What is the pragmatic cost of treating people as disposable? I don't get it.

[UpperMaster]

Leo tells us in Conscious Politics 1: The reason for NOT treating people as disposable is because there is a pragmatic cost associated with it. 

Historically, tribes simply raped, enslaved, or dominated one another. He claims this pattern is unsustainable in the long term, because eventually another group will overpower you, or the oppressed will revolt. We all live in an interconnected world, you can't just destroy a part of it and expect it not to bite you in the ass because you too are connected to it/them.

History says this is bullshit. This seems like a common sense argument, so I would love some clarification. 

Colonizers didn’t “pay the price.” They got rich. Many genocides were successful. The perpetrators won, built nations, and moved on. The victims disappeared.

We treat animals as completely fucking disposable. Humans can survive on plant-based diets, even if not optimally. If we applied the same moral standards we apply to humans, minor health benefits would not justify eating animals. Pragmatically, we don't face any real consequences (yet). 

European states that committed genocides faced little more than symbolic guilt. A few terrorist attacks decades later don’t even register compared to tens of millions murdered. 

This isn’t “tit for tat.” One side kills a hundred million. The other maybe kills a few thousand. History doesn’t seem to settle accounts that evenly.

If someone is super selfish, super powerful and lucky enough, they can exploit others and sometimes face no real consequences at all.

I mean seriously, what consequence will you feel from a tribe of people if they are all dead? 

And these selfish fuckers who want to genocide other tribes, love it, they don't even have any moral repercussions either, so like seriously they seem to just gain. 

 

 

Please clear this up for me. I would appreciate it. 

Edited 8 hours ago by UpperMaster

[Jacob Morres]

Well one is your reputation suffers. If your reputation suffers you cant treat people as disposable because they don't trust you

And then they become the opposite of disposable

[UpperMaster]

14 minutes ago, Jacob Morres said:

Well one is your reputation suffers. If your reputation suffers you cant treat people as disposable because they don't trust you

And then they become the opposite of disposable

It's funny because right now, the reputation of European states that victimized Africa is much better than any African state. Obviously a lot of this is to do with development. But it still goes to show how it doesn't fuckin matter if you are viewed as evil if you can extract all the resources and get mega rich and powerful.

Once super powerful can even control narratives, make yourself ethnically superior, make the other inferior and ultimately label yourself the good guy. 

ps. Western world has come a long way, European countries have a lot of great things going for them. I'm just giving an example, of how ex colonial contries acted, and what they got away with.

Edited 8 hours ago by UpperMaster

[Bjorn K Holmstrom]

@UpperMaster

You're right that the perpetrators often won. The distinction I think Leo is making is this:

Treating things as disposable works in a finite game (conquering a neighbor). It is fatal in an infinite game on a finite planet (maintaining a civilization across generations).

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Bjorn K Holmstrom

[Jacob Morres]

5 hours ago, UpperMaster said:

But it still goes to show how it doesn't fuckin matter if you are viewed as evil

thats a good point.  There might be some interconnection with power. If you have some form of power - people viewing you as evil, is irrelevant