[O]ur species lack of true sapience. We do not posses, on average, the capability to build wisdom and thus exercise sound judgments. We have, through technology and social innovations, created a culture that is simply too complex and cognitively demanding for our own capacity to think critically and make good choices. The vast majority of people cannot even discern the real problem, though I think many more sense that something is wrong.
We are driven by the biological mandate to garner resources to ourselves and generate new biomass (procreate). That is our deepest drives. The prefrontal cortex (..) evolved very recently in primate terms and expanded to its current status only an eye blink ago. That region is richly connected with the limbic regions and can moderate, through it, our baser drives. It just wasn't quite as evolved as it needed to be to prevent capitalism from fulfilling that biological mandate without really understanding the consequences. Capitalism, as currently understood, is the biological mandate completely unfettered by natural negative feedbacks. (..) This is the “Tragedy of the Commons” writ large.
| ← Previous day | (Calendar) | Next day → |