City Life and the Behavioural Sink

[Fresh Prince]

[Image: https://austria-forum.org/attach/Heimatl...renz02.jpg]

This is an excerpt from Konrad Lorenz's 1973 essay Civilized man's eight deadly sins on the dangers of overpopulation and city life. Konrad Lorenz was an Austrian ornithologist, former nazi and an early leading proponent of ecology before it was coopted by the left.

In the single organism, we almost never come across a positive feedback cycle. Only life as a whole can indulge with apparent impunity in this immoderation. Organic life has built itself, like a rare kind of dam, into the stream of dissipating world energy; it devours negative entropy, gathers energy voraciously, and grows with it. Moreover, the process of growth enables it to acquire more and more energy, and all the more quickly, the more it has already gathered in. If this process has not yet led to overproliferation and to catastrophe, it is because the merciless powers of the inorganic, the laws of probability, keep the multiplication of living beings within bounds, and also because regulating cycles have been formed between the different species of living organisms. In the next chapter, which deals with the destruction of our earthly environment, we shall explain briefly how these cycles work. We must discuss the measureless multiplication of human beings first, since it is the cause of most of the phenomena that are the subjects of our later consideration.

All those gifts that have sprung from man s deep insight into the nature of his surroundings the progress of his technology, his chemical and medical sciences, everything that seems most likely to relieve human suffering work in a horrible and paradoxical way toward the destruction of mankind. And humanity threatens to do what living systems almost never do, namely to suffocate in itself. Worst of all, in this apocalypse, the highest and noblest properties and faculties of man, the ones rightly valued as specifically human, are apparently the first to perish. We who live in densely populated civilized countries, especially in large cities, no longer realize how much we are in want of warmhearted human affection. You have to go to a really sparsely populated country, where neighbors are separated by several miles of bad roads, and enter a house uninvited, to realize how hospitable and friendly people are when their capacity for social contact is not continually overstrained. This was brought home to me by an unforgettable experience. We had an American couple staying with us in Austria whose house is situated in an isolated spot in the woods of Wisconsin. Just as we were sitting down to dinner, the doorbell rang and I cried out angrily, Who on earth is that now? I could not have shocked my visitors more if I had let fly a volley of obscene oaths. To them it was inconceivable that anyone could react to the ringing of the bell with anything but pleasure.

Crowded together in our huge modern cities, in the phantasmagoria of human faces, superimposed on each other and blurred, we no longer see the face of our neighbor. Our neighborly love becomes so diluted by a surfeit of neighbors that, in the end, not a trace of it is left. Anyone who still wants to feel affection for his fellow humans must concentrate it on a small number of friends, for we are not so constituted that we can love all mankind, however right and ethical the exhortation to do so may be. So we must select, that is, we must keep certain people, who would be fully worthy of our friendship, at a distance. Not to get emotionally involved is one of the chief worries of large-city people. This state of affairs, not quite avoidable for any of us, already bears the stamp of inhumanity; it is redolent of the old American plantation owners who treated their house niggers as human beings but their plantation slaves at best as valuable domestic animals. When this intentional screening-off from human contacts goes further, it leads not only to emotional entropy, of which I will speak later, but to the horrible manifestations of apathy reported daily in the press. The greater the overcrowding, the more urgent becomes the need for the individual not to get involved ; thus, today, in the largest cities, robbery, murder, and rape take place in broad daylight, and in crowded streets, without the intervention of any passer-by. The overcrowding of many people into a small space leads, not only indirectly through exhaustion of interhuman relationships, but also directly, to aggressive behavior.

Animal experiments have shown that intraspecific ageression can be escalated by overcrowding. Nobody, who has not been a prisoner of war or personally experienced a similar compulsory aggregation of human beings can imagine what pitch the smallest irritation can reach under such circumstances. When, in daily and hourly contact with fellow humans who are not our friends, we continually try to be polite and friendly, our state of mind becomes unbearable. The general unfriendliness, evident in all large cities, is clearly proportional to the density of human masses in certain places. For example, in large railway stations and at the bus terminal in New York City, it reaches a frightening intensity. Indirectly, overcrowding contributes toward all the symptoms of decay that we will be discussing in the following chapters. The idea that by suitable conditioning a new kind of human being, immune to the effects of dense overcrowding, could be produced, is, to my mind, a dangerous madness.

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A small addendum: I can't help thinking that many of the character attributions for Chinese in this forum are based entirely on the moral implications of overpopulation as described by Lorenz. We also find similar descriptions in Spengler's Fellaheen as a mixed, urban basic population of late civilisation. Hence why any attempt at a eugenic reconstruction of humanity must include epigenetic considerations.

[Svevlad]

Social overstimulation is what causes these effects, you can work from there

[Fresh Prince]

It is slowly becoming clear to me that all colonialism was aimed solely at ensuring that societies did not initiate behavioural sink through too high population densities. One should calculate through a mathematical model what the optimal population density is.

