More Dawkins idiocy...

[Augustus]

"Pinker and other experts say the reality is not painted in bloody anecdotes, but demonstrated in the black and white of spreadsheets and historical documents. They tell a story of a world moving away from violence.

Interesting that he chooses around about 1942-5 as a cut off point for some figures, that's a bit disingenuous. "Hmmm, stats would look a lot better if I missed out a sh!t load of deaths."

Basically he has cherry picked a short timescale, 70 years in human history is nothing. Anyway, even within this time we had Mao killing a hundred odd million civilians and from your quotes seems to focus on battlefield deaths and genocides, conveniently missing out millions of deaths in unconventional conflicts and other human caused tragedies.

Also, current law enforcement and military technology can be said to act as a deterrent to violence. However, it also offers the potential for terrible oppression and world ending warfare. Wars could be less frequent, but if a major one happens it wipes out all of the other 'gains'.

A Stalin today would make 1984 seem like a hagiography of government.

Anyway philosophical and statistical counter arguments here, which make the points better than me:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-steven-pinker-wrong-violence-war-declining

http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/violence.pdf

 

[Useless2015]

Useless,

Why is ISIS killing Muslims?

Because they are financed by the American taxpayer. Saudi Arabia is the biggest financer of ISIS and at the same time best friends with America. I think however that ISIS is one big sherade, the lowlevel members of ISIS are muslims but the leaders are without a doubt non-muslims. Orchestrated by the US on order of Israhell. I think Israhell will try and make a greater Israhell. Thats their dream and killing others over it is absolutely no problem for Israhell. The future will tell it.

 

[Useless2015]

@leibowde84


You can't answer the question?

 

[leibowde84]

@leibowde84


You can't answer the question?

Happy to answer any question, but I'm not sure which one you are referring to. Can you remind me of what you would like an answer to?

 

[Useless2015]

Happy to answer any question, but I'm not sure which one you are referring to. Can you remind me of what you would like an answer to?

Page 11....



A terrorist might kill or not kill. As i said the fact of the matter is that nato has killed more civilians than 'potential terrorists'. Do you think its worth to kill innocent souls to prevent a potential threat? Simple yes or no question really..


Stick to yes or no.

 

[dust1n]

Interesting that he chooses around about 1942-5 as a cut off point for some figures, that's a bit disingenuous. "Hmmm, stats would look a lot better if I missed out a sh!t load of deaths."

Basically he has cherry picked a short timescale, 70 years in human history is nothing. Anyway, even within this time we had Mao killing a hundred odd million civilians and from your quotes seems to focus on battlefield deaths and genocides, conveniently missing out millions of deaths in unconventional conflicts and other human caused tragedies.

I did not see these assertions supported in your sources.

Also, current law enforcement and military technology can be said to act as a deterrent to violence.

Which still implies... less violent. I'm not making a case for why there is less violent.

However, it also offers the potential for terrible oppression and world ending warfare. Wars could be less frequent, but if a major one happens it wipes out all of the other 'gains'.

But I'm lost as to why a greater murder potential equates there actually being more murders.

A Stalin today would make 1984 seem like a hagiography of government.

And Genghis Khan was probably responsible for some 4 or 5 times more deaths than Stalin. Keep in mind that Geghis Khan's conquest was almost as responsible for as many deaths as all of WW2, and his family put together is estimated near 200 million people. This was a time when the population was a fraction of what it is now...

Anyway philosophical and statistical counter arguments here, which make the points better than me:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-steven-pinker-wrong-violence-war-declining

http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/violence.pdf

Thanks. Lots of interesting stuff, considering I haven't read his book.

The philosophical counter arguments aren't aimed at my claim. They appear mostly to conflict with this notion of science making things better, etc. Or why doesn't he include nuclear deterrence?

I was interested int he stastical counter agruments, but again,

It seems that the numbers and statistical methods are criticized by someone in the guardian piece who is complaining about how he extrapolates causation inaccurately, which might be the case. But it isn't actually a critique of the number of deaths.

The better paper you provided does not provide any evidence for the positive assertion that the world is more actually getting more violent, it suggests a better statistical analysis and claims the other is under reporting the numbers. But it doesn't seem to provide any evidence for the positive claim that this century was the most violent, nor does it even seem to attempt to contradict the claim, but it does critique the given figures.

