我饶有兴趣地读了你写的东西，发现我对前十几个句子的看法基本一致……直到锤子和石头对抗老鼠的那部分。关于您对群体生存vs.个人生存的关注，有一些令人信服的想法，尽管我开始有一些挥之不去的怀疑(回复:您评论的功利主义味道)……但后来我发现，在谈到种族、孤立主义和其他问题时，我无法达成一致……

我有点不确定群体的需求是否总是大于个人的需求——正如我所见过的一些非常糟糕的决定，基于群体生存而不是个人的权利和自由，或者仅仅是基本的同情、尊严和尊重。当最高秩序点是一个群体的生存时，一些相当阴暗的事情就会发生，我强烈地感觉到，当一种文化的道德中心没有进化或失败时，人们(作为一个整体)就会开始产生某种厌倦和深层次的不快。我常常觉得，我们(作为一个社会)对我们当中最弱势的人来说，只有“好”才算“好”。如果我们不能善待残疾人、老人、病人、残疾人，给予他们尊严和尊重，那么我们就很难感受到社会的真正意义。不是每件事都是为了生存。我知道你没有提到自由意志主义或功利主义本身——但你说的很多话都让我想起了那些关于社会“应该”如何组织的哲学。在这方面，自由意志主义如果走到极端，可能会与肆无忌惮的资本主义一样糟糕。它对促进自由、创造、创新和进步很好，但对保护公地(我们生存、繁荣和拥有高水平和高质量的生活所需的东西)很糟糕。功利主义也是如此。虽然这看起来像是斯波克的哲学，“多数人的需求大于少数人的需求”应该永远被认为是至高无上的——但在这种看似严肃、务实的方法中，有一些相当明显的缺陷。 First off: it allows for some fairly evil atrocities to occur and so long as the needs of the "many" are met, then the needs of the few are dismissed as trivial concerns... and we've already seen where that has lead in the past (e.g. slavery, imperialism, etc.)

Whenever I think of ethics and how society "ought" to be -- I end up referring to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. No, it's not perfect -- but one thing it does have is: a democratic process for deciding what is good and worthwhile in terms of respecting the dignity, rights and freedom of humanity and without causing undue harm to any individual for the sake of "the greater good". I mean, such sci-fi movies like, "Soyant Green" could become a reality under the Utilitarian ideal. Nearly any atrocity could be justified so long as the algebraic sum of happiness or "good" -- or in your terms "survival" is respected. Again, if the *only* objective is survival -- then it leads to some fairly large atrocities being justified or rationalized away.

I would also counter that the pursuit of survival - just like the pursuit of happiness - becomes banal when this is done without a deeper level of fulfillment; which often comes as a result of forming strong friendships, communities, through the appreciation of art, music, a satisfying career, family, and generally being able to fully engage in the sensory wonders of the world - simple enjoyment of simple pleasures and with those we love and care about. Without such human and humane connections, I feel we - as a species - start losing our way... one of the many reasons why the pandemic and long lockdown or shelter-in-place orders was so arduous and for so many... because even aside from the emotional toll of being cut off from each other, there was the far-restricted ability to fully engage in life as we once did. That's even ignoring economic strain and civil unrest which of course leads to stress, fear, panic -- all terrible for building and maintaining civilizations that thrive and survive.

当你谈到“种族”时，我有点担心，我希望这只是因为我在正式哲学方面几乎是个新手，也许你可以启发我你的意思是什么。我更支持这样一种观点，即人类作为一个物种是我们希望最终能够生存和繁荣的物种。虽然我们作为一个物种，被国家、地理障碍、不同的习俗和信仰分隔开——我们都有一个作为人类的共同纽带，不管我们从世界不同的地理位置看起来像什么，许多基于种族的划分与我们作为人类的生存或进步没有更多的关系，而头发颜色或眼睛的颜色，一般来说。我不得不说，当你说到移民如何“不付出努力”或“嫁接”时，我完全失去了我的理解——这看起来有点像你在倡导孤立主义或某种单一文化，类似于文化大革命期间的中国。移民往往带来创新的新思想，绝对值得考虑，往往使我们卑微的人类作为一个物种更强大。来自不同国家、不同背景、不同出身的人们在一起工作、分享、合作，从不同角度解决问题，使我们(全人类)受益。我曾经是一名科学家，因此，我必须说，跨越国家、海洋、意识形态、宗教或任何其他人为边界分享想法对人类的生存绝对至关重要。当下一次大流行病袭来，或者当我们必须共同努力避免下一次可怕的灾难时，我可以保证，将是我们这些愿意并能够作为一个团队共同努力，而不顾某人是否是一个“局外人”，最终成功地使世界变得更好，并将是推动整个社会和文明的人。如果生存在你的书中被如此重视——希望你能明白孤立主义和民族主义是如何不一定能达到这些目的的?