[BillyONare]

Not convinced. Hong Kong was the only urban center with high IQ people and no leftism. Real capitalism has never been tried. If you let a substantial amount of white people have freedom I suspect most of these “mouse utopia” things disappear.

[Fresh Prince]

One example is anecdotal evidence at best, nobody is advocating for one master variable that discounts all others, especially if it's from a culture that is historically very accustomed to living in a mouse utopia. The Chinese killed themselves in the millions before they were able to evolutionarily adapt and reach a semblance of stability. In fact it's very interesting that the most successful big cities with the lowest crime are culturally Chinese like Hongkong or Singapore.

[Svevlad]

Confined useful land which is hilariously productive but also prone to retard level floods and it's consequences have been intriguing for the Chinese race.

Chinese are stereotyped as rather loud, and Asians in general seem to tolerate discomfort a lot more than whites (at the cost of when they finally lose patience they tend to act far more violent, see: deranged wars throughout east asia, most notably China). This probably makes them good at ultra-high density living.

Also, this can be alleviated with using better materials in construction. The outside can be stuffy still, but at least your apartment can be nice and quiet. This would help alleviate things.

[Fresh Prince]

Confined useful land which is hilariously productive but also prone to retard level floods and it's consequences have been intriguing for the Chinese race.

Chinese are stereotyped as rather loud, and Asians in general seem to tolerate discomfort a lot more than whites (at the cost of when they finally lose patience they tend to act far more violent, see: deranged wars throughout east asia, most notably China). This probably makes them good at ultra-high density living.

Also, this can be alleviated with using better materials in construction. The outside can be stuffy still, but at least your apartment can be nice and quiet. This would help alleviate things.

This kind of concrete privatism is best practice right now and all it has done is being the foundation of modern urban liberalism by destroying local loyalties through walling yourself in. See Lorenz's example above.

[BillyONare]

No one has any loyalty today. Not even in the boondocks. The whole world is undergoing a communist revolution right now over snowball warming and coronavirus, including Hong Kong. Skyscrapers are de facto outlawed in Britain and no one wants to build them anywhere. I’m not sure what you mean by “concrete privatism” being the best practice right now, but you sound delusional.

[Fresh Prince]

No one has any loyalty today. Not even in the boondocks. The whole world is undergoing a communist revolution right now over snowball warming and coronavirus, including Hong Kong. Skyscrapers are de facto outlawed in Britain and no one wants to build them anywhere. I’m not sure what you mean by “concrete privatism” being the best practice right now, but you sound delusional.

Communism is built by walling yourself in from neighbourly contact and becoming ignorant of basic human nature. If you do that in a skyscraper, a bungalow or a villa is entirely up to circumstance or preference. Where do YOU live? How do you live? How often do YOU talk to your neighbours? These three things are interrelated and only a brainlet would deny that.

[BillyONare]

Communism is a deficiency of the rational mind. “Human nature” sounds very vague and most people who speak authoritatively about it are bullshitting. I don’t think there is any causation between being irrational and ignorant of psychology and living in a city. If anything I would say that city dwellers are more mentally advanced when you control for genetics. My stereotype of hicks is that they are either backwards child abusers or quokkas.

[Fresh Prince]

Communism is a deficiency of the rational mind. “Human nature” sounds very vague and most people who speak authoritatively about it are bullshitting. I don’t think there is any causation between being irrational and ignorant of psychology and living in a city. If anything I would say that city dwellers are more mentally advanced when you control for genetics. My stereotype of hicks is that they are either backwards child abusers or quokkas.

You know, kid, you are right. We cannot speak authoritatively about anything because all concepts are very vague and most people who speak authoritatively about concepts are bullshitting. Let's just sit in a corner and autistically moan at the wall because the rational mind clearly was not formed to make judgments about what is right or wrong, something you clearly have a penchant for.

[BillyONare]

What principles of human nature (is this the same as psychology?) do cityfolk’s ignorance of lead to communism?

[Fresh Prince]

What principles of human nature (is this the same as psychology?) do cityfolk’s ignorance of lead to communism?

Basic principles like to shit, piss, fart and socialize. Never played the Sims? Or is that a communist invention? Also this is not about a dichotomy of city people against country dwellers. Cities are inevitable. You are setting up a strawman and should learn how to properly engage other people's arguments.

[BillyONare]

I’m not strawmanning. I’m asking you non-rhetorical questions about what you mean because it seems very vague to me. Cities lead to people not socializing leads to communism?

[Fresh Prince]

I’m not strawmanning. I’m asking you non-rhetorical questions about what you mean because it seems very vague to me. Cities lead to people not socializing leads to communism?

