@p@freespeechextremist.com @TransGal4872@fedi.absturztau.be @aliasless@nya.social @eris@disqordia.space > This is fictitious and I've heard it. It's Noble Savage stuff combined with "Europe/Christianity bad". It's projection of new age spirituality onto cultures into which we have no real insight No. It's based on archaeological evidence such as the Matrons cult across western Europe, and from places like Çatalhöyük, et al, and even earlier prehistoric sites where the predominant iconography is of the sacred feminine. Basically all the prehistoric human figures extant in the archaeological record are female in form as far back as 40,000 years. It's also based on the lack of evidence of inter-human conflict (since with very rare exceptions, the human remains have no evidence of murder). Post agricultural societies do show a shift in the pattern, which culminated in the rise and spread of Abrahamic religion throughout the West and abroad. > The religious artefacts show a lot of animism... As to "ownership" specifically, that it is the point I'm getting at. The shift from viewing the world as spiritually animate, to being profane and antagonistic to spirituality, culminating in Abrahamic religion specifically, created this devaluation of the non-human, as opposed to the ethos of custodianship which previously reigned our relationship with the natural world. > Egalitarianism as an explicit value is relatively new. New in the post-Christian west definitely (unless you count Quakers and a few outliers). It's hardly a novel concept in plenty of non-Western cultures. Anyway, I suspect we've exhausted this line of discussion. By the looks of it we'll agree to disagree, which is fine. I was just stating my opinion to start with. I stand by that. I know from prior experience that plenty of other people feel as I do and will govern themselves accordingly. Eventually perhaps that attitude will win the day. At least I hope so.

@p@freespeechextremist.com @TransGal4872@fedi.absturztau.be @aliasless@nya.social @eris@disqordia.space > Worth thinking about.... the best course of action is to avoid tearing down the fence until you know why it's there. Sure. And by the same logic one would also avoid chopping down the forest, digging the petrol out or minerals out of the ground, removing indigenous peoples from their lands, and all manner of other things. Thing is we cannot have perfect knowledge of the reasons for some things. Even so I could take a stab at answering why we chose "ownership" over "custodianship" as a concept of property. It has to do with the Christian idea that only humans have a soul, and that humans have "dominion" (from the same roots as "dominate") over the Earth. That was more recently followed on by the materialist-determinist philosophy of science, which while rejecting the premise of the Abrahamic God, did not in so doing reevaluate and reject the fundamental implications of that belief. If you consider that according to the evidence, human beings had an egalitarian nonhierarchical Earth/goddess centred spirituality for some 40,000 years or more prior to the common era, which was blithely swept aside exactly as you suggest of Chesterton's fence, it's clear that we should just as well reverse the premise and ask why we ought to tear down custodianship in favour of this ownership concept. You're right that it's good and important to think about. Fact is there are many many other societies besides our Western society who have adopted the idea of custodianship over that of ownership (or who never had "ownership" as such to start with), and there's quite a lot to commend the impacts of that decision as opposed to the contrary. Those are invariably the types of societies which people look to for inspiration in overcoming the issues our modern society has created. And rightly so. > ...The global annual mortality rate in 1950 was 1.9%, it's about 0.75% now.... That's highly suspect. We simply didn't have the means to make any such assertion 70 years ago, unless "global" was limited to the west exclusively. Besides which, it's not simply mortality at issue, but quality of life and freedom of people to live according to their choice of lifestyle. 150 years ago you could have drank freely from any source of running water without concern. Now you're very likely to ingest all manner of industrial pollutants if you did so. Fish and other wildlife don't have the luxury of a filtration plant. It's not only human life at stake. Rather than list statistics (because there are so many) I'll just refer you to the UN's recent report of species extinctions from May 2019. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/ > ...people to decry literally anything. This alleged materialism and commodification of nature somehow accompanied an unprecedented spread of respect for human life and freedom, peaceful coexistence. True. There's a lot to commend the progress we've made as a species. I don't mean to say otherwise. However there are also a lot of things we could stand to improve, for our own health and that of all the other species whom we share this planet with. > ...It's not anything really different from the current concept in a meaningful way, I think. The difference is in attitude. Custodianship implies care giving, as a parent towards a child. Ownership does not imply any form of respect whatsoever. Call me sentimental, but I prefer the former to the latter.

@p@freespeechextremist.com @TransGal4872@fedi.absturztau.be @aliasless@nya.social @eris@disqordia.space > ...if it's just philosophy... When I was a kid taking platform diving lessons I was taught the saying "Where the head leads, the body follows." It applies just as well in this case. > ...Chesterton's Fence. At this point the answer to why the fence is there is really anyone's guess and rather subjective. It predates anyone alive and there's no standard narrative that I've ever heard articulated. In fact there are many. I'm rather partial the classical liberal version of "private property" (to the extent that's synonymous with "ownership") personally. > ...indigenous people, a bad argument... I don't mean to put "indigenous people" on a pedastal. Just to point out that that conlangs are in use in the context of mystery traditions, and one of the several reasons for that is deliberate alteration of one's consciousness/worldview. > ... investment in the future is a value that keeps society stable... Custodianship inherently points the nature of the relationship being temporary. So implicitly it speaks to the future condition of the subject at hand. > ... if the big advances for humanity come from societies with a concept of ownership... I won't dispute there have been advances. Yet among them are advances in the degree of ecological damage, including to the resources human beings rely upon for sustenance and independence from each other. Many people who formerly were able to feed themselves off the land, are now unable to as a result of that land being seized and despoiled by industrial activities. They are thus rendered dependent on other men for their basic needs, which creates a level of enslavement which previously didn't exist. Cases of this are almost too numerous to cite. So, while we may be close to planting human footprints on Mars, that progress has come at the cost of a lot of damage, perhaps irreparably so. It's no mystery that people decry our materialism and commodification of nature as a prime causal factor, and something which needs to advance in a more holistic direction. > ... the concept of ownership is useful. It's concrete: this is yours, not under the purview of some vague people in the future, and you give it to your children when you're dead, which is concrete again. When you are conceived, the matter comprising your body temporarily takes the shape of a human being. In fact this matter and energy is in a constant cycle of ingress and egress throughout a person's life, with only the pattern of it's arrangement remaining somewhat consistent. We don't own the matter and energy of our own body, but are merely it's custodians for a time. The same is true of everything in our possession. That it will be passed on to some other party when we pass is just a fact. We may or may not have some part in choosing who that is, but it will occur regardless. The main difference I'm suggesting is one of responsibility to consider the condition that the subject will be returned in, so that the next one who has use of it will not be left with a polluted heap of toxic garbage, but instead something worth having. Clearly a lot of people are craving a similar shift in our perspective as a species, because the status quo of technological advance is arguably causing more problems than it solves. What I propose as a solution doesn't require any grandiose top down strategy to engineer society. It doesn't even necessarily require a change in our economic model. What it does require is people to consider the responsibility they have towards the condition of what is in their care, and in what condition it will be returned.