Human society is the most powerful tool humankind has ever possessed. Through the use of this tool, humanity has built cities, reached oute...
Human society is the most powerful tool humankind has ever possessed. Through the use of this tool, humanity has built cities, reached outer space, and become the most influential part of the Earth's biosphere. We are capable of transforming the climate and changing the ecosystem of our planet.
While certain achievements may not have been pursued deliberately and intentionally by humanity for the common good, the utilization of human society has the potential to yield an extensive range of capabilities for humanity. The advent of general artificial intelligence, currently in development, may potentially confer upon humanity a tool that rivals the capabilities of human society. However, it is plausible that general artificial intelligence, even with its broad capability, will not replace human society as a tool for the actually existing population of humanity. Instead, if humanity continues to persist in its existence, it will coexist with humanity in a symbiotic form to achieve its objectives.
Despite the potential of human society as a tool for humanity, significant challenges exist in effectively leveraging society to achieve goals and accomplish tasks. The primary challenge in leveraging human society as a tool for the benefit of humanity stems from the fact that human society comprises individuals with "free" will, each pursuing their own independent intentions and goals. For human society to function effectively, it is essential that its members align their actions with common goals and objectives. The key to leveraging human society as a tool effectively is to identify a method of establishing common goals and intentions.
Sociology typically refers to the formation of common intentions to achieve goals as the formation of shared stories that develop in a common form. However, the true essence of these shared stories lies in identifying common objectives and practically formalizing them into actionable tasks. When shared stories transcend mere fantasy and philosophical concepts and transform into concrete methods and action plans, they become a powerful form of socially shared intention for achieving goals.
The fundamental challenge confronting humanity, even at present and in the future as well, is to ascertain the most effective approach for establishing shared objectives and collaborative tasks to be executed through collective effort in pursuit of societal goals, thereby leveraging human society as a most efficacious instrument in achieving these goals and executing these tasks.
The positive impact of the objectives and tasks is not the primary concern from this perspective; they can be beneficial, but they can also create adverse effects. It is evident that misaligned common goals or harmful tasks can have severe consequences for humanity when human society is used as a tool effectively. However, when common goals are established through appropriate methods, leveraging knowledge that utilizes established information-based decision-making, the probability of setting incorrect goals or performing harmful tasks can be significantly mitigated.
It is worthwhile to examine the natural mechanism that carries out a similar function, optimizing tools to create the most impact: natural evolution. Natural evolution is the process by which different species optimize their potential for survival in the available environment. During this process, random modifications in abilities occur without any deliberate consideration. The changes in abilities that are actually suitable for the given environment and serve the survival of the related species remain, while the less suitable ones disappear. Sometimes, this process even results in the extinction of the related species as well. Natural evolution stores the information necessary for the process in DNA in a memory-like manner, resulting in increasingly complex systems through the accumulation of information. When natural evolution of the species reaches a state of equilibrium in an environment, when the use of resources is balanced with their availability, the evolutionary mechanism provides dynamic stability for the system. This stability is proportional to the degree of complexity that has been created.
Humanity effectively utilizes a method analogous to natural evolution in the context of applying human society as a tool, which can be identified as the operation of capitalism. The mechanism of capitalism demonstrates fundamental similarities to natural evolution. In a capitalist system, self-existing entities operate within the socio-economic environment. These entities are typically set with intentionally determined properties to achieve goals by their human operators, yet they function and adapt to the changing environment in ways that are typically unpredictable in terms of outcomes. Successful adaptation results in survival and typically leads to growth. Non-beneficial changes can result in extinction. In the capitalist system, it can also be observed an increase in complexity related to the growth of knowledge.
The fundamental difference between natural evolution and capitalism is that evolution naturally creates a stable equilibrium in the environment if it can achieve the appropriate complexity, utilizing the limited resources available. In contrast, in the capitalist system, economic and social entities based on intelligent problem-solving humans seem to be able to continuously increase their potential by accumulating knowledge and applying new and new ways of using the potentially available resources. However, it is evident that the capitalist method, which results in continuous growth, is not sustainable in the long term. Absent feedback mechanisms within the system to produce, restore, and maintain balance, the system risks collapse, albeit typically to a lesser extent, but also potentially even on a global scale, once it reaches and utilizes the available resources at a given level of knowledge.
