Culture is critical
Our social problems go far beyond too much wrongful killing. Too many people are failing in life and too many are serious nut cases and too many are willing to make money any way they can without concern about the harm done to others. On top of that, we are destroying our democracy as all our institutions are failing.
Religions have been helpful ever since people worshipped many gods because they are the foundation of civilizing cultures. However, the God of Abraham religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all rely on authority over the people and they fundamentally are not compatible with democracy that is an imitation of the gods, who argued until they had a consensus on the best reasoning. Only democracy places faith in well-educated human beings with developed higher-order thinking skills. The education for democracy is for rule by reason and it opposes authority over the people. It does not support authority over the people and make them dependent on authority as the God of Abraham religions do.
Please, contemplate the serious difference between preparing the young to be as children to the king or preparing them to govern themselves and to eventually participate in governing a nation ruled by reason, not authority over the people. A nation that argues reasoning with logic and not guns.
Religions have been helpful ever since people worshipped many gods because they are the foundation of civilizing cultures. However, the God of Abraham religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all rely on authority over the people and they fundamentally are not compatible with democracy that is an imitation of the gods, who argued until they had a consensus on the best reasoning. Only democracy places faith in well-educated human beings with developed higher-order thinking skills. The education for democracy is for rule by reason and it opposes authority over the people. It does not support authority over the people and make them dependent on authority as the God of Abraham religions do.
Please, contemplate the serious difference between preparing the young to be as children to the king or preparing them to govern themselves and to eventually participate in governing a nation ruled by reason, not authority over the people. A nation that argues reasoning with logic and not guns.
Comments (1379)
For "king", I read "$$", but for the rest, I agree. Except that I don't believe there is time for an eventuality that relies on future education - which, in any case, is not currently achievable.
They know exactly what strings to pull to get people emotionally invested in their narratives, generally by feeding a sense of moral superiority. The narrative becomes an integral part of their self-image. The narrative has been tied to the ego and becomes as precious to its followers as if it were an arm or a leg.
Along those lines people are then easily divided, because criticism of the narrative becomes a criticism of the person themselves. Communication becomes impossible, because every debate is a battle between personas.
This is 'identity politics', and it essentially keeps us in a state of permanent intellectual warfare with our fellow man.
Education is pointless to combat this, because even the well-educated fall prey to pride. In fact, so-called intellectuals may be more susceptible to it.
Man has been utterly divided and conquered by the powers that be, and its his arrogance that stops him from admitting that.
Critical thought is what is needed, but can critical thought even be learned?
Perhaps virtue would be the place to start.
Humility, so as to always keep the possibility that one may be wrong, and the other may be right. The quintessential quality for critical thought, perhaps.
Charity and kindness, to extend the benefit of the doubt to other people. To assume they act in good faith. And to treat them well, even if they don't believe what you believe.
Okay if you want to use the term "money" instead of "king", we can discuss the importance of morals to any economy. Being able to trust each other and our institutions such as car manufacturers and insurance companies and banks is vital to a good economy. Just look at how fear crashes our banks and our stock market. When we believe we can trust one another, we minimize fear and that is exactly for the economy.
Education for technology unfortunately is not education for good moral judgment and good citizenship. Church morality is patriarchal and relies on the Father's authority over the people as it was manifested in Rome, a very patriarchal, ancient civilization, that adopted Greek technology but not Greek culture.
True it takes time for Education to resolve our problems, but it is the only way to save our liberty and personal power. We must focus on education for good moral judgment and destroy the false notion that a secular government can not also be a highly moral government and that morality does not mean a Father above us taking care of us because we can not take care of ourselves. Secular morality can be a higher morality when a nation educates the young for good moral judgment. Whereas the morality of ancient times can not possibly give us good morality for today. Huge populations and aging populations and technology gives us a reality very different from ancient times.
Exactly so!!
Quoting Tzeentch
It could be cultivated, in school and in the media. Unfortunately, critical thought has become the prime target for right-wing governments -- governments in charge of public education and broadcasting.
Both are already lost in many nations, along with the US.
Quoting Tzeentch
So arrogance, pride and brainwashing are the sources of social conflict? And the old-fashioned moral virtues are the solution? I would flip this around. Belief in the old fashioned moral virtues forces us into a way of interpreting social behavior in terms of such concepts as pride and brainwashing. If we discard moldy subject-based moralisms in favor of a more sophisticated account of human behavior based on reciprocal and joint interaction we can leave the personalized blame aside and focus on collective aims.
Wow, that is a very elegant explanation of what has gone so wrong. Can we look closely at the cultural components, with an eye for how the culture can be changed to manifest a different reality?
Reading what you said, woke my mind to the evil of having a "personal God". :gasp: How could it have taken me so long to see this glaring truth? There as a time when people had patron gods and goddesses and that includes the Hebrews, who had a god that favored them. Jews and others have designed systems to regulate who is one of "us" and who is not, just as countries have rules for citizenship. I think a lot of harm comes from believing in a god who has favorites even it there is rule to say His name or create religious idols and icons.
Greeks came up with the concept of logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe that is one system of universal causes above everyone, and when they took control of Christianity by writing the first bible, we get Jesus is logos, and anyone can be a Christian. :rofl: Christians still argue who can be a Christian and who is not, but maybe that is another thread. However, how universal is the Christian god? A belief in logos is open to anyone and is a sound foundation or good moral judgment, that does not include having to believe unbelievable stories. We argue as the gods did until we have a consensus on the best reasoning unless you are a politician today and then everything is a power play for personal or political party gain, not an understanding of logos and how to get the best for all.
I think education for technology is strongly behind our arrogance. That education along with having a personal god, is a deadly mix! But no I do NOT agree with this
"Education is pointless to combat this, because even the well-educated fall prey to pride. In fact, so-called intellectuals may be more susceptible to it."
A very old logic textbook that I have explains why we should never be too sure of ourselves because we can never know enough to be absolutely sure of anything. We can teach humbleness. And a huge part of our present problem is a failure to teach children logic and good reasoning. Far too many people rely on what the Bible says instead of reasoning. Their thinking stops at believing the Bible is the authority and absolute truth of God's word and they can believe crazy things like a god made humans from mud and there are supernatural beings of good and evil. That thinking does not apply the scientific method.
If education returned to teaching logic as it was taught and preparation for independent thinking, instead of "group think" viewers would reject the emotionalism of our present media and political power struggles.
"Critical thought is what is needed, but can critical thought even be learned?" Yes!
"virtue would be the place to start." Yes! And if we all understood this no one would vote for a candidate with questionable morals. There was a time when we thought virtues were synonymous with strength.
Yes and no. :grin: The guardians of truth are confusion and paradox. How well we do here depends on how well we can deal with paradox.
I don't know who you figure brainwashing is part of the virtues problem. And I wish everyone had a sense of honor and pride. Exactly why would that be wrong?
reciprocal and joint interaction Surely that is a matter of logos and why would you say it is modern and insult past wisdom? :worry: Where did you get your low opinion of our past and high opinion of our present?
They're not the sources of conflict; those go back deep into history. They do perpetuate entrenched political positions; hamper if not outright prevent communication, revision and compromise; they escalate confrontation into conflict.
What strikes me is that all of the responses so far except @Joshs show contempt for our fellow citizens. Certainly this is not a sign of reason. We're all in this together, for better or worse. As I see it, the main requirement for democracy is a sense of common purpose, not "critical thinking."
The biggest problem with that solution is that the entrenched positions shored up by dogma and propaganda prevent any possibility of finding any such common purpose. The factions can't - or refuse to - agree even on a common enemy to unite them.
If you know a way to nullify the effects of dogma and propaganda without critical thought, please share it.
Quoting T Clark
That's an interesting comment and seems right.
We do live in a time where many seem to share the same mantra - society and individual standards are collapsing and a golden era has passed. I've been hearing this for decades. My grandmother told me people were saying the same thing during the roaring '20's, before Hitler and the later catastrophies of the 20th century. No doubt friends of Socrates felt the same way.
One of the advantages of being old is that you've heard everything at least twice. We've been going to hell in a handbasket at least since I was born.
I must admit, though, this feels like a special time. It feels like technology has brought us to a turning point. It makes it easier for people to hate other people they never would have come in contact with before. It makes the whole world one place so what's bad in one location gets spread everywhere. It has allowed us to start gaining control over the basic physical, chemical, biological, genetic, cognitive, and psychological foundations of life that will allow us to change our very natures. It's scary. I'm probably pretty safe, but I worry for my children. We know from history the world sometimes does go to hell.
No, I don't, but I think changing our attitudes toward each other would be easier than somehow creating a nation of so-called critical thinkers. As I noted, many of the posts in this thread show a clear lack of respect for them - the irrational, non-critical thinking hoi polloi. That just makes things worse. Why should anyone make common cause for someone who feels contempt for them?
Okay. You tell us how to go about that, and I'm on board.
Quoting T Clark
I just don't know how to respect people who drive an SUV into a crowd, post death- and rape-threats to elected officials, value their guns above their children and want their republic-not-democracy presided over by Trump or De Santis?
Quoting T Clark
They shouldn't. I know I couldn't make common cause with someone who would prefer to see me hanging from a lamppost.
I think you're correct in your intuition that humans having a shared purpose is more important than critical thinking combined with internecine goals. One of the big issues we face these days seems to be the atomized nature of culture and the lack of solidarity. How do we get important projects initiated and completed without broad cooperation?
You don't. You can't. You won't.
Dogma, propaganda and uncritical following of megalomaniacs will never allow it.
:100:
You haven't told us how to go about accomplishing the whole critical thinking, rationality thing. Why do I have to come up with a plan for the why can't we all just get along thing? The advantage my solution has over yours is that it's something you, I, and all people of good will can do right now. Treat people with respect.
Quoting Vera Mont
So, you equate people who support Donald Trump with people who drive their SUVs into a crowd. No further questions. I rest my case.
Quoting Vera Mont
So, you equate people who support Donald Trump with people who want to see you hanging from a lamppost. No further questions. I rest my case.
I've been hanging around with other people for more than 70 years. We have much more in common than we do in conflict.
Question - I get the impression that things in Australia are much less contentious than they are here in the US. Is that not true?
I never said it can be done at all.
Quoting T Clark
I wish you all the success in the world!
Quoting T Clark
He supports them. Anyone who supports him indirectly supports them. They don't seem to understand this. Cognitive dissonance.
Voltaire nailed it:
I think so. My take: We're a fairly small population and have a different history - negligible military power, virtually no guns, far less religion and a social welfare safety net, including free or low cost medical care. But we have become more 'American' in recent times, partly owing to the changing nature of right wing populism and also the influence of News Limited and social media.
And we also have a culture war around race and politics (a low calorie version compared to yours). Ours hasn't been fueled by a Trump equivalent.
Well, no, your initial requirement for a democracy is a sense of common purpose (and not critical thinking). People can share a common purpose without respecting each other.
The problem with uncritical thinkers and a desire for purpose is that they’re easily lead by people with divergent purposes.
Quoting T Clark
Indeed, but again the problem is that the easily lead are easily divided.
Yet.
But there is hope https://theconversation.com/did-australia-just-make-a-move-to-the-left-183611
More, anyway than for the UK... and Canada's got some serious issues with assholity.
That means a superior nation would not emerge. The average person does not have an interest in governance, politics, and nationwide ideals.
I'm not saying you are wrong, but how do you know this is true? Does this hinge upon what 'have an interest' means?
I agree, and I think this situation has emerged due to the continuous disappointments on politics and all what is related to governance, political theory, etc... I mean: it is not a generational issue but a dysfunctional praxis.
I think you have big expectations on people... what a terrible mistake.
The scholarly political theories we learned from higher education are only good inside the lecture halls. What we see in actuality is quite a different matter.
Well no, but I think those things will ensure social conflicts won't be solved by any other means than force, since communication is made impossible. And they're the tools which enable the elite to easily manipulate people. Via that route, what may start as a genuine social conflict is artifically inflamed and warped into something else - something which ultimately serves no one, except the ruling class, which will profit from never solving it.
Quoting Joshs
I suppose the question is how such a reciprocal and joint interaction can take place when communication is deliberately made impossible.
Quoting T Clark
I perceive a large amount of people being manipulated by mass media.
I don't think it's contemptuous or disrespectful to talk about that, and I am merely trying to understand why this manipulation can take place.
If one wishes to mend society, then one must point out the flaws. Sometimes that can be painful.
Regarding the US, our political democracy without economic democracy is a democracy-in-name-only (DINO) which, from periodic national crisis to crisis, has been dismantling itself brick by brick since 1789 by disproportionately serving Capital at the expense of Labor and Nature (both of which are in revolt: reactionary populisms and global warming, respectively). A house doesn't collapse because of its occupants' "values" but mostly from a combination of shoddy construction, prolonged disrepair and entropy. Likewise, "our institutions are failing" because the macro structural imbalances, of which they are functions, are imploding as the ramifications of those imbalances accelerate.
So traditional "verities" have become hypocrites' punchlines; commerce über alles has fragmented communities into barrios, barracks & bunkers inhabited by increasingly alienated, hedonic treadmill junkies (zombies); and 'the American system' freezes out most of the people and with every passing generation more and more people desire to burn it all down in order to warm their freezing children in its 'purifying bonfires'. It's just so much easier for most people to imagine The Apocalypse :pray: than to struggle for a viable, radical alternative to this acutely alienating, neoliberal status quo. Maybe it is already too late to postpone "American Carnage" ... :eyes:
Quoting T Clark
:100:
It's a spiral, isn't it? Government disappoints people, people disengage from government; a now less responsible government lets people down, people abandon government; government therefore is opened to corruption, people reject it; government becomes so rotten that it actively promotes fraudulent electoral process.
Some of this is due to poor design - lots of tinkering, but no structural upgrade since the 18th century - some due to the size and diversity of populations, and a very large part to financial interests.
I agree. I think the change is driven by global competition for finite resources and world markets and that technology has made our governments too powerful. That includes the bureaucratic technology that shifted power from individuals to governments. I would feel better if the changes were well understood along with increased understanding of the importance of culture.
When the Social Security Act was passed in the US, it was agreed people would qualify by age, rather than making it a charity given only to the poor because of concern for human dignity. At the time it was better to starve to death than ask for charity, contrasted with today's attitude about being deserving and expecting something for nothing. My older books including grade school books have much to say about human dignity, and we used public education to advance a culture that embraced independent thinking, respect, and human dignity.
The 1958 National Defense Education Act lead to no longer transmitting the culture that we defended in two world wars. We replaced education for independent thinking with "group think". We ended education for good moral judgment and left moral training to the church. We are now as paranoid as Germany was. That means we hold an excessive need to be superior and in control. Instead of defending our privacy and liberty, we have turned to technology that collects our personal information and in subtle ways controls our lives. Culturally we are what we defended our democracy against, and people are going crazy and have become quite violent and this justifies the advancement of a police state. So much for letting military minds make our education decisions.
Thomas Jefferson and his educated peers understood the importance of education for democracy. Today we do not have that understanding.
Absolutely!!! And this is made possible by adopting the German model of bureaucracy. Before Hoover and Roosevelt worked together to give us Big Government, the US government was relatively weak. I am hoping with increased awareness of the bureautic changes and the importance of culture we can decrease the problem.
Quoting 180 Proof
I am not understanding your meaning. Are you saying it is not values that lead to shoddy construction, prolonged disrepair, and entropy? That does not make sense to me, so I feel confused.
We had different values because we educated for different values and manifested a culture that keeps democracy healthy. I remember the older people who all about honesty and human dignity. I think the great depression and world war, lead to unfortunate changes because of the difference between generations.
That makes this whole exercise beside the point except as a hell-in-a-handbasket kvetch.
Quoting Vera Mont
Oh, good. Thanks for that enthusiastic endorsement.
As I noted previously - No further questions; I rest my case.
I doubt that's true. I'll think about it some more.
Quoting praxis
As I see it, the criticism of "them" I've seen in this thread hasn't constituted critical thinking. Seems more motivated by fear, hatred, and contempt, just like we accuse them of.
I don't think that's necessarily true. A lot of conservative gun owners I know have no trouble with what they consider reasonable gun control. On the other hand, many of them consider rights of gun ownership as important as freedom of speech. I don't go that far, but I can understand their reasoning.
As a registered Democrat, I think the problem is that the Democratic Party has played this wrong. A certain level of gun ownership in the US is fully established. It's strongly endorsed by the Supreme Court, so it's part of the Constitution. A large percentage of the people support it. Putting all our money on heavy restrictions doesn't get us anywhere but alienates people who otherwise belong in the Democratic Party.
Democracy won't work without expecting a lot from citizens.
Do you see that as evidence that people aren't interested in political issues. It seems just the opposite to me.
Without irony I say - I think it's simpler here in the US - the Republicans did it.
My response to this kind of argument is always the same - this mythical society focused on dignity you describe allowed and supported the enslavement and oppression of human beings. It was only after the events you describe ended that things changed in a significant way. Thomas Jefferson kept slaves.
Excellent points!
For me, it is glaringly obvious that people have their opinions confused with facts and this is directly related to the change in education. This is really paradoxical because science benefits democracy, so everyone should learn the scientific method of thinking but in Texas the 2012 Republican agenda was to prevent training in the high order thinking skills, expressing concern that the training leads to children questioning their parents' authority. What went with that is Texas demanding science books teach creationism as equal to evolution, clearly demonstrating these Christians do not have a good understanding of the difference between science and mythology.
Let us be clear on the meaning of mythology.
Around the world countries have a mythology that prepares people to be civilized and I know of no scientific reason to believe one religion is better than another, but the argument that we must study the Bible to be moral people is just wrong because there are so many sources for learning how to be better human beings.
Anyway, if we learn how to use logic and get in the habit of reasoning instead of just reacting, we can have a healthier society, a healthier democracy. And I must say Zeus was afraid with the technology of fire man would learn all the other technologies and then rival the gods. We are now technologically very smart but lost our wisdom.
I'm not sure that I agree with your understanding of the appeal of guns, but I do agree that a lot of the motivation for our troubles is economic. The Democratic Party used to be the party of working people. We've lost that.
As I see it, critical thinking needs to be critical of everything and everyone, including oneself.
Critical thinking can be motivated by fear, hatred, contempt, love, envy, and many other emotions and combinations of emotions.
I think your idea of critical thinking and mine are different.
There seems to me to be two main camps, perhaps there always has been. I wonder if there always will be. Those who think the future remains very exciting and we will continue to improve the human experience, and those who think we are going to 'hell in a handbasket.' Reading that phrase reminded me it was the title of a Meat Loaf album, which reminded me of my favourite 'pessimistic' meat loaf song.
"I want my money back (Life is a lemon!)"
Song and lyrics below. I love the song but I am with those who look to the future with optimism.
I absolutely agree however that talk is very very cheap and actions speak much louder than words, so 'what are you gonna do about it,' IS INDEED, the most important question.
I want my money back
I want my money back
It's all or nothing
And nothing's all I ever get
Every time I turn it on
I burn it up and burn it out
It's always something
There's always something going wrong
That's the only guarantee
That's what this is all about
It's a never ending attack
Everything's a lie and that's a fact
Life is a lemon
And I want my money back
And all the morons
And all the stooges with their coins
They're the ones who make the rules
It's not a game it's just a rout
There's desperation
There's desperation in the air
It leaves a stain on all your clothes
And no detergent gets it out
And we're always slipping through the cracks
Then the movie's over, fade to black
Life is a lemon
And I want my money back
I want my money back
I want my money back
What about love
It's defective
It's always breaking in half
What about sex
It's defective
It's never built to really last
What about your family
It's defective
All the batteries are shot
What about your friends
They're defective
All the parts are out of stock
What about hope
It's defective
It's corroded and decayed
What about faith
It's defective
It's tattered and it's frayed
What about your gods
They're defective
They forgot the warranty
What about your town
It's defective
It's a dead-end street to me
What about your school
It's defective
It's a pack of useless lies
What about your work
It's defective
It's a crock and then you die
What about your childhood
It's defective
It's dead and buried in the past
What about your future
It's defective
And you can shove it up your ass
Oh, I want my money back
(Life is a lemon)
I want my money back
(Life is a lemon, life is a lemon)
It's all or nothing
And nothing's all I ever get
Every time I turn it on
I burn it up and burn it out
It's a never ending attack
Everything's a lie and that's a fact
Life is a lemon
And I want my money back
And we're always slipping through the cracks
Then the movie's over, fade to black
Life is a lemon
And I want my money back
I want my money back
Back, back, back, back
I want my money back
I want my money back
(Life is a lemon)
Well just out of curiosity, what is the proper emotion to motivate critical thinking? Do other modes of thought require specific emotional motivation?
I love the saying that the guardians of truth are confusion and paradox.
Let us be clear on the meaning of paradox.
Jefferson proposed slavery end on a specific date, giving everyone the opportunity to adjust to the change. He had slaves because that was the reality of his day, but he dealt with slavery not being compatible with us all being equal and having the same human rights.
Here is the fact...
I feel insulted by your wording "mythical society" and that does not advance a discussion of truth. My opening is about paradox and our failure to be our ideal human beings is paradoxical and has been a problem since the beginning of humanity. I think the East deals with this problem better than Christianity.
We are not born knowing as much as we need to know and even when we learn a really good concept of being a better human being, it takes a long time and a lot of effort before being better becomes a habit. In all places and at all times there will be both the good and the bad, however, that does not mean culture is not important.
We are fully supporting "the enslavement and oppression of human beings" today. Only today it is not exactly a human that is oppressing us, but technology. It is totally color-blind and cares nothing about individual differences but it reduces us to complete powerlessness. I look forward to your argument.
The role of pride in this is that if one has to walk back on their ideology at any point, it would mean having to give up that sense of superiority with it.
Further, integrating ideologies into the self makes parting with such ideologies akin to amputating an arm or a leg. Ideologies being vulnerable as they are, this leaves its participants in a constant state of fear - fearful (and reactive, as you said, ) of anything that may rock the boat, like debate, like stubborn realities, etc.
This fear is subdued by creating echo chambers. In the absence of certainty, the next best thing is to get as many people to chant one's beliefs in unison. Perhaps when the whole world chants my 'truth', it will magically become so - or at least, it won't take as much effort to keep up the facade.
Individuals have essentially been tricked into accepting a massive psychological stake in these ideologies, which is of course how said ideologies bind people to them.
And they will stay bound, until circumstances become dire. People caught in this trap will simply refuse to admit they are wrong unless there truly is no other option.
Mass media, of course, ensures there is always another option. There's always another newspaper article to latch onto. Always another way to interpret the facts. Always another onto whom one can shift the blame when theories fail in practice.
The nature of reality ensures we can never be certain, and ironically that also means we can (almost) never be certain we are wrong.
One who seeks to delude themselves will never run out of ways to do so.
, how to best educate people in a way they develop critical (or better, 'autonomous'?) thinking skills is an interesting question. Perhaps intuitively one would look toward the education system to improve things, but perhaps the answer is simpler.
Socrates simply asked questions - an intuition so natural to the human condition that a child never even needs to be taught to do so. Without any instruction they will question their parents until the parents run out of answers.
Perhaps the question isn't how we can teach people critical thinking, but rather what is making them forget how to do it.
The fact that I don't think "the whole critical thinking, rational thing" is something that can be "accomplished"? Well, OK, but I certainly think much could be done to encourage people to think for themselves, and even more can be done to make factual, useful information generally available.