If I can, I'm inquiring about your positive assertion regarding that this the more violent, and how your argument has relied on anything yet, except just recalling a select group of horrible events that's happened in the last century... which is not great evidence for your claim. I don't mean to sidetrack your discussion or the thread, was just curious of the justification for the claim.

The conclusion of it:

"• Indeed, from statistical analysis alone, the world is more unsafe than casually examined numbers. Violence is underestimated by journalistic nonstatistical looks at the mean and lack of understanding of the stochasticity of under inter-arrival times. • The transformation into compact support allowed us to perform the analyses and gauge such underestimation which , if noisy, gives us an idea of the underestimation and its bounds. • In other words, a large event and even a rise in observed mean violence would not be inconsistent with statistical properties, meaning it would justify a "nothing has changed" reaction. • We avoided discussions of homicide since we limited L to values > 10, 000, but its rate doesn’t appear to have a particular bearing on the tails. It could be a drop in"

 

[leibowde84]

Page 11....



A terrorist might kill or not kill. As i said the fact of the matter is that nato has killed more civilians than 'potential terrorists'. Do you think its worth to kill innocent souls to prevent a potential threat? Simple yes or no question really..


Stick to yes or no.

Obviously, it is a case-by-case judgment call. There are no absolutes in this context. But, yes, I think that if the threat is great enough, unavoidable civilian casualties should not prevent action. Take WWII for example. We would have saved a lot more lives if we had acted more quickly against the Nazis. For a long time, our country felt like it wasn't our fight, but we soon learned that we were wrong.

 

[Useless2015]

Obviously, it is a case-by-case judgment call. There are no absolutes in this context. But, yes, I think that if the threat is great enough, unavoidable civilian casualties should not prevent action. Take WWII for example. We would have saved a lot more lives if we had acted more quickly against the Nazis. For a long time, our country felt like it wasn't our fight, but we soon learned that we were wrong.

Yes? So killing a million innocent souls to prevent the killing of the same innocent souls is logical? It makes sense?
And besides referring to WW2 is not relevant.

 

[leibowde84]

Yes? So killing a million innocent souls to prevent the killing of the same innocent souls is logical? It makes sense?
And besides referring to WW2 is not relevant.

First of all, as I clearly explained, a case-by-case judgment call is necessary in this context. If you are trying to get an answer that covers every situation, you are being completely unreasonable. Also, you fraudulently added "a million innocent souls" into the mix, as this was not part of your initial question.

My point, again, is that, if the threat is real (not "potential"), like ISIS who has proven themselves as ruthless terrorists without any kind of “end-game”, then unavoidable civilian casualties might be necessary to save more lives in the future. Obviously, this would be in situations where civilian casualties are minimized and threats to many more lives have been explicitly made by the terrorist group, as has happened with ISIS. In short, in situations where lives saved by taking out the group are much higher than the number of potential accidental, collateral civilian casualties, action can be reasonable. This is only if allowing the group to survive will result in them targeting more and more innocent civilians on a growing scale. IMHO, this is clearly the case with ISIS, as they act without any sort of logic or reason. They are unpredictable, brutal, and seem to be devoid of any empathy for anyone outside their own group.

Finally, you claim that WWII is not related, but it most definitely is. It was a situation where a group of thugs, upset with the way that the rest of Europe and the US had treated them after WWI, sought world-domination and control. They kept on saying “just leave us alone in our own country, allow us to prosper, and take away all the sanctions and we’ll be peaceful”. Chamberlain and FDR initially took the bait, which proved to be a monumental mistake. When you are dealing with psychopaths, you have to obliterate them, as they can’t be reasoned with. The same is true with ISIS. They claim that if we leave them alone they won’t have a reason to target innocent civilians. Like the Germans, the worst thing we could possibly do would be to believe that they are logical, honest people.

 

[Augustus]

I did not see these assertions supported in your sources.

How would his analysis look if he chose 1900 as his cut off point?

Mexican revolution, WW1, Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil War, Russian Civil War, Chinese communism, Soviet Communism Naziism, WW2, Korean War, Vietnam War, Biafra, Rwanda, Iran Iraq War, Soviet-Afghan War, Congo War, and probably 20 or 30 wars with 10s or hundreds of thousands of deaths in the 20th C?