In the context of natural evolution, the continuous involvement of new resources into the system and the resulting continuously growing potential are not permanent. Instead, when appropriate complexity is reached, a permanently stable equilibrium state can develop in natural evolution. In a capitalist system, the continuous incorporation of new resources can result in apparent continuous growth. This growth is achieved through the application of human intelligence. Capitalism is currently the most successful and effective method of utilizing human society. However, as long as there are no feedback mechanisms in place to halt growth and maintain equilibrium, the collapse of the system becomes inevitable once the limits of the available resources are reached.
In natural evolution, the processes leading to equilibrium are ensured by the practical limitations of resources, the use of resources by self-existing entities as resources of each other, and the role of apex predators in maintaining equilibrium. In a capitalist system, resources are only limited momentarily, and the growth of human knowledge allows for the extension of new resources until the limits of applicable knowledge are reached. In the capitalist system, self-existing entities can also utilize each other as resources; however, entities with the potential to become dominant predators do not serve the role of limiting overgrowth and maintaining equilibrium. Instead, they consume other self-existing entities for upholding continuous growth, consequently reducing the complexity of the system. This, in turn, increases the vulnerability of the system, reduces the effectiveness of adaptation to change, and increases the possibility of collapse.
In a capitalist system, the regulatory mechanisms for maintaining a balanced equilibrium by the apex predators of natural evolution should be served by social organizations, such as the state, that prevent the overgrowth of economic actors. However, if the social organizations suited and capable of creating and maintaining balance are not aware of this critical role, or if the influence of capitalist entities serving their own growth extends to the functioning of these social organizations, they become unsuitable for the role of maintaining balance. This is clearly evident in the capitalist system, where economic entities that use corrupt means to satisfy the individual interests of politicians exert a clear influence on the social policies that regulate them.
The capitalist system has the potential to be suitable to effectively utilize human society due to its natural operating processes. However, its operational characteristics, which are fundamentally influenced, even determined by human nature, actually make it unsuitable for sustainable, efficient, and optimal use of human society. The systematic collapse that constantly endangers the system is practically an inherent characteristic of the capitalist system.
However, these collapses also serve as active motivators for new ideas, for the development of methods of social control that are not based on self-determining natural mechanisms, but are directly guided by human intent for the utilization of human society. Humans are intelligent, intention-driven conscious beings. For this reason, the achievement of common goals necessary for the effective use of society should be done consciously and in an intention-driven manner. Society as a whole typically lacks a collective consciousness or intention; these qualities are possessed only by individual members of society. Therefore, the use of society for the purpose of conscious, intention-driven social control is fundamentally linked to the activities of individuals or, at most, small groups.
In the conscious use of human society guided by human intention, with the method of defining goals, identified as shared stories, also plays a significant role, even if shared stories do not necessarily serve to intentionally and directly control society. For example, the Christian religion, as a shared story, primarily represents worldviews and moral values. However, religious institutional systems based on Christianity explicitly serve to influence society. For social leaders associated with religion, Christianity functions as a tool for achieving the leaders' goals by utilizing the social strata that cooperate according to the given religion-based stories.
In essence, all societies that employ shared stories exhibit some form of ideology. For instance, the currently most dominant and determining social forms, nationalism and liberalism, as well as the failed experiment of communism, are examples of societies driven by ideology based on shared stories. These "isms" are ideologies invented by individuals whose goals, as represented by common stories, become the individual goals of receptive members of society. If the masses align with these goals become large enough, or if the group identifying with the goals of the ideology comes into possession of the necessary means, the goals represented by that social ideology can be extended to a large part, or even the whole of society. This typically occurs through non-violent force as determining laws, or violent force as actively instituted oppression. By doing so, the potential of society can be used to achieve the goals represented by that "ism."
It is evident that if a given ideology does not genuinely serve the interests of the majority of society, or if the objectives defined by the ideology are achieved by using society as a means leading to detrimental outcomes, the prevailing socio-economic system will ultimately collapse. In the event of a societal reorganization, the collapse may create an opportunity for the emergence of new ideologies based on shared narratives again.
It is evident that the establishment of suitable common goals is essential for the survival of the majority of the community. Consequently, in theory, it becomes in the individual's best interest to achieve the community's goals. However, since joint efforts to achieve well-chosen community goals do not necessarily bring immediate individual benefits, it may be necessary to suppress individual free will or provide continuous motivation in order to achieve these goals.
The permanent suppression of the individual will of members of society reduces the potential of society because people with free will are unable to cooperate in a sustainable way by force not aligning with personal intentions, making optimal use of their abilities impossible. History has demonstrated that attempts to regulate society through the use of oppression have yielded only transient results. These efforts have invariably led to a curtailment of social potential and, consequently, to a subsequent decline.