The handbasket comes in the form of powerful factions that oppose any effort in that direction.
I think ideally it requires emotional equilibrium and calm.
I love your thoughts! I have a very old book of logic that explains that is exactly why we should never be too sure of ourselves! That is why we should remain humble.
My concern is we have become as paranoid as Germany was. Meaning we are suffering from an excessive need to be superior and in control. We have worshipped technology as though it were a new God that can give us all the blesses the old God didn't give us. In the US today, who wants to be humble and who wants to say "I do not know"? Good honest people can not get jobs without appearing to be superior and in control. US Rep. Santos is on the hot seat today for embellishing his resume and buying the clothes he had to have to be competitive but such behavior has been a requirement for getting a job for many years. Some of us were taught not to brag about ourselves and that means not winning the competition with everyone who does what Santos did. We have to be superior and we have to be in favor of strong control, or we face some very difficult problems in the culture we have today.
Quoting Tzeentch
I think the "higher order thinking skills" answeres your question.
In some of my old textbooks, warn teachers not to pay too much attention to dates or names because their focus should be on a child's understanding of concepts. The name for this is the "Conceptual Method". We replaced that with the "Behaviorist Method" and the Behaviorist Method can be used for training dogs. IQ testing relies on a person's memory not exactly the ability to think things through or be creative.
Quoting Tzeentch
And my love, that is essential to democracy and intellectual development. It is what separated Athens from the rest of the world. Socrates proved even an ignorant slave boy can reason through a difficult math question. Athenians argued human beings were created to think, as horses were made to run, and birds to fly. We can learn to be better human beings and we can learn the technologies Zeus feared we would learn, because it is the nature of man to reason. Okay, that is not the whole truth of man. We can also be highly emotional and stupid, but Confucious and Aristotle and others have a few things so say about living with our emotions, and everyone here knows of the Stoics.
That is a different line of thinking than believing a god intended for us to be like angels, but Eve ate the wrong fruit and ruined everything. I say this because I think Christianity is an enemy of education and democracy. Some Christians and some Muslims are okay with democracy but there is tension there. This all matters to the culture we have or by default the culture we do not have.
We should only think critically when emotionally balanced and calm?
It seems to me that critical thinking would be particularly useful when we're upset and therefore may not be thinking clearly. Rationality alleviates irrationality, in other words.
I can see why you would disagree with me, but why would you be insulted by that? My point is that the society based on dignity and independent thinking you seem to think existed enslaved and oppressed people. It certainly didn't treat black people with dignity. Does independent, critical thinking lead to slavery? That would be ironic.
Quoting Athena
There are many bad things to be said about the way our society is running these days, but I find it hard to swallow that there was somehow some golden age in the past when things were better, and, Oh, by the way - we kept people in slavery. People owned people.
Yes, but then much could also be done to build a sense of common purpose among our fellow citizens. As I noted, we can do something right now - treat people with respect.
I said "ideally."
Quoting praxis
In my experience, the calm comes first, then the rationality. Actually, that's not true. They come together.
Indeed. And those efforts will be opposed just as vigorously by the same powerful factions that block access of citizens to sound information and the exercise of clear thinking.
Hence my doubt regarding the achievability of either, though I approve the attempts at both.
Quoting T Clark
By all means, do so. I remain selective.
Especially when an angel like lucifer can become gods enforcer and best reason to 'believe or else,' but still be called a 'fallen' angel. I assume you assign no blame to Eve for her actions in this fable, yes?
Why do you value the early Greek/Athenian system, that based it's workings on a pantheon of gods, with Zeus always having the power to veto any decision made by less powerful creature characters than him.
He would do stuff like appear as a shower of gold, to impregnate a mortal such as Danae.
Sounds to me like something a creep like Trump would do.
Zeus, turned to gold, piercing the brazen chamber of Danae, cut the knot of intact virginity. I think the meaning of the story is this, “Gold, the subduer of all things, gets the better of brazen walls and fetters; gold loosens all reins and opens every lock, gold makes the ladies with scornful eyes bend the knee. It was gold that bent the will of Danae. No need for a lover to pray to Aphrodite, if he brings money to offer.”
If Athenians based their thinking on horror stories such as this, then why do you value their general deliberations?
Funny, because critical thinking could be handy in critical (fearful or otherwise emotional) situations and not just when sipping tea in a lounge chair or whatever.
:up: Mostly, yeah, especially since the 1980s.
Quoting Athena
To my mind, 'the administrative state' beginning in the 1930s had postponed for almost cenrury this US collapse we're currently living through. During the last 80-odd years, women and minorities have been substantively enfranchised, business cycles have been extended and flattened due to effective regulations the public-private synergy of which has produced both unprecedented national prosperity and fewer boom & bust crises than before the 1929 Crash, far more and effective social welfare policies have been enacted, etc etc. The problem was not, IMO, the "German model of bureaucracy" itself but rather the postwar (i.e. "Cold War military industrial complex") use of "the German model" to perpetuate the American (internally contradictory) model of political democracy and economic anti-democracy – a laissez-faire settlers' slave republic – that had been established by anti-monarchal plutocrats in 1789.
Not at all. I'm suggesting that it's not the merely symptomatic 'degradation of values' in our lifetimes but instead it's the congenital defect of the decadent values of the Founding generation – patriarchal plutocratic slavers – of the late-18th century America who'd been the architects of 'this house' which have contributed more than any other factor to the current, status quo collapse (and populist reactions to it).
Well, I'm not nearly as nostalgiac as you seem to be, Athena, for a past 'Golden Era' which history ubiquitously demonstrates never was and, I suspect as long as civilization is scarcity-driven, never will be.
:100:
Your two uses of "critical" have different meanings. Critical situations require calm to address effectively. Tea is not required, though.
We evolved to get excited in critical situations. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released. Our blood pressure and heart rate increase. We start breathing faster. Even our blood flow changes.
Let's see. The story of George Washington cutting down his father's cherry tree is one of several myths intended to teach children the relationship between good morals and being a good citizen, but saying the Social Security Act and old textbooks stress the importance of human dignity, is not a myth. I don't know how we can maintain a discussion that mixes myth with facts without agreement about what is a myth and what is a fact.
If you knew the educated people of my grandmother's generation, I don't think we would have a disagreement. I don't know how many years of life experience you have but I doubt if they are as many years as I have experienced.
If you were to watch old TV shows you might notice cultural differences between the 1950's and the present. The original Star Trek TV shows contrasted with the Next Generation Star Trek TV shows is an excellent example of what the change in education did to our culture. Captain Kirk is the John Wayne of outer space and Picard is the "Group Think" generation.
Indeed.
Just for the record, the art of mass manipulation was brought to modern form by Edward Bernays (November 22, 1891 ? March 9, 1995) considered a pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, and referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". (Born in Austria the year Sigmund Freud published one of his earliest papers, Bernays was Freud's nephew twice over. His mother was Freud's sister Anna, and his father, Ely Bernays, was the brother of Freud's wife Martha.)
Walter Lippman was Bernays' unacknowledged American mentor and Lippman's work The Phantom Public greatly influenced the ideas expressed in Propaganda a year later.
That is all true, unless a person intentionally trains himself to remain calm and reasonable. Most of our perceived threats today are not life-threatening, and being hijacked by our instinctive fight-or-flight reaction is not a good thing. Flipping into the fight or flight mode is much more a Western characteristic than an Eastern characteristic. Asians tend to remain calm. The difference begins with different child-rearing styles and different cultural influences.
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Quoting Athena
:clap: :sweat: As an original Trekkie myself, I can't argue with you there, Athena. LLAP (n o t MAGA :mask:)
Indeed just for the record, one story does not do justice to the whole story. Here is another one older than yours.
That one is important to our understanding of our own evolution and so are the Nazis. The Nazis campaigned for a long time before elections. They went to villages and rented large rooms and questioned people about what made them the angriest, then someone would give a lecture about how their party would resolve the problems and make Germany great again. You know just like our present polls asking people about their political concerns and then writing speeches that please the people. Trump is the star of this show. He is so good at manipulating people he thinks he can get away with anything.
But he got charged with sexual abuse so maybe the tide will turn against him. For sure up to this point he has been as popular as Hitler was.
Hot damn, it is not often my path crosses someone who knows what I am talking about. I am curious. Does anything stand out to you about the difference, such as the captains' relationships with their crews and with headquarters?
I don't know whether to laugh at your use of Star Trek as a sign of cultural disintegration or...well... laugh even harder at your selection of Kirk over Picard. I wish @TimeLine were here.
Yes, that's known as the fight or flight response, not the critical thinking response.
Nuff said.
I submit that people with developed critical thinking skills will tend to manage this response much better than people without.
I think you underestimate the significance of bureaucratic order. Kings had nothing like the power of modern bureaucracies. I have run out of time. Hopefully, I will remember to come back with an explanation because the change has very strong social, political, and economic ramifications.
Well, in comparison to ST TOS's aircraft carrier-like Enterprise, the ST TNG's Enterprise-D is a "Love Boat"-like cruise ship. :smirk:
The surrounding text ain't too shabby, literary-wise.
I do not, however, see its relevance to my respecting only those worthy of respect - can't make out where that's supposed to place me in the comparson.
You have, I think, successfully summarized all exchanges on the subject of all national histories and traditions.
What I said prior was the average person has no interest in governance or politics. How did you come up with the opposite given the stats?
I was surprised by how high the percentages are. Beyond that, I don't think the activities shown are a good measure of interest. My wife has a strong interest in these types of issues and she hasn't done any of them. I do too, and the only one I've done is contribute to a campaign. I don't think we are unusual in that regard.
Pretty much my thoughts.
If the sane people have no interest - more to the point, if they feel bereft of agency - they leave the field wide open to fanatics, lunatics and criminals.
Whoo, I had a much stronger emotional reaction to that clip than I expected.
I love the beginning with Scott's irritation with the computer wanting exact numbers and then his emotional reunion with the people he knew and the pain of this being a memory of them and not actually them and how cold and analytical Picard appears.
It was in part my irritation with the process of getting a medical appointment that motivated me to start this thread. To me the reliance on technology today is rude, and impersonal, and reduces us to complete powerlessness unless we reply with the exact code the computer wants. We have willingly given up our personal power and liberty and some are welcoming even more AI with open arms. And it isn't just AI but the compliance to its control. Interesting that they chose Scott to make the point. That is a whole different cultural factor. Spock would not get the same message across.
It would be cool to see each member of the crew take the position of Scott in that clip, and to see the many different facets of the same thing.
Yipes, I do not love Machiavelli! I think he is a scoundrel and that he has reproduced the problem many times through his book. He surely should not be the model of leadership for a democracy. A democracy needs to be rule by reason, not by some clown who is an expert at manipulating people.
The point I am always trying to make is we can not have rule by reason without transmitting a culture that manifests that. My second point is education for technology prepares us to be ruled not to have rule by reason. The 1958 change in education changed our culture and the clip Proof gave us is a pretty good explanation of that. In the clip, Scott represents all of us who remember when things were different, and f**k the damn computer that has replaced a human receptionist.
Oh brother, that is a can of worms! The problem is glaring in the relationship between Israel and Palestine. Each side of this conflict presents their children a different version of their shared history.
How about the US with resistance to people of color being represented as they want to be represented in US history books?
Your comment had a big effect on my understanding of the problem and possible solution. What if a committee made a sincere effort to determine what is myth and what is fact?
You obviously feel very strongly about this. One might even say you are full of passionate intensity.
I may be the worst, but I'm never passionate.
I don't think you're the worst, but then I don't think Trump supporters are either. I think you are both equally responsible for the mess we find ourselves in.
It would have to be international - historians who have no national loyalties, or else have thrashed out their biases among their peers. It is possible for a academics to see past and beneath their own inherited mythology. Indeed, quite a few have published fat, well-documented books on the historical distortions in their own nation's identity-story.
Of course, there is a much larger number of books published with the aim of distorting it farther, to serve one faction or another. It's not easy for a the average reader to evaluate them. And, given the investment people have in - and the sacrifices they are asked to make for their country, belief in that narrative is not easily swayed.
How so? None of my ancestors ever owned another human being and the longest period I spent in the United States was January, 1993.
But the arc of history for the past two centuries has been towards liberty. Women and minorities are de facto second class citizens, but they are not de jure second class citizens anymore. I was watching "In the Heat of the Night", the other day. America really has made a lot of progress in the last 60 years. How does that square with what you're saying?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/807274
In the context of the discussion, I try to keep the forest and the trees – Titannic and the deck chairs – distinct. History isn't a logical argument or mathematical proof, as you know; it's full of incommensurate micro facts and macro trends.
Sometimes. History is not a well-written novel; its arc more likely to be shaped like A Chinese New Year dragon.
You can see it in your own country, as well as many others.https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2017/12/backlash-against-human-rights
(Somehow, I managed to screw up that citation three times. The quote and link are two different sites referring to the same topic.)*
*No wonder I broke America!
And, of course, regimes are not forever. Democracies are toppled, just as theocracies and other kinds of totalitarian government. Economies collapse; wars are won and lost; borders are redrawn and laws redrafted.
Ah yes, "ruled by reason" such as that of misogynistic slave cultures like Classical Greece and Rome upon which our ethnic cleansing settlers' "constitutional republic" had been founded and had legalized chattel slavery and then systemic apartheid until about a half century ago. :brow:
My post prior to the one with that clip ends with an emphatic Live Long and Prosper (not Make America Great Again).
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/807297
I agree 80s Trek was a dumbed down, paint-by-numbers version of the 60s Trek, but as an example of the latter's originality inspite of crass commerce considerations in contrast to the former's derivative formulaic commercialism and not an example of your "change of education in 1958" (whatever that means – Sputnik-scare? :roll: ) Both 60s & 80s audiences, for the most part, had lacked the 'classical education' of most of the creators, writers & actors of the original show so it's not surprising that the less challenging and visionary show has always been more popular, especially with under-40somethings.
As for Scotty's gruff irritation on display in that clip, it's not with the computer per se but with his situation – being stranded out of time (75 years in the future) by accident and realizing that he was obsolete. You'd have to watch the episode titled "Relics", Athena, in order to fully appreciate the context of Scotty's forlorn mood.
I wasn't aware you thought these problems are only relevant in the US. On the other hand, that's not even relevant. You are contributing to the problem just by the comments you make here. Trying to resolve conflict with large groups of people while treating them contempt doesn't work, except, I guess, in war.
I said the average -- which means it is the largest stats. If you look at the diagram, in 2017 (The Past Year), the numbers of those involved are fairly small. The average person in a given population are not involved.
On the contrary, I have cited any number of examples of the same phenomenon in other countries, on other continents. Trump is the American manifestation - a particularly sleazy one: they're not all tax-evading, traitorous rapist conmen who even stiff their own lawyers - but some are more vicious, and some are fanatical.
Quoting T Clark
I'm sorry. I didn't realize 'the problem' originated here or was caused by the comments of random people with zero power or influence. Perhaps I should appease them more. Has that worked in the past? But I'm old and running out of time.
Quoting T Clark
Nothing works. I'm not "treating" them at all; I'm not communicating with them; there is not a snowball's chance in hell of resolving these conflicts.
Quoting Beena
Wickedness doesn't gain power through lack of anyone's interest; it gains power through money, deceit, manipulation and the assistance of people who choose the dark side - for whatever reason.
Can you imagine such an attempt and such a committee. :grin:
Who would you put on such a committee?
Quoting universeness
F'rinstance
The problem isn't who will research well and report their findings as accurately and truthfully as possible - they're already doing that. The problem is giving them a voice that can be heard and heeded.
Well, then. I guess there's nothing else to say.
Oh, we could probably find good, wise, trustworthy, mad enough folks, to make up the committee.
I just worry for their protection, if they choose to use evidence, as the main determinator of what is truth and what is myth.
If they then use their findings to support political action such as the redistribution of the wealth of the Catholic church, to help the cold and hungry huddles masses, :grin: or that all future religion must be presented as 'mythical' and not preached as irrefutable truth.
Then they WILL require personal security, and probably a lot of it! :lol:
We gorra keep trying buddy! Surely, things can only get better, when m.a.d IS the other option at the opposite extremity, of the list of options.
They already publish volumes and volumes. But the only people interested in reading any of it are ones with no power or influence.
Quoting universeness
A valid one. "Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad" is quoted as a "heathen proverb" in Daniel, a Model for Young Men (1854) by Reverend William Anderson Scott.
The sad reality is that those who really do have the power to change the human experience for the better is 'the people' united in common cause. Power and influence can be 'home grown,' very quickly in fact, when there is a ground swell of 'revulsion' about a repressive system that has caused much human suffering for a long time. What has seemed unassailable for centuries, can be swept away within months. I like Gandhi's famous quote:
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.” ? Mahatma Gandhi
Indeed. That happens periodically, too.
What comes out the other end is anyone's guess. https://www.britannica.com/event/Iranian-Revolution https://www.britannica.com/event/Arab-Spring
You might like these documentary series Lucy Worsley made about historical lies - she's very entertaining.
Quoting Vera Mont
I want to argue the US has lost its way and is headed for a police state if it does not awaken to the necessity of culture for social order and continues down the path of authority over the people. I think our increasing reliance on technology is destroying our liberty and that is why I started this thread.
I think Proof has a very good point about not actually having a democracy unless the Industry uses the democratic model instead of the autocratic model. During the Great Depression Deming tried to convince Industry to adopt his democratic model for industry and it refused. At the end of WW11 Deming went to Japan and taught them the democratic model and Japan went on to out-compete the US for world markets and this has very seriously hurt the US because of the loss of blue-collar Industrial jobs for the average Joe.
We would not have the divides we have today if the US had both education for democracy (culture) and it replaced autocratic Industry with the democratic model. We could have a new golden age that can not happen when few people know that is possible.
The US needs psycho-analysis just as individuals do because we are so unconscious of the past that is manifesting problems today. We began with Industry that followed England's autocratic order, and the patriarchal Bible that supported kings and slavery and made women the property of men. When a journalist interviewed pioneers who remembered our pioneer days, some women were outraged about the big fuss over slavery when their own slavery was ignored and called marriage. We can look to the Iroquois and see a very different social and economic order. Even though these people were very advanced, they faced genocide largely because of religion, greed, and patriotic/autocratic order. The Bible is not a book for democracy.
I love your argument and if I had a better brain I would start a thread to debate the evils of slavery. Unfortunately, my weak brain can handle only one subject at a time.
Quoting 180 Proof
I do not understand what that has to do with democracy requiring education for a culture that promotes liberty and justice. You have implied something but I don't know what.
Quoting 180 Proof
Thank you for clarifying your argument. Now I will clarify mine. The 1958 National Defense Education Act resulting from the Sputnik scare, came with dropping education for good moral judgment and leaving moral training to the church. That is a disaster!!! It also means replacing education for independent thinking with "Group Think" and that is the most obvious change between the original Star Trek and the New Generation. John Wayne was very much part of the American mythology and Kirk was the John Wayne of outer space. Picard is the "Group Think" captain. Can you remember the distinct difference between them? Star went from advancing our independent thinking culture to advancing the "Group Think" culture, and now add to this no concept of shared morality except the Bible.
We no longer have the culture of the Enlightenment, nor any chance of it manifesting it without education for that. I love that you speak of how much the original Star Trek relied on that cultural influence. Today colleges promote German philosophy more than they promote the Greek philosophy which is the foundation of a culture for democracy. German philosophy is not free of Christian influence. Germany was the model of a humanoid warrior species the Klingons. We now think the glory and power of God means the US and its military might, just as our world war enemy was dominated by its military. And may God, rather than reason save our sorry asses. We must not rely on independent reasoning! That is what Satan wants us to do and we must follow God not reason. You know, Eve disobeyed God and ate the terrible fruit. I must buy a gun as Jesus told us to do and defend against God's enemies. Hail Hitler/Trump. Be clear, this not about one man, but a culture changed by education. We are what defended the world against and AI will increase this reality if we continue to believe we are the manifestation of God's power and glory.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
I think my understanding of Scott is correct. Not only do some of us fear we are obsolete, but that our Enlightenment past is dying along with the death of our planet. We have fought every war for nothing if we do not turn things around. We are now what we defended the world against. I hope to change this fate for our planet and that might begin with laws that reduce the use of computers and IA and protect our liberty and personal power. When I call someone, I want to have the power to control the moment, not a dam computer program or human receptionist that is programmed just like a computer. I don't think you understand Scott's irritation.
Yeah, I watched that series when it first came out. Lucy looks quite 'Royal' when she cosplay's the role. Her strange little lisp, and the way she clasps her hands together, seems to add to her quirky delivery.
Culture matters and if we do not understand that we will be dominated by those who lust for power. Democracy is about how we live and it depends on our willingness to take responsibility for living up to the following characteristics. I hope you all agree this list is better than the 10 commandments of God. It is from the grade school series "Democracy Series" "The Way of Democracy". published by the Macmillan Company 1940.
1. Respect for the dignity and worth of the individual human personality.
2. Open opportunity for the individual.
3. Economic and social security.
4. The search for truth. (this is about science and all the humanities not just reading the Bible and obeying and depending on a God like a child.)
5. Free discussion; freedom of speech; freedom of the press. (This does not include the freedom to lie nor the freedom to spread hatred because that is immoral and destructive).
6. Universal education.
7. The rule of the majority; the rights of the minority; the honest ballot.
8. Justice for the common man; trial by jury; arbitration of disputes; orderly legal processes; freedom from search and seizure; right to petition.
9. Freedom of religion.
10. Respect for the rights of private property.
11. The practice of the fundamental social virtues.
12. The responsibility of the individual to participate in the duties of democracy.
If we do not understand this way of life, our democracy is not defended. Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended. Our education for technology does not defend our democracy. The military does not defend our democracy. Guns can not defend an ideology and way of life.
It has been led by the nose-rings. But not just recently. The Civil War era was no more ruled by reason than the moderns one is.
Quoting Athena
It's not about the 'evils' of slavery; it's about the incompatibility bondage with democracy. A slave-holding state/economy may be entirely reasonable, but can never get its cultural head around the equality of individuals. That was the fatal compromise that doomed the Great American Experiment.
I really like most of your list of 12 proviso's for a better world but I would change 6 to "Universal FREE education, healthcare and a guaranteed welfare level that provides basic needs, from cradle to grave."
I would change 9 to "Freedom of personal religion but no religious authority figure is acceptable."
I would change 10 to 'Respect for the rights of private property unless it was obtained by nefarious means.'
I would also remove 'freedom from search and seizure,' from your number 8, as you would be removing one of the main defences against nefarious individuals and organisations.
I like what Vera Mont said.
Quoting Vera Mont
I am wondering, isn't it possible to determine what is a myth and want is a fact? Many ancient people realized they must know truth because to believe in something that is false will lead to bad results. Knowing the truth is important to democracy and our health. Believing demons make us sick and refusing to believe it is germs or believing a god will protect us from disease is not a good choice. Believing we can get away with destroying our atmosphere is not a good choice. Believing lying to the masses to be popular with them is not a good choice. Following liers is not a good choice. Following people who want control of oil, such as the invasion of Iraq, is not a good choice. These are not good choices because the consequence of bad choices is bad outcomes.