Many deaths are not battlefield or genocide also and the Cuban missile crisis could have easily led to nuclear war. That it didn't was to some extent luck, and if it had then this discussion probably wouldn't be happening.

Starting your study to deliberately miss out on 40 of the bloodiest years in history can't be considered rigorous. Also assuming that just because a nuclear war didn't happen, isn't illustrative that was improbable.

Which still implies... less violent. I'm not making a case for why there is less violent.

If you get 99 years of zero deaths and in the 100th you get 1 billion, that is worse than getting 100 years of 5 million death per annum.

The economy was going great up until 2008, then it lost more money than the entire industry had ever made. If you took the figures from just after the previous crash until just before the recent crisis, you would be saying 'look at the evidence that shows we are getting better at running the economy. It's all there in black and white.'

But I'm lost as to why a greater murder potential equates there actually being more murders.

It doesn't. It just means you shouldn't assume that it means declining overall violence. See above points.

I'm not saying the world is more violent, just that you can't say that it is less violent based on the available information. At best, the evidence is inconclusive.

It could be that the very reasons we appear to be less violent are the same reasons we are more susceptible to worse violence. Looking at what the evidence shows is not always the salient feature, what it doesn't show is often equally important.

 

[dust1n]

How would his analysis look if he chose 1900 as his cut off point?

Mexican revolution, WW1, Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil War, Russian Civil War, Chinese communism, Soviet Communism Naziism, WW2, Korean War, Vietnam War, Biafra, Rwanda, Iran Iraq War, Soviet-Afghan War, Congo War, and probably 20 or 30 wars with 10s or hundreds of thousands of deaths in the 20th C?

Many deaths are not battlefield or genocide also and the Cuban missile crisis could have easily led to nuclear war. That it didn't was to some extent luck, and if it had then this discussion probably wouldn't be happening.

Starting your study to deliberately miss out on 40 of the bloodiest years in history can't be considered rigorous. Also assuming that just because a nuclear war didn't happen, isn't illustrative that was improbable.

I guess I'm not seeing where you are putting at this cut off point? I didn't see it in the sources your provided. Also not clear to me why if a 1% of a nuclear not happening is more violent than a 50% chance of a nuclear war not happening.

If you get 99 years of zero deaths and in the 100th you get 1 billion, that is worse than getting 100 years of 5 million death per annum.

Depending on the population size....

The economy was going great up until 2008, then it lost more money than the entire industry had ever made. If you took the figures from just after the previous crash until just before the recent crisis, you would be saying 'look at the evidence that shows we are getting better at running the economy. It's all there in black and white.'

And this was different how when you claimed the 20th, "the most murderous century in human history." You provided examples of no other century at all... I'm curious about what evidence supports this positive assertion?

It doesn't. It just means you shouldn't assume that it means declining overall violence. See above points.

I'm not saying the world is more violent, just that you can't say that it is less violent based on the available information. At best, the evidence is inconclusive.

It could be that the very reasons we appear to be less violent are the same reasons we are more susceptible to worse violence. Looking at what the evidence shows is not always the salient feature, what it doesn't show is often equally important.

Well, I don't disagree with you at all necessarily. I'm just not sure why your claim that this century was the most murderous century is an assumption that can be taken with no supporting evidence, at least, evidence that meets your own standards.

 

[icehorse]

I'm going to skip Bush and Blair But I like the thought experiment!

First off, as Harris mentions, there are probably many version of objective morals, just as there are many approaches to good health or good nutrition. So, yours might not match mine, but they could both be objectively good. The idea is to measure any proposal against WBCC.

Second, my intuition is that in your scenario you might be able to find morally superior paths to achieve the same ends, perhaps using exile instead of executions.

It is the case that using WBCC to answer questions of aggregate well being can be really tricky. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue it.

 

[Olinda]

Maybe a point I should have made is that the perspective I'm pitching here doesn't have all the answers today, but it provides a unifying path towards a set of good answers.[/QUOTE]

Icehorse, thanks for the link. I recall that you mentioned Sam Harris; this tells me a lot more. I do agree that when sciences are presently vague such as nutrition, we can still progress on what is known, eg, that strong poisons have no place on any healthy diet. Scientific methodology can, I'd agree, use case studies to show the problems associated with, for instance, corporal punishment in schools. Individuals do not have an equal say with recognised experts in their field.