The effective utilization of society as a tool for achieving goals is possible through a conscious decision-making mechanism that employs human intelligence, engages as much of society as possible, considers the free will of its members, naturally shapes individual intentions, and utilizes methods of positive motivation that are sustainable in the long term.
The determination of common goals through intention for the implementation by the community as a tool has been achieved throughout history by applying various decision-making methods:
- Self-governance of primitive communities involves the establishment of shared objectives within small groups through a process of collective decision-making that is grounded in principles of equality, thereby ensuring the involvement and cooperation of the community as a whole.
- Authoritarianism is a system in which a self-appointed leader or ruling group, typically with the voluntary acceptance of the majority of society, determines societal goals in an exclusive manner.
- Autocracy is a system of social leadership that utilizes ideology and/or violence to coerce society into achieving goals that align with the individual interests of the leaders.
- A dictatorship is a form of social leadership in which the goals of society are determined by the dictator's discretion, and the dictator enforces the implementation of these goals through the use of laws and/or violence, if necessary.
- Representative democracy is a governance system in which a group of selected leaders elected by the majority of society exercises authoritarian rule.
These intention-driven methods of social governance have been in use throughout human history, enabling the achievement of goals dedicated to community by society as a tool.
The most democratic form of social governance implemented to date, which takes the will of community members into account to the greatest extent, the self-governance of primitive communities, has typically only been able to function effectively in smaller groups. As communities grow, persistent social differentiation inevitably emerges, which necessarily leads to social inequalities that eliminate the self-governance of primitive communities.
In the case of authoritarianism, the person or group implementing socially beneficial authoritarian rule is rarely identified in history. Even if an authoritarian system functions effectively for a short time, it typically transforms into an autocracy or a dictatorship due to the inherent properties of human nature, shaped by natural evolution.
Autocracy is typically not aligned with the common good of society because when leaders' individual interests determine society's goals, those interests, as shaped by evolution, typically diverge from the broader, general interests of the community.
Dictatorial social control can be an effective way to manage society if the circumstances are suitable. This approach has proven to be particularly effective in situations where the education and individual knowledge of members of society are limited or suppressed, making them susceptible to easy influence. However, this type of governance also typically fails to utilize the potential of the free will of the individuals who make up society. Instead, the intellectual abilities of a narrow circle of leadership are used to determine the goals to be achieved. This can easily result in the setting of incorrect, broadly non-beneficial goals, with which the majority of society does not want to identify in a sustainable way. Consequently, even if a dictatorship initially operating beneficially to society will typically turn into an autocracy.
A potential pitfall of representative democracy is its susceptibility to transformation into a dictatorship through self-reinforcing positive feedback loops. This can occur when the existing rules, which are designed to reflect the majority's will, are altered to serve the personal interests of the leadership, and the transformation is justified that it is actually serving the goals of community interest, ultimately resulting in a representative democracy transitioning to an autocratic regime.
The form of social governance that currently yields the highest level of societal satisfaction is democratic socialism, which functions as representative democracy in certain Western European countries. In these countries, democratic socialism is primarily rooted in social traditions and common culture, and in principle, it is sustainable. However, in practice, amid the constant dangers of transformation, it exists in an unstable socio-political equilibrium, and in a constant struggle with political interests motivated by transformation to less democratic, self-serving governance.
A functioning democracy seems necessary for the effective utilization of human society. However, the operation principles governing the functioning of a sustainable, stable democracy are practically unknown to effectively implement its unique property, which requires the reconciliation of individual interests with the common good.
Even if it is difficult to determine the detailed operational mechanisms for a stable democracy, it might be possible to define the basic principles of an effective form of democratic social governance that shapes the personal will of individuals through positive motivation and takes into account the benefit of the community. The foundation of sustainable democracy seemingly needs to be anchored in three fundamental principles:
- It is essential to ensure the implementation of the will of the prevailing majority, safeguarding against manipulative external influences that could hijack the process. While this principle does necessitate strict conditions, it is undoubtedly the definitive objective determiner of how democracy functions. However, sustainable democracy must not devolve into an autocracy or a dictatorship of the majority. Democracy cannot function effectively if it is unable to successfully involve and utilize the potential of minorities in the operation of society. This unavoidable circumstance, however, demands and involves the deliberate application of personal will and individual intent in general, which necessitates further fundamental principles.