You introduced the concept of communism, I merely humoured you by facetiously adopting it here. Any reference to communism here is in mockery of you. Lorenz has a very simple anthropology derived from basic animal ethology. Humans are driven by outside stimuli like pleasure and displeasure and act in ways that will reduce displeasure and maximize pleasure. If faced with the circumstances of city life which throws at them more input than usual, most humans will adapt by avoiding or at least reducing the displeasure stimuli to a minimum. This is why people usually don't talk to their neighbours in a city while they usually do so in smaller towns. Living in a city therefore incentivizes extremely selective socializing in city people.

[Guest]

>Communism is built by walling yourself in from neighbourly contact and becoming ignorant of basic human nature.
>>What principles of human nature (is this the same as psychology?) do cityfolk’s ignorance of lead to communism?
>Basic principles like to shit, piss, fart and socialize.

You are a braindead fucking nigger, Coal Prince.

[Fresh Prince]

>Communism is built by walling yourself in from neighbourly contact and becoming ignorant of basic human nature.
>>What principles of human nature (is this the same as psychology?) do cityfolk’s ignorance of lead to communism?
>Basic principles like to shit, piss, fart and socialize.

You are a braindead fucking nigger, Coal Prince.

And you are coward, "guest".

[Trep]

I have only been exposed to Lorenz through Robert Ardrey but I’ve been meaning to read him for a while. Reading Ardreys books it was obvious many ideas were very similar to those in BAPbook but I didn’t realize BAP was explicitly influenced by Lorenz until someone tweeted about it recently (I think Lorenz might have been mentioned on a 'rhythms at some point as well).

In the context of causing colonialism, high population density can be bad for scarcity reasons as well as behavior sink ones.

Here are some related excerpts from The Territorial Imperative:

Man has desires both for personal space, property, privacy as well as stimulation, which helps explain why he would want to be in a city in the first place, apart from just mundane economic reasons.

This is the herring gull, vital, vociferous, numerous, enduring, one of evolution's noisiest successes. And yet the only obvious good that he acquires from his community is the opportunity to quarrel with his neighbors. These are the fellows who will stand at their boundaries in a rage so purple that both will find vent for it by pulling up all the grass in sight. It is a society, in my opinion, formed and maintained by the lure of its inward antagonisms. If there exists in the world of social animals a biological right of privacy, as expressed through either the private territory or through individual distance, then it is of infinite concern to contemporary man. Natural arrangements confirm that such a right exists, and so it must have biological value, although to my knowledge the value has never been explored. But if the right does exist, then why do we ourselves challenge it? Why do we enter crowds the more advantageously to resent them, gather in cities the more richly to possess neighbors to complain about? If we are a Turk or an African, then why do we leave our secure village or quiet kraal to join the squalor and the unemployment, the uncertainties and physical miseries of city life? Nothing, we may be sure, could keep us away.

Nature may abhor a vacuum, but it has even less use for boredom. In species after species natural selection has encouraged social mechanisms which seem ultimately to exist for no reason other than to provide conditions for antagonism and conflict and excitement. We may comprehend the evolutionary necessity for bringing together a breeding community and through migration and other forms of homing capacity for ensuring its reproductive isolation. But why must it live in a dense, disturbing, challenging, competing, squabbling, argumentative mass? If it is not to avoid boredom, then why must the animal demand for privacy stand cheek-by-jowl with the urge to plunge into the largest available crowd?

Human beings may not all emulate the herring gull in our search for diversion. We may or may not, according to temperament, seek to jostle that we may be jostled back. Of one thing, however, we may be certain: Homo sapiens is not one of those rare species that, renouncing both individual distance and the private territory, renounce the right of privacy. (127-128)

Lower animals, and of course lower humans to one extent or another, have less of a need for privacy, individuality, differentiation.

I should not detail at such length the totality of my hippo-rejection were it not for my conviction that the most monstrous of all his dedications is his diurnal acceptance of collective existence. Only through haunting a hippo pool or a hippo shore can one come to realize how rare in nature is the species that makes no demand for privacy, not even three inches. A school of twenty or thirty hippos is a mass burial, half underwater, of living corpses. If a hippo is capable of pleasure -- and one must assume that he is -- then that pleasure must be derived largely from leaning on somebody else. If a hippo finds joy in hippo togetherness -- and why should he indulge in it if he did not? -- then it is the joy of pursuing one's daytime hours with one's throat clamped firmly to somebody's neck while one roars in somebody's ear, jostles eternally somebody's ribs, and defecates cheerfully in somebody's face. (130)

From earlier in the book, attributing the problem to a lack of territory in high population density cities:

As our populations expand, as a world-wide movement from countryside to city embraces all peoples, as problems of housing, of broken homes and juvenile delinquency, of mass education and delayed independence of the young rise about us in our every human midst, as David Riesman's phrase "the lonely crowd" comes more and more aptly to describe all humankind, have we not the right to ask: Is what we are witnessing, in essence, not the first consequence of the deterritorializing of man? And if man is a territorial animal, then as we seek to repair his dignity and responsibility as a human being, should we not first search for means of restoring his dignity and responsibility as a proprietor? (83).