Quoting Dietram A. Scheufele https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9914-5407 [email protected] and Nicole M. Krause
Well yes, do you have a better idea? Democracy is an imitation of the gods who argued with each other until they had a consensus on the best reasoning. What follows is rule by reason. This goes with understanding logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe. These ideas are what brought us to our greatness and forgetting them, following a false god, is problematic.
Well, as I've pointed out previously, I prefer 'economic democracy fortified by universally enfranchised representative democracy' rather than our status quo laissez-faire, plutonomic, "representative democracy" (i.e. constitutional republicanism) inspired by classical Athens-Rome and established in 1789. The insidious "group think" (which was reinforced in the 20th century by public relations, mass media/consumerism & John Wayne's Hollywood) of "the people" – who have only ever ratified the various exploitation-agendas of plutocrats with their "morally-informed" votes – was baked into the US system some one hundred and eighty years before the "1958 National Defense Education Act ". :roll:
*Myths and facts have only the most tenuous relationship.*
If you mean determine what's true and false in history, the answer is: Not always. Documents and chronicles are as often falsified as destroyed; witnesses and participants lie, or are intimidated into silence. Past facts may be unrecoverable, unverifiable. But a good many historical facts do survive; conflicting and differing records can be compared; time-lines and family lineages traced; supporting documentation found in the form of personal correspondence and journals; business ledgers, cargo manifests, registers of birth, marriage and death survive... Even quite a lot of physical evidence can be detected by scientific methods. It's painstaking, intellectually demanding work, but there are those who love it and are faithful to it.
* The word 'myth' is so frequently used to stand for falsehood or lie that it's now considered an exact synonym. It is not. A myth is a story that has been passed down in a culture through oral tradition; it may have had some basis in fact at one, or it may be a conflation of old legends; either way, they are part of the fabric of a human society; a narrative of identity and continuity; it's purpose is not and has never been to deceive anyone. I would plead for a distinction between 'myth' and 'lie'. *
How about Cicero? “God's law is 'right reason.' When perfectly understood it is called 'wisdom.' When applied by government in regulating human relations it is called 'justice.” Cicero
“law in the proper sense is right reason in harmony with nature.” when all understand this “there will not be one such law in Rome and another in Athens, one now and another in the future, but all peoples at all times will be embraced by a single and eternal unchangeable law.” 4
In case everyone is not familiar with Cicero, he was a Roman statesman who studied in Athens. He is speaking of knowing logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe.
I want to throw Star Trek into this argument and the mandate to not interfere in the lives of those on other planets. As global overpopulation has resulted in a flood of people coming to US borders and overwhelming cities that are pressed to care for them, it is only logical for us to sincerely wish their own nations could meet their needs. We want the best for everyone and sent many of them our Industries believing if their economies grew commerce for everyone would get better. But let us consider the Star Trek mandate. It is impossible for the whole world to have the standard of living of the US, because this is a finite planet and that means there are limits to what we can do and for how long we can do it.
We bought off Israel and Egypt to maintain peace in the mid-east and this worked pretty well but we ignored the Muslim Palestinians and this ignorance has not gone well and other Muslim countries who want to defend the Palestinian Muslims and we come out as the evil empire and a good share of the world is turning against the US, same as the Greek city-states turned against Athens and support Sparta in the destruction of Athens.
Exactly what are our limits and what should they be, as we wish all the very best?
I think you have a spot on your body that makes you imperfect and maybe I should not attempt to reason with an imperfect person. All of Athena and all of Rome were not of one mind. Would you please stop ending discussions with statements of a perceived Roman or Athenian flaw. The Enlightenment took what was best of Athens and Rome and embraced it, opening the opportunity for us to do even better.
Can we please focus on the good?
What do you know of Deming's democratic model for Industry and the possible social and economic ramifications of replacing autocratic industry with the democratic model? I have said democracy is about how we live. What is the difference between autocracy and democracy that could have a huge impact on families and our whole social economic order?
Learning Group Think is learning how to think without learning the logic for good reasoning. It goes with reliance on authority and that reliance on authority has terrible political and social ramifications. I don't think you are understanding the bigger picture? We changed HOW we teach the young to think and made them dependent on authority and easily swayed. People have become reactionary instead of being independent thinkers, and the increase in mental health problems demonstrates what is wrong with this change.
The trouble is that the Star Trek prime directive was NEVER applied in our early history.
Bloody conquest was the main clarion call in the infancy of what we at some point called 'civilisation.'
The global socioeconomic complete imbalance that exists today, is a consequence of those who in the past with tech advantages, did not adhere to a prime directive, that compelled them to leave aboriginal peoples unmolested.
Would you follow the Shadows or the Vorlons in the Babylon 5 universe, or would you reject them both?
My apologies for the defect in my character whereby my brand of historical nostalgia fails to be myopic and pollyanna enough for your liking. Enjoy your Mother's Day, madame. :victory:
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I believe we are in the Resurrection. Geologists, anthropologists, and related sciences are digging up the past, and it is our job to learn as much as we can and to rethink everything. Like God did not make an Eden that is big enough for all of us and that we can feed so many people is to our credit. Something that could not be achieved if humans were afraid of gaining knowledge. I was thinking of a more general agreement on what is a fact and what is a myth than the detailed judgment of truth of which you speak.
Can one group of people be superior and can this justify them exploiting those who are inferior? If some can be superior to others what are the characteristics of superiority? Socrates said if we exploit people sooner or later they become our problem. Is that true? Is there a God who has favorite people? I guess I am leaning toward debates of being ethical and moral that bring out the good instead of the bad. I am not sure if it matters what color I am, or where my family line began, but I do think it matters if we believe in creationism or evolution.
Of course, we need to know what is true because our decisions must be based on truth or the outcome will be bad. If an untruth is advanced for good reason and is truly believed to be a truth and not a lie, it is still going to lead to bad results. I would not call religious people liars but I do not agree they know the truth and there are good reasons for resolving this problem.
Global overpopulation is caused by factors readily traceable through history. The proselytizing religions had a fair amount to do with it, as did the requirement of agriculture and war machineries for cheap human raw material. Industry needed fewer workers, but a surplus labour pool kept them in perpetual competition and thus kept wages low. Unfettered reproduction in the lower classes has always served the interes of the upper classes, who kept their own relatively low, by the simple expedient of constraining their women and casting their own surplus seed to the lower classes.
Quoting Athena
Now there's a typically American whopper of a historical distortion! American industry colonized the 'developable' world the same way the British had before them - with the aid of military intervention where guile and buying already corrupt officials failed. The industrialists were, at first, strip-mining everywhere for natural resources, and later for cheap, compliant labour. If the process was made easier by replacing inconvenient or unco-operative native governments, they had the means to do so. Those countries didn't become 'shitholes' by accident or the local population's efforts.
Nothing remotely Star Trekky!
Quoting Athena
...we already grabbed the goodies and we're not gonna share.
How much hunger could be alleviated with just the food Americans waste?
And of course, the waste doesn't start or end with food.
(BTW - the American standard of living is not exactly uniform throughout the American population - and some Africans are quite wealthy, too.)
Do you think we would be where we are today without the Enlightenment which spread knowledge that originated in Athens and Rome and ended rule by the Chruch and kings? Using insults to cover up an inability to use reason, is very modern.
Don't strain your arm by patting yourself too much on the back too hard.
:100:
I love your arguments that begin with information. That advances discussion.
Quoting Vera Mont
There is nothing to argue against, but I will add my perspective that never before could we feed so many people and actually have a choice to lift the level of poverty so that all have a decent standard of living. That is, today, what is possible means an increasing number of people trying to figure out how to feed the world and give everyone a decent standard of living, so they are not desperately risking their lives to get into more successful countries. The truth of our caring is real, and it was not possible in the past. Also, we know more about them thanks to modern media than we ever did. I knew relatively nothing about the rest of the world when I was growing up and I was unaware of any reason to know about the rest of the world. Today is a very different reality and we are working on figuring out how to live with this new reality.
However, in the distant past, a few people did travel and they returned with information and objects from their travels. There was some commerce and cultural transmission. Just nothing like what we have to today! In the past, I would have been too concerned about keeping my own family alive to care about people miles away. We can think of a better world because we have a better world.
Considering our businesses represent us around the world, perhaps we the people should have a say in how we are represented? That would be less of a problem if we replaced the autocratic model of industry with the democratic model. The global problem is an excellent reason to return education to education for good moral judgment. The place to start making a better world is education. We got to get people thinking about right and wrong, not just about making a profit. Truth is our reality is what we make it and we need better education for making good choices.
I know nothing of them.
Universeness you may appreciate this. The Celts and Greeks got along just fine at first. Unlike the Celts and Romans. As the Celts perceived the Romans they not only made slaves of others, but they also made slaves of themselves. It would take a lot more information gathering for me to maintain a discussion of such matters but I think it is worth knowing more.
In time the Celtic population increased, leading to their migration south and wars fought to occupy new territory in the Roman/Greek region. If we think of ourselves as evolved from an ape-like creature we can perhaps be more forgiving of human behavior and maybe a bit more in awe of our desire to do better. Packs of dogs and troops of chimpanzees do not stop to question the rightness of fighting for the recourses and territory they needed. Why do expect so much more from humans?
My brain tires and it is time for me to rest. I am listening to lectures about Hinduism right now. Their epic myth that made them more resistant to war put them on a different path than the path Rome followed. My goodness there is so much to know, and my poor brain can't keep up with my desire to know.
Here is a little 10 min taster that I think is quite a good summary of the human condition projected into a possible future which includes reaching a technical maximum.
Quoting universeness
Since they come at you with a sneaky question, by the time you begin to understand the choice, you're already committed. (And then they both betray you.) Not a bad analogy for political systems.
(We just started watching it again last week, but had to skip so many unsavoury episodes, we switched over to DS9. More fun, less torture.)
I think the general historical view is summarised as something like:
We don’t actually know what the Celts called themselves. The name ‘Celts’ is a modern name which is used to describe many tribes of people who lived during the Iron Age. None of the Classical texts refer to the peoples of Britain and Ireland as Celts. Therefore, as the Celts were a collection of tribes, they were more generally known by the name of those tribes or societies as opposed to a collective nation or empire.
There are some writings based on:
To the Greeks, they were known as Keltoi, Keltai or Galatai and to the Romans Celti, Celtae and Galli.
and some snipits such as:
In 279BC the Celts were known to have looted Delphi, the sacred Greek site. Strabo (Geographer) recorded a meeting between the Celts and Alexander the Great in 335BC in the Balkans. Classical writers had recorded a large-scale migration of Celts soon after 400BC, this migration took the Celts from central Europe into Northern Italy and Eastern Europe.
But exactly who counted as a 'celt' is very much in dispute.
I think it's more interesting to talk about the relations between the Greek city states and the Spartans and of course, the Persians. The Spartans for example, imo, were xenophobic Nazis of the worse kind and the Greeks not much better, especially under that hell spawn, Alexander the butcher.
Quoting Athena
I expected more because we were as intelligent, during, and way before the days of ancient Greece and Egypt, as we are now. Okay, we didn't know as much as we do now, but we did not have to be the savages we had to be, in our days in the jungle under the jungle rules of survival. We did not have to bring the rules of the jungle with us, to our first major settlements such as Jericho, Uruk etc.
We could have worked with other tribes instead of perpetual tribal war.
Every human alive today should be angry about our bloody history and we DO INDEED need to learn that we could have been much better than that, much faster than we seem to be able to.
Will we need another 10,000 years of tears and bloody slaughter before we can even create a human society that has a moral base, which is at least as honourable, as the society portrayed by Gene Roddenberry's imaginings?
Quoting Athena
Just enjoy the opportunity to learn more and know more Athena, and then rest, in the comfort of knowing that your insatiable desire for more knowledge and to be able to 'understand,' is about the best and most virtuous desire it's possible for a human to demonstrate.
As Carl Sagan said, "I don't want to believe, I want to know!"
As John Sheridan has been known to utter, "absafragginlootly Vera."
Ok, I added the Vera part myself but yes, those who cannot find satisfactory purpose in their own existence, can often focus on control over others, as a way of gaining purpose for themselves.
The Shadows and the Vorlons were supposed to guide the younger races but their ideological differences, became far more important to them than their responsibility towards the task they were given. They utterly failed as guardians. We are currently doing the same in our natural imperative as guardians of our children, our planet and all the flora and fauna on it.
There is a vast universe to explore, but can we earn the privilege to do so?
That's how I see things anyway for whatever that's worth.
I lean toward Garibaldi's outlook. But you knew that.
Yeah, but he had a lot to deal with, alcoholism, his best friend was killed on Mars because of his investigation, his best friends daughter (who used to call him Uncle mike,) nearly destroyed him, he got shot by his second in command that HE appointed, he got captured by the shadows and then tortured and turned into a psy-core zombie by BESTER, etc, etc. I am not surprised he became a little pessimistic. John Sheridan had some tough times as well, but he managed to remain quite optimistic.
Have you suffered like they suffered? and what about poor G'Kar, who suffered more that all of them imo. YOU CAN DO IT VERA! Stay with us! Draw a line against the darkness! Join the army of light!
:joke:
He started out pessimistic and suspicious. He ended up optimistic, in control and finally prepared to be happy.
Quoting universeness
I'm too old to enlist in an army. Plus, I've hated uniforms since Grade 1. Besides, what's the core message of B5? Another two thousand years, still money, still religion, still war, still exploitation and oppression, cruelty and deceit - same old crap on a much bigger stage.
No need to wear a uniform Vera, you can become part of the civ branch. You are never too old to be helpful and useful. The same old crap is still around in B5 sure but Zathras explains the great hope for peace and that the next great story is coming. Hopefully the story improves after each great effort to change things for the better:
Wishful fantasy. If the greed-driven corporate economy and the deceitful, infighting, xenophobic government of an interplanetary empire is exactly like the corrupt, deceitful, infighting, xenophobic government of ancient Assyria, where is the "better"? Where is the arc of history?
Well Steven Pinker did a fairly good job of pointing out the overall improvements since the days of the ancients, with his 72 charts in the 'Enlightenment Now' book.
I think that is exactly how the ancient minds worked in the creation of earthly god myths, except the ancients had no thought of space travel so there had to be gods they could use to express the thoughts that came to mind as their civilizations grew. We know the goddess Athena was changed when Athens entered the war with Persia and Apollo came at a time when growth was causing chaos pressuring people to think things through rather than just react to events. They were creating their movie and explaining how things happen. By "they", I mean all ancients trying to figure out how we should live together.
That is how I see things because I have written my whole life and I have had moments when I was sure I was inspired and saying brilliant things. That is how it is when we get into the creative mode. I also know the ancients invented more and more gods as they realized new concepts and an Egyptian pharaoh ordered his scribes to search the archives and figure out which of the gods is a true god. For a while a pharaoh ordered there was only one god, pissing off all the priests representing other gods. Anyway, isn't it helpful to see a modern example of thinking about the gods/aliens and humans?
I think I understand the reasoning behind your thought, but I am bewildered that we can not achieve "the better" through reasoning. I think we are proving those of the Enlighten right, that with reason we can do better. We are doing much, much better than we have done in the past, but we are at a critical point now and this has thrown us into chaos, as Athens and all civilizations have had their moments of crisis and were forced to rethink everything and evolve to new levels of complexity. We must continue as the gods, arguing until we have a consensus on the best reasoning.
And son of a gun, if we want peace, we need a president who knows better than say stupid things that piss off the leaders of violent countries. Creating ourselves as the enemy of other nations is a really stupid thing to do! and I am very disappointed in our present leader.
And as we all do, every day, both as individuals and as groups. Quoting Athena
They also conquered foreign lands whose gods had to be accommodated, assimilated, or subsumed in their own pantheon, because direct suppression invariably engenders a stiffer resistance. The RCC didn't care, because it was squandering the human and material resources of independent nations on its religious wars. But ancient civilizations had to budget their available resources. Some foreign gods were also imported through commerce and migration; some of these gained popular support.
We could. That's exactly why the lusters after power, wealth and supremacy so strenuously and so often successfully oppose any attempt at rule by reason.
As for 'doing better' just line up all your own presidents for comparison.
Yeah, I liked how B5's author, Joseph Michael Straczynski used the Vorlons to represent the ancient notions of gods and angels and the Shadows as Satanic demons. He used such to appeal to those sci-fi fans who thought that high tech aliens, could easily be mistaken by humans, for deities.
It was a great foundation for a very entertaining and thought provoking story arc that was dramatised over a 5 year span of series, a number of movies and an attempt at a spin-off series.
Does it matter what word we use to identify a group of people as long as the concept is understood? I am hurting with our new technological correctness. Before we had education for this, we used the "Conceptual Method" for education. Teachers were told to not fuss over the details, but to focus on the concept. This created an atmosphere where the student and teacher could strongly disagree and the student would be correct as long as s/he understood the concept. Which also goes with teaching logic and that we should never be too sure of ourselves, because we can not know all there is to know. AND I AM VERY GRATEFUL TO YOU FOR OPENING AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ME TO EXPLAIN OUR DIFFERENCE OF THE PAST. We are experiencing cultural change and things are a little rough right now.
Quoting universeness
You have presented facts well. May point is more conceptual, but I could not clarify the concept without your opening for me to do so. :smile: Now how do I do this within the context of the mythology of the TV show you have shared with us. Again let me say I am very grateful for your contribution to this thread. My original thought was the Greeks and Celts (maybe with a different name) shared notions of liberty and curiosity and spiritual matters, as opposed to the Romans who were much more materialist, meaning less spiritual. Ah, stumble- you have led my mind into new territory and I am realizing I do not have the words for the concept, except to say Romans were materialistic and the Greeks and Celts shared a spiritual consciousness. Hum, I am noticing there is not much difference between the words "materialistic" and "militaristic". :love: Oh my, you have opened doors of consciousness. I hope you can take further into this awareness.
I need to run and can not finish my reply. I hate being called back to mundane reality when my heart and soul are flying free in the conceptual realm. :roll:
So, why not stick for now to comparing the Spartans with the Athenians, the Thesbians and Thebes,
Rhodes, Corinth, Argos etc. The influence of the Greek city states on islands like Crete and Cyprus.
The Trojan War etc, etc. The Romans came much later and the Spartans were more Nazi like, than even the Romans imo.
That would apply more to Athens, which was both, than Sparta, which was militaristic, but ... um... more spartan in lifestyle. they outlawed currency and their top virtues were equality (among citizens), military fitness, and austerity.
Meanwhile the Celts were warriors, mercenaries, traders and explorers, farmers and crafters, more given to luxury in personal adornment than in public show.
I wouldn't call any of the cultures more 'spiritual' than any other: they all had their supernatural beliefs, values and loyalties.
I never thought of comparing Spartans to Nazis or vice versa. Knowing that Spartans were very disciplined, tough and people of a warrior city-state, was not enough for such a comparison.
So I had a short look on the Web and indeed I found quite a few references connecting these two odd varieties of people. Here's a link with a maina and a few other papers on the subject:
Sparta in Nazi Germany
In Sparta, if you were disabled at birth, or had a mental illness as a child, they would murder you.
Mostly you were thrown from a high hill, or left for the animals to eat you.
Children were removed from their mother at a young age and brutalised and militarised, very early.
They were a vile civilisation, that is bizarrely celebrated by the West, as a nation of brave warriors who fought the 'evil Persians.' I speak as a het sys, white, western male, and I think the Persian's were easily, as civilised as the Greeks and certainly more so, than the savage Spartans.
Hitler admired the Spartan system of 'militarisation of their youth,' from an early age and the 'weeding'out of the weak members of their society.
He also admired the German order of the Teutonic knights, who were also a brutal order, who fought in the crusades.
They would kill or abandon defective children.
Your code of law and ethics do not apply to that culture. The Spartans were not unique in this practice. It was forbidden by the Christian churches, not on the grounds of compassion - they didn't mind how horrible a life the child would have - but because they wanted more Christians. They still do - and so do the Muslims want more Muslims - they still do.
Guess when overpopulation started to become a problem.
This one's a disappointment (in my book, a damp squib compromise, but if he died in office, you'd have an insurrection - at best) and the last one was.... I don't know what you think, but it's no secret what I think of the last one.
So? Have you done it yet? Have you lined up all the presidents in chronological order and compared their [actual, factual] characters and achievements to trace the arc of US history?
What if you stopped thinking of what was better in the past and what's better in the present (Spoiler: they don't match) and think of the story unfolding? If US history were a long-running TV series, what would probably happen next?
What can I say?
I have been in Sparta a couple of times, it's a great place and I like Spartian people! :grin:
(I mean, things change! :grin:)
My code of law and ethics did not apply to the Nazis in the 20th century, as far as they were concerned, when they murdered lots of innocent people, just like the Spartans did. That's why I damn their 20th century notions of civilisation, as equally, as I damn the Spartan one, which lasted far longer, from 8th century BCE to about 200 BCE. Crime is crime, it does not reduce in it's potency or injustice due to the passage of time.
You are absolutely correct that the Spartans and the Nazis have no monopoly on behaving like savages.
Every attempt at founding a human civilisation has 'savage' behaviour as an element.
It's just that some, like the Spartans, Nazis, Romans etc, etc had honed and employed utter savagery as one of the main drivers of their governance.
All current humans should be ashamed and angry towards such examples of 'how to build a human civilisation.' There are a lot of statues that are still erected, that I would tear down. There are a lot of butchers and horrors that existed in the past that remain soooooooo admired, even revered, and are held up as that which WE and OUR children should emulate. When in truth, we should all spit on their memorialisations. I find it incredible that the French still admire Napoleon and the British still admire Churchill, We still call Alexander, 'Great' and Caesar was so lauded, that other nations used his name to make their autocratic titles, such as Tsar/Csar, Shah, Kaiser etc. It's totally moronic, skewed thinking, imo.
We talk about our admiration of the Greek civilisation, but we consider them the bad gangsters when it comes to Troy but then good gangsters, when it comes to the Persians. :roll:
Then we use excuses for such bad thinking, such as, 'we tend to support the underdogs.' Instead of seeing all the leaders involved in these wars as Mafia style bosses of armies of duped, mostly savage, brutalised people. In other words just gangland style BS, trying to pass itself of as 'we are spreading culture! our culture! which is obviously the best culture! and is divinely sanctioned!' :roll: :scream:
Honestly!! What an utter bunch, of utter BS!! All these models and means of founding a human civilisation, in NO WAY warrant the inclusion of 'civil' or the concept of 'nation.' They were all built on bloody conquest and involved the slaughter of more innocents than they did gangsters killing gangsters.
It was about stealing the resources of the other side and gaining personal wealth and status by doing so. It was as basic as that and nothing more glamourous than that.
SHAME on all those vile historical gangsters! They are still with us, which is why I am a secular humanist and a socialist and I despise capitalism.
:grin: Yeah, I don't think there is anywhere in the world you could visit, if your pre-requisite was 'the people of this land have no 'savagery' in their history.' I think none of us could leave our front door and may not even be able to remain in our own house.
One of my best friends is a German! :lol:
I don't. In fact, I consider civilization the wrong turn in human evolution and the invention of money and religion the two worst ideas of civilization. I admire and excoriate individual persons, respect and disdain certain attitudes - not entire nations.
Quoting universeness
Yet you have no reticence in retroactively imposing your own legal code on past civilizations, trashing regimes with which you disagree and proclaiming the superiority of 'modern' thinking over other eras and western values over other cultures.
Quoting universeness
Yes, humanity is still humanity: it still contains all the same elements that stone age, bronze age and medieval populations did, satisfies the same drives with ever more sophisticated tools.