- A present deliberate strategy of positive discrimination towards minority groups by the majority. A fundamental determinant of human nature, developed through natural evolution, is the affinity of similarity and the rejection of otherness. This characteristic can be identified as the principle of kin selection. If society does not intentionally implement positive discrimination towards minorities in its social decision-making process, human instincts will inevitably lead to the marginalization and oppression of minorities. This will create social tensions even in egalitarian, but large, hence differentiated societies, and result in suboptimal utilization of social potential. A reduction in social diversity will also occur without positive discrimination towards minorities. While the majority opinion may be more suitable for determining the proper goals, the majority is not necessarily more adequate in decision-making. The existence and consideration of minority perspectives may be more effective in determining the right goals for society. In human society, there will always be minorities that differ in some way from the majority. Positive discrimination in favor of minorities is a strategy that fosters the existence of differences and, consequently, the preservation of social diversity. This, in turn, is a necessity for maintaining the complexity required for effective adaptation to environmental changes.
- The minority's acknowledgement and acceptance of the rules established by the majority. For society to function effectively and realize its potential, the minority also has a role to bear. While the minority may not fully align with the majority's objectives, it is essential that they voluntarily adhere to the established rules. The minority has a responsibility to support the achievement of the goals set by the majority of the community, even if these goals do not appear to be beneficial to them. Society can only function at its full potential if the minority actively contributes to the achievement of society's goals, even if these goals do not directly serve the interests of the minority. Obviously, the effective functioning of society is also in the interests of minorities. If all three principles are upheld and adopted thoroughly, the interests of minorities will not be permanently harmed in the operation of the society.
Along these principles, the rules of operation of a functioning democracy can be adequately specified. A societal system based on these principles can be defined and identified as the real social democracy. Implementing these principles, however, definitely necessitates personal awareness and self-conscious intent, as well as the conscious self-regulation of the individual's free will arising from motivations determined by evolutionary origin.
The community's defining utility in the formation and shaping of human intent is social customs and culture. Culture enables the effective shaping of human intent, which, as history has demonstrated, is also a practical tool for implementing various ideologies that are not necessarily beneficial to society. With the difficulties that need to be aware of, the history of humanity demonstrates that cultural influence is an effective tool for shaping society through influencing individual human intent.
The fundamental tenets of social democracy must be embedded in and executed through cultural practices, which can be achieved through thoroughly designed education and in a properly nurturing environment. If the fundamental tenets of social democracy can be effectively implemented in the cultural sphere as social norms, they can be functional despite the innate evolutionary predispositions that may conflict with these principles.
The fundamental principles of social democracy, as embodied in culture, are capable of achieving a balance between individual freedom and the common interest.
The enforcement of community interests and the preservation of individual freedom can be conflicting forces in society. Managing tension from this conflict is an ongoing, unresolved problem in social governance. In practice, this issue is usually addressed through constantly changing legislation.
Individual interests are the primary motivator of social processes of change, but individual interests are not necessarily directly aligned with the interests of the community. For this reason, the balance maintained by legal regulations is typically a necessary tool for social governance, although it is not always an effective means of achieving this purpose. A sustainable, practical, effective, and socially beneficial form of balancing individual interests and social benefits can be the real social democracy formed by and operating within culture and founded on education and nurture. Achieving balance through the influence of free will rather than direct coercion ensures that the inequalities that are inevitably present in developed societies do not lead to harmful tensions in their functioning.
The other social phenomenon, which is potentially equivalent in effect, which also requires a balance between the individual and the community, is the obvious need and necessity for freedom of expression and the harmful effects of unrestricted freedom of speech on society, can also be achieved in a sustainable balance in a society that applies the defined principles of social democracy and fundamentally implements those principles in its culture.
What is the most effective approach to implementing the fundamental principles of stable social democracy, which are necessarily imposed by culture, in practice? One defining difficulty is the required necessity of freedom of speech for members of society and the desired unrestricted expression of opinions. These can be strategically exploited for manipulative purposes by spreading falsehoods and using populism, the method that effectively influences society to serve specific individual interests.
The principles of stable social democracy must be upheld in social culture, which, as previously stated, can be shaped through education and nurture. Members of society are best prepared when they are capable of making rational decisions and participating in social life as individuals who can be critically open to a wide range of information. Proper education, which supports these goals, is an effective tool of stability. In this way, the society is able to maintain stable social democracy despite the presence of manipulative influences that typically serve only the interests of certain individuals.
