how would humans operate if there was no social conditioning, media, society?

[Scrollpause]

what is true human nature?

[FarCry]

It's human nature to build things, and working together makes that easier.

We don't have to work together, but there may still be some semblence of civilization if humans never learned to in the first place.

It would be a truly chaotic and peculiar place, however - though maybe that's just because i can actually imagine it in my head.

edit; imagine a world where the pyramid of giza was built over the road from the coliseum.

Roger; except that would be society and social conditioning what happened in lord of the flies.

[Roger]

The is the situation posed in _Lord of the Flies._ People act to set up a social system and the stronger relentlessly dominate and crush the weaker. Human nature is base and oriented toward civilized structures.

If you believe Jean-Jacques Rousseau, however, apart from society a man is a "noble savage." Robinson Crusoe is another instance.

These authoritative views conflict.

That points to the fact that your question is unanswerable. There is such thing as "true human nature"; outside of the context of humanity the idea of "human nature" does not exist. It's like asking "what is the fundamental question?' There is no question apart from the posing of a question.

[The Skybird]

I think human beings would actually end up making decisions that are based on what they truly need instead of being told what they want via the media. People are too subjugated by other people's expectations in this life and it causes a multitude of problems.

[Mike]

Not all of our programs infer obedience. There are some necessary thought patterns that we couldn't survive without. Some conditioning is necessary. The trick is (1) understand that we are all programmed then (2) figure out which conditioning is self-limiting or harmful.