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The bitter truth is that the world has simply become too complicated for our hunter-gatherer brains. Most of the
injustices in the contemporary world result from large-scale structural biases rather than from individual prejudices, and our hunter-gatherer brains did not evolve to detect structural biases.

Even if we truly want to, most of us are no longer capable of understanding the major moral problems of the world. People can comprehend relations between two foragers, between twenty foragers, or between two neighbouring clans. They are ill-equipped to comprehend relations between several million Syrians, between 500 million Europeans,

In trying to comprehend and judge moral dilemmas of this scale, people often resort to one of four methods. The first is to downsize the issue: to understand the Syrian civil war as though it were occurring between two foragers;

The second is to focus on a touching human story, which ostensibly stands for the whole conflict.

The third method to deal with large-scale moral dilemmas is to weave conspiracy theories. How does the global economy function, and is it good or bad? That is too complicated to grasp. It is far easier to imagine that twenty multibillionaires are pulling the strings behind the scenes,

The fourth and ultimate method is to create a dogma, put our trust in some allegedly all-knowing theory, institution or chief, and follow them wherever they lead us.

(From: Yuval Noah Harari: 21 lessons for the 21th century)

Matias 8 Oct 31
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3 comments

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I tend to agree, but I think that also those hunter-gatherers were acting on primal instincts, with very few of them interested in moral precepts.

I’m not sure if bigger brains are needed in order to figure out what is moral behavior. There is a code of conduct for wolves and other pack animals. So far as I know they spend no time at all in analyzing morality.

What if there’s no such thing as morality? Maybe there is just human behavior, regulated by cosmic forces beyond the control or understanding of individuals.

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I think the translation is that there is so much going on, we get paralyzed and don't act in a logical manner.

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I don't like this notion that something is too complicated for our brains. We also didn't evolve to do calculus but we still do. Also we can make computer models that can help us better understand things.
I even think war isn't a good example for this. What is so complicated in war? War is always bad and needs to stop. Violence bad, killing bad. Don't do!
The reasons for war are almost never because of the relations of millions of people but because a few people decide that it has to be. You don't need to know the relationships between every single soldier. War is mostly done because of political power in some form, mostly resources. This really isn't as complicated as Harari wants it to look like. I really don't like this attitude. Oh it's too complicated, there's nothing we can do. How about stop sending weapons to terroristic regimes? Stop supporting those who do war? Again, what's so complicated morally?

Dietl Level 7 Oct 31, 2018

War isn't always bad though. If anything it helps join unlikely friends and unites people in their common dislike and fight. Furthermore a lot of technologies are made during war times like a computer for example. I agree that it's not all sunshine and rainbows but war can and has been beneficial when it was easy to isolate and scapegoat someone

@adimnotabot
Congratulations, you managed to make the one of most ignorant comments I have encountered so far on this site. You are definitely top 10 alongside climate change deniers and Trump loving nutjobs.
One tiny thing, could you maybe erase the 'Humanist' from your profile, it's a bit misleading, you know.

@Matias
You are confusing a few things here. Harari was talking about moral dilemmas and the major moral problems. Wars are complicated, the way to peace is complicated but the moral questions are not that complicated I would argue. That there is always a war going on has nothing to do with the moral consideration at all. How many fractions are invovlved is also not relevant. You can judge each action individually. Were Assads actions morally good? What about Europe, the US, Russia? What should anyon of us do? What should politicians do? Those are all questions that can be answered. They are not too complicated for our little brains.
Historians can also be morons, you know. If you think the ends justify the means, when the means involve the killing of innocent people then from a moral perspective, you are a moron.

@Matias
You misunderstood me. I did not say that there were no moral dilemmas. My point was that if something happens all the time does not matter for our judgement of it's moral rightness or wrongness. When I say "War is morally wrong" and you counter with "But it's happening all the time" that is not a relevant thing to say. I'm not sure how you misread that as me saying that there are no moral dilemmas.

The problem in this conflict is not because we don't know what should be done morally. We are not unclear about if Assad is a good person. The parties involved are almost all doing wrong from a moral perspective. They should just stop killing each other and stop supporting the killers. The complicated question is "How do we stop the killing?" This is not a moral question but an empirical one. We know already that the killing is bad.

I also agree that there are systems where we can't predict the outcomes and that means we can't know all the consequences of some our actions. But we don't judge actions only with the outcome in mind but also with what the intention was. When the outcome is totally random the intention is the only thing that can matter morally. I don't agree with Harari because he implies that we can just give up because it is too complicated. This gives those people who control a bigger part of the systems a free pass.

@Matias
You're missing the point again. "Should NATO have established a no fly zone?" is a moral question. How do we evaluate it? We look at the consequences. I'll assume what you say is correct and they could have saved a certain number of lives that way. So the answer to this question depends on this: "Should we save lives?" This is what it boils down to. An easy moral question with an easy 'Yes' as an answer. The difficult part is figuring out if it is true that a no fly zone had these consequences. And this is an empirical question. "Does this action lead to these consequences?" is empirical, not moral. You really need to understand the difference:
"Was a no fly zone good?" -> Moral question.
"What are the consequences of a no fly zone?" -> Empirical question.

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