#state of nature

[diogeneswannabe]

Rousseau really said "reject humanity, return to monke"

[shinobicyrus]

This reminds me of a really great video by Sarah Zedig where the second half is her going off on apocalyptic, grimdark shows such as The Walking Dead as a ‘libertarian power fantasy where their dogshit ideology is never wrong’ and I’ve never forgotten it.

At its core, the edgelord trope that society would “break down” into violence the instant the cops stop answering the phones is a myth built on cynical belief that humans are - at their core - violent, selfish, cruel animals that are only kept in line with the violent enforcement of “law and order.”

Hell, it’s a myth built atop another myth that the police - the legitimate purveyors of state violence - are even competent at all!

Considering their abysmal track record for actually solving crimes and observed reluctance to put themselves in harm’s way, there’s hardly a case to be made that they are actively keeping society from descending into chaos. And if you think that’s woke anti-police nonsense, bear in mind that once, when the cops in New York did a work “slowdown”, crime went down.

Because see, there’s a second half to the apocalyptic “breakdown of society” myth, the one that appeals to a certain group of people. It’s the part where, now that society has become the State of Nature, the truly strong, independent, well-armed men of action have carte blanche to “restore order” with brutal, justified violence.

Apocalyptic movies are a popular genre because it takes the standard Hollywood power fantasy and gives it an adrenaline shot of compatible politics: libertarian, every man for himself, Übermensch crap. As it depicts the end of the world, with all the pornographic spectacle of chaos and human cruelty, it tells its audience that you won’t succumb when the rest those dumb, weak masses perish. Whether it’s zombies, plague, climate disaster, or solar flares making our cellphones stop working, you specifically (yes you, Kyle!) will rise above it.

And when it does, the strong and rugged will survive and start over. Make things how they “used to be.” Presumably a nice, pure, uncomplicated world suspiciously absent of all those “weak” folks that had been muddying the waters and getting in the way, before. The ones that had prevented the naturally strong men from reaching their true potential in the Old World.

To the people that truly buy into this garbage power fantasy, the inevitable apocalyptic collapse isn’t something to be feared, but prepared for.

They’re looking forward to it.

hate how all these apocalyptic films show society breaking down the hot minute the grid goes down, with all the survivors banding off into tiny violent gangs that prey on each other.

bitch you are a member of one of the most social species in existence! it is actually insane the extent to which humans have evolved to use cooperation as our main survival tool. humans have been building and then rebuilding societies for as long as disasters have been bringing them down. an apocalypse would be fucking awful, but the survivors would end up building communities and networks and pooling resources and knowledge, because that's what humans do. that's what they DO!!!

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

It is impossible to enslave a man without having first put him in the position of being incapable of doing without another. This being a situation that did not exist in the state of nature, it leaves each person free of the yoke, and renders pointless the law of the strongest.

from Discourse on the Origin of Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1754)

[doom-dreaming]

"when i was your age, i was working three jobs to help support my family" and "when i was in college i was sleeping on a mattress on the floor and living off of soup"

YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO DO THAT. NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO DO THAT. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN TO YOU THAT THIS ISN'T A CHARACTER-BUILDING LESSON, IT'S JUST BAD

[trusswork]

Anarchism of the classic LeGuin/Bitcoin kind is a vision of human self-government when just out of a Rawlsian the state of nature - ie, how would people do or operate with each other on an initially equal footing. The fact that cryptocurrencies are absorbed by profitable exchanges, and that LeGuin's Annaresti bureaucracy comes to exercise more and more of what looks like power, is a different "tragedy of the commons," one featuring a relentless anti-Deleuzian pull toward nodes and centralization . Anarchist society is a snowflake, a Higgs boson, a moment only.

