BIO 358 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Ethnocentrism, Authoritarianism
13 May 2018
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Topic 24- Final Considerations- The Contemporary World and Humane Future
● Each adaptive revolution results from a new coercive weapon allowing a new scale of social
cooperation
● We can look forward to a brighter future: as we consolidate and democratize pan-global human
coalition, we can expect another adaptive revolution (more wealth, insight, adaptive power)
● Each of us have been victims and perpetrators of aggression in our ancestry
● Nuclear weapons are very effective at policing conflicts of interest between nation-states
● Precision weapons and new Logic of pan-global coercion
○ GPS- employed weapons are precise
○ Precision weapons change the cost benefit ratio of coercion on the scale of nation-states
○ These weapons allow for inexpensive assault, even more so than nuclear weapons
● “good” and “Evil” on the pan-global scale
○ we can predict toxic authoritarianism from democratized States before they occur
○ authoritarian modern States: almost every evil and inhumanity in the Contemporary world is
perpetrated by heavily-armed elites who control The political system in their interest, not in the
common interest of most of their citizens
○ States in which citizens have equal access to coercive threaten to be human, democratized, and
relatively wealthy
● Evolution of the Coercive Power Within the Modern State
○ Authoritarianism: states ruled by a small number of elite
○ Democracy: democratic threat is broadly distributed
○ States drive toward one extreme or the other
■ Either radically authoritarian or radically democratized
○ Authoritarianism: restrict access to weapons, even though the weapons are democratic
○ The only thing that matters: who controls access to coercive threat/power?
■ Belief and Culture systems don’t matter
○ Coercive threat is distributed in any state
■ In authoritarianism: small, heavily armed elites control majority of coercive power, and
everybody else controls a small amount
■ In democracy: everybody controls decisive coercive threat
○ System will drive one way or the other
■ Elites will solidify their control over coercive threat
■ Democratized coalitions will seize democratized access to threat
○ Democracy, Ethical psychology and Ideology
Document Summary
Each adaptive revolution results from a new coercive weapon allowing a new scale of social cooperation. We can look forward to a brighter future: as we consolidate and democratize pan-global human coalition, we can expect another adaptive revolution (more wealth, insight, adaptive power) Each of us have been victims and perpetrators of aggression in our ancestry. Nuclear weapons are very effective at policing conflicts of interest between nation-states. Precision weapons and new logic of pan-global coercion. Precision weapons change the cost benefit ratio of coercion on the scale of nation-states. These weapons allow for inexpensive assault, even more so than nuclear weapons. (cid:2522)good(cid:2523) and (cid:2522)evil(cid:2523) on the pan-global scale. We can predict toxic authoritarianism from democratized states before they occur. Authoritarian modern states: almost every evil and inhumanity in the contemporary world is perpetrated by heavily-armed elites who control the political system in their interest, not in the common interest of most of their citizens.