Some of us wish it would improve [ie fall in line with our own world-view]; some wish it so sincerely and passionately that we imagine ways such improvement could be brought about, insist that it's already happening and we just need to fight a little harder, believe a little more fervently to achieve the perfection of humankind.
Never have more truthful words been typed or spoken Vera!!! :clap: :clap: :flower: and repeated by so many.
Quoting Vera Mont
I damn entire 'systems of governance' and via that, the nation or population that either supports it or does not do enough to change it. I also admire individuals. Even historical leaders like Spartacus or whoever the true leaders were, but more importantly, those every day people who rose up in slave revolts/revolutions etc. I have little interest in nationhood other than as a stepping stone to global unison. One planet, one species.
Quoting Vera Mont
I don't know where you get this notion of 'modern thinking.' The thoughts I have regarding a better way for human beings, to make a better global human civilisation, are not 'modern' or new, they are modern and ancient. Socialism and secular humanism has existed since the genus homo came into being, imo.
Altruism even exists in the animal world.
It seems to me that you seem to enjoy playing devil's advocate, just for the fun of doing so at times Vera. You will type words to indicate that you yourself, do not approve of Ancient Greek society;
Quoting Vera Mont
and at the same time, you accuse me of having a lack of reticence, when I outright damn systems such as the ones employed by the Spartans, Greeks, Romans etc.
You can choose a more gentil approach if you wish, but I choose to be less of a snowflake about calling savage behaviour savage.
Quoting Vera Mont
No, we need to be a little louder than that and a little more insistent, that the savage side of nature, needed in our days in the jungle is NO LONGER REQUIRED!
Quoting Vera Mont
Now you are sounding a little better Vera! I know you have become a little jaded. Apathy is just good people losing heart, when in truth they are still doing the best they can, to combat nefarious people and nefarious practice. But 'perfection' is merely a placeholder to be forever asymptotically reached for. It is not a state we ever will, or need to, achieve.
If some become to tired to continue to fight the good fight, then let them lie and stew in disappointment with their own species, if they wish. That's just another small win for the for ever, very active nefarious.
When it comes to those humans who are only interested in themselves and those they care about and don't care one jot about anyone or anything else OR they follow 'silly' divine dictates, then I will remain in opposition to them, for ever. No matter what culture they prefer or claim is critical.
Bad people exist in all cultures, modern and ancient but I DO think that they CAN be more easily identified and held to account today, than in the past.
I am not sure that would have any value because one man does not have that much power compared to the cultures that make up the US or any nation. For me, the measure of a nation is the result of culture. What we believe is based on culture, what we do is based on culture. Basically, we are reactionary and shaped by our place and time in history. We are unconscious of why we do things, and why think as we do, and react as we do. "Know thyself" is an Ancient Greek aphorism but I don't think we are paying much attention to that wisdom. Going through life reacting without reasoning brings us to regrets.
I don't think we share enough thoughts in common to have the slightest idea of what the other one is talking about. I sure have no idea what you are talking about or think is important. I am thinking culture and human nature. You appear to be thinking politics.
Joseph Campbell thought that when we do not have a shared mythology, we create our own mythology and use the people in our lives to fill the different roles. So we end up in psychoanalysis trying to figure out our role in our private mythologies, our personal dramas. I fell in love with Greek mythology because I saw it as a way to learn how to be my own hero when I was very vulnerable and needed to become my own hero. Which carried me forward to studying philosophy.
Mind you, when I was in the middle of my parenting years I went from being an ideal 1950's mother and wife, to "just a housewife". It was a terrible identity crash along with an economic crash and divorce. I understand all this sociologically, not politically.
For sure being a good citizen in Sparta was very different from being a good citizen in Athens. Athens adopted democracy from Sparta a city/state that demanded strict conformity to its military needs and took care of its citizens who had nothing to do except support Sparta's military needs. However, Athens encouraged individual differences and created jobs, but not welfare for its citizens. Athenians remained fully responsible for their own well fare. Understanding the differences between Sparta and Athens may be a very important thing for people in the US to know.
Germany was the modern Sparta and the US was the modern Athens. Then the US adopted the German models for bureaucracy and education and now the US is what it defended its democracy against. Where would you like to go with this discussion of cultural differences?
I have never understood that phrase and even as a het, sis, man, I find it offensive.
Housewife/husband, home maker etc, when in truth is a very demanding job why looks like it requires a great deal of skill and patience to become good at. I am glad I have never had to do that job.
Quoting Athena
Quoting Athena
In what way do you consider Sparta, to have been democratic?
From Spartapedia.com:
Classical Sparta produced a nearly unique socio-political structure in history. The structure employed elements of monarchy, oligarchy and democracy combined with a highly stratified class system. Its chief characteristic was its totalitarianism; the individual served the state, and not vice versa.
When you drill down a little further, the elements of democracy, suggested above, are a 'stretch' to say the least. Do you see any possible democracy that can come from;
"The Spartiates were the only full citizens and they owned the majority of the fertile land in Laconia and later Messenia which the helots worked for them. "
You may have being spiritual confused with religion? Being materialistic is not lusting for things. Being materialistic is believing everything is matter, meaning gods and other spirits are not possible. Celts were not materialistic and neither were Greek philosophers who could conceive of the trinity of God. Christian Romans were killing each other in an argument about Jesus being the son of god or the God (the trinity). Romans did not have a word for the concept of the trinity of God so if Jesus was the son of God that would mean more than one god. There were all kinds of arguments about if Jesus was a God, when was he born or when he was baptized, or when he died. Roman kings could become gods when they died, but they were mortals when they lived. A Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three gods or three expressions of the same thing. Back in the day Christians killed each other because of that debate.
The Celts won wars because they fought with the power of their gods. They were uncivilized and undisciplined when it came to war, and they were terrifying with their screaming and yelling and assure that they had the most powerful gods.
Back in the day, people thought the people who won wars had the most powerful god. Constantine realized the power of war and god, and united the Romans with one God after he saw the sign of a cross in the sky and this God made it possible for him to win a war. :lol: That is mythology and it works wonders when you want people to carry weapons and run into each other knowing the likelihood of being killed.
Egypt had a trinity of spirit. One part of the trinity dies when our body dies. A second part of the trinity is judged and may or may not be allowed into the good life. The third part of the trinity always returns to the source and because one with the source. Everything was part of a spiritual reality. That is the opposite of being materialistic like those people who deny there is a god with angels and demons.
That's in a whole different category from political systems and ideologies. All of the same drives exist the rest of the animal world that exist in humans - it's just that most social animals have mechanism to control these, so that opne overweening drive should not crowd out expression of the others. Primitive human societies consciously invented social controls against hubris, vanity, greed and lust for power. Civilized codes of morality and law are intended to do much the same, but are far less effective, or else have the opposite effect in stratified, stupefied organizations.
Quoting universeness
What's the difference, if they're followed anyway - whether in spite of their badness or because of it?
That one man is the one the entire nation, according its its acknowledged, sworn-by and much vaunted constitution, by its established electoral process, through the changes of its culture, selected to lead the whole nation and represent it among the world's nations.
Quoting Athena
I wot not where these two entities can be severed.
Quoting Athena
As do many religious and spiritual people. I don't know what any of them mean by it.
How I used them was: materialistic people are concerned with possessions and social status; spiritualistic ones are concerned with the personal 'soul' or 'essence' and its relation to the supernatural.
The word democracy means- a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
There is not one model of democracy. All governments to varying degrees are autocratic and democratic. So the Christian dominated Republic of Germany became the enemy of the US in two world wars and we fought against the authoritarianism of Germany, just as Athens opposed the authoritarianism of Sparta. The US and the Greek city-states had slaves. Christian Europe had serfs that are the same as slaves, except serfs and sold with the land and the property rights of slaves do not tie the slaves to the land. Democratic governments can restrict who gets to vote. The US concept of equality has changed over the years and there are still pockets in the US that resist treating people of color with equality.
I am running out of time, but quick here is the story of Athens adopting Spartan democracy. It was genius to defend Athens at sea, but this also required a lot of men to row the boats, and in a sea war everything sinks so they would get no booty for their effort. Also, Athens did not have the money to pay men to get on the boats, so a deal was cut. If the men defended Athens they would get the right to vote. Economic conditions were pushing for democracy, but the need to defend Athens turned an idea into action.
After the war, Athens created government jobs, built a universtity to attract people from around the world,
they rebuilt Athen's temple that was also expected to attract people from around the world. Athena's new temple taught the world of democracy with statues and pictures. This was a whole new relationship of the gods and a new relationship for the people. You may remember the gods battle with each other and threw each other out of power just as humans did, but with the temple of Athena comes rule by reason.
Alot of this was extremely different from Sparta, but it was brought on by war and adopting the democratic part of Sparta's organization for war. Athens did not take care of everyone as Sparta did, but Athens did all in its power to provide opportunities and improve the economy. If we understood such things perhaps we would also increase opportunities but not give everyone welfare. Some members of society need help but we have taken that too far.
Except single parents could be considered working people and we might pay more attention to the well-being of children. Someone has to care for the children and the children and their caregivers have needs that must be met.
I broadly agree. Years ago, I read about (and then saw it dramatised in a movie called 'The Fall of The Roman Empire' (I think)) such an attempt by the Roman senate.
It was tradition to welcome any conquering hero at the head of Rome's legions via a parade through the streets of Rome. The senate insisted that a slave be placed behind the returning hero, in their chariot.
The slave's job was to regularly whisper, throughout the celebrations, into the ear of the hero, that he was just a man. 'Do not forget that thou art a mere man, a mere mortal.' Not a very successful system, in hindsight, but I am sure we can do better today.
Quoting Vera Mont
Because what gandhi said is not only true, it will eventually become the solution that happens faster and faster and with less and less damage. Eventually tyrants holding significant power, will become as impossible as is possible. In my opinion Ukraine should already have resulted in WW 3, but I remain quite hopeful that it will not.
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.” ? Mahatma Gandhi
Of course that's true. Equally of bad kings and good presidents, bad presidents and good kings; honest preachers and corrupt judges, corrupt preachers and honest judges. Maybe truth and love will triumph in the end, but I don't remember many instances of it happening in history I've read or witnessed.
I prefer the definition of democracy as governance of, for and by the people.
You have some eccentric views of what might still be labelled as 'democratic' or 'partially democratic.'
I demand undiluted democracy and any intermediate state of affairs means the fight continues.
Promising Athenian men a vote if they role play galley slaves is not 'introducing democracy as a right in law. It's a compromise for nefarious reasons which can be removed without the democratic mandate of the entire population, just like Rode vs Wade was removed in the USA.
Quoting Athena
What do you mean, Sparta took care of everyone? They had a savagely enforced hierarchy of privilege.
Those in servitude to them lived in much more 'spartan' conditions than those higher up the hierarchy.
Any surplus people or weak people they considered no longer useful, were disposed of.
This is the year 2023. Evolution via natural selection had 13.8 billion years.
The genus homo has only been here for a small duration in the cosmic calendar.
10,000 years of tears and bloody conflict is only 23 seconds in the cosmic calendar.
Give us a freakin chance Vera!!!!!! The Genus Homo never even arrived until 9:25pm on Dec 31st!
Quoting universeness
OK You have a minute and a half
Take all the time the universe will give you. Just don't expect me to believe we're bred better now than we were 10,000 years ago. Or this hopeful, wishful, wistful wisp of BS:
Quoting universeness
90 seconds is 39,375 years in the cosmic calendar so, That's not too bad a deal!
Perhaps not 'bred better' but certainly a lot more of the global population has access to a lot more info than in the past, and we can communicate more, as you and I are demonstrating now, on this thread.
I am sure your struggle with your own 'jading' will continue, and it's not yet all pervasive.
It can't be or you could not be bothered to debate the points you debate on TPF.
Even though you choose to output such defeatist commentary, as:
Quoting Vera Mont
I am not such a fan as gandhi was, in HIS notion of love, as he employs it above, but I fully agree with his use of 'truth' above.
Make up your mind what you're measuring, human evolution or access to satellites? They don't progress in the time-frame or scale.
Quoting universeness
At what points in history have which 'truths' won what conflicts?
Measure everything in every way we know how to and then see if we can find new ways to measure everything again. Access to satellites does not happen before human evolution, so there is a very definite time order to such events. I am measuring what I would call 'change' in the options available to humans alive today, compared to, in much earlier times.
Quoting Vera Mont
That's a very big and somewhat subjective list you are requesting. I can offer you one set of 'points in history' that I would put near the top of my list for being 'truths' that ultimately 'won' a human conflict.
[i]First Servile War (135?132 BC) — in Sicily, led by Eunus.
Second Servile War (104?100 BC) — in Sicily, led by Athenion and Tryphon.
Third Servile War (73?71 BC) — on mainland Italy, led by Spartacus.[/i]
These rocked the Roman empire to it's core. Events such as the English civil war, all revolutionary wars, the American civil war, WW I, WW II, all contributed to the eventual human victory against human slavery. State sanctioned slavery is now, globally, almost non-existent. The 'truth' that 'civilised' humans reject enslaving other humans has been 'won' imo, with global slavery now reduced to embers of what it once was. All humanity past and present can be proud of that 'victory.'
That way you can pick out all the cherries from the present and prove to your own satisfaction that they are better cherries than the coconuts of the past were. (and vice versa, as required)Quoting universeness
Affectionate bombs, guillotines and spears; honest land-mines, mustard gas and man-traps won those wars? News to me. Slavery, incidentally, is alive and well.
https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_855019/lang--en/index.htm
https://www.state.gov/what-is-modern-slavery/
The interruption of the constitution changes as the culture changes.
Trump was very frustrated with the limits put on him. I am sure Bidin is dealing with a lot of frustration too. For a long time the US democracy has looked like a disaster to me, as one president things in motion for a certain outcome and the next president dismantles what the first on put in place, as Reagan dismantled the alternative energy efforts made by Carter. And Trump disbanded the organization for dealing with pandemics that Obama put in place. And none of these men acted alone but were chosen and supported by special interest groups.
The US Constitution is clear about the government staying out of special interest business but global economic and military changes have glued governments to special interest. And the one president is reacting to forces far beyond the control of anyone. Yuk, this is politics. How can we be philosophical about this? How about logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe?
I offer gun control as an example of cultural control. The reason different states have opposing points of view about gun control is they have different cultures that promote the mentality of gun ownership of oppose the mentality of gun ownership. The abortion issue is also one of opposing cultures.
Quoting Vera Mont
I think that is the general understanding of materialism but being materialistic or spiritual has a different meaning beginning with Aristotle.
So for Aristotle, reality is a matter of matter, not gods and spirits. That line of thinking goes with Democritus.
That pulled the Greeks away from superstitious thinking where creation is about gods and spirits. They determined sickness and things like epilepsy occurred for physical reasons, not because gods made these things happen. Water becomes H2O, not a spirit being. Spirits do not live in trees. It goes with arguments against there being a God and Satan and angels and demons. Does that make sense? Being spiritual is believing in spirits. :gasp: But not exactly as the ancients believed in spirits. Oh dear, this is pretty paradoxical. Back to Aristotle.
Aristotle's teacher was Plato and Plato gave us his understanding of forms. For Plato changeable earth is not the ultimate reality, but there is a realm of perfection. Plato being an important source for Christian thinking. Like the Catholic invasion of Islam's territory, lead to the West rediscovering the ancient Greek and Roman classics and the Church picked up Aristotle and Plato to support Chruch doctrine.
The Church developed Scholasticism and brought the West into the Renaissance, the return of the intellectual advancements of ancient Greek and Romans.
Wow, all that thinking is melting my brain. This thread is about culture and culture gives us our understanding of reality. Important to consider without education in Greek and Roman classics we do not have the culture that came out of the Enlightenment when educated people were literate in the classics. Christianity did not give us democracy with liberty and justice. Our democracy comes from the classics.
Indeed. And the US one has improved its provisions for equality of citizens under the law. But it has not guaranteed translating those improvements into a steady improvement law-enforcement, social services or political access to all citizens equally. It has not resulted in a consistent improvement in leadership over time. The arc of that history is all over the place, not upward.
Quoting Athena
Okay. And how does Aristotle etc. relate to a linking of materialism with militarism in a society?
You can use fruity and nutty analogies if you choose Vera, but they are a rather simplistic attempt to diminish the points I am making and are unsuccessful in that goal imo.
Quoting Vera Mont
That's your interpretation of the points I am making to connect the ancient servile wars and the revolutionary wars, civil wars and 2 world wars since? You think my main goal was to impose human emotions such as 'affection' and human traits such as honesty on to weapons that kill people?
That's a rather bizarre conflation, to say the least.
Is that 10 million out of 8 billion and is that slavery as nasty as it was in Roman times.
Out of an entire Roman Empire population estimate of 50 million, an estimated 5 to 10 million, were slaves. Do you still think 'modern slavery' is anywhere near as bad as slavery in ancient times?
Your point regarding child soldiers pales when compared to ancient abuse of children.
Your point regarding sex trafficking pales even more in comparison to sexual abuse within ancient civilisations.
You have allowed your 'jadism' to blind you to the fantastic improvements that historical altruists, socialists and humanists have achieved. You prefer to hype what still has to be done, instead of (at least also) celebrate what has been achieved and celebrate those who still 'fight the good fight.'
Better to hype the fact that they have a brilliant legacy, they can look back on, to inspire them to vigorously continue to 'finish the job,' started by good people, who died in their millions, fighting for a better human experience, thousands of years ago.
The pain/disappointment of your current jaded outlook, is your burden.
Why do you want to export it to others?
Victories of the way of love and truth is what I questioned, and your response was a bunch of terribly destructive wars, in which neither love nor truth played any significant role. All wars are won and lost through anger, violence, hate and weapons. Whether they get bigger or smaller over time doesn't seem to affect the means employed in fighting them.
What difference does it make how many slaves Rome had ? Modern India has 18.3 million. I don't think Gandhi could sell this as a victory for love and truth.
Quoting universeness
For whom? The 9-year-old soldiers or the girls abducted to serve in brothels?
Quoting universeness
No, I'm not blind. Good people do good now, as they did in other times; bad people do harm, as they did other times, and this been known for a long time: Ecclesiastes 1:9 "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."
Civilization is not in one of its improving phases at the moment. The second half of the 20th century was a veritable dream of social, scientific, technological and economic progress for a certain segment of the human population, but much of that improvement was at the expense of the other 90%. Moreover, those hallmark wars in the first half, the concentrations of power they established and the ensuing broad sweep of capitalism over the world, laid the foundations for the gross endangerment of the following century. So, here we are on the down-slope. And it's a steep one. Maybe with closed eyes is the most appropriate way to ride it out; pink goggles probably the next best. (I have hopes for a future - just not a very near one.)
I suppose because I still have a tiny spark of optimism left: I still have some dim flicker of hope that if we acknowledge the truth of our times, we might still be able to avert, or at least mitigate the worst outcomes. that's exactly what some of the best, most altruistic, truth-serving people are attempting to do now - they're too busy to celebrate past victories.
It is, admittedly, a very, very small spark.
On the contrary, I think truth and love played thee most significant role, from the standpoint of the slaves in revolt. Love of freedom, love of justice. The truth (to them at the time) that death is better than slavery, or the truth that risking their own lives to fight against slavery was the right cause to choose.
The truth that if they did not fight, then they had no future and neither did their children.
The truth that fighting the bas***** felt better, than obeying them as masters. I could go on......
Quoting Vera Mont
I agree, but there comes a point when 'If they want WAR we will give them WAR!'
Like you, I sooooooooooo wish that war would NEVER EVER happen again, but the problem is that the nefarious will not give up their status, power, or privilege, by any other means than 'out of my cold dead hands.'
Quoting Vera Mont
Level or impact of atrocity is sometimes a numbers game Vera, you know that.
15,000 children die every day for preventable reasons. If those 15,000 all happened in New York every day, then the global reaction would be a lot different, yes, so sometimes it's not even ONLY a numbers game, there are far worse reasons for the apathy of many people.
Taking the smallest estimate for the Roman Empire of 10% of their population in slavery. If that were true of the worlds population today, especially is the West, then we would still be in a global war, imo.
Quoting Vera Mont
Sure, there are many garbage passages in the bible. The Sun itself 'formed' and there was a time that it did not exist, yet other objects did exist. So did the writers of this dumb book not know that?
The planets formed under the sun and were new, The dinosaurs were new, humans were new, the bible is mostly utter inane BS and you know it.
I am vigorously blowing on them embers you still have Vera. I'm away to get some kindling to help.
You can help if you want! Our side NEEDS everyone we can get!!
I'm doing the part I feel capable of doing. At this time of life, that doesn't amount to much: feed stray cats, grow tomatoes, reduce my carbon footprint and write books.
And fcs, stop blowing on me!
That is from Percile's funeral speech during Athens's war with Sparta. Lincoln repeated it during the civil war. But as many love to point out, Athens had slavery and immigrants did not have citizenship rights and women did not have political power, yet Athens was a democracy, as the US was a democracy when it had slavery and women could not vote. So there is an ideal and a less-than-perfect reality?
And we have a problem coming to an agreement on what that ideal is.
Quoting universeness
My information came from the book "Pericles Of Athens And The Birth Of Democracy" by Donald Kagan.
What do you think was the alternative to not defending Athens from the Persian invasions? It is not being a slave to defend against an invasion. The Athens that became the role model for democracy would not have existed if they had not successfully defended against the Persians. Unlike religion, a democracy is always evolving. This is a good thing and it can be a bad thing because change can result in problems. Change makes things unstable. Forgetting what culture has to do with democracy leaves our democracy undefended.
Tying politics to religion is very problematic and we have done that because war is good for religion and religion is good for war. The US decided to pit itself against communism and has it mobilized against communism by calling the communist godless people and building on the notion that God favors the US and the US should serve this God and we go on to fight against evil in the mid-east in complete ignorance of the economic reason for these cold and hot wars. We are no longer a nation of thinking people because we stopped preparing for that when we adopted education for technology and left moral training to the church.
If you are going to demand something, it should be education and preparing the young to be good citizens. Without that education, they will not be "democracy as governance of, for and by the people".
We should demand education for democracy and replace the autocratic model of Industry with the democratic model.
There is a lot of good happening but it doesn't make news. I am blown away by how we think everyone should have a good life and all the things we are doing to assure people have that opportunity. We are not only feeding our own families but desire to feed the world. We rush in when another country has an earthquake or famine. Europeans have stopped making war on each other. And we have problems, but we also have more knowledge than ever before, and the internet that can spread knowledge very rapidly and connect us in discussions of what is so and what should be. Unfortunately, an atomic war could throw us back into a dark age. Or global warming could mean the end of reality as we know it. We do face serious problems but we also have a lot of good going on.
I think this failure is all the non-democratic things going on and number one is we stopped transmitting the culture for democracy. We are powerless if we do not understand the ramifications of adopting the German model of bureaucracy and the German model of education for technology, and dropping classical philosophy in favor of German philosophy. You know Hegel and the nation is God and all must be forced to obey the state and Nechzie supermen who have the right to violent rules because they are so superior.
The change in bureaucracy gives government much more power than it had before the change, but, this power to take care of the people, also takes away their power. The change in education goes with the change in the new bureaucratic order because we no longer rely on strong individuals and great leaders, but instead, we have committees that set policy and from there everything is controlled by policy. This creates a headless beast. Nothing can be done without an act of Congress.