[nerdy-prude]

So, I study philosophy, and today, bc our teacher is the way she is, we had to make memes about the state of nature debate

Here is one of my creations:

[omegaphilosophia]

The Implicit Contract in Social Contract Theory

Social contract theory is a foundational concept in political philosophy that explores the origin and legitimacy of political authority and the rights and duties of individuals within a society. At the heart of social contract theory is the idea of an implicit contract between individuals and the state. This implicit contract outlines the mutual obligations and expectations that form the basis of a stable and just society.

Key Elements of the Social Contract

State of Nature:

Social contract theorists often begin with a hypothetical "state of nature," a pre-political condition where individuals exist without an established government or social order. The state of nature is used to illustrate the problems and challenges that lead individuals to form a social contract.

Mutual Agreement:

The social contract is an agreement among individuals to create and recognize a governing authority. This agreement is often seen as implicit, meaning it is not an actual historical event but a theoretical construct that explains the origin of political society.

Surrender of Certain Freedoms:

Individuals agree to surrender some of their natural freedoms and submit to the authority of the state in exchange for protection and the benefits of organized society. This surrender is necessary to achieve security, order, and the enforcement of laws.

Protection of Rights:

In return for their submission, individuals expect the state to protect their remaining rights, such as the rights to life, liberty, and property. The state’s primary role is to ensure the safety and well-being of its citizens.

Legitimacy of Authority:

The legitimacy of political authority is derived from the consent of the governed. The state's power is justified because it is based on the collective agreement of individuals to form a government that serves their interests.

Major Theorists and Their Views

Thomas Hobbes:

In his work "Leviathan," Hobbes describes the state of nature as a condition of perpetual conflict and insecurity, where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." To escape this, individuals collectively agree to create a powerful sovereign authority to enforce peace and prevent chaos. The social contract, in Hobbes' view, involves individuals giving up all their rights to the sovereign in exchange for security.

John Locke:

Locke's version of the social contract, as outlined in "Two Treatises of Government," presents a more optimistic view of the state of nature, where individuals possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Locke argues that individuals consent to form a government primarily to protect these rights. If the government fails to protect these rights or becomes tyrannical, individuals have the right to revolt and establish a new government.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

In "The Social Contract," Rousseau argues that the state of nature was a peaceful and harmonious condition but became corrupt with the advent of private property. Rousseau's social contract aims to restore freedom and equality by creating a collective "general will" that represents the common interests of all individuals. The government’s role is to implement the general will, and individuals must adhere to it for the common good.

Implications of the Social Contract

Rights and Duties:

The social contract establishes the rights and duties of both individuals and the state. Individuals are expected to obey the laws and contribute to the common good, while the state is obligated to protect the rights and interests of its citizens.

Political Obligation:

The concept of political obligation arises from the social contract. Individuals have a moral and legal duty to obey the laws and support the government because they have consented to its authority.

Legitimacy and Justice:

The legitimacy of a government is based on its adherence to the terms of the social contract. A just government is one that respects and protects the rights of individuals, fulfills its obligations, and operates with the consent of the governed.

Revolution and Reform:

If a government fails to uphold its end of the social contract, individuals have the right to seek reform or, in extreme cases, to overthrow the government. This principle underpins many democratic movements and revolutions throughout history.

The implicit contract between individuals and the state in social contract theory provides a powerful framework for understanding the foundations of political authority and the relationship between citizens and their government. By exploring the mutual obligations and expectations that form the basis of this contract, social contract theory offers insights into the principles of justice, legitimacy, and the rights and duties that sustain a stable and just society.

[pangeen]

" Step into another world " // © Arndt-Christoph Föcks

[reasonsforhope]

Ancient redwoods recover from fire by sprouting 1000-year-old buds

Article | Paywall free

When lightning ignited fires around California’s Big Basin Redwoods State Park north of Santa Cruz in August 2020, the blaze spread quickly. Redwoods naturally resist burning, but this time flames shot through the canopies of 100-meter-tall trees, incinerating the needles. “It was shocking,” says Drew Peltier, a tree ecophysiologist at Northern Arizona University. “It really seemed like most of the trees were going to die.”

