

Nature and Human Beings

First, I want to restate that human beings are animals, and they are subject to all of the constraints and therefore, the behavior above.

If the elements are hostile to even basic life forms, than it is the bane and enemy of all advanced creatures. It is so hostile, that to survive, even for a few days in the wilderness, would require either extensive training and some basic tools, or no training and at least 35 pounds of gear. All of this would be necessary for the essentials, food, water, shelter, and heat. Even then, survival is not guaranteed.

Human beings rely on knowledge and technology as their primary fight against nature, as well as against predators( this includes other human beings).

Language gives humans the ability to convey knowledge through speech and pass on knowledge, lessons learned, and best practices through writing, to the next generation. This gives humans a competitive advantage because humans can adapt at a rate that can outpace the passing of genetic information through natural selection.

Humans beings, for as far back as possible, have lived no different that the generic organism has. Life was brutish, dirty, painful, and relatively short. Death due to causes that would today, in the ‘West’, be considered easily avoidable were common. Given the how far humans have come from that subsistence existence, I find it hard to understand why people would want to revert to it, let alone want ME to revert to it. Humans have spent many tens of thousands of years in that state, suffering.  I say again, civilization, or life in cities, is a biologically recent invention, and already people are seeking to destroy it.

Starvation

The default position for animals is to work. This work is almost constant and unceasing. Life in the forest, or some other environment, is a constant hunt for food and shelter. Starvation is a likely scenario next to dehydration and death from exposure. Any water you find is likely infected with many cysts, parasites, viruses, bacteria, and protozoa. Even if you get some meat, you have to figure out how to start a fire. Even of you farm, you have to worry about pests, crop diseases, and drought.

Disease

People often died from ailments such as, diarrhea, malaria, tooth decay, flea and pest borne infections, the flu, the plague, small cuts that got infected,  poor hygiene, STDs, and child birth. These ailments plus many more have killed scores of humans in the most slow and painful ways throughout the ages.

Simple ignorance of the causes of these ailments and the best practices to mitigate them led to much of this death and suffering.

Innovations such as sewage treatment, waste disposal, running water (showers, toilets, hand washing) have made many of these afflictions significantly less common.

Superstition

A thought virus, akin to a genetic virus, because the human brain is susceptible to advanced concepts requiring accepting ideas one cannot verify as well as seeking patterns in nature to exploit, a myriad of superstitions have arose that have mentally debilitated people.  Many of these ( supernatural religions and the state concept) survive to this day.

While medical science has advanced against viruses in the physical form with vaccines and cures, there has been barely any work done of vaccinating the mind against these thought diseases or curing one mind once it has been infected. Any ideology that wants to stand the test of time must learn how to immunize its members against infection of other schools of thought. The tools here would likely be an education emphasizing critical thinking and something akin to the scientific method, with focus on empirical evidence. This combined with emotional support and a nurturing social atmosphere might give people the ability to think in depth about new concepts.

Rape

I imagine a good deal of the members of the human species throughout time and perhaps even now have been brought into this world via rape. In a way, women are set up to accept rape, as they feel an emotional connection with the fetus and physically, they cannot “seal” their vaginal canal.

I believe that many women don’t want abortions even after rape, and many religious societies not only make it a sin to abort fetuses, even in the case of rape, but will actually force the victim to marry the assailant. Morally, one many find rape detestable, biologically, it is a working reproductive strategy. (As an aside, if you REALLY wanted to stop rape, kill all confirmed rapists and kill all their fetuses as well. Prostitution as well as a more sexually liberal culture might reduce rape also.)

War

Conquest is a core feature of human history. One group kills or enslaves another group usually because they are more militarily effective. There is no right or wrong here. Concepts such as innocence, justice, rights, karma, and morality are made up and imposed on the weak. Invaders kill off all warriors, and sometimes all people, and take the territory. When occupying an area, they kill all resistance and impose their way of living on the people.

The entire power structure of a dominating force is based around killing, and it serves the interests of the rulers to make people afraid of killing. Killing and death are the essence of animal life. We are not plants, and even plants kill other plants through shading and root competition.

A lot can be written about war, but I want to note that the ability to wage and win war in all its forms, is essential for any group that seeks self-determination.

Technology

The chief disciplines that have helped to bring humans farther and farther away from subsistence is the advancement of science and technology. These same disciplines have been exploited, however, to make dominating people much easier. Tools are used to make tasks easier to accomplish. The longer the technology is developed, the better it is at doing its task. The improvement in methods of farming and hunting are also innovations in processes that people undertake. The selection of the most effective tools and methods over time, under certain constraints, forces technology to evolve in order to become better and better at doing whatever tasks need to be done at the time.