And all that said, it still cannot be asserted that humanism is fact-based. The reason I focus on this is that proponents of Richard Dawkins use his material to attack harmless , moderate religious beliefs, which i find indefensible given how much we still don't know.

 

[Augustus]

Second, my intuition is that in your scenario you might be able to find morally superior paths to achieve the same ends, perhaps using exile instead of executions.

Not without risking my people, they would be trying to destabilise my regime so they could come home and regain their riches.

there are probably many version of objective morals, just as there are many approaches to good health or good nutrition. So, yours might not match mine, but they could both be objectively good. The idea is to measure any proposal against WBCC.

Even in my example, my dictatorship produced the greatest good for the greatest number of people (supports utilitarian model of ethics), but only did so by denying the rights of a small group of 'bad people' (breaks the moral rights code of ethics). Why should I protect the rights of nefarious influences on society out of some sense of 'fair play' and risk them regaining power and harming society again?

This is why I struggle with the idea of objective morals, they seem to be subjective. There are moral codes that are beneficial for society as a whole and there are moral codes that benefit individuals. I don't see why scientifically, an individual should follow a moral code that isn't in their own self-interest.

I accept there are superior and inferior morals, but I just can't see them as scientific in any sense of the word. I see no difference between Harris' arguments and traditional ethical philosophy. He's just said 'perhaps we can find some through neuroscience' without actually producing anything concrete.

Also, what would happen if we discovered something part of 'scientific morality' was actually harmful for society? This goes back to my criticism of Dawkins and his ilk, they seem to think that the application of reasoning and scientific principles to ethics leads to secular humanism. They talk about 'enlightenment values' but ignore a) that many enlightenment thinkers were religious and b) many Enlightenment thinkers were profoundly illiberal, elitist and racist.

 

[Augustus]

I guess I'm not seeing where you are putting at this cut off point? I didn't see it in the sources your provided.

It isn't. I'm just questioning Pinker's methodology which I find disingenuous

Do you think it is honest to choose a totally arbitrary cutoff point that means he can conveniently ignore an unusually brutal period in history because he knows it would p!ss on his chips?

Also not clear to me why if a 1% of a nuclear not happening is more violent than a 50% chance of a nuclear war not happening.

I was making a point about risk and interpreting evidence based only on what actually happens, without considering what reasonably could have happened..

If there had been a nuclear war between US/USSR, then Pinker would probably not be alive, let alone writing a book about how peaceful we are now. You would agree that his thesis would likely be invalid if there had been a nuclear war.

That a nuclear war didn't happen around the Cuban Missile Crisis was not due to our new found peaceful nature, but a set of circumstances that required a fair bit of good fortune.

His entire thesis would be invalid if a 'dice roll' had gone differently. So if the only reason he can make his argument is good luck, rather than a change in human nature, why should anyone believe him?

"During the standoff, US President John F. Kennedy thought the chance of escalation to war was "between 1 in 3 and even," and what we have learned in later decades has done nothing to lengthen those odds. We now know, for example, that in addition to nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, the Soviet Union had deployed 100 tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba, and the local Soviet commander there could have launched these weapons without additional codes or commands from Moscow."

the USS Beale had tracked and dropped signaling depth charges (the size of hand grenades) on the B-59, a Soviet Project 641 (NATO designation Foxtrot) submarine which, unknown to the US, was armed with a 15-kiloton[citation needed] nuclear torpedo. Running out of air, the Soviet submarine was surrounded by American warships and desperately needed to surface. An argument broke out among three officers on the B-59, including submarine captain Valentin Savitsky, political officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and Deputy brigade commander Captain 2nd rank (U.S. Navy Commander rank equivalent) Vasili Arkhipov. An exhausted Savitsky became furious and ordered that the nuclear torpedo on board be made combat ready. Accounts differ about whether Commander Arkhipov convinced Savitsky not to make the attack, or whether Savitsky himself finally concluded that the only reasonable choice left open to him was to come to the surface.[104]:303, 317 During the conference Robert McNamara stated that nuclear war had come much closer than people had thought. Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, said, "A guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world."

