Dusz fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Mar 21, 2013

• Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors looks at the culture and nature of other species, both distantly and closely related to ours. There is good reason to think humans are naturally altruistic, and there is strong evolutionary reasons for group-dependent animals to evolve such altruism. The book also shows how environmental factors can fundamentally change social dynamics in many species.
  
• A book (unfortunately I don't remember the title, only the concepts) written by an expert on Native American cultures talked about how many of the native tribes ran their societies for the collective good, and didn't have things like private property. Many thought you couldn't own land, and found the notion ridiculous when confronted by Europeans. Other readings I've seen have supported this notion, which is good evidence that culture and how we are raised are powerful factors in determining altruism vs. greed, individualism vs. collectivism, and much more.
  
• This presentation on the growth of human empathy gives me hope, and is rooted in historical evidence. Humans do in fact have an "us vs. them" mentality even at birth (source: conversation with an expert in psychology). However, I think history has shown us that what "us" is has no limit. We've seen how "us" can grow to involve something as large as "all workers" or "all oppressed groups" or even "all humans on the Earth."
  
• The idea that people are only motivated by money or other extrinsic things is false, and the claims made in that video have been backed up by what readings I have done in psychology, as well as classes I've taken.
  
• A lot of my reasoning behind this idea is looking at other cultures and human history. In short, we can see other cultures are a lot more collectivist in their behavior, as well as many times where people acted for the common good over individualism even in US history.
  

• My evidence here is mostly historical or based on recent events. As my previous post covered, there are plenty of examples in history, even recent history, that a few key events can suddenly cause millions of people to take to the streets, and dictators that have clung to power for decades can be toppled within days if not months. We've seen it in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya recently, and we've seen movements like Occupy and the Wisconsin uprising in the US, the heart of global capitalism. While Occupy was clearly flawed, and suppressed by a brutal combination of media lies and police brutality, the anger and dissatisfaction with the current system still exists, and I believe that could be used as a basis for another mass movement. The Wisconsin movement was also derailed, but we shouldn't take the failure of those events as reason to give up hope, but as lessons to learn from for future action. After all, we've seen how learning from actions and continuing to fight has led to gains in history, such as in the Civil Rights Movement or the Labor Movement. The message we should take from Occupy's failure is not that fighting is hopeless, it's that we need to be better organized and use more effective tactics.
  
• Historical examples such as the Russian Revolution show that rapid societal change is possible. There are plenty of other examples (such changes not necessarily being good, such as Chili in 1973).
  

• The planned economies of the USSR industrializing and then producing during World War II and the US's planned economy also during World War II are good evidence for this. If a country gives itself a goal and uses all its resources to move towards it, the effects are astounding. This is how I envision switching to a carbon neutral economy.
  

• Uprisings in Tunisia inspired uprisings in Egypt, then Occupy and the Arab Spring. Ideas and messages can rapidly spread (think memes), especially in this age of information, and a successful victory in one area can lead to a fight emerging somewhere else.
  

• This is based on readings I've done on the labor movement in the US and readings on other socialist movements. For example, this documentary on striking coal miners in Virginia showed how, as the workers fought for basic things like wage increases, they moved towards more radical ideas. Labor's Giant Step goes into that concept as well (and a lot more). In Greece today, we can see that happening on a much broader scale. As the country's crisis has deepened, people have moved in two directions: To the left (Syriza) and to the right (Golden Dawn).
  

Kafka Esq. fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Mar 23, 2013