Conclusions

There’s no reason for the aversion to violence and coercion

There are many documented instances of humans and other animals being slaughtered wholesale .In a number of these cases, I observed that people directly and indirectly responsible for these killings often thrive and are even sometimes praised and rewarded for it.

There is nothing ‘super-natural’, and that justice, morality, and fairness are dangerous myths. It might make you feel bad, but it is an observable and verifiable fact of life.

Based on the natural condition living things find themselves living in, it is clear to me that animal life, and therefore, human life is not sacred, special or precious. Nature is indifferent to all of the death and suffering of animals and anything is permitted. Unless the animals and people add something positive to my life, I am indifferent to their existence as well.

There is a warrior right now in Africa who would kill you and literally eat you for breakfast. I don’t have anything in common with these people, and I don’t care for them at all. I won’t pretend to.

Some displaced muslim in a refugee camp, although suffering, would still stone me to death for being an atheist if given the chance. Yet, I’m supposed to pretend I care for ‘general human suffering’ even for some guy who would kill me in an instant. If I am too close to some terrorist in a foreign country, even without knowing it, the US armed forces will drop a bomb on me and blast us all to pieces. So why should I give a fuck when a helicopter goes down and 30 marines die? Why do I have to pretend to care that his wife is widowed and his kid is now a bastard? Let the cops get the wrong address in one of their drug raids. They would bust into my house and kill my whole family, say ‘oops’, and no one will be charged. And I am supposed to care when a pig gets his head blown off at a traffic stop because that is ‘violence’ and ‘aggression’ and ‘morally wrong’?

IF principles call for such absurdities then fuck principles, I play to win.

Given this truth, how then should someone go about achieving their goals?

Fuck communing with nature.

I’d rather have an enclosed sterilized structure, heated, with a waste management, power, and water system.

Yes, it would be great to have wilderness survival and fighting skills. And, if necessary, I would indeed camp out in the wilderness for an extended period of time. However, I will take the artificial environment forged by technology over nature any day.

Surplus of resources is necessary for civilization.

Civilization is a play, a movie. People always go back to basic modes of survival behavior when there are dwindling resources. Knowing that civilization is a game, you realize you can play it however you want. You can order it however you want, so long as you have the resources. Surplus of resources, then, can be said to be one of the most important elements of civilized life.

Technology is necessary for surplus.

Farm tools, machines, accumulated knowledge and capital goods make our current standard of living in the ‘West’ possible. Free market capitalism maximizes wealth (capital or surplus) and this, in turn, maximizes technological development (the development of new products.)

Technological development enables people to live easier lives with minimal work and less ailments. It enables concepts such as luxuries, entertainment, recreation and indulgence in pleasure.

The Austrian school tells us that for technology to advance there must be an accumulation of capital or wealth and there must be scientific know how applied to a problem.  Research and development IS product development.

With this line of reasoning, it is simple to understand why I believe community building and entrepreneurship are the methods by which we can achieve freedom or ourselves.

Community building allows people to pool capital. Pooled capital can then be invested in businesses. Businesses grow wealth. Wealth is used to acquire and research technology. Technology, when applied to social ends, enables us to minimize our effort and maximize the time we have to do whatever we want. Even when applied to military ends, it enables us to defend ourselves and our way of life.

I think that an anacrho-capitalist society would maximize wealth, which maximizes technological advancement, which in term minimizes the work humans have to do to exist and maximizes the quality of life, the standard of living, and the time humans have to pursue pleasure and intellectual pursuits. In this way, I came to the conclusion that anarcho-capitalism is the best way to organize a group of people who value a high standard of living, quality of life,  pleasure and intellectual pursuits, politically, without any moral judgments.

I realize now, that many people came to the positions of being ancaps because they believe force is wrong, which given the brutal and violent nature of reality, In other words, it would be like saying death is wrong, even though everything dies. Force and coercion are tools, like a gun, they are not right or wrong, but the actor who uses it and the reasons why they use it should be questioned. Philosophically, I have no problems at all using force against those who are using force against me, or those backing them, or those actively benefiting from and perpetuating my enslavement. Practically, using force is a losing proposition and so, for this reason should be avoided whenever possible.

This release is part of a much larger essay that was broken up. The next part is Principle vs. Practice

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