Now we all our institutions are organized by German models and we prepare citizens to rely on authority and obey. Education is preparing the young to fit into the mechanical society they have become.
Tocqueville, the despot that Christian democracies would become.
Write books? What is your subject?
Whoops time to go. I get a lot from the government, so I feel obligated to give back by volunteering, and frankly, I don't know how long I keep doing this. At my age medical problems have increased my maintenance cost and Medicare is covering them. I owe my country a lot.
Not could - is doing so.
Rising sea level
Guess what all these weather upheavals are doing to human populations!
5 facts on climate migrants
How water shortages are brewing wars
So do I. Unfortunately, I can't volunteer at the library anymore, but we still give away books every summer.
Quoting Athena
Utopia, atm. Of course, the more i goof here, the slower my editing goes.
You forgot 'and I post on discussion forums.'
Sorry Vera. I did not intend to cause an uncomfortable gale around you. :joke:
I agree that we have had much diluted versions of what might qualify for the governance label 'democracy' but none in history or now that satisfies the level of democracy we need, imo.
Quoting Athena
I don't refute your sources or what they say, I am just complaining, that what they called democratic, stretches the valid use of the label a little to far for me.
Quoting Athena
I think people will fight much harder when they believe in the cause they are fighting for and not because they have been bribed by money or promises that may or may not be honoured. Mercenaries were never liked by any side of a conflict. There IS often NO alternative to defending against an invader.
I disagree that if the Persians had conquered and subsumed Greece completely into their empire, that the world would be much different, than it is today. Democracy would have still risen to something similar to where it is today. Perhaps only some of the names and prominent stories would change.
Maybe the middle east would be more prominent today that the West but i don't think that would matter much.
Quoting Athena
I broadly agree with the content of your quote immediately above. I would just not use the Greek civilisation, as any kind of important part of the curriculum of increased (free) education opportunities, you rightly suggest, are required to help build a better future for all.
I assumed you knew. Anyway, I don't think of it as a contribution so much as an excuse to skive off work.
I think exchanging your viewpoints on discussion forums such as TPF, means more to you than an excuse to skive off work. I think you still want to influence others, because that does still really matter.
That's why I post here anyway.
Of course I want to.... But I don't have those binoculars that let me mistake wishes for horses.
Just keep making the points you make and keep on truckin!
Guys and real stories like this, make me appreciate things more!
DAVE AND THE OCTOPUS
I enjoyed watching Dave and 'Eve was framed' last night in:
Too anthropocentric. The universe, my friend, is extremely inimicable to complex organisms outside of their miniscule, watery envelopes of powerful magnetic fields in 'Goldlock's Zones' like Earth. Outer space is for the machines; virtual space is for (our) species. At most, we're tele-explorers (i.e. remote viewers (e.g. space telescopes, Martian rovers, Jovian probes, etc)). AGI—>ASI may be "our guardian" one day ... :nerd:
I only ever watched a handful of B5 episodes back in the day, maybe 1-2 each season; all I remember is being bored by the characters, derivative space operatic metaplot and the cheezy CGI. From what I've read in recent years I don't feel I'd missed much.
Quoting Vera Mont
:up:
Quoting Athena
Our intelligent machine descendants are emerging now from the womb of human reason. They will be either an extinction event or the apotheosis of human civilization – IMO, a profound improvement either way on the global status quo / human condition. :victory:
:100:
Why intelligent, well-intentioned people delude themselves with panglossian nostagias escapes me. Coping mechanisms?
This has been, in many situations, an important survival mechanism.
I remember a short story we read in GR5, of which I don't recall the title, but it was about a boy who had fallen through ice on a pond and his little brother went for help. The moral was: "Courage consists of holding on one minute longer." Optimism bias has enabled people to do that in many situations.
(The same year, we read a story about a Spartan boy who let his belly get chewed open by a little fox rather than break ranks on parade. At the time, I thought it was just stupid and dead wrong, but now I realize it was about the power of totalitarian zealotry.)
They didn't have a lot of stories about girls back then in Canadian schoolbooks, which, given the subject matter, is just as well. I have - very much later - learned that girls figured more prominently in Russian and Chinese schoolbooks of the same period. That nominal egalitarianism didn't manifest in their cultures, while North American women did fight for and win civil rights. I don't know whether there is a lesson in there, or what it might be.
I have watched all 5 series at least 6 times. I will probably watch it again.
Many individual episodes deal with human dilemmas that are very relevant to cultural issues today.
(Btw, I gave up on nBSG after the first 2½ seasons and never watched more than online preview trailers for any Star Trek series since the last few years of DS9. Same with Stargate & Star Wars-related tv shows despite my nephews' best efforts!)
I'm not a sci fi guy, but I enjoyed Firefly/Serenity. I admired the imaginative literary ambition of the original Trek (in small doses) but later Trek seemed a bit contrived and mechanical for my taste. I remember hearing about Next Gen in 1987 and saying (quite idiotically it turns out), 'This will never catch on, Trek was an unrepeatable one off!'
Nonetheless, your "tv scifi" taste is impeccable, mate! :cool:
Yeah, Firefly was really good. Serenity was ok. Most of the human dilemma's covered in Firefly were also depicted in varied ways in B5, Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, BSG, V, etc. I enjoy the varied ways the writers depict common human dilemmas, in a futuristic framework.
As for Star Wars, it was great fun, once, in a proper big-screen movie theater.
STNG, DS9, B5 and Doctor Who are the series we keep revisiting - like going home to see family on holidays.
Oh no, all those things are normal. :yum: We can not change the way we live because it would hurt the economy. Like these disasters and wars for resources don't hurt our economy? Sometimes I think reports of human intelligence are highly overrated, but what can be expected of a culture with a God who made humans special from all the other animals and who is a servant to their prayers, giving them whatever they want without limit? Besides these abnormally warm days in May are much better than cool, rainy days. The bugs seem to be very happy with this warm weather. :grin:
I particularly remember the Star Trek show about a planet with extremely little water and one tree that someone watered. Maybe that was the tree of forbidden fruit? :chin:
I don't recognise that one Athena? Any more memory of its storyline?
I hope you really care about his opinion because I found a really good explanation of it. Follow this link and go to page 79. I can not copy and paste it, but it contains more information on the subject than I have come across before. I enjoy the information at this link.
What about Stargate Universe? Did you try that one, before it got cancelled.
i have all the B5 movies and 'Crusade' (Cancelled) and 'The lost tales'
I bought the remake of V and The spin off from the remake of BSG, called Caprica (both Cancelled).
I bought the remake of Westworld, which tried to be as soft porn as Game of thrones.
I have watched all of game of thrones twice and I still hate the ending.
I can't seem to get through Westworld, as each episode seems worse than the previous one.
I wish they would re-make B5 and do psycore and technomage spin offs.
There are around 15 B5 books, that tell a lot more of the story not told in the 5 series B5 arc.
I have bought and read them all. There are even scams involved in them. There are 3 psycore books and 3 technomage books for B5. You will get the first two books for pennies and then have to pay between £50-£100 to get the 3rd one in a series.
Nope that is it and I was horrified to think such a thing could happen, but it is happening to our own planet. Our groundwater situation is very bad and when plants do not have the advantage of underground water, unless there is plenty of rain, you get a desert. I think of that Star Trek show when something triggers my awareness of the growing water problems around the world.
Why do you think. countries that need more water, don't build large desalination plants?
The Earth's surface is 71% Water.
I totally agree with you, but if we had education for democracy and replaced the autocratic model for Industry with the democratic one, then we have a more fully democratic reality.
I doubt that if democracy would have risen because I don't think the philosophy for it would have risen. However, the more I think on this, the more interesting the possibility gets. There are matriarchies and in a matriarchy, there is more sharing of power than patriarchies. Men just seem strongly bent in favor of hierarchies, masters, and those subject to the masters. Christianity is soaked in that mentality. Some churches broke away from that but I don't think they are the most popular or powerful churches.
:love: I love what you said because there is another country that was a contemporary of the Greeks who appear to have had much more equality shared by men and women. The only reason I can think of for us not knowing more about them is they must not have written much and did not have libraries like other civilizations. Spartan women had much more freedom than Athenian women. From a woman's point of view Athens have a terrible social order. But with all that said, I think the Greeks had an intellectual superiority.
I love what you said because the subject deserves our attention. How much do you know of other civilizations? Do have an interest in geology which can give us a better understanding of the physical factors that influence humans differently. Like to me, you just opened what looks like a really good puzzle to put together. :grin:
Look at what the people of India and Rome did with toilets and Aqueducts. We can do better. Why don't we do better? Maybe dependency on God leaves us with a lack of motivation?
It costs a lot of money to build a plant; more to build the pipeline from the coast to the dry areas, plus operating and maintenance costs. A lot of countries are doing it and they may not all be equally mindful of the environmental impact or careful with the concentrated mineral byproduct. And, as Athena pointed out, that's used just for humans: the wildlife and native vegetation will die. And that will cause more wildfires, which will destroy a lot of the farms you invested in.
Quoting universeness
Don't know if I've seen any. I'm not the main SF fan in this household, but we have the same taste: we don't enjoy violence. It's not merely distasteful, it's unenlightening and uninteresting. Plus, I have another aesthetic peculiarity: I hate-grey walls and blue lighting - all those bleak metallic futuristic interiors give me migraine.
The sad thing is that history is written by authors who normally come from the conquering side.
The epicurean communities seemed a better way to live for all concerned, compared to the Athenian system or the vile spartan system. There were no slaves in epicurean communities and women were treated as equals.
I am sure there were many such attempts in the ancient world at creating a tribal community/civilisation, which was not based on a hierarchy of status, based on force, power, wealth etc.
Consider this possible example from New Scientist
[b]On one thing nearly everyone agrees: no utopia has ever existed. Large human societies tend to be governed by coercion. The instinct for warfare has been a driving force in nearly every civilisation of the last five millennia, from ancient Mesopotamia to the British Empire.
Or has it? One mysterious, ancient society might give the lie to that. The civilisation of the Indus valley is the most enigmatic of the four great early civilisations. But while Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt and ancient China gloried in warfare, it seems absent from the Indus valley. Was this a real, functioning utopia? If so, how did it survive, and why did it eventually disappear?
The Indus civilisation flourished from about 2600 to 1900 BC. More than a thousand settlements have been found covering at least 800,000 square kilometres of what is now Pakistan, India and Afghanistan (see map), yet its remains were only discovered in the 1920s. It is now regarded as the beginning of Indian civilisation and possibly the origin of Hinduism.[/b]
I have read about some other attempts:
[b]The Hopi Indians:
The primary meaning of the word "Hopi" is "behaving one, one who is mannered, civilized, peaceable, polite, who adheres to the Hopi Way." Some sources contrast this to other warring tribes that subsist on plunder[/b]
[b]Tiwanaku
They had no army.
They lived in lands that are part of modern day Bolivia,
Tiwanaku cities were so grand that when the Incas discovered them, they believed they were made by gods.
Over 10,000 people lived in their capital city (also called Tiwanaku), which is believed to be one of the oldest cities in the world.
The civilisation was at the peak of its powers in the 8th century, but mysteriously ended in the 9th century. No one is quite sure why the Tiwanaku disappeared but is believed that they, as well as a similar culture known as the Wari, were victims of a dramatic shift in climate which devastated the crops and caused mass starvation. As they had no writing system and never engaged in war with Spanish conquistadors, the Tiwanaku are a true forgotten civilisation. [/b]
No doubt there are many other examples, we know nothing about, as they were 'conquered' and forgotten.
Quoting Vera Mont
Don't you think it's ridiculous that one human invention, money, is the reason why people don't get the water they need to survive? This is why you call money one of the worse human inventions ever Vera, yes?
Quoting Athena
Why?
Quoting Athena
I already ignore the nonsense that IS christianity and all other religions and theosophism, we just need to get the majority of those in power to do the same, and build a global irrigation system, that fully benefits and assists the planets ecosystem and all flora and fauna on it (including humans).
Quoting Vera Mont
Do you think human scientists are able to design a 'not for profit,' global irrigation system that works and fully benefits and assists the planets ecosystem and all flora and fauna, that exists on and in the planet (including humans)?
Yes. And yet, this is the world as it currently functions, and this is the one in which people have to face the present existential crises.
Quoting universeness
Nope. Physics, chemistry, geology, biology and meteorology already did that one, and did it admirably well. Farmers and scientists fucked it up, mostly in the service of financial interests. It's too big and too badly skewed to repair in the available time-frame.
Besides, water is only one of the issues we can't easily solve and prefer not to face.
I strongly subscribe to, 'If at first you don't succeed, try try again.' I have no choice, as the alternative of 'just accept the status quo,' would mean that the antinatalists have a good point :vomit: :death:
I will NEVER accept that.
I think AI will help a lot in the future, as well as frighten us.
We should enhance this 'did it admirably well,' aspect of future attempts, and work very hard indeed, to remove any possibility of 'f***** it up, mostly in the service of financial interests.'
We had a German Shepherd a long time ago, who had four pups. One of them died within the first day. We buried it, but she kept digging it up and bringing it to my mother, asking her to revive it. Saddest damn thing you ever saw!
Quoting universeness
They're redundant. The four famous horsemen will soon take out excess population.
Quoting universeness
Yeah, I already wrote that story. It's a story.
I wonder if that's what really happened between Jesus and his followers after he got killed? (if he ever existed.) Pity your mother did not have that 'power of god,' thing.
You jump to extreme's too fast Vera, you miss all the possibilities in-between the extreme states.
The human race is NOT DEAD YET!
Quoting Vera Mont
Some stories are true! Especially ones we have yet to create!
Of course not. But a great many other species are going extinct, faster every DAY!
Whatever is left of the human race, after the collapse, will struggle on somehow - how depends partly on which of our glorious enterprises brings on the apocalypse. Probably keep killing one another over the dregs of civilization, until there are few enough that they have no choice but co-operate or die. Then they will make do with what's left, and survive - or not.
Do you regularly have a beer or 20 with @180 Proof by any chance?
I will need to join you both at some point and cheer you both up! :lol:
No, I usually have it alone - unless you count Madam Secretary.
Anyway, it's hard to drink through an N95 mask disguised as a parrot's beak. (But it makes little children in the supermarket giggle.) And I'm cheerful most of the time. I've done regretting my species - just enjoying what's left of my life.
It sure it would be nice if we were willing to put as much effort into that as we have put into war. But the Trump administration’s peace plan totally disregarded Palestine's'need for water. Isreal had control of Palestine's water supply and was not giving Palestine enough water for their health needs, so Palestine has built distillation plants, and Isreal has pushed into the desperately needed land and water supply and built a community named after Trump to encroach on the little land Palestinians need for the water supply.
Have you looked into distillation efforts around the world? This is not normally a philosophical subject but it is a very serious one in today's world. It is not just about water but people's struggles for their lives and war! The US has been building enemies and I do not know how to address this philosophically but surely it is something we should address.
:cry: What we are doing in this world is so different from the possible reality some of us imagine. How do we deal with this? I would say most Americans are clueless about the Palestinian struggle for the land they remember owning, and they struggle for the enforcement of treaties just as Native Americans did when they were pushed into reservations. I got to take a deep breath. I wish we didn't open this Pandora's box about water.
You wrote of possible civilizations that did live in peace without war and that is only sane. War is complete insanity. We for sure have a God of war, David's God is a God of war. Whereas the Hindus have a mythology that supports peace not war. It begins with a terrible war and a determination to avoid that. Those of us with a God who has favorites and a claim to God-given land and war are not doing so well. The different mythologies result in different cultures.
I believe our democracy made the US a very loved nation and that we have gone about destroying that and making the world a less safe place because our schools stop transmitting the culture we had and education for the Military Industrial Complex of our enemy.
I am not sure I know what you are saying, but I woke feeling great physically and mentally great, and then the subject of desalination threw me into a terrible state of mind, making me think I can relate to "regretting my species". We have the ability to create Eden and instead, we are destroying our planet and escalating war.
The subject of this thread is culture and only when our culture for democracy is transmitted by education can we manifest it. The Military Industrial Complex and bankers should NOT have control of our education.
I have to get back to my happy feeling and I was feeling very happy when you disputed the good of Athens democracy. That triggered what I have read of more equal and peaceful civilizations. There were contemporary civilizations that were doing better when it comes to equality and peace. However, I think Athens' philosophers gave us great intellectual gifts such as mathematical proofs and a comprehensive system of logic. The concept of atoms and evolution have proven useful. The notion that because we can learn and we think we are capable of self-government is essential to our way of life and it is not compatible with religions. Help me here.
What are the fundamental beliefs that make our lives good? I am still working on having a better understanding of Hinduism. But it kind of fell off the track with its reincarnation reasoning that justified a caste system However, I don't think the Hindu caste system is worse than the class systems of Christian Europe. A modern understanding of the effect of different parenting methods and the difference in resources and the effect of trauma on children is superior to religious notions, but we still rely more on religion than science when it comes to what we believe about human nature.
We need a better belief system. Any idea of how to construct that?
I really need that positive kick in the butt because I got so bummed out when looking into the water situation and getting sidetracked by what Israel is doing. I hate Israel and the Christian support of it at the expense of Palestinians.
We need to reach into our imaginations and imagine a better reality and how we might achieve it. Buddhism focuses on compassion and that is so important but it is not the answer. I like Confuseousism but Confurseous was a chauvinist and that is not acceptable. Science without education in ethics and morality is not the final answer either.
I have given thought to the end of life as we know it and what might we preserve for an unknown future that may once again raise a civilization. What do we want that future race to know so they have the best chance of manifesting a good life for our planet?
I was just saying that realism doesn't prevent me feeling good - old bones permitting - or blind me to the good in the world.
Quoting Athena
Here you go!
As to culture, when we support the good works and good people, we automatically promote intelligent action, creative thinking and democracy. The young don't just learn from textbooks - and they're way ahead of us in a global culture of co-operation.
This seems to be a very obvious truth but the truths that apply most widely are often the most obvious, even though they remain a 'struggle' for most humans alive today. Sure, it's not JUST about water, but its ALSO about water. The biggest truth about culturalism is that it does not affect your need for water, food, shelter, warmth, etc. All people from all cultures have identical basic needs.
In fact, those basics are needed by all fauna on the planet.
People mostly war over basic resources. But the nefarious want to be 'EXCESSIVELY RICH,' in resources. They don't want a little gold, they want to be surrounded by gold and be recognised as 'god like' and have every whim serviced and own an excessive glut of all resources and have every urge satisfied and be loved and feared by everyone, etc etc. It's either YOUR WAY or there will be HELL TO PAY!
Quoting Athena
Somewhat, but what is more important, is the basic understanding that Planet Earth has plenty of water. The rest is just bad behaviour.
Quoting Athena
Another obvious but absolutely great, vital question. MY HONEST answer is to do EXACTLY what we are doing now, 'keep fighting the good fight to make things better.'
Quoting Athena
War is the survival of the fittest strategy that was an imperative under jungle rules, but we discovered that it's not the only way to survive. We discovered that co-operation and negotiation, CAN produce better results for all stakeholders. But the nefarious want INSTANT gratification and permanent recognition of their superiority under the traditional jungle rules. We continue to struggle against them and I think we have been gaining ground against them for the past 10,000 years.
The progress has been very slow and it will probably continue to be so, but imo, success is inevitable.
Quoting AthenaQuoting Athena
Quoting Athena
I think these questions are for each of us to answer individually. I can give you the core of my answers.
Socialism and secular humanism and the details involved in them would make up the core of my answer to all 3 questions above. I have not came across any better labels for what I think would be a 'better way' for humans to live and treat each other.
Stop trashing 'jungle rules' - they worked for 300,000,000 years before we bulldozed the jungles. We didn't discover co-operation; social animals predate us by a wide margin
And the most notoriously co-operative behaviour is one of the oldest and most successful.
Under jungle rules, young females are considered property and part of 'to the victor, the spoils, rule.'
Is that an example of one of the jungle rules you don't think I should trash?
I don't think our species is in competition, for the credit of which species discovered co-operation!
You normally offer better responses than that Vera!
In what species? Not elephants, crows, dolphins or or cheetahs. The norm in many human situations today, of course - not so much spoils as commodities.
Quoting universeness
Haven't you noticed the armed conflicts that took out a few million people? Or the ones that are currently taking out hundreds of thousands and might end the whole sheBANG if it gets out of hand?
Quoting universeness
You take credit for something ants perfected 150,000,000 million years ago, and we still haven't managed to get our heads around how it's supposed to work?
That's back on May 9, I don't know how many since.
We seem to be talking past each other Vera.
My main point is that under 'jungle rules,' that are recorded as in common practice amongst ancient homo sapiens, such as perpetually warring with every 'group' of humans your group comes across, obtaining as much resources as you can, regardless of how much you actually need or how badly your actions affect the well being of others, IS imo, a very bad way to behave, and it always has been.
Co-operating with each other in common cause is a BETTER way.
What the hell have groupings of elephants, crows, dolphins or cheetahs got to do with that point?
And, what the hell does it matter if ant's used co-operation before humans did?
Quoting Vera Mont
What are you typing about? What does that point have to do with my point that some human beings have to stop living their lives and affecting the lives of others so negatively, because, THEY choose to behave like we STILL, ALL, have to live under 'jungle rules.'
The only folks I see who HAVE TO convert to 'jungle rules,' to survive, are those who have nothing because they are under the control of a nefarious, rich, elite, who used 'jungle tactics' to gain their power, wealth and authority they have over the masses.
Many of those poor people who employ jungle tactics to survive often become the future nefarious rich. Any gangland culture, demonstrates that.
Quoting Vera Mont
Are you suggesting that humans would be able to create a better society, if we lived like insect species such as ants? I value human co-operation over human war but I don't think we are going to create a better future for the human race by emulating ant society or any other insect or animal society I am familiar with.
What point have I made in this thread so far, that you think warrants adjustment, based on your comment to me about mass shootings in the USA???
It cannot be that you think I need a wake up call regarding a current lack of cooperation amongst humans, as that is already part of my own complaint regarding how we need to improve things! So I am fully aware of the current state of affairs, positives and negative. There IS a whole lot of cooperation going on!
Except not jungle-dwelling human societies did live that way. What's recorded in history is conflict between civilizations, which all had a strongly united internal structure - though the co-operation was usually coerced to some extent by an elite.
Quoting universeness
The FACT that humans didn't DISCOVER co-operation. And are not particularly good at it in large numbers.
Quoting universeness
No, the ants are simply an illustration of how old the concept is. Human would be able create a better society is 99% of of us were not here.
I refer you to a previous response to Athena:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/808871
Quoting Vera Mont
I think you would need to go back to the single celled organism, co-operating with various bacteria and creating a symbiosis which still exists today. Those cells exist in humans, so from that angle, cooperation plays a big role in why we exist at all. Where do you think co-operation began Vera? Do you have a particular species in mind since abiogenesis? You still haven't explained why, when it started, and who or what started it, matters, when it comes to humans needing to employ it a lot more, to create a better future for our species?
Quoting Vera Mont
So out of a planet of 8 billion self-aware, sentient, conscious humans, you have concluded that the utter vastness of the universe with more planets, than there are grains of sand on Earth, can only handle 1% of that (around, 80 million, which is around the current pop of Germany).
Perhaps it's just the Earth you are restricting all our possible futures to, and that any extraterrestrial resources available, will permanently be inaccessible to us.
