[Newsbot]

Title: Chimps and Bees Do It, But Is Democracy Natural? : Discovery News
Category: Science
Posted By: raydan
Date: 2012-03-23 07:15:46
Canadian

[gonavy47]

I don't believe democracy is a natural state.Discuss.

[DrCaleb]

gonavy47 gonavy47:

I don't believe democracy is a natural state.Discuss.

Standing on my head, climbing a mountain, diving to 90m. . . are also not natural states, but I can do them.

[andyt]

babies are born with a sense of fair play, so I would say it's natural. So is bullying. We get to choose which one we want to give more weight to.

[Smacle]

If you believe as I do that humans beings are natural then so is everything we do. Just like an ant nest is considered "natural" even though it is created by ants then so are things like democracy as it is created by us.

[Thanos]

The animal kingdom has autocrats too. The difference is that their autocrats usually aren't psychopaths the way human ones turn out to be.

[gonavy47]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

gonavy47 gonavy47:

I don't believe democracy is a natural state.Discuss.

Standing on my head, climbing a mountain, diving to 90m. . . are also not natural states, but I can do them.

Yes they are not natural states, they are actions.

[andyt]

Smacle Smacle:

If you believe as I do that humans beings are natural then so is everything we do. Just like an ant nest is considered "natural" even though it is created by ants then so are things like democracy as it is created by us.

I like it. But, yeast secreting alcohol and dying in it are natural too. So calling something natural we still need to be cautious in what we do. And if democracy is natural, then so is tyrrany and torture, so it doesn't really advance the argument very much. We have inborn impulses for all of it, we need to use our natural intelligence to figure out how best to manage those impulses.

[andyt]

gonavy47 gonavy47:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

gonavy47 gonavy47:

I don't believe democracy is a natural state.Discuss.

Standing on my head, climbing a mountain, diving to 90m. . . are also not natural states, but I can do them.

Yes they are not natural states, they are actions.

What do you see as a natural state then?

[DrCaleb]

gonavy47 gonavy47:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

gonavy47 gonavy47:

I don't believe democracy is a natural state.Discuss.

Standing on my head, climbing a mountain, diving to 90m. . . are also not natural states, but I can do them.

Yes they are not natural states, they are actions.

And so is 'Democracy'. It is something I can learn, not something I automatically do.

Bees we are unsure of, but Chimps taught sign language show a vast range of emotion and empathy. It's then not a surprise to me that they would develop a system where everyone is treated fairly.

Some might say it's 'natural' because they do it without being taught to, but then do we not do it from our own sense of fairness? Is it then not 'natural'?

[BartSimpson]

Democracies fail the very moment that a majority votes to deprive a lawful minority of rights, resources, property, or wealth.

[gonavy47]

Democracy is a concept. Standing on your head is a achieving a different perspective.

[andyt]

gonavy47 gonavy47:

Democracy is a concept. Standing on your head is a achieving a different perspective.

You said it wasn't natural. So what is a natural concept of organizing ourselves, in your view.

[Public_Domain]

I find it funny how obsessive we are about 'natural' things when damn near everything we deal with was made by machines and possesses complex mechanics and processes that nature could never produce.

We create our world. We stopped being natural a long time ago.

[andyt]

Except that the world created us, so you can say everything we do is natural.