In my long lifetime, I have to say that protectionism (fear of immigration or the false premise that immigrants somehow detract from society), isolationism, ethnocentrism and tribalism ultimately leads humanity up the garden path: leading to false assumptions about our common goals and each other and very-often leading to profoundly poor outcomes ultimately: like war, bigotry, racism and many other evils that would definitely be the ultimate opposite of the advancement and survival of humanity and civilization as a whole.

The argument in favor of isolationism and protectionism seems to always be in basis of fear and survival. When someone speaks of survival-mode, they understand this is an unhealthy way to live long-term and I would say the same is true of entire civilizations and societies as well - when survival is our ultimate goal and fear is our driver to the point of isolationism -- we deprive ourselves of new ideas and risk falling into stagnation and decay. But isolation is a beguiling idea in times of fear and struggle, like when we were faced with the pandemic and we saw how multiculturalism definitely lead to a greater spread of disease - but while these ideas are beguiling and we (as a species) seem to have a regular and circular flirtation with the concept of isolationism with the idea that if we create little pockets of thriving civilizations -- that if something were to go horrifically wrong, that at least *some* civilization might survive from the disaster and rise from the ashes. However, I've too often seen isolationism, protectionism and ethnocentrism lead to a false sense of superiority and an aversion towards collaboration, cooperation and peace such that we end up faring worse through calamities or are too often the *cause* of such calamities. Instead of society rising from the ashes from some natural disaster - we far too often are the *cause* of civilization falling to ruins - the reason why people have to recover their lives and culture from the ashes in the first place. Ultimately, I don't feel isolationism or ethnocentrism does anyone any favors in the long run and it's a sick and twisted social experiment that humans have tried and failed many times over and often with the same depressing and devastating results.

I've only barely dipped a toe into philosophy myself, but I've been a life-long over thinker (I love that sweatshirt sold on this site!) -- but I would think that Rawls has a far more enlightened approach towards ethics than strict Utilitarianism does - as ultimately we (as human beings) wish to live in a society that we are proud to live in and in a world where civil rights violations are not taken casually or seen as a petty concern, so long as survival of a "race" is held as supreme. Ultimately, humanity is a melting pot and it's already too late to close barn doors and claim that we can go back to isolating ourselves based on arbitrary physical attributes or whether each of us is "native" to some land or not... In the far-distant future - we may find our way to the stars and other planets and by then, I would hope that people are no longer overly concerned about whether someone is from New Jersey or Nepal, Ghana or Tokyo... We are all human beings and I feel that, while survival of humanity and civilization is indeed important - that the basis of a just and advanced civilization - one that encourages everyone to take part in and one that encourages the advancement of technology and science - is one that respects the dignity of the individual, as well as having profound regard for The Commons (clean air, clean water, arable land, etc.) and that there is an understanding that to live a "good life" is more than mere existence or what we pass off to the next generation or just crass survival of the machinery of "the many" -- but to be ultimately human and humane - and to preserve what gifts previous generations have bestowed upon us: whether that's knowledge, art, music, technology, or advancements in philosophy and the basis of an advanced civilization. I look at the current climate crisis and I see that there are many nations working together to resolve issues that stand as existential threats to all of humanity and ultimately it will be that sense of cooperation and working towards a common goal that will "save us" - or at least that's my feeling. I don't feel those ends will be met if we all retreated to our countries of origin and closed the door to all "outsiders"... to me that would be like hiding in bed with the bedclothes pulled up over my head and pretending I'm not home when someone knocked on the door... very little that is productive gets done that way, though I'm sure it *feels* safer than making an effort or engaging in cooperation.

Anyway, I did find your first thoughts on ethics and the value of "being good" compelling and interesting... it was just that when it came to the stuff about "race" and whether outsiders (immigrants) would bring value to a civilization - that's where you lost me... not that my thoughts would be particularly relevant to a Utilitarian who values group survival over the individual :-) ...But it kinda reminded me of an xkcd cartoon I've seen ages ago and a comment about how a reader of Ayn Rand would be agreeing with her on so many points, but then would recoil when her conclusion would be something like, "and therefore you should be an asshole towards everyone". That's why Utilitarianism fails for me as a standard model for how civilization ought to be constructed basically...

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Edit: Found the reference I was thinking of:

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1049:_Bookshelf

Title text: I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'

um... I guess that sums up how I felt about your treatise... I was enthusiastically agreeing right through the bit with the hammer vs. the rock or the mouse and still with you about the concept of how society and civilization should survive and how an individual is ephemeral... (though I was getting on shaky ground on that last bit, as a lot of *very wrong things* can be justified by claiming that individuals are unimportant because they are mortal or temporary... erm - you never know *which* individual may be "important" to society as a whole. How would the world be different without Albert Einstein or without Steve Jobs? - and both were immigrants by the way... ;-)