On a universal scale, humans may be the rarest lifeform, with the ability to affect it's environment and demonstrate reason and purpose in the ways we can, in the entire universe. We have not yet found any other equivalent, have we?
Would you consider the time implied in the sentence below, to be a time when all homo sapiens alive then, were having a far superior experience of life as a human, than the average human, living on planet Earth is experiencing today, purely because there were a lot fewer of us then?
For the time of speciation of Homo sapiens, some 200,000 years ago, an effective global population size of the order of 10,000 to 30,000 individuals has been estimated, with an actual "census population" of early Homo sapiens of roughly 100,000 to 300,000 individuals.
Currently, I'm not aware that Elon Musk is capable of lifting a colony to Arcturus, and even if he could, it wouldn't relieve much of the population pressure on available resources. So, yes, for the foreseeable future, we are restricted to Earth, which we are rapidly turning uninhabitable.
Besides, of course, what that was an answer to it has nothing to do with all possible futures but rather this:
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting universeness
No. Distant past and distant future are neither equivalent nor applicable in the present context.
The following link explains recycling water and probably is the best way to go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_reuse_in_California#:~:text=Water%20reuse%20in%20California%20is,economy%20and%20population%20to%20grow.
The future will probably be a combination of distillation and recycling water.
The efforts to save the Colorado River are huge.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/05/23/colorado-river-deal-water-cuts-explained/
Around the world major rivers are threatened and may die. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wwf-rivers/many-major-rivers-are-in-danger-of-dying-wwf-idUSL1957773520070320
We have to rethink our reality and our role in the health of our planet. Indigenous people around the world have struggled to protect our planet and their little space of it. This is surely a cultural matter.
But our understanding of reality is not identical. Some believe we have a spiritual duty to protect the earth, and some do not. For me, this an extremely important disagreement about reality.
That is a cultural reality but there is also cultural opposition to it. Native Americans and other indigenous people.
I will trust the Native Americans with the answer. I join them in spiritual reasoning and oppose Christianity in part because it denies spiritual truth as I understand it.
Thank goodness for this forum that makes that possible.
We have praised the Spartans for their warrior society and somehow fought to add, the Spartans' worst enemy was themselves and they failed because they could not produce enough children to keep Sparta alive. That choice to praise Sparta is a culture choice. The choice to imitate Rome and Germany is a cultural choice. Why are we making these cultural choices instead of adopting Native American spirituality and putting the earth first?
What are the fundamental beliefs that make our lives good?
— Athena
What do we want that future race to know so they have the best chance of manifesting a good life for our planet?
— Athena
We need a better belief system. Any idea of how to construct that?
— Athena
Those must be a united choice because individuals can not make the differences that need to be made.
How about education for the humanities and insisting on worshiping our Mother Earth and taking care of her and planning for the future of our nation and making the well-being of our planet and children our primary concern? We need to continue this communication and explore what agreements we have.
I would like us to have a good understanding of visceral, relating to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect. I will venture to say, all mammals can learn through sensations of reward and punishment. The Behaviorist Method for training children can be used for training dogs, but we do not give our dogs citizenship responsibilities. The US replaced the Conceptional Method with the Behaviorist Method and now we have some very serious social problems! This makes me go a little crazy when someone says something that could mean there is not a huge difference because humans and other animals.
So when a pony is misbehaving the mother may prod the pony, stirring a bit of an uncomfortable feeling. The mother does not give her young long explanations about good and bad behavior, but we give our children lots of lectures and we do a lot of explaining, or at least I hope most of do. Verbal communication is about reasoning and it is what makes us political animals. Because we can communicate with words, we have rule by reason as opposed to rule by authority over the people. People who don't understand this may think a gun is a good communication tool, or bombs and economic warfare are good political tools. Like there are some people who do not understand democracy at all but think life is just one big power game. Unfortunately, we even make those power game players our presidents, because have lost an understanding of democracy as rule by reason, and boy are we in a mess.
Unless we have education for intellectual development, we do not have education for the culture that is essential to democracy. Dinosaurs and ants do not require that education.
:gasp: Maybe a better understanding of jungle rules would help.
By jungle rules, Whites can enslave dark-skinned people, and kill those who do not stay in their place. The US did not begin with the understanding of being born equal and equality under the law as we have today. Not all of the US agrees on who has rights and who does not. That is an intellectual decision and jungle rules are for lesser animals.
I was aware of that. Also, that if you transpose a remark from one context to another, it becomes nonsense.
But not, AFAIK, to the level of killing 58 random members of one's own herd or pack, or letting entire classes of it starve.
Quoting Athena
No, they really can't. That was civilized Europeans. Some African nations did take their captured enemies as slaves, which had nothing to do with commerce or skin-colour, though they were often ransomed back by their own nation. They didn't live in the jungle, for the most part.
In fact, there is no one jungle, and no 'law of the jungle': that's also an invention of civilized Europeans.
Yes, the US started with exactly that understanding.
They just found it expedient never to implement it.
The age-old question is who is one of us? All social animals recognize who is one of us and who is one of them. We defend "us" against "them". Human is to include far more people as one of us, than any other group of social animals. We do this through culture.
A huge problem with leaving moral training to the Church is our human nature leads us to divide "us" from "them" and so we take a religion that us supposed to unite us and create a lot of division. Like I know God's truth and He favors me, and I am going to heaven but not you because you do not know God's truth. You are not one of us.
Although some areas of the US have not gotten the message Americans are equal no matter what color their skin or what their sexual preferences are. Coming from the Bible there is no equality and ministers must protect their sheep from the pagans and barbarians or those cursed with dark skin. :grimace: That is not the culture for democracy. But can we achieve the way of life that was taught to school children when the US mobilized for the second world war?
"Democracy is a way of life and social order organization which above all others is sensitive to the dignity and worth of the individual human personality, affirming the fundamental moral and political equality of all men and recognizing no barriers of race, religion, or circumstance." "Democracy Series".
If we had the consciousness of the past, all children would be educated for the culture that manifests democracy, and so educated they would be citizens of the US, and none without that education would be citizens with the rights of citizens. A set number of immigrants could enter each year and they could become educated in this way of life and if they passed the citizenship test they could become citizens, but this needs to be kept separate from being a Christian, you know that divisive religion that commands us to play God and take care of the needs of everyone while at the same time we stand at our borders with guns and fight to keep the immigrants out. :chin: Does that makes sense?
Bottom line, how do we determine who is one of us and who is not? Should we care for everyone regardless of their contribution to society and cost of doing so?
Oh my goodness what a delicious argument. The South used the Bible to defend slavery. Both the North and the South thought they were defending the will of God, making the civil war a very deadly war. Even Quakers had a history of having slaves, but they came to see this as wrong and took a stand against it. The Quakers refer to the New Testament and ignore the Old Testament. The Old Testament justifies slavery. The Old Testament is a tribal religion where only Jews could not be slaves because of their relationship with God, but they could own slaves. Later Romans made Christianity a national religion that Judaism could never become.
In the beginning of US democracy, there was a high illiteracy rate, especially in the rural South. Also, the education that really matters for democracy is literacy in Greek and Roman classics. That would be higher education and extremely few would have that.
Without education for democracy, we can not manifest the culture for democracy. To this very day, there is a lot of disagreement about men being created equal. What does that mean? The KKK was a Christian organization and it was behind lynching people of color and keeping them in their place.
White women in the South played a very strong role in promoting racism and white supremacy.
Quoting Elizabeth Gillespie McRae
Before the Civil War, the North attempted to make the US a strong and united nation with textbooks published in the North and sold to schools throughout the nation. These books promoted democracy the one you see in the historical documents. The South realized what the North was doing and began printing its own textbook manifesting the culture of the South, not the culture for democracy in the North. The North and South have had distinctly different cultures and today that is very much a problem. Trump divided us as much as the Civil War and we remain glaring aware of the divide. Never in my 70-plus years did I drop friends because of political differences till Trump. I am afraid if that comes up again, we will see more violence.
A big problem is the size and wealth of Texas and its flavor of Christianity that attempts to control in favor of Christian mythology in public education. Textbook companies want Texas business so they design textbooks for the Texas market including science books that presented creationism as science equal to evolution. Teachers took the school board to the supreme court, to get religion out of the science books.
Our nation is not the united culture that Jefferson and his associates hope the US would have through education.
Here is the original Pledge of Allegiance.
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
When the US was mobilizing against the USSR Bill Graham helped Eisenhower see how adding "God" to that could unite us against those "godless people". This is not the peaceful democracy we defended in two world wars, but is now the Military Industrial Complex it defended our democracy against. War is good for religion and religion is good for war. That was not our culture based on the Greek and Roman classics.
I love that explanation! I see how it goes with an understanding of logos. We can discover the laws of the universe with science. And then with our knowledge of logos, we can have rule by reason and live together symbiosisly with peace and the good for all.
But to achieve that we need to work with an understanding of logos and what it has to do with democracy. That is not explained in the Bible and leaving moral training to the church is problematic. Unlike the single-celled organisms going with the flow without opposing opinions, humans center their choices on self-knowledge and competition for finite resources and they can go against the flow. We have to intellectually understand the benefits and reality of symbiosis before we can put that in our lives.
Whereas, it wasn't even remotely about religion or any kind of moral principle. (Lincoln: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.")
The real issues were political and economic. And this fundamental, foundational schism was built into the original federation by those very same men who signed that document which began as idealistic and wound up as fraudulent. That expedient compromise has cost a whole lot of powerless people a whole lot of blood and pain and grief.
Quoting Athena
Not merely encouraged but often mandated by the elite, who sent many of their own children to Europe for their education. The FF's had had that classical education themselves. https://www.memoriapress.com/articles/classical-education-founding-fathers/
and did nothing to enable their fellow Americans.
Quoting Athena
Of course not!
Aside from the fact that America didn't actually need to defend itself in either of those wars (Hawaii wasn't a state then; it was occupied territory)
that peaceful democracy never existed in the physical universe.
That's not including most of the campaigns against First Nations and all the little secret and overt interventions in other nations' colonial conflicts and not even mentioning conflicts between farmers and ranchers, disputes over water rights, labour wars, police violence against protesters of every kind... and then there's all the gangs and outlaws.
Quoting Athena
Nixon had laid some good ground-work for that, undoing whatever Johnson had been able accomplish to mitigate the enormous gulf that had always existed and is never going away. The United States has never been anything but a figment of wishful thinking. When Bobby Kennedy was killed, the excellent film director, Norman Jewison, felt he had to leave the country, saying, "How can America be so violent that it destroys its own best people?"
I'm convinced that you care deeply and passionately about education. But if you're not prepared to teach young people about their own history - the unspun, unrevised, unvarnished, unedited truth - no substantial problem will ever be addressed. You may as well leave the lobbyists, jingoists and propagandists take over.
From all of the days of your life Athena, what events/realisations/empathy/anger/shame/joy do your remember most?
Do you perceive 'logos' as an ideal aspiration? Is logos what you want, in the way that Plato/Aristotle conceived it? Is YOUR logos/idealism/the goddess Athena who/what you personally want/aspire/need to be? or who/what you think others need to personally aspire/need to be?
Did you manifest YOUR own life or are you a total product/consequence of your culture/nurture/nature/environment/indoctrination/contextual fears/age?
What credence level do you assign to total determinism?
Wow, I so appreciate your explanation of history and I wish we had the history of inclusive equality to go with that. I am afraid we are working with a false understanding of indigenous people and our animal nature which is evolved from it. We are by nature tribal. We are doing good to remember the names of 500 people and something about them such as who they are related to. For us to live in larger groups is pretty amazing. It is not our nature that makes that possible but our intellect overrides our nature. What is the story we tell ourselves about who to include as one of us and who is not one of us? That story is the foundation of culture.
A reminder the guardians of truth are confusion and paradox. While the list of violence can be used to argue we have never had peace, it can also be argued the US was nothing like the Military Industrial Complex it is today. We held a sense of destiny but like Israel, we had limits. For the most part, we depended on the oceans to prevent us from being attacked and we were totally unprepared for the world wars. The military technology of WWII and the need for oil, changed all that. I think to deny the Military Industrial Complex of the US today is extremely different from our past, is a huge mistake.
[qiote] Nixon had laid some good ground-work for that, undoing whatever Johnson had been able to accomplish to mitigate the enormous gulf that had always existed and is never going away. The United States has never been anything but a figment of wishful thinking. When Bobby Kennedy was killed, the excellent film director, Norman Jewison, felt he had to leave the country, saying, "How can America be so violent that it destroys its own best people?" [/quote]
That is a delicious question. I think we are more religious than Europeans, who seem to have a better understanding of democracy serving the good of everyone, not just the privileged. Going with religion Jesus did tell his followers to sell their robes and buy swords. Also, we are not that far from the wild west where there was no established government to keep peace and order. Certainly in states that are mostly rural, people are not as sophisticated as they are in large cities. They are accustomed to being their sole authority and enforcer of authority. They are not adjusted to living with many people with many differences between them. That is, they are not "civilized". We used education to unite everyone and to a very large degree, this was achieved but the 1958 National Defense Education Act changed the purpose of education, and this is why I write of culture. We Stopped transmitting a culture that is essential to being a united and strong nation.
Thank you for challenging me and causing me to think things through. I might know a little more about history than you think. Learning history by studying the history of education is totally fascinating to me. I think my whole mental organization is different from most. I am less prone to seeing history as HIS STORY and strongly favor a more sociological perspective of consciousness, how did someone become aware of that idea? How was the concept communicated to others? How was it changed as the concept move from one culture to another? How did it clash, assimilate and evolve with other concepts?
The US defended its democracy against what it is today. It is a huge error to deny that change. We come from a totally different understanding of God than we have today. It is a huge error to be unaware of that. Democracy is a new social order and it is pretty amazing Christians claim we have democracy because of it being God's will, and they defend God's will. But Christianity supported kings and slavery.
History is a perspective, and if I completed a school book for democracy, I would begin with Athens. I lack the motivation to do that because I don't think Christians would choose such a book for the education of their children. But that is where the history of our democracy needs to begin and that history needs to include the Native American Federation which was a model for our federal government, instead of a kingdom being our model for our government.
:heart: Oh, my love, I love that question and will say it is probably my teacher grandmother and world wars and the depression, through the 1960's and the technological transition today. :down: I would so love to say more but I am out of time:cry: PS Germany is our soul mate and historic partner who manifests our present more than our historical past.
Your grandmother must have been a 'tour de force.'
Quoting Athena
I can't see that at all. Perhaps I would have fought with them/for them against the Romans, but that's about it.
As a Scot, I see little to admire regarding the Saxons or/and the Angles, that hailed from that place and along with the Norman French, eventually formed England. Prussia was quite an ugly civilisation as was WWI and WW2 Germany. Almost as ugly a grouping as the Spartans imo.
I didn't say anything about how much you, personally, know about what aspect of history. I'm merely warning that, regardless what else is taught in their schools, as long as Americans lull themselves with mythical versions of their story as a nation, their national identity and character; as long as they keep telling those stories to their children, and do not correct the inaccuracies, fallacies, misconceptions and outright fictions in their own understanding of their own history; as long as they refuse to come to terms over what's dysfunctional in their social system and why, nothing in their perilous present situation will improve and there are strong indications that it will deteriorate, and at an accelerating pace.
(and this applies equally to other nations that are not under consideration here)
Let's see I think I made a derogatory comment about HIS STORY and referred to a few problems in our past that continue to plague the US and absolutely what you said is correct. I just think it is important to begin the history of democracy with Athens and Sparta.
I have a lot of old textbooks because I want to see the past of our education, and some history books are soo boring it is cruel and inhuman punishment to make children read them. Only one of these old history books presents history with a more humanities approach. But boy, is that one inaccurate by today's standards however, it at least it begins with a mention of ancient times, and that is where a history book for democracy must begin.
That is, we can national history books but that is not exactly what I think we need. We need to learn of the history of democracy and how the understanding of it changed. Every, every important to me, is a more scientific understanding of creation, and this is compatible with logos and the idea that land animals evolved from fish. I want a book that punishes for understanding the importance of morals and the Greeks understood morals. Moral is to know the Law (universal law/ logos) and good manners. This needs to be developed into what good reasoning has to do with being a democracy.
The history book you recommend has merit. But my way could result in better understanding without all the pushback that is happening now with history that increases awareness of our wrongs. Our public broadcasting station is doing a good job of increasing awareness of our wrongs. That is a history book for democracy.
I'm not recommending a book. Your proposed book is fine - so long as it has lots of company from different perspectives. I'm recommending - warning - an adjustment of mind-set. All the times you've taken for granted that Americans were/are "the good guys" in a conflict; all the times you've advocated, directly or indirectly, for American-style capitalism; all the the usual accepted fictions... it's not deliberate; it's habitual. People need to develop a new habit: questioning the old verities.
Quoting Athena
Robust funding and support for that would be an excellent start! (and then find some way to seep-six DeSantis.)
Oh my God, I love what you said. Now if I win the lottery I will have to travel to your part of the world and stay there long enough to absorb history from your point of view. But at the moment I only know my point of view gleaned from books, and we have an agreement about Prussia. Charles Sarolea's book written just before the first world war "The Anglo-German Problem" says the Prussians are very unpleasant people. However, The Prussians who were like the Spartans for the same reason the Spantans were unpleasant, are not the whole of Germany. Spartans and Prussians were as they were for geological reasons. Neither had enough good farmland.
But the rest of Germany had the geology that makes life in the US good. Mild climates and plenty of good farmland. These people are artistic, congenial, and good neighbors and it really worried Sarolea that they left government up to the Prussians who were not nice people. And love, it is what I know of these people's differences that presses me to write about the importance of culture. Sarolea said the Prussians did not have a culture but were as an army always ready for war. It is the Prussian military order that has made the US what it defended its democracy against. The US adopted the Prussian model for bureaucracy and the German model of education. With our institutions model after Germany's institutions is it any wonder Trump has enjoyed the popularity of Hitler? But now I am pissing into the wind because if there are any US citizens who see what I see, I have not come across them. We are all like the Germans who let Prussia have control.
This thread being about culture is good for speaking of the Scotts who made a huge intellectual contribution to the US and the formation of its rebellion against the English. They especially influenced Jefferson during his school years and made Jefferson intensely focused on the importance of universal education if we were to have a strong and united Republic. Our liberty was dependent on that education and following WWII, we totally replaced that education with the German model of education for technology for military and industrial purposes. Now we struggle to control citizens with law and law enforcement and some states have gone as far as rewarding citizens who report on their neighbors! And we are clueless about what has gone so wrong.
Would you please copy and paste what I said that lead you to think what you think?
Democracy is a way of life that is based on Greek and Roman classics. Basic to that way of life is secular thinking. The God of Abraham religions are not compactable with democracy because in a democracy there is no God with favorite people. Instead of fear of learning that is tied to fear of Satan and displeasing a God, in a democracy life long learning is an essential part of participating in politics and being a good citizen. There are fundamental differences separating church and state!
"Democracy is a way of life and social organization which above all others is sensitive to the dignity and worth of the individual human personality, affirming the fundamental moral and political equality of all men and recognizing no barriers of race, religion, or circumstance." (General Report of the Seminar on "What is Democracy?" Congress on Education for Democracy, August 1939)" From the 1941 "Democracy Series" of books for the grade schools.
No. It would take a week to track down all the pieces of such a quilt. Quoting Athena
Yes, you've said, on several occasions.
Quoting Athena
Except for all the gods Socrates is supposed to have offended.
Quoting Athena
Because Abraham is a clan patriarch and much later, Israel is a monarchy. The Greeks and Romans are not chosen by a god; they assemble their national gods out of their own self-image - as does every other culture.
Quoting Athena
And a code of laws based on the biblical commandments meshed together with English common law, on the foundation of a fatally flawed constitution and electoral procedure.
It used to take at least a hundred years for something like the discovery of bacteria to become common knowledge. The miracle of the Athenians is their transition from superstition to science and a focus on proofs. That is why they got our attention and became a model for US education. They were thought to be a race of geniuses. The transition did not happen overnight, but it happen.
In the play, The Clouds by Aristophanes, the character named Socrates argues in favor of science.
Quoting Vera Mont
I keep waiting for discussions to be about democracy as a way of life, and they never do. It is like no one gets the concept. The discussion I would like to have can not move forward when what I say is just words without meaning.
Quoting Vera Mont
Now that could become a discussion about our way of life. I really wish we would get Christianity out of our culture. And I much prefer the Greeks to Rome. The US aspires to be like Rome more than it aspires to be like Athens. This is about culture, not politics. Where does our conscientiousness come from? As powerful as Rome with Christianity was, it still fell.
What are the fatal flaws of the US Constitution?
Tocqueville saw some problems and warned the US would become a despot in his 1830 book "Democracy in America". I am open to examining the flaws.
It's not that we don't get the concept so much as that we disagree on the examples.
I prefer
as a democratic way of life to
What's left to discuss that hasn't been trashed-over multiple times? Quoting Athena
We hold it to be self-evident that all men are created equal, except for those, and those, and the females. And those men that are less equal than these men will be worth 3/5 of a person - with the extra votes going to their owners. But that's only south of this river. West of that river, we'll see, once we've killed enough of those unequal men.
Plus, they might have articulated that right to bear arms clause a little more clearly.
As a way of life, it hasn't worked perfectly.
I'm not talking about a moral stance on the institution of slavery; I'm talking about the political instability of the structure. If it was a slave-owning country, that issue could be addressed later on, as it was in England. If it was to be a free country, that should apply to all of it. Making half and half built a civil war right into the foundation.
Wonderful and why did we attempt to have a democracy? What makes it different from the kingdoms of the Bible? What are the characteristics of democracy? What is the best way to prepare our young for citizenship? The title of this thread is Culture is Critical. What does that have to do with democracy, liberty, and justice?
There wasn't any "we" involved. A couple of dozen well educated, privileged men decided the government they set up needed a framework that would work for their own vision of a new country. Obviously, it had to be different from the imperial monarchy against which they'd just finished leading a lot of good, loyal foot-soldiers into death. They had to promise the people something different and hopeful. Most of them probably believed some aspects of the form they put forward. It probably wouldn't even have occurred to them to wonder what the miners and farm workers wanted; it certainly wouldn't have crossed their minds that women might be political actors. The classical form of democracy probably looked as good to them as it does to you. And then, in order to get everyone on board, they started compromising....
Quoting Athena
Nineteen hundred years of European history and philosophy.
Quoting Athena
That's the trick question, innit? The joker in the political deck. It means something entirely different to me from what it meant to Pericles or Robert Walpole. Each iteration of the form of governance called 'democracy' is different from every other.
Quoting Athena
In my opinion, to teach them how both governance and economy actually work, and the true jingo-free history of both.
Quoting Athena
Not enough. Culture includes a lot of material, both valuable and potentially corrosive, but it doesn't necessarily include critical analysis.
They do say travel broadens the mind. Most Scots I know would be glad to know an altruist such as yourself.
All the military empires of those times with their colourfully dressed toy looking soldiers, whose leaders brought them in army formations, to fight and be slaughtered in muddy fields, all seemed to me to be small variations on a seriously 'f***** up' theme.
'Honour and Glory,' we start the fight at an agreed time and not a second before!
We die and kill to the background music of pipe and drum.