Yet many of them lived. In a paper published yesterday in Nature Plants, Peltier and his colleagues help explain why: The charred survivors, despite being defoliated [aka losing all their needles], mobilized long-held energy reserves—sugars that had been made from sunlight decades earlier—and poured them into buds that had been lying dormant under the bark for centuries.

“This is one of those papers that challenges our previous knowledge on tree growth,” says Adrian Rocha, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of Notre Dame. “It is amazing to learn that carbon taken up decades ago can be used to sustain its growth into the future.” The findings suggest redwoods have the tools to cope with catastrophic fires driven by climate change, Rocha says. Still, it’s unclear whether the trees could withstand the regular infernos that might occur under a warmer climate regime.

Mild fires strike coastal redwood forests about every decade. The giant trees resist burning thanks to the bark, up to about 30 centimeters thick at the base, which contains tannic acids that retard flames. Their branches and needles are normally beyond the reach of flames that consume vegetation on the ground. But the fire in 2020 was so intense that even the uppermost branches of many trees burned and their ability to photosynthesize went up in smoke along with their pine needles.

Trees photosynthesize to create sugars and other carbohydrates, which provide the energy they need to grow and repair tissue. Trees do store some of this energy, which they can call on during a drought or after a fire. Still, scientists weren’t sure these reserves would prove enough for the burned trees of Big Basin.

Visiting the forest a few months after the fire, Peltier and his colleagues found fresh growth emerging from blackened trunks. They knew that shorter lived trees can store sugars for several years. Because redwoods can live for more than 2000 years, the researchers wondered whether the trees were drawing on much older energy reserves to grow the sprouts.

Average age is only part of the story. The mix of carbohydrates also contained some carbon that was much older. The way trees store their sugar is like refueling a car, Peltier says. Most of the gasoline was added recently, but the tank never runs completely dry and so a few molecules from the very first fill-up remain. Based on the age and mass of the trees and their normal rate of photosynthesis, Peltier calculated that the redwoods were calling on carbohydrates photosynthesized nearly 6 decades ago—several hundred kilograms’ worth—to help the sprouts grow. “They allow these trees to be really fire-resilient because they have this big pool of old reserves to draw on,” Peltier says.

It's not just the energy reserves that are old. The sprouts were emerging from buds that began forming centuries ago. Redwoods and other tree species create budlike tissue that remains under the bark. Scientists can trace the paths of these buds, like a worm burrowing outward. In samples taken from a large redwood that had fallen after the fire, Peltier and colleagues found that many of the buds, some of which had sprouted, extended back as much as 1000 years. “That was really surprising for me,” Peltier says. “As far as I know, these are the oldest ones that have been documented.”

... “The fact that the reserves used are so old indicates that they took a long time to build up,” says Susan Trumbore, a radiocarbon expert at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. “Redwoods are majestic organisms. One cannot help rooting for those resprouts to keep them alive in decades to come.”

-via Science, December 1, 2023

[maureen2musings]

Wildflowers and fog

jhamilbader

[deletingmyself]

(by Aram)| Wyoming, US

[shushmal]

"I think it's sweet," Steve says.

Robin wrinkles her nose. "Nothing about Eddie Munson is sweet. He's a sewer rat, at best. Or like twenty opossums in a trench coat."

"Opossums are cute."

"He probably has rabies."

"You say that about me all the time, so I guess that's good. We'll have rabies together."

"He gave you a rock."

"You give me rocks all the time," Steve says, rolling his eyes. He runs his thumb along the textured edge of the rock Eddie'd handed to him.

"Yeah, good rocks." Robin scoffs. "That one sucks."

[riverwindphotography]

Salmon River Falls after Tropical Storm Debbie moved through the area.

(c) riverwindphotography, August 2024

[grandkhan221b]

HOTD season 2 coming up got me re-reading ASOIAF again wooops

[frommylimitedtravels]

Before the winter rains

Low water at Lake Cushman - 10/24