[p2p-research] Helping the Helpless (formerly: Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us)

[Kevin Carson]

On 9/26/09, Edward Miller <embraceunity at gmail.com> wrote:

> Cows have been selectively bred for centuries in order to emphasize their
> docile milk-producing natures, and it is now to the point where they could
> not even survive in the wild. Second, even animals in the wild are extremely
> lacking in intelligence and experience tremendous amounts of suffering. I
> would posit that it is the job of higher intelligences to do what is
> reasonably in their power to care for the less able, and that the goal of
> our civilization and increasingly advanced technological civilization should
> be the abolition of suffering in all sentient life. Just as it is our duty
> to care for a crying infant, it is our duty to care for all sentient beings
> on the planet which are involuntarily suffering.

That's a good point.  But it's worth bearing in mind that humanity has
arguably suffered some intelligence loss from "domestication," albeit
to a lesser extent than other species.  I recall seeing some articles
linked at Reason Hit & Run blog.  One of them showed that the typical
brain size of domesticated animals was smaller than that of their wild
ancestors, and argued there was probably selection in favor of
docility and lower intelligence in order to make them easier to
control and exploit.  It's pretty widely believed, for example, that
the main difference between the wolf and the dog is that the latter
has had its alpha male behavior systematically bred out of it, so that
wild dogs don't form packs nearly as effectively as wolves.
Interestingly, the other article claimed that average human brain size
was smaller among peasants and townspeople since the agricultural
revolution than for hunter-gatherers.  Since the rise of the first
states, there's been pretty systematic weeding out of humans who
resented being "milked" enough to resist the landlord and tax
collector, and selection in favor of those who handed over their
surplus without too much bleating or mooing.


-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html