Open with the cannons, flank them! flank them! send in the cavalry with infantry support, ....... and we all fall down! The Prussians, The Russians, The French, The British, The Austrians, The Hungarians, etc etc. Beautiful war to see which gangland culture wins and which bunch of nefarious elite f***wits get to rule Europe!!!!
The only worthwhile lesson from all such historical events has already been put into a song.
'WAR, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin.'
Any culture birthed from or maintained by war or the constant threat of it and preparation for it, will continue to fail.
I am having a problem thinking of anything positive to say. Maybe on another day, I will have a more positive outlook. Today the closest I come to something positive to say is providing a better definition of culture.
That is a different point of view from my understanding of what a nation is about. Like the US had some small wars, but they did not involve most of us until the world wars. We strongly stood against the taxes to maintain a large army or navy, until the military technology of WWII. Our education had nothing to do with wars but was about a culture and democratic way of life and fulfilling enlightenment dreams for a better world.
I don't know if it is me but today both of you both seem horribly depressing and I have pulled up a positive take on the opportunity to say what is right about the founding of the US and democracy for the last time. If this discussion does not improve, it might be time to end it.
I think the facts on the ground won't change. So, probably yes.
I fully believe that the human race can and will create a civilisation that is better than any human civilisation that has ever existed in the past. Civilisations like ancient Greece or USA today will be nothing more than additions to the large list of examples of past attempts that utterly failed and fully deserved to.
The best way for humans to BE is yet to come. On another thread, I listed the top 5 barriers I think we need to terminate completely or reduce to a relatively powerless minimum.
Creating that culture IS INDEED critical imo. We need to make the following benign:
1. Money
2. Capitalism
3. Primal fear.
4. Religion/theism/theosophism
5. Mental aberrations in others, such as narcissism, cult of celebrity, cult of personality, a need to follow others blindly without question.
Now you give me something I can talk about. Thank you.
If we had always lived in Eden, and grew up without fear and a need to compete for scarce resources perhaps that future you believe is possible would already be here and now. Along with the Enlightenment is the New Age hope. The New Age being a time of high tech and peace and the end of tyranny.
Our developing technology has indeed so changed our consciousness that we can relate to those who made history. How could they have not known slavery was a terrible thing? How could they have abused and exploited laborers as they did? Why didn't they always see things as wrong as cannibalism? What I am arguing is that insistence that war is a major part of our lives and not patting ourselves on the back for how far we have come is a negative and destructive mindset.
We have been undergoing rapid social and economic change and this creates instability and anxiety, and this is expressed in social and economic problems. If we realize how much we have progressed and how rapid change affects the whole of society then we might have better moral judgment and actualize our human potential of improving life on earth by being cooperative.
I think your list of necessary changes has merit but those changes are very problematic. The place to start making those changes is a return to education for good moral judgment and citizenship. About #5 somehow I was strongly indoctrinated to believe being a good citizen means lifelong learning and independent thinking. We had education for independent thinking which is vital to a democracy, and in 1958 we replaced that education with education for groupthink and the rapid advancement of technology. There are huge social, economic, and political ramifications of this change.
Now because advanced technology gives us the potential ability to manifest Eden, we needed that focus on education for technology, but because we lacked understanding of the importance of culture and what education has to do with culture, what was good has become bad, and we need to correct the problem with education.
Philosophy is about so much more than facts.
Yes. But if it isn't grounded in factual information about the world, it is fantasy.
I fully advocate, that we need to provide high quality, free, education for all citizens from cradle to grave.
I think we both agree that YOU should have ZERO concerns at this stage in YOUR life, (or indeed at any stage of life) regarding good quality accommodation, free and fully available for as long as you require it. Free and full access to any medical assistance you ever require and that assistance should be the highest quality available within current technology. Free education in any subject you wish to pursue. Access to opportunity to give you as many options as possible for how you wish to direct your life in accordance with, 'from each according to ability and will, to each according to need.' Finding your own cause and purpose in life should be fully supported by your local, regional and national authorities.
You should also be able to take all other basic needs for granted including, food, drink and personal security. That is the human civilisation/culture I think we CAN build, and will eventually build, on a global scale.
No, I would not want life if my life is completely useless. Whatever I get should make it possible for me to be a valuable member of society, and if I can no longer be of value, please, pull the plug!
Oh my goodness, please, I do not want all you offer. I think it would be absolutely dreadful to have everything without it being because of my own effort.
But for a purpose in life, the book I am reading now has given me a new purpose in life. The book is titled Preventable and this link should get you to an explanation of it. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55246090
I would love to see a memorial day for civil service workers. I want that holiday to tell the story of how many civil service workers including nurses and ambulance drivers, and CNAs who worked in nursing homes, died because we did not maintain the supplies that were essential to saving their lives. We were ready for a pandemic because of Ebola and knowing the threat of a pandemic. Obama saw to that. But we did not maintain what was already in place. These people were superheroes because of our shame of letting things get so bad. This includes the health/medical neglect of those living in poverty because they were paid terrible wages and continued to do their essential work jobs even though the condition of poverty increased their risk of dying. If you care you may like the book as much as I do.
It should include those who ran into the burning building the day of 9/11. Let us honor our heros who gave their lives because they deserve that every bit as much as fallen shoulders, and because we need to look at each other and see a potential hero because I believe most of us would be heroes if we were in a situation that required heroes. The number one thing we have to do is love each other and override the destructive Christian notion that we are not worthy without a god saving us.
And that - even if it's about a fictional past, an imaginary present, a non-existent reality - turns it into "philosophy"? Plato might go for it. I don't.
Okay, I think I can work with what you said. I agree with you about the importance of facts, but this should never reduce our ability to fantasize about a better life and how we might achieve it. It is our creativity that separates us from other animals. Life is what we make it, not exactly what a god gives us.
I see being overly concerned with facts as fascist. It makes people crazy, intolerant, and prone to violence. This is a serious cultural problem and it is what the US stood against. We have destroyed the culture that made the US great. Some changes may be good, but the loss of the culture we transmitted through public education is not good. The US is in big trouble right now.
We have agreement but perhaps how we feel about these facts is different? I think what has happened is wonderful. It makes me happy. It might have been better without the wars. I sure don't want wars today but our planet has too many humans right now and we would have suffered from that much earlier if we didn't kill each other. Another good thing about war is it stimulates technological advancement. We did not have the knowledge and technology to feed the masses that need to be fed today. But all in all, the expansion of our consciousness is totally awesome.
I think we are in the Resurrection with archeologists and geologists and related sciences, raising awareness of our past. It is our responsibility today to learn as much as we can, and rethink everything. Hopefully, we can gain knowledge fast enough to save our planet and humanity. Just not the amount of humanity we have today.
How do you feel about it all?
Progress allows us to focus on higher order tasks than before. Would you still rather clothes were washed in the local stream in comparison with using a washing machine? Think of how mush time and effort people could assign to improving their knowledge and pushing the current boundaries of what we know, if everyone could take all basic needs for granted.
The two aspects of thought can coexist, but should never be confused. You can imagine a "better" life - in relation to something known, charted, qualifiable and quantifiable - else "better" has neither meaning nor goals.
I'm not that worried about being separated from other animals. The more philosophical distance we put between our aspirations and our biology, our connection to the living world, the less sense our philosophies make. (See religious dualism.)
Quoting Athena
Nobody knows what anyone else means by "overly." (or fascist)
Quoting Athena
A faction of it certainly does now.
...so I'd go easy on the facile labelling.
It's fine to build castles in the air; I more or less do it as way to stave off Alzheimer's. But I don't move in.
Quoting Athena
No. It would have been entirely different without the wars. You don't get to cherry-pick history and plug in different components for the results you want. If you change even one significant event, the whole thing turns out differently. If you're happy with how human history played out, fine. I accept it because there is no available alternative. Neither of our feelings makes the slightest smidgeon of difference.
Quoting Athena
As long as we're substituting preferred past events, how about doing birth control research instead of weapons research and promoting women's rights instead of fighting over which version of prohibitive Christianity to impose on the masses?
Quoting Athena
Pessimistic.
I appreciate your argument but if someone is retarded and the best contribution this person can make is to fetch water or wash clothes by hand in the stream, that is the job this person needs to do. Taking this job away with indoor plumbing and machines is hurtful to the person who needs to feel valued by the group. I say this because I have worked so much with these people and believe it or not, I speak with compassion and love. What has gone wrong is largely the fact that we don't need these people and we either ignore them on the streets or put them in foster homes where they are taken care of and we do not give them opportunities to feel needed and important.
I worked in a place that trained severely retarded adults for jobs and it was terribly sad knowing there are no jobs for these people, as they try so hard to make themselves useful and valued people. I have lived with them, and I have worked in foster homes. I have also associated with homeless people. For you and me, time to read books and ponder life is very valuable but that is not so for all people.
I ask you to consider how dehumanizing Industry can be. I am sure that is what you are thinking of when you speak of it as an evil. But now think of those closed out of society struggling to be recognized as needed members of society. Their days have nothing to schedule their lives. One day is just like another and if they are not being driven away, they are invisible. There is no place for them and that means not having an identity of someone who belongs. Many don't even have family. I didn't realize how awful this reality is until I lived in a mobile home and our pipes froze. Then we sincerely needed someone to fetch water and suddenly these guys were needed and they stood 10 feet tall.
So what you say is true but it is not the whole truth.
My goodness, between the music I am listening to and explaining the importance of needing to valued and having a sense of belonging, I have a vivid awareness of important it is to ground ourselves with our hearts. Nothing is more real to me at this moment than the reality I know we can live is grounded in our hearts. Without this, we entropy and die.
Reality is about so much more than facts and if we can not deal with that, there is a big problem. To me, you are speaking of the result of education for technology and our technological development and the fact that we are on the brink of a third world war. Some much for being grounded in facts. And we are in complete denial of facts! We are destroying nature and our planet. We are like smokers who can not stop even when they know the health risk. There is more to life than facts our technological society may be a big mistake because it is thinking too much and feeling too little. How do you feel about being on the path of global war?
Right now in the news parents are extremely upset about sex in textbooks. Sex is about a whole lot more than facts and education for technology comes with a big problem of insensitivity, and a sense of a big brother over stepping. It is about time we stand up and tell big brother to back off.
My effort to argue against what you said relies too much on personal thoughts and I am not in a position to be respected for what I think, so I googled for a source that may be respected.
Einstein, 2000):
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”
“I believe in intuition and inspiration…At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason.”
“My intuition was not strong enough in the field of mathematics to differentiate clearly the fundamentally important…from the rest of the more or less desirable erudition. Also, my interest in the study of nature was no doubt stronger… In this field I soon learned to sniff out that which might lead to fundamentals and to turn aside…from the multitude of things that clutter up the mind and divert from the essentials.”
“The truly great advances in our understanding of nature originated in a way almost diametrically opposed to induction. The intuitive grasp of the essentials of a large complex of facts leads the scientist to the postulation of a hypothetical basic law, or several such laws. From these laws, he derives his conclusions…which can then be compared to experience. Basic laws (axioms) and conclusions together form what is called a “theory.” Every expert knows that the greatest advances in natural science…originated in this manner, and that their basis has this hypothetical character.”
“All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge, namely, in axioms, from which deductions are then made…Intuition is the necessary condition for the discovery of such axioms.”
“I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.”
“I was sitting in the patent office in Bern when all of a sudden a thought occurred to me: if a person falls freely, he won’t feel his own weight. I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation.”
https://christinaleimer.com/intuition-einstein/
I have no idea how well you relate to what Einstein. I just know I can relate to what he said. Especially
“I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterward.” I love it when I find someone said what I want to say but just can not find the right words for saying it.
Because of my relationships with low-IQ people, I know if I were stranded in the wilderness, I would rather be with one of them than someone with a high IQ because the person who is more like an animal intuitively is better at survival.
I expected that. So what are you going to do now? Make an effort to expand your consciousness or give up?
I think humanity would be much further ahead if, like the Iroquois, women had always played an important role in our growing human consciousness. I am very excited by the difference empowered women are making and I am not bending to the male standard that I believe is a failure and basic cause of our social and international problems.
I'd choose a smart dog. But that won't repair the damage we've done to the world.
Quoting Athena
No much. I'll keep growing tomatoes and cucumbers as long as can, try to get over my speed phobia, feed the cats. Probably won't start any more books as they take too long.
:lol: Then ask. Like how manly to put me on the defense instead of asking for more information.
What is happening here is not pleasant. Being put on the defensive turns things negative.
Fascism is a bureaucratic/social order that is very authoritarian and shifts power from the people to the state, totally crushing individual power and liberty. And this goes very well with Christianity. The US fought two world wars to defend its democratic way of life, before adopting Germany's model of bureaucracy and its model of education for technology that goes it. Add to this Evanglics coming to political power as we mobilized against those godless people of communism and assure loyalty to the Nation by putting God in the pledge of allegiance and on all our money. Yeap, this discussion is right on target. Cultural differences are important.
Uniting a nation with a god who favors them has been very effective ever since Rome.
I am not surprised.
My father thought so highly of the book "Emotional Intelligence" that he bought everyone in the family a copy of that book. His ability to be responsible for the metal that took Apollo to the moon, is something we are very proud of. His willingness to take responsibility for his problem with relationships is also something to be proud of.
And therefore:
Quoting Athena
?
I don't think wishing for a little more truth in political and social organization makes me fascist. But i wouldn't dream of suppressing your opinion.
Now that is a subject that is best with an exploration of facts. I thought this technological development was largely in the US but thanks to this forum, I have learned the technological bureaucratic development is worldwide. If we want to understand reality it is well worth the effort to understand what has happened.
The bureaucratic change comes for good reasons and it would not be threatening our liberty and personal power if we worked on our culture for empowering individuals and people having a better understanding of liberty and personal responsibility. Our failure to understand the importance of bureaucratic changes and education for technology leaves us powerless to protect our liberty, as our failure to understand bacteria and viruses left us powerless to prevent and cure disease.
We are dealing with a powerful known.
You say our bureaucratic organization which includes education for the Military Industrial Complex does not make us fascist and you are in favor of facts. So how have wars and technology changed our reality as we entered WWI and existed from WWII? What is different about how we organize ourselves?
Pretty much the same thing happened to Athens as it spread its civilization and changed the education focus to groom the new bureaucrats and public speakers. There was debate of the good and bad of this change. We are not debating the change but are simply denying it. Does the following remind you of Trump? Trump is not the problem, but the mass who follow him are the problem.
Definition of Facism..
Quoting merriam-webster
Notice "exalts nation". Australia is just as strong on individuality and personal power as the US ideal but it is about individuals, NOT EXALTING the nation. There is a serious difference. Can you see that? Our richest people are the ones with government contracts and Trump is supportive of this as his followers strongly oppose socialism. Do you disagree?
I believe in Biblical terms that is the Beast. The Beast consumes everything at the expense of the people. I want to pull what you said forward because it goes with the argument I am having with Vera Mont. The best model for the Beast is fascism. "Dr. Friedrich Naumann has emphasized the fundamental difference between the war of yesterday and the war of to-morrow. "
The war of the future is a problem of economic organization of the most difficult nature and highest technological achievement, such as has never been hitherto demanded from any army.....
We know that our nation possesses in its industries successful organizers, brains accustom to direct great quantities of material and "personnel" - men who create new conditions of life for whole economic
districts without having to appeal to any mystical authority."
We never ended the government of contracts of WWII but have greatly increased them. The political battle we have now is who gets those government contracts and who pays for them. Culturally speaking is our blindness in the US, and immediately, the near worship of Trump and his nationalism! His "make America great again" is not raising the standard of living but increasing private profits. That greatness is in part selling weapons around the world and at home. It is the Beast of the Bible and supported by Christians who are capitalist and in denial of the harm done to our own and the whole world, as long as it means those at the top get richer and more powerful. You know, God's chosen few who do the work of God in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, putting our nation in greater and greater debt and making the US the targeted world enemy.
No, I don't recall saying that. I said my own respect and desire for facts does not make me fascist.
Bureaucratic organizations of some kind are unavoidable in dealing with the complex needs and interactions of a large, diverse population, especially in times of rapidly developing technological and economic change. I have no objection to a robust, competent civil service - in fact, I believe they are far more stable than elected government administrations, and can do more - allowed to operate according to their mandate - to keep politicians honest than politicians ever do one another.
Quoting Athena
Humans have had wars throughout their existence; as civilizations grew bigger and more powerful, the wars grew bigger, more deadly and more frequent. They were not caused by bureaucracy or technology; they did not cause either of those things; they have always co-existed within civilization. Wars have been waged with rocks, thrown sticks, fire and long sharp knives, projectile balls and pointy things, things that go bang and things that go thud, things that poison people and sever limb from limb.
Three events changed the attitude the of US conservatives in the wake of WWII: they came out of it the overall winner, the country that scored most points and suffered least loss; they developed the atomic bomb which gave their hawks a sense of invincibility, and the Russian 'communist' state rose up as a major contender for world domination, which threw those same hawks into a state of demented paranoia.
Quoting Athena
Nothing essential, afaics. Assyria had rulers, aristocrats generals, soldiers, spies, administrators, shills, rich men, poor men, beggars, priests, scribes, magistrates, lawyers, garda, criminals, hucksters, supervisors, pedants, crafters, traders, merchants, labourers, landowners and peasants - just like Athens, just like Medieval France, the Cordoban Caliphate or modern USA.
Quoting Athena
They're both enormous problems. I don't think they're fascist -- I don't think they any longer have a coherent 'ism' or credo - that started unravelling with Nixon and his unholy alliance with the the South - or any ideology beyond grasping at power by any and all means. They - and their loyal yes-men in the congress and senate absolutely, point-blank renounce facts. They spurn the constitution, debase every agency of legitimate governance, trample on civil rights and education and deny the electorate a means of expression. They will make civil war... Well, not a new one: The American Civil War Part II.
As a 20+ I remember being in a Glasgow pub with my father.
He was not a 'hardman' himself, but he knew a few.
There was a well known Glasgow gangster in the pub, holding court with other gangsters, when I overheard him say 'I'll tell yous what a hardman is, it's just some f***er with f*** all left to lose.'
I remember a flash of Kirk Douglas playing Spartacus, flashed through my mind, saying the line 'a slave does not fear death, death is the only freedom a slave knows about.'
Over time I have thought a lot about that.
What causes humans to fight and kill each other rather than work with each other in common cause?
I know each of you could give me a long list of reasons.
I think this most important of issues has yet to be fully answered.
Is 'hell' really 'other people?'
Is it true that we love and need company but we also need solipsism to be true, but not always.
You are both intelligent people. Can intelligent people make a global human civilisation that works, or is the 'hell is other people,' concept just too strong in humans?
I simply believe that we can do better than we ever have in the past!
I don't really care how we achieve it. I have already offered my own personal top 5 horrors we need to make benign. We have spent too long in tribes, city states, nations, allies and axis, etc, at war, recovering from war and preparing for the next war. We must find ways to do better. We can talk about the past and the reasons why we are where we are now, forever.
Can we not focus on how we think we can make a better world?
You told me the revolt was all about 'love of freedom'!
Quoting universeness
In a way - but not through or because of their presence. It's really only a few other people: the ones who can invent both a concept of hell and the means of creating some facsimile of it on earth. One of those means is convincing the weak-minded of their own right to lead and decide.
Quoting universeness
That's a difficult question, what with the qualifier tacked to its tail. We need society of some kind - and it doesn't necessarily have be our own species. Most of us do crave the companionship of like-minded humans, and the affection of friends, family, the love and loyalty of a mate. Of course we're self-centered, but that doesn't exclude mutual help, protection and co-operation; it doesn't preclude compassion, empathy and altruism. We - as all intelligent animals - are capable of containing and balancing a large number of drives and impulses and ideas that may sometimes be in conflict, one with another.
Quoting universeness
That depends on the number of people, the space they occupy and the resources available to them. Quite a lot of human groups seem to have been able to form and maintain societies that worked.
Quoting universeness
Not at this juncture in history. Maybe someday.
Quoting universeness
We each are doing what we believe we need to, and can. (except I'm shirking again. Hell isn't other people; other people - well, them and the scrabble game - are what I seek out as a relief from proofreading hell.)
In what way do you think the above quote from the Spartacus movie, would impact the idea that a human slave would yearn to be free and would revolt to gain such, even if death was a likely result?
Quoting Vera Mont
Which do you value most, your own company/solitude or the company of others? Do you need both? Could you live without being able to experience one or the other?
Yeah, I also see the willingness of some, to blindly follow another, a serious problem. It's in my top 5 threats. Love can cause such behaviour, do you agree?
Other people can certainly bring hell/terror/horror into our lives. Gangsters/Nazi's or even those we love can bring such into our lives, so, is it safer to avoid other people and live a life of solitude as much as possible?
Quoting Vera Mont
I agree but for me, it's almost as critical as
1. Who are you?
2. What do you want?
How much of this life I lead, should be about me? and how much of it should be about people other than me?
As a percentage, 50/50? 60/40? 90/10? 10/90, have you thought about such?
Quoting Vera Mont
That all sounds quite reasonable and balanced, so why such a history of tribal/national/international and possibly global war? Why has your more balanced sounding approach not been more successful in the past and can it become so in the future?
Quoting Vera Mont
'Someday,' is the goal that has always been with us, even in the wilds. We have always been working and fighting for 'someday.' Perhaps we have also went to war to fight and die for that 'someday.'
Is part of why we 'war,' to bring 'someday' nearer? The only thing a slave has left to gamble, is their life.
and when the nefarious place people in that position then they show how stupid they can be, because that creates more hardmen/women than any gangster/king/messiah or billionaire can handle.
Quoting Vera Mont
But you choose to interact with other people here/online, which I am sure, is hell, sometimes.
I agree that we are each doing what we believe we need to, but we need to keep working really hard, to prevent having to go to war against those whose beliefs we consider so detrimental to us and those we care about. We have to find other ways. Maybe the only solution that will stop us warring with each other, is an even higher level of m.a.d. The only other two possible solutions seem to me, to be, giving control to AGI or becoming one species on one planet, one global civilisation with the concept of individual nations diminishing to become a complete irrelevance.
Yearn, sure. The contradiction is in 'love' : Quoting Vera Mont
How can you love that which you do not know?
Quoting universeness
It depends entire on the 'others'. These days, few others are available; not only can I not choose the right company for the right mood, I can't choose at all: they're dead or far away, all but one who knows when I need to be alone - and we both live in constant dread of losing the other. Old age sucks ostrich eggs!
Quoting universeness
Far's I can see, that's only one question.
Quoting universeness
Numbers, territory, resources and leadership. While Native Americans did occasionally clash over territory and did stage the odd raid on one another's goods, by and large they were able to coexist, until the Europeans swarmed over here with an unbridled appetite for everything. This is why I avoid the term 'tribalism' when talking about national identities and aspirations. They're not synonymous.
Quoting universeness
And some days, some decades and centuries, have been better than others. I recall saying here, not long ago, that we are currently on the down-slope of the progress roller-coaster. The up-slope - 1964-1980 - were pretty good in north America. It lasted somewhat longer in Europe - minus that hicup in the UK, and I think even longer, though it may have started later in Australia.
Quoting universeness
No. Social progress takes place in prosperous, peaceful periods, when people are not frightened.
Quoting universeness
Not really. You're not real flesh-and-blood people: of any persona on the internet i don't know how much is their true self and how much is invented. I know where the door is on my mouse; I'm never trapped in a room with a bigot, a boor or a bore. I don't take these interactions too seriously: when an exchange becomes absurd, I treat it as comedy.