Depending on the population size....

Assuming the same population size.

My point was that wars might be less frequent, but that means nothing. If they are less frequent but more devastating overall, then that doesn't show 'less violent'.

And this was different how when you claimed the 20th, "the most murderous century in human history." You provided examples of no other century at all... I'm curious about what evidence supports this positive assertion?

Well, seeing as records for ancient times are so unreliable, I'm happy with 'one of the most murderous centuries', certainly top few adjusted for population (interestinglyPinker chose the very highest end estimates for An Lushan, but low end estimates for Mao. Coincidence?)

I don't see how coming off one of the most violent centuries ever shows us becoming less violent.

 

[Useless2015]

First of all, as I clearly explained, a case-by-case judgment call is necessary in this context. If you are trying to get an answer that covers every situation, you are being completely unreasonable. Also, you fraudulently added "a million innocent souls" into the mix, as this was not part of your initial question.

You are the one being unreasonable by thinking its a matter of how you look at it. There is just one way too look at it. Innocent children, women and men are being bombed. You said earlier that you regard every human life equal and here you are defending masskillings of infants because of a random bs claim by the VERY trustworthy government of the United States of America.

My point, again, is that, if the threat is real (not "potential"), like ISIS who has proven themselves as ruthless terrorists without any kind of “end-game”, then unavoidable civilian casualties might be necessary to save more lives in the future. Obviously, this would be in situations where civilian casualties are minimized and threats to many more lives have been explicitly made by the terrorist group, as has happened with ISIS. In short, in situations where lives saved by taking out the group are much higher than the number of potential accidental, collateral civilian casualties, action can be reasonable. This is only if allowing the group to survive will result in them targeting more and more innocent civilians on a growing scale. IMHO, this is clearly the case with ISIS, as they act without any sort of logic or reason. They are unpredictable, brutal, and seem to be devoid of any empathy for anyone outside their own group.

Still stuck with IS? Fine, was there an IS before the illegal invasion of America?



Let's look at the facts:

Iraq Body Count:
A total of 77% deaths caused by NATO were on innocent civilians. Is it worth it?

Finally, you claim that WWII is not related, but it most definitely is. It was a situation where a group of thugs, upset with the way that the rest of Europe and the US had treated them after WWI, sought world-domination and control. They kept on saying “just leave us alone in our own country, allow us to prosper, and take away all the sanctions and we’ll be peaceful”. Chamberlain and FDR initially took the bait, which proved to be a monumental mistake. When you are dealing with psychopaths, you have to obliterate them, as they can’t be reasoned with. The same is true with ISIS. They claim that if we leave them alone they won’t have a reason to target innocent civilians. Like the Germans, the worst thing we could possibly do would be to believe that they are logical, honest people.

But the Nazi's created themselves, they were not oppressed or bombed. I dont understand the comparison? Groups like IS never rose up when Saddam was in power. Iraq was a functioning country. Since America's involvement, there have been more killings in 10 years than all of Saddam's regime. America is pouring oil on a fire...I can't believe, you think America is doing a good job. This is just Iraq, NATO has destroyed Afghanistan aswell. Should we talk about that? No IS there right? Or hey lets talk about Libya. Just 5 years ago under Ghaddaffi, Libya was one of the most developed country in Africa. Aside from Ghaddaffi's oppression there was nothing to complain about. There were high paying jobs, infrastructure, blooming economy,Western healthcare etc. It was overall a perfectly stable country. America intervenes and the country was left in complete chaos. If you were to use your brain leebowde, you would come to the conclusion that what America has been doing in the ME is counterproductive. There is no actual democracy, freedom or safety. Can you spot any improvement..?

 

[icehorse]

Hey Augustus,

I don't recall saying "scientific morality" (although Harris does). Instead, I'm arguing for an objective morality. (And, your example is a good one, and as I said earlier, it surfaces some of the difficulties we need to tackle. One counter point to your solution is that we might conclude that everyone in your population will experience a slight reduction in well being knowing that they participated in scape-goating.)

And as I said:

- there might be many good approaches
- we don't have all the answers yet, and we might never have them all.