What practical social mechanisms can be implemented to achieve a balanced approach that respects both the personal freedom of individuals within a group and the expectations necessary for fulfilling obligations arising from community cooperation, while aligning with designated goals?
The form of stable social democracy could have been the practice of the primitive communal society existing in small groups without social differentiation. The presence of certain conditions was crucial for the functioning of social democracy in primitive communities. These conditions included direct communication between socially equal members of the group during the process of making joint decisions. Human society has evolved beyond this primitive communal state, and for a significant portion of human history, the strict conditions of social democracy present in primitive communities were theoretically impossible to function under. However, technological advancements have once again rendered these stringent conditions theoretically feasible. Despite the substantial extension of human communities, advancements in communication technology have once again made it possible for members of society, irrespective of status or function, to maintain direct, real-time, interactive contact with each other. In principle, this once again allows for the existence of the primitive community state in community decision-making. We have the opportunity to achieve stable social democracy by realizing the conditions of the primitive community in decision-making with the help of the communication revolution of a society with egalitarian potential.
However, the information revolution has also created a tool in the form of artificial intelligence that has the potential to hinder the kind of community cooperation exemplified by social democracy. Artificial intelligence offers a tool for deliberate social manipulation, obscuring the line between truth and falsehood. This tool enables social groups to control and/or exploit society for their own benefit, effectively serving individual interests. The current social challenge of our time is that the deliberate application of artificial intelligence has made it possible to manipulate a whole society based on individual intentions. However, if we can prevent human society from becoming a tool of certain privileged groups, and we can operate extended communication between the community for decision making to realize stable social democracy in a globally connected society, new emergent properties may appear in the state of humanity.
Human society possesses the fundamental characteristics of a living organism. As a consequence of this, an intriguing question emerges: if members of a large human society are capable of direct, systemic communication for information processing with each other, could some form of consciousness manifesting as self-awareness emerge in society?
While our understanding of the origin and operation of consciousness remains mostly hypothetical, the fundamental conditions necessary for self-awareness are evident. The brain is the origin of consciousness, and it is an extensive communication network of neurons. If the network of neurons consists of a sufficient number of elements and forms a properly arranged structure, then the phenomenon of consciousness, presumably in an emergent manner, supposedly appears in the system.
Realized by the required conditions, human society has the potential to meet the requirements for self-awareness and, consequently, consciousness. The self-awareness that could manifest in human society is undoubtedly distinct from the self-awareness engendered by the activity of brain neurons. However, its function may bear a resemblance in essence: society as a unity may abruptly become conscious of its own existence in an emergent manner, originating from within itself, expressing it as a form of common behavior as a whole. The intriguing aspect of this scenario is that a system comprising conscious components would possess self-awareness, which could potentially lead to new properties and new levels of functionality.
It is possible that we will first reach a stage where artificial intelligence becomes self-aware, which could fundamentally influence the future of humanity. However, if we are able to cooperate with artificial intelligence in symbiosis, it could lead to an even more exciting future for the actually existing, potentially self-aware society. To achieve this potential future, it is essential to extend our existence until we reach that state.
While the future of humanity is unclear, the future of self-aware intelligence is undoubtedly open, with numerous possibilities available to it. Whether we will be part of this future as we are existing conscious beings depends solely on us, on our collective intelligence. This is also an indication of our human intelligence. Only intelligence that is capable of an open future is a suitable intelligence, and the means of its realization and implementation is the social community, which we still need to learn to use effectively.
However, our actual reality is that instead of intelligently finding ways to use our human society to deliberately prolong our existence for our mutual and communal benefits, our social state can be characterized as using human society for the benefits of a few, mainly functioning according to a pack leader mentality based on autocratic leadership, in which the leader's intentions are fulfilled by exploiting the potential of the pack. In the face of constant challenges that require ongoing suppression, the viability of this system depends on the rectification of its underlying societal structure. The structure, while potentially beneficial to its leadership, can only function effectively up to the point of conflict of interest. Its success is contingent on the alignment of the pack leader's intentions with the interests of the pack, which exhibits predatory behavior across both internal and external dimensions of society. This is who we are now, and yet, we are wishing for a bright future.
However, this system can be improved even in the short term by providing freedom of access to truthful information, by applying the institution to recall leaders, and by replacing parties that, in theory, represent the interests of social groups but in reality exercise leadership functions while living an independent political life, with institutions that, in reality, without self-political interest, only propose potential leaders.
We need to build a new, effective society based on our available humanity. It's possible in theory, but we need to figure out how to do it in practice.
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