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Work and Welfare

 
  

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Lullaboozler
13:43 / 07.05.03
Look at adult mammals and although and you will see self government as an inherent trait. The process of moving from child to adult is one of learning self-government.

What about other great apes (non-humans)? Aren't all their troupes organised around an alpha male hierarchy? One chimp who makes the decisions for the group: who is in, who is out, where they range etc.? Not very self governing really. They seem to cede their self government to a leader.

Trying not to anthropomorphise this too much...
 
 
Leap
13:59 / 07.05.03
except that this tends to fall apart with bonobos and dolphins...........

yes there is heirarchy, but growing up remains about gaining independence and making decisions for yourself.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:21 / 07.05.03
No, that is a judgement you have imposed based on their actions. No animal has ever gone "hang on, the mass transit system here is exploiting the third world and making me reliant on non-local produce. That's bad. Let's form a small farmers' union". It would be good if they did, but they don't. This is another example of your "common sense" being neither common nor necessarily sense, which is why people are being suspicious of the way you are presenting these things as self-evident or laws of nature.

Oh and moderator hat: If you keep sledging people without actually adding anything useful (your attack on Ganesh, for example), your irrelevant posts will be deleted. In fact, much of this is likely to be deleted anyway, because we have wandered offtopic.

So, is it natural for animals to have a welfare state? From observation, perhaps not. Is it natural for animals to disapprove of the welfare state because of its effect on their autonomy? From observation, also not.
 
 
Leap
07:39 / 08.05.03
We have gained the ability of higher degrees of empathy without losing our essential adult nature to be self-governing.
 
  

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