Humans reject any imperfection, even if it means, in this case, a more artificial rose. The last sentence could be a subtle commentary on human nature and our pursuit of both perfection and security. 

this is interesting cos not only does he include the personal into the political which seems a bit contradictory, but also in his awful state of nature i would argue that women still occupy similar roles so what does this have to do with his perfect society?

does this really fit with previous assertions of self-interest. what research did this guy do?

moral system based upon human nature what now??

colonial perception of human nature based on reason and rationality.

he does acknowledge the influence of other things on us so it is kind of convincing

even though human society has been largely wiped out, there is a beautifulness in the way that the dystopian landscape is described.

This seems apropos to the situation in which I view Donald J. Trump.

• comment
  • A Deep Humanity analog to the word "structure" is the word "pattern"
  • Hence we have the equivalency:
    • platonic form = structure = pattern
  • and the author's prior statement that
    • These mental and subsequently materialized ideas then
    • have the potential to
      • influence the physical world and to
        • feedback into the mental world to produce additional structure and
        • physical material
  • is equivalent to Indyweb / Deep Humanity statement that
    • individual and collective learning are deeply entangled
    • cumulative cultural evolution is mediated through this entanglement
    • that is best represented by the idea of dependent origination
    • individuals articulate ideas and externally present them to other consciousnesses
    • a multi-meaningverse exists whenever social learning occurs and
      • multiple perspectives, multiple meaningverses converge
    • each individual perspective surfaces their own adjacencies of ideas drawn from their own salience landscape
      • which in turn emerge from their own respective unique lebenswelt
  • We might also say that to the degree that internal patterns of the symbolosphere correlate with external patterns of the physiosphere, then
  • that is the degree to which the universal pattern manifests in both nature nature and in human nature
  • since humans (human nature) are an expression of nature (nature nature), we should not expect otherwise

• David Hume
  • in the section of the treatise of human nature on skepticism
  • https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4705

• Comment
  • Mary Harrington believes it is hubris to believe we can escape our human nature.
  • I believe that cultural evolution is complex
    • We learn and change behavior over the course of even one life time

I believe the variable of lies and misinformation thriving in virality is based on the idea that negativity is more engaging and intriguing than positivity. When something stimulates a negative feeling such as fear or anxiety, people engage because they feel insecure whether it be relative to the condition of their environment or internal self-perception. For example, if you read something negative about the President, you care because you live in the United States and relate it to your own well-being. Further, if someone read negative articles about a person they envy, they may feel inclined to engage & share it because that person's success made them feel inferior. Unfortunately, negativity sells.

☠️ Duygu Uygun-Tunc ☠️. (2020, October 24). A bit cliché but ppl will always find it cooler to point out that a given proposal is not the only one/has shortcomings/is not the Truth itself etc. Than making or improving a proposal. I keep being reminded of this every single day, esp on twitter. [Tweet]. @uygun_tunc. https://twitter.com/uygun_tunc/status/1319923563248353281

An example of a figure calming waters in myth.

cross reference: Moses and the parting of the Red Sea

To what dates might we attribute these two texts? Which preceded the other? What sort of potential cultural influences would the original had on the subsequent?

Also cross reference the many deluge/flood stories in ancient literatures including Genesis 6-9, The Epic of Gilgamesh, etc.

Seitz, B. M., Aktipis, A., Buss, D. M., Alcock, J., Bloom, P., Gelfand, M., Harris, S., Lieberman, D., Horowitz, B. N., Pinker, S., Wilson, D. S., & Haselton, M. G. (2020). The pandemic exposes human nature: 10 evolutionary insights. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(45), 27767–27776. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009787117

Context

The Zhuangzi is a large collection of tells, anecdotes, parables, allegories, and fables which are often not serious or comical in nature. These anecdotes try to identify and demonstrate the vanity and uncertain human distinctions between some of the next opposites, life and death, good and bad, big and small, but really also highlights human and nature. This tells mean to be part of ancient Chinese Philosophy. Zhuangzi or Master Zhuang he was one of the most significant first interpreters of Daoism. The Daoism is a pseudo religion and philosophical believing that has shape Chinese culture. “Your life has a limit, but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger. If you understand this and still strive for knowledge, you will be in danger for certain! If you do good, stay away from fame. If you do evil, stay away from punishments. Follow the middle; go by what is constant, and you can stay in once piece, keep yourself alive, look after your parents, and live out your years.” (Zhuangzi n.d.) The Utopia is reference to the perfect place where everything is equal. So for an actual urban development there is not a close relation between city and nature, as nature is only seen a resource or a place to settle, there is more to it, and there is where the Not-Even-Anything Village comes to place. A base principle on Daoism is the self-awareness of nature and we as a part of it, a way to settle an agreement to land and to everything. A Utopia should be work on similar interests to this Chinese idea of the perfect place to live or to build.

Zhuangzi. The Zhuangzi, History of Chinese Philosophy. University of Hawaii, s.f.

This is pretty accurate.

By nature, humans are selfish. We're always thinking, whether consciously or not, "what's in it for me?" We deem actions that have a potential benefit to us as praiseworthy, while label unbeneficial actions as hurtful.

Is it our human nature to always perform our identity? can we ever separate ourselves from it?

He does a really good job pointing out some of the dangers of effortlessly overcoming fear at the cost of learning courage and struggle at the cost of learning discipline but he doesn't really touch on how in time we might recognize the side effect these biomedical technologies bring and human nature might push back against it. Kind of like with genetically modified foods now all people want is organic food.

He mentioned several times that human nature can be the basis for values and morality, but here he says that human nature is subject to change. In that case It sounds like he believes that the standards of morality and value which are based on human nature should also change and that doesn't sound like very firm ground to stand on.

The writers of this document seem to view education not only as a means of expanding one's knowledge but as a means of improving one's inherent nature from one of evil and corruption to one of goodness and virtue. I find this notion classist and fallacious, as it seems to suggest that those who are not educated (including those who cannot afford education) are inherently worse as people than those who are educated and also that education can fundamentally change who a person is.

This section reminded me of the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes who believed the nature of man is inherently bad and the purpose of government and education is to control man's selfish desires. In my opinion, I side more with John Locke's philosophy that the nature of man is inherently good but society is corrupted by certain negative people. Education's purpose should be to remind people of their virtuous nature and not become distracted by the inequalities and failures of society.

We're essentially creating things on purpose that are going to have the ability to make their own decisions, possibly be smarter than us, and also have a chance of malfunctioning... Why?

So if it threatens our understanding of what it means to be human.. is that beneficial to our ongoing research of essentially what makes us humans by constantly pushing our understanding to be deeper? or is harmful and uprooting of the interpersonal/cultural norms we've established?

This aligns with Confucius thinker Xunzi's attitude on properly cultivating morality in others. We are guided by our desires: whatever we feel a sense of lack in, we desire that object. It is the role of those with cultivated morality (gentlemen, sages) to act as an exemplar of moral goods, so that others who have yet to be cultivated desire what they have.

I find this quote to fascinating. Isocrates isn't necessarily a cynic, but he certainly is not the happiest of philosophers.