But the advantages of striving for an objective morality are:

- we're all pulling together
- we're discarding all the problems associated with dogma

So I'm not saying humanism is perfect, I'm just saying that it's the best we've come up with to date.

 

[Augustus]

But the advantages of striving for an objective morality are:

- we're all pulling together
- we're discarding all the problems associated with dogma

So I'm not saying humanism is perfect, I'm just saying that it's the best we've come up with to date.

I think terming something as an objective morality is simply another form of dogma though.

Given the variety of cultures and environments, there can never be a single correct moral code that will be accepted. Morality is also dependent on the situation/environment, it requires nuance rather than rigidity. Even Sam Harris in the End of Faith said torture might be acceptable in some cases such as imminent terrorist attacks.

I know you think there might be several 'correct' ways to behave, but I can't see how these can be termed 'objective' in any meaningful sense.

I also still think that not accepting fundamental cultural differences exist is harmful.

Humanism is not the best we have as it is utopian as it doesn't accept that humans are fundamentally violent, believes that science and reason are inherently liberal, believes most human problems are solvable through science and reason and believes in continuous progress.

The evidence of human history shows all of these to be false. Anything that ignores reality and pretends it can be overcome with no reasonable chance that it is possible is utopian.

What is better than humanism? What I believe in of course Here's my 1st Declaration of Augustusism (although seeing as I've just invented it there may be some mistakes )

Humans are fundamentally flawed, although they can strive to overcome many of these problems. As these are intrinsic to human nature though, it is unreasonable to expect they will ever be overcome universally.

The sciences are a valuable tool in understanding the world, but they are limited in regard to many issues, subject to the failings of humans and society and thus also a constant source of incorrect knowledge. As such, they form only one part of our method for understanding the world, albeit a very important one.

While tradition may be a cause of harm, it has stood the test of time and should not be dismissed without good reason. It also acts as a brake on naive progressivism, which has been shown to be a frequent cause of harm throughout history.

Morality is largely a cultural construct, but not all cultures are equally good. There are things which can be said to be undesirable to all people which should be opposed everywhere. There will never be a universal convergence of culture though and attempts to impose one on other nations will likely be counterproductive. Within reasonable limits, it is acceptable for cultures to expect those who enter their nations to adapt their behaviours to the local norms though.

Countries should focus on improving their own society rather than remaking the world in their image. Economic and political systems and social institutions require strong foundations in society and thus are not easily transplantable no matter how desirable it is.

Finally, we should deal with the world the way it is, rather than the way we wish it was.

 

[icehorse]

Hey Augustus,

Nice conversation!

Okay, objective morality is technically orthogonal to dogma, but in practice it would be unusual for the pursuit of objective morality to become dogmatic. Not impossible, but strange. I say this because such a pursuit could come only from a critical thinking orientation, which we know is counter to dogmatism.

In many domains we see a core set of principles from which many successful implementations can arise. So if we were to have a core set of objectively derived morals, we could see many different successful cultures, each implementing the core morals, but implementing them differently. Off the top of my head I might imagine some people would prefer to live under a benevolent monarch. As long as the morals stay true, so what?

As far as statements like "human are fundamentally violent", well personally I'll never submit to such a hopeless mindset. My goal is for humanity to flourish, I've no interest in buying in to a doomsday orientation.

All that said, I don't have any major quibbles with "Augustusism" Minor quibbles, but not major ones.

 

[icehorse]

icehorse said: Maybe a point I should have made is that the perspective I'm pitching here doesn't have all the answers today, but it provides a unifying path towards a set of good answers.

Olinda said: Icehorse, thanks for the link. I recall that you mentioned Sam Harris; this tells me a lot more. I do agree that when sciences are presently vague such as nutrition, we can still progress on what is known, eg, that strong poisons have no place on any healthy diet. Scientific methodology can, I'd agree, use case studies to show the problems associated with, for instance, corporal punishment in schools. Individuals do not have an equal say with recognised experts in their field.

And all that said, it still cannot be asserted that humanism is fact-based. The reason I focus on this is that proponents of Richard Dawkins use his material to attack harmless , moderate religious beliefs, which i find indefensible given how much we still don't know.

icehorse responds: I think we can find strong correlations between countries that are successful vs. failed states, and the degree to which a humanistic approach relates to more successful states.