The myth of unity: a parable

Two men and a woman were stuck together on a deserted island. Because all three happened to be heterosexual, the two men each grew jealous of the time the other spent with her and often fought over her. The woman did not fight either of them; she was content with whomever was the victor of the moment.

The woman enjoyed the taste of the bugs that roamed the island as was content to satiate her hunger by eating them after roasting them over the campfire. The men found this disgusting; their taste was for the fruits that grew on the trees of the island. Because of the limited number of trees, the two men often fought over the scarce fruit; she didn't care.

Because they fought so often, the men were miserable. They both dreamed of escape and thus both sought wood and other materials to build their own boat; as with sex and food, they fought over wood as well. The woman didn't have any such aspirations; as long as she had sufficient kindling for the occasional fire, she was content.

We like to believe that it is our differences that cause conflict, but this is merely a rationalization to justify to ourselves the treatment of our enemies as less than human. The truth is that simularity and proximity are the parents of jealousy and conflict. A peaceful world is not a world of sameness and closeness, but one of distance and diversity - most importantly, diversity of need and of economic specialization.

So do not be confused when a skilled negotiator like President Trump has diplomatic success with a country like Saudi Arabia or Iran or North Korea. They are far from us and have radically different cultures; this might make it difficult to be understood at first, but once an understanding is reached the trade itself is simple. The real difficulty is going to be our neighbors to the north and to the south.

If Mexico wants Cali back, they can have it. Just give all American citizens who wish to leave 30 days to do so.

Don't know what Canada is upset aboot, other than their teams not being able to bring the Stanley Cup home for 25 years now. (Sorry Canada, Flower Power in Vegas will prevent Winnipeg from doing so this year.) _(PS, that's a good thing, because every time a Canadian team makes the Finals, something is gonna burn. Every. Time. I'd say Canada has a match problem, but I don't like giving politicians ideas.)

PS, the males in your Gilligan scenario are doing it wrong. One of them should have taken over, both of them should have been seeking out sources of protein. Do they miss their soy lattes that much? And why is no one fishing the abundance of the sea? Also, if both men are so miserable to escape, how charming can this woman be? (Seriously, if she was worth it, one guy would "accidentally" help the other guy build his damned boat to have all the resources to himself.)

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EpicGoesXerxis wrote:

If Mexico wants Cali back, they can have it. Just give all American citizens who wish to leave 30 days to do so.

It is the other way around. The United States won the war. We bought California (and other territory) from Mexico. The USA and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. If California doesn't want to follow the US Constitution, they can be decertified as a state, and become a US Territory, and the federal government can determine how it needs to be administered. The land belongs to the USA. Mexico can have its people back, and the Californians that hate America so much can leave the United States.

The Mexican people would probably have been better served, if we had kept their capital and made them part of the US after conquering it in 1847.

^ except "land" means nothing and people mean everything. When southern USA demographically becomes Mexico 2.0, it will de facto cease to be USA and become something else, no matter who won the war 150 years ago.

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EpicGoesXerxis wrote:

one guy would "accidentally" help the other guy build his damned boat to have all the resources to himself.

You're right that this is a solution to the problem, but I hope you realize it achieves this by disunity of goals (one man abandons the woman and fruit, while the other man abandons escape) and creation of distance, which reinforces the moral of the story.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

They are far from us and have radically different cultures;

How do you know - have you been there? Do you even know what culture means?

Also i dont like that parabel

A thought experiment where you force all events is hardly worth considering.

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Anonymous1749704 wrote:

A thought experiment where you force all events is hardly worth considering.

If we assume tastes (in terms of sexual partners, food, etc) are innate ("born that way"), how amI forcing anything?

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Anonymous1749704 wrote:

A thought experiment where you force all events is hardly worth considering.

If we assume tastes (in terms of sexual partners, food, etc) are innate ("born that way"), how amI forcing anything?

Jealousy - there's no basis to assume that a form of jealousy would automatically take place. This is a factor you forced in to make a point.

Food - each gender only has one source of food (fish? Small animals? Grasses/mushroom/etc.?). Another forced condition.

Fights - the two men kept fighting over and over without killing each other? The rational outcome (and inevitable at some point) is that one of them kills the other. They don't, but keep fighting; another forced condition.

The woman - she's basically an automaton or a sex robot. Her existence itself is for the sake of another forced condition; to make the men fight over her.


There is no realism in your scenario, it's just poorly built propaganda to validate your point of view. I've no particular opinion on the point you're trying to make, but even a half-assed philosophy student would frown at the scenario you came up with.

Let us mount a counter-parable.

Four men are trapped in a room. We'll assume Vault-Tec is responsible because of the nature of the room. Each day, a grate in the center of the room's floor opens and enough food for three and a half men is produced. Every day, one man has to go hungry - not hungry enough to weaken and die, but hungry enough to be uncomfortable and miserable.

The four men fight every day to claim a full share of the food, battering each other, but they're all equals and so random chance and happenstance determines who gets the half share and thus has to put up with a day of scant food.

Eventually however, one of the men approaches another and says "this is bullshit. I'm sick of going hungry every fourth day. I'll tell you what - fight with me, instead of against me. The two of us will fight together, and since we're not fighting each other we'll be certain to get more food." The second man agrees.

Now, every day, the two allied men fight side by side. The other two men, fighting each other as well as the allied men, cannot ever prevent the allied men from taking their shares, and so each of them suffers the Short Straw share twice as often. They cry to each other "this is bullshit! Those two are forcing us to suffer so they can always eat a full meal! We're not going to take this lying down!" They decide to pair up themselves, and so the fight goes back to being an even chance - save between two groups of two men, each of which is driven to hate the other. Their situation hasn't necessarily improved, each man still suffers one short day in four on average - but it has evolved, and none of the four can afford to remain isolated and alone for fear of being overpowered by men who've allied with each other.

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Moral of this story? When multiple people desire the same goal or covet the same resources, they will pool their resources to stand a better chance of defeating their competition and bringing their desires to fruition. You continue to claim that reducing society to the smallest possible units will bring Utopia, Scrotie, and in a perfect world where every man is his own king and also no king suffers alliance with another, you might be right.

Reality, however, will never allow one man to beat two men. Forming alliances, building groups, making agreements with each other to mutually pursue a mutually desirable goal or avoid a mutually undesirable fate, will always be the way some people deal with the world. You can't unmake society, and there's not enough Earth for every single person to have their own personal country complete with every resource they could ever want. Until and unless we get off this rock and achieve post-scarcity society, two men acting in concert will always have an edge over one man acting alone.

That's as much a law of reality as physics is.