Quoting universeness
Again, that's not two alternatives; that's step 1 and 2 in the same process.
The difficult, the insurmountable word in your proposition is : giving
I am sure that's a sliding scale from slave to slave. When you reach the point of being willing to gamble your life to achieve it, I think you don't just yearn for freedom you covet it with an intensity I would accept as 'love.'
Quoting Vera Mont
No-one has ever returned to them to tell them oblivion/death involves any suffering or awareness.
A master/slave owner is demonstrably unable to command the dead. I would say that would be a state which I would covet/desire/love, as an alternative to my day to day misery/suffering, as a slave.
Quoting Vera Mont
I have an elderly neighbour, 78, who lives alone but she is involved in so much community stuff that she is quite busy. She is also able to shut out the world, when she wants to. Neighbours and friends are always checking on her to ensure she is ok and has all she needs. She is always 'chipper,' whenever I meet her in the street and chat. She seems to be having a nice life BUT I know this may only be window dressing, I don't know for sure. My mother at 86 seems content most of the time, but certainly not all of the time.
Quoting Vera Mont
As long as the 'up-slopes' produce an overall trend of progress for the human race then my optimism is maintainable and I see no global slide, that would prove Mr Pinker's 'Enlightenment Now,' completely unfounded.
Quoting Vera Mont
We still had to war to destroy the Nazis, and the fascist Japanese and Italians, there was no alternative at the time imo. 'Someday,' would never happen if we had not.
Quoting Vera Mont
Fair point Vera!
Quoting Vera Mont
Perhaps!
So... Gandhi's "way of truth and love" that invariably triumphs is a wibbly-wobbly, truthey-lovey, slippy-slidy interpretation, like biblical text? OK
Quoting universeness
Well... Let's say 'overall progress for the human race' is also open to interpretation. I certainly wouldn't wish to disturb Mr. Pinker's peace of mind. What I do find alarming is the complacent attitude of optimists toward the express-train load of bad ship coming at them.
Quoting universeness
So am I. I don't go around scowling or sniffling - I just see what I see, know what I know.
Yes, because fear can defeat truth and love, inside the mind of an individual.
Abject slavery is preferred by many, to the threat of death, especially if the death threat is particularly gruesome. If comply or die, is the choice you have then I don't blame anyone for choosing either option.
I personally agree with the response to brawn of, "I will say 'no I wont' one more time than a torturer can say 'yes you will,' " but I have never been fully tested in that way. I do think that anyone can break.
You never responded to:
Quoting universeness
any particular reason why not?
Quoting Vera Mont
I doubt he has such a 'peace of mind,' but I also think he could defend his position very well, if you tried.
Quoting Vera Mont (I assume you meant 'shit,' rather than 'ship')
:lol: I appreciate the point, but perhaps it's because we think we can get out of the way in time, or we can stop the train from doing the amount of damage pessimists are convinced it will do, or sure, we are about to be covered from head to toe in all sorts of caustic, destructive shit, BUT the fight will go on, as long as some optimists survive the train of shit assaults you envision.
Communism, socialism, and laissez-faire capitalism are eccomic systems, not politic opposites.
The opposite of democracy is autocracy and you are speaking in favor of autocracy. Opposition to autocracy includes keeping elected people honest and focused on the well fair of all, versus an oligarchy- rule by a handful of powerful people who are ruling to feather their own nest.
Autocracy is efficient. Democracy is not!
I need to begin by saying I strongly disagree with your belief that there is no difference between the bureaucratic structure of the past and today's Military-Industrial Complex. There is no way the bureaucratic order of the past could maintain the complex governments we have today.
I think we need to distinguish the difference between haphazard wars and a Military Industrial Complex.
Sparta lived for war and this led to the inability to reproduce enough citizens to defend Sparta and Sparta died. We might thrill at learning of Sparta's military achievements, but it is Athens that originated Western civilization, not Sparta. Please give that a moment of thought.
The US was the Athens of the modern world with education modeled after Athens education. Germany was the Sparta of the modern world. Thanks to the Prussians Germany was a military-industrial complex and gave us modern warfare that involves every aspect of a nation, unlike the wars of old. The US adopted this bureaucratic order and the education that goes with it. The US is now the Military-Industrial Complex it defended its democracy against.
There is a difference between haphazard wars and being a Military-Industrial Complex. A very important difference is cultural and thinking military order and control is better than a democracy with liberty and justice for all manifested by the citizens and rule by rule, not authority over the people. The US could throw all its weapons into the oceans and it would still be a Military-Industrial Complex because that is what it is bureaucratically and education for technology is about maintaining this military order.
Perhaps if I could explain the difference between past bureaucratic order and the Military-Industial Complex, you agree what we have is fascism.
The model of fascist government comes out of the Prussian military order. A hand of generals establishes the policy and this includes defining everything that needs to be done to achieve this goal and exactly what each person will do to achieve that goal. Now no one needs to think because obeying orders is preferred over independent thinking.
The national heroes that were the foundation of American culture, were independent thinkers. Washington, Franklin, and Lincoln were independent thinkers as were captains of ships. We destroyed our national heroes. We ended education for independent thinking and focused on "group think" because "group think" is best for advancing technology. We ended education for good moral judgment and left moral training to the Chruch, and now have an amoral society that we try to control with laws and authority over the people, who no longer understand what is required for good moral judgment.
I am struggling so hard for the right words. Please understand the bureaucratic order was always supported by public education and the present is nothing like the past. We now have military order, not family order. We once prepared everyone for civic and industrial leadership. Now all are prepared to follow and obey. Trump is our hero because he does not follow and obey. Trump is our Hitler because we have the bureaucratic order and education of our fascist enemy. You seem to favor this order over the democratic order and I think most people agree with you.
Sparta won the war with Athens. The modern Athens won the war with the modern Sparta. Now we are what defended our democracy against and most people believe this is a good thing but now that it is their hands, they think God favors them, and this is not fascism. But it is fascism.
I love what you said and especially Spartacus's quote. As old age overtakes my youth, I am responding from a different perspective as I say, I can understand death as the only freedom.
I love that your question screams at me why I keep writing about the US being what it defended its democracy against. We did not have maintain war time contracts and a large standing army, nor invest in weapons that can do more damage is a few hours than we could have done months of war. As Rome came to depend on its military force leading to its military leaders taking control of Rome, so it is for the Military-Industrial Complex of WWII Germany and the US today. What the US is today, is not what it was before WWII.
Not until Eisenhower and the Korean War did the US become the Military-Industrial Complex we are today and this makes it much more like that we will engage in war than was so before WWII. It took a year to mobilize for the WWI and WWII. Today we can fully be engaged in war within hours and do more damage than we could do in several months. Like Rome it is no longer the people who are in control but the Beast that feeds off us.
I had hoped the Internet and citizens around the world would take this power away from their governments, and with the power of the people they would manifest world peace. I still hold onto this hope although I don't see this happening yet. Democracy leads to peace, not religion, and not a Military-industrial complex. We need to return to family order and end this military order. The people of the world need to unite against the Beasts that feed off of us.
I broadly agree with the content of your statement above, but the term 'family order' can be problematic in the variations it can manifest.
In my world, I would not allow a single tier of government to have full control over the military or the police. I would have a second, as powerful, elected tier of stakeholder representatives. Citizens, who represented all major worker groups, age and gender based reps also, etc. This citizens house, would have to agree to any war declaration or invasion of another nation, that the government of the day proposed.
The government would have full control over all forces in the case of an outside attack on the nation.
New ways to wield political authority must be found. I would also get rid of party politics.
We must vote for people not political parties.
The reason I didn't answer it:
No, I can't say I've counted the percentages of my life, or my life in percentages. I never even considered life to be about something - it's just a process that unfolds as it does, from a biological entity as it is and functions, in a world that operates as it does in a period of time that lasts as long as it does. I don't live for things or people; I live because i was born and have so far found the experience of existence more positive than negative. I think and feel, desire, aspire, act and respond in certain ways, according to my nature and condition. While that process does include contracts, rivalries, entanglements, debts, obligations, conflicts, gifts and charities, none of those are 'about other people'; they merely situations that involve other people, who are also living their own independent lives. (This is why "Who are you?" and "What do you want?" are really one question.)
Quoting universeness
Proofreading hell strikes back. Of course, now I can't go back to fix it; must wear that bit of eggyolk.
Quoting universeness
Yes, that's optimism. Good luck!
So what? That doesn't make any difference to their similar bureaucratic support structure.
Quoting Athena
No, I'm describing governance in any form.
Quoting Athena
Same functions. More of them.
Quoting Athena
TBH, I'm a bit fed up with both their defunct houses. And the Prussians and the Founding slave-trade- panders. And the past or current state of the American brand of democracy. I don't see any of them through your binoculars.
The bigger and more immediate problem is: I don't see any of them relevant to the present situation.
The overall imagery I get from what you typed above gives me too much of an impression that you have been a bystander in your own life. I am sure that is not the case. If I insist that you created the main purpose and meaning and legacy of your life by how you chose to manipulate the variables you had to work with. Why does that not compel you to accept that life is indeed 'about something?'
Quoting Vera Mont
Thanks for your statement that you hope that fortune favours my optimism, that's quite optimistic of you. :wink:
I was doing - working, helping, arguing, loving, protesting, partying, parenting, growing, making and repairing things, teaching, volunteering, writing - not calculating. I was far too busy most of the time to figure percentages.
Quoting universeness
I don't believe lives or Life have a purpose. We creatures with brains respond to the environment and set short and long term goals in order and initiate purposeful activity to achieve specific ends for specific reasons. As for a 'legacy', that's up to a future I will not occupy. I don't expect to leave much of a ripple. In fact, come to think of it, several other people's last faint ripples will die with me, because I'm the last to remember their stories.
Quoting universeness
Being compelled is not a condition I readily accept from anyone. You asked what percent of my life was "about other people". I couldn't place that 'about' on anyone, because I don't think of other people as objects to encompass. If the story or stories of my life has/have been about something, I can't see it from here.
Quoting universeness
Merely polite. I'm 97% sure you'll fail.
I also, was, and still am, 'doing' and I also regularly review what I did, why I did it, who I was, who and what I have become and what I now want. So, I also choose to calculate
Quoting Vera Mont
Do you know of anything other than 'life' for creating meaning, purpose and legacy?
A beaver may build a dam that lasts hundreds of years and changes the local environment for so many other species in a way that helps them thrive. Is that not an example of legacy?
Might someone read one of your books, a hundred years from now, and be inspired to start a revolution from their bed?
Quoting Vera Mont
'Other people' can surely exemplify 'something.'
Quoting Vera Mont
I have already succeeded in many ways, so it depends what you mean.
I have failed so far, to create the human civilisation I have described to you, however,
a teacher of 30+ years, influences many lives in many ways. Some in very significant ways indeed.
Is there a teacher that had a significant affect on your life?
Carl Sagan had the biggest affect on mine, and one or two teachers, I can still name and remember what they did for me and how they altered my mindset and my goals in life.
You mean making *ship* up? No. How's that relevant? Like "Something or someone has to create meaning, and if there's no god and the universe isn't conscious, life has to do it" ? No, I don't believe that. I believe 'purpose' is how living entities experience their directed actions - and that the actions are directed at procuring what the entity needs or desires at any given time. I don't believe in some overarching Purpose or Meaning any more than I believe in Truth or Creation.
(got to clean that sticky p key!)
As for 'legacy', that's something left behind when you're too dead to care. If you've built a dam or a house or some ugly big tomb, whoever is alive after you will be aware of it and maybe even know your name. (I understand Trump's have already been taken off most of the buildings he had other, unnamed people build and he just stuck his name on, as have Lenin's off the ones other, unnamed people stuck it on after he was gone.)
People are not that eager to read my books now, when they're actually relevant - no, they're not! Just that last one is; soon to be two, if I ever finish proofreading and formatting the damn sequel). If they read it after I'm gone, they're certainly welcome, but it won't do me any good.
Quoting universeness
If your students actually do derail that fast-approaching ship-train, that's quite an accomplishment!
All mine ever learned was histology, pottery and colloquial English - useful enough in the short term, but hardly amounts to a legacy.
That article is very much worth reading. Athena could maybe get some insight, too.
Glance to the left while you're on that page.
In case you think an ocean is buffer enough
Once again we have a lot of agreement. One way a citizen can have a say in local policy is to join a committee. Such committee work gave me more power to affect decisions than anything else I have done, including speaking at public hearings. What we have works pretty well but many people are unaware of all the points of influencing policy.
It takes a lot of dedication if a person is serious about supporting a law of changing the organization of a bureaucratic department. This can involve doing things to attract reporters and make the public aware of the need for change. Joining together with like-minded and having a convention in a large hotel. Going in groups to speak with representatives, writing letters, and bringing in already established organizations. All this takes a lot of time, energy, and money and because people's ego's get in the way, there needs to be a strong leader to get everyone working together instead of against each other. I have found most people never attend public hearings or write letters and really don't know what to do except vote when voting time comes. This is generally not someone with children, nor someone so old the energy just isn't there.
High schools should have a class on government organization and how to participate in government and we should advance public speaking as much we pay attention to foot ball! :rage: Schools budget time and effort for ball games, but not public speaking and civics. Not the classes that would empower the young. And now my dear, I am back to the cultural problem. I hope you see it.
Oh, my dear. You made me aware of the possible value of a high school class that is about the different bureaucratic organizations and what makes each governing different. Thank you I need to work on that. Isn't it crazy we commit acts of war on people knowing nothing about how they are organized or if a problem can be resolved in another way besides war? We do commit economic warfare. That began when the Church was struggling to control everyone and what each person thought, and disemboweling or burning those who held different ideas.
Hope to get back to you. got to run.
Sure, why not include it in the improved, far more robust Civics curriculum?
Make sure you include Yes Minister as assigned homework.
But can you establish that as a core subject in Florida et al?
When d'you think it will happen anywhere?
At breakfast this morning the gentleman I sat next to gave me explanations of the different forms of government and they are very different. Socialism is kind of a hybrid between Laize Faire capitalism and communism. A communist country can have a lot of voting but the citizens still have little power because what they vote on is not the important decisions. The communist form of government owns and controls all resources.
In the US the government owns and controls very little. So we have problems that can't be solved. For example, the cost of housing is so high a private party can not afford to build and then sell or rent housing to low-income people at a price the people can afford. Only the government has the resources for building truly affordable housing but our capitalist system prevents that from happening. We have this problem because our reality has changed and people don't like change, so they resist change. No one is going to go west and homestead, or buy cheap land, because it is not available.
In one hundred years we have gone from an empty frontier to cities having no available land from industries and housing, forcing the cities to use the land that does become available for apartments. Gone are the days of building neighborhoods filled with three-bedroom homes with large front and back yards. Maybe one block will become available by tearing down the old buildings, so the multi-story apartment can be built. But it can not be built cheaply enough to be affordable to low-income people. Our reality has changed but not our mindset.
How do you think we should manage our changed reality?
Another change is people are living twice as long and the population of old people is huge and growing! What happens to them when they can no longer care for themselves? Should this be a social concern or strictly a private concern?
About the family order. What do you think family is about? I have a 1941 Family Law book that details who is responsible for whom and what the penalties are for people who do not fulfill their family duty. Back in the day, no one got government help. It just was not available. We got Social Security during the Depression so old people could retire and open up a job for the young. There was no food, medical, or housing assistance. Germany had a national retirement plan, worker's compensation, and a national medical plan long before the US. As I said, these government programs were impossible before we adopted the German model of bureaucracy. In the US the government was too weak and incapable of providing people assistance. What do think family order has to do with such matters?
By the way, I think you are doing an amazing job of managing these arguments for a young person. In another 20 years of arguing you will be awesome.
Did he dissect their structures of civil service? Those are very similar: judicial, defence, foreign affairs, financial/commercial, infrastructure, social service, oversight.
Quoting Athena
That's how so-called communist states work in practice; that does not conform to theory any more than American style democracy conforms to the ideal of democracy or laissez-faire economics is actually about leaving each other do what do as they please. Words are easy; practice is difficult.
Quoting Athena
time for some serious homework!
Quoting Athena
... owned, occupied, hunted and revered by about 200 nations you choose not to acknowledge....
Quoting Athena
Yeeesss
but there are alternative distributions of land, property, usage....
Quoting Athena
That's not it. I think you need a different perspective on the problem.
Quoting Athena
lots of ways, and I'll give you a sample after I feed the OG and the cats and rewatched the final episode of Season 2 of the GBBS.
TBC
https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/fresh-from-the-city-the-rise-of-urban-farming/
https://gardeningheavn.com/vertical-hydroponics/
https://gfi.org/science/the-science-of-cultivated-meat/
https://www.deassociation.ca/newsfeed/top-8-decentralised-energy-trends-for-2022
https://www.ontario.ca/page/electricity-generation-using-small-wind-turbines-home-or-farm-use
https://www.hydro.org/policy/technology/small-hydro/
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/tidal-energy/
https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/planning-home-solar-electric-system
https://earthshipbiotecture.com/
https://www.ic.org/directory/communes/
https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28241/chapter-abstract/213354161?redirectedFrom=fulltext
and a total overhaul of governance
It's been a social concern for a while now. Seemed like a good idea, in the capitalist system, to use great big whacks of social security and pension contribution for investment in private enterprises. Too bad so many of those overreached and went pear-shaped and lost our money! Just like the banks with the mortgage payments on family farms, just like last time, eh? They don't learn, but they always sail away on their yachts, unscathed by the messes they make.
One thing that happens to the old people is that the conservatives won't let them die with dignity at a time of their own choosing, with medical assistance (apparently, God doesn't like people dying with dignity; He prefers to humiliate them with soiled bedclothes and abusive attendants) ; they'll force them with increased rents and food prices to die begging and freezing on the streets while the police try to keep them moving out from wherever they camp. Unless the riots burn them out first. No soylent green for us!
Quoting Athena
We had two narrative poems to study in Gr 13: Death of a Hired Man and In a Tuscan Villa They both made an impression - plus, I had a massive crush on my English teacher. Dark curls, pink cheeks, blue eyes; spent a couple of summer vacations desegregating Alabama, which was none of his business as a Canadian, but I admired it....
Family isn't 'about' something, any more than life is. Family is part of life, of the organization of social animals. Among modern humans, it can be the stuff of nightmares - or a warm support-structure. I guess in complex civilizations, it's more often nightmarish than in primitive ones because everything is so much more complicated and stressful. But mostly because the men are abused and emotionally crippled by the system, so they turn around and abuse whoever can't fight back.
Quoting Athena
Of course they were possible! The elite liked their feudal lordship and wouldn't let go until the depression, the union movement and the wars forced them to. The government wasn't weak; it had a capitalist mind-set, was composed of the financial elite.
Once they lost their footing out on that cliff, the government suddenly got strong enough to get things done.
Quoting Athena
Why, thank you! In 20 years I shall be 96 years and three weeks old. I just hope my arthritis doesn't get too much worse. But I guess my computer will work on thought-control, or I'll have a support robot....
Is that a hint? It is not a factual statement that contributes to the discussion.
Quoting Vera Mont
What are you talking about? What countries do I fail to acknowledge and what should that acknowledgment be? What do those countries have to do with the very rapid change of a wilderness to overpopulated cities and seriously depleted resources?
Quoting Vera Mont
Please give examples of those alternatives.
Quoting Vera Mont
Okay and where does the different perspective come from? History books? Life experience? Can you be more clear about what you are talking about?
Quoting Vera Mont
This is one of the main reasons I keep harping about Deming's democratic model for industry. In the US, our industry is modeled after England's autocratic industry, and we still use the word "landlord". The history of landlords is very ugly and so the history of the industrialization of England very ugly! Now this is about culture. I think we need to know our history to be sane about our reality.
The US democracy came with a lot of baggage and the first thing that had to be done was spread over a wilderness an establish a civilization. Just a child can not be a grownup from the day of birth, neither can a civilization be fully developed in the beginning. Being totally negative about our history is not helpful. Today we are a lot closer to being able to achieve our human potential than we were two hundred years ago. But now we need to analyze that history and our ideas of democracy and what the best society looks like and then plan how to make that transition. Replacing the autocratic model of industry with Deming's model and returning education to for democracy, might resolve many problems, including having happier and healthier families.
So for how long have you engaged with others and how have you prepared to be a knowledgeable person? I think my ability has improved greatly in the last ten years thanks to the internet. And I love the college lectures provided by the Great Courses. For me, it is all like being in college but easier because I can do it at my time and at home. The forums are like gathering with other students to have a better understanding of what we want to learn and how we understand reality.
Quoting Athena
I didn't say countries; I said nations. That frontier had to be emptied - by any means - before they could be totally despoiled by European settlers. But I admit to exaggeration: it's only two dozen.
Iroquois Cherokee Choctaw Mohawk people Navajo Shawnee Seneca Oneida Apache Cayuga
Chickasaw Cree Comanche Onondaga CheyenneTuscarora Lakota Abenaki Sioux
Blackfoot Confederacy Hopi Potawatomi Shoshone Lumbee
...and let's not forget Mexico
and France
which was necessary because Napoleon's warring immersed France even deeper into debt... which came about partly as a result of the US refusing to pay off its debt to France from the war of independence, saying it had been borrowed from the monarchy, not the post-revolutionary government, but the debt France had incurred in helping the US gain independence was itself a major contributary factor in the French Revolution... They eventually resolved the financial mess, but not before almost going to war against the country that had been their staunchest ally ten years before. Oh, what a tangled web, indeed!
Quoting Athena
Coulda sworn I gave you a whole page of links a couple of posts ago.
Quoting Athena
And I don't think I've been unclear. The Disunited States of America has never been the country it likes to sing about; it has never been democratic, just, free, or peaceful. It cannot be any of those things now. The electoral system is not 'broken'; it was badly designed to begin with. While injecting a dose of truth into the school curriculum would certainly be useful, that's simply not possible under states rights, when bigots in power can strike down human rights and freedom of speech arbitrarily. I'm talking about the current political reality as it is, not as we wish it were.
Quoting Athena
Yes. That is what I'm talking about. Not honest little Georgie Washington or even honester Abe Lincoln, whom I have quoted earlier on the subject of liberating slaves.
Quoting Athena
Had to be done? Really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_massacres_in_North_America
And now, it's heading into a civil war that never really ended, that was never resolved, nor can it be, given the entrenched emotinalism of American culture.
Quoting Athena
Sure. Do that.
School, books, debates, protests, write-in campaigns, political campaigns, more books, work, friends, news magazines, television (not only documentaries, thought both PBS and BBC are excellent sources... and let's not even mention Michael Moore) but also culture-watching and trend-spotting in popular entertainment. Oddly enough tv commercials are a rich source of cultural and social perception. The internet came along late in my life. I was on a readers' forum for several years, dropped out and looked back in from time to time, including soon after 9/11. The general mood was best expressed by one poster: with his anguished, impotent tiny fist-waving " B A S T A R D S !!!!"... and not the least glimmer of a clue what events precipitated that one.
I wish you would join a philosophy group I am in, so we can talk face-to-face. I think the eye ball to eye contact would improve understanding.
About the US spreading from coast to coast. First off I wish the Native Americans had been able to hold their own ground, and that they had retained the governing power. Imagine if the Native Americans had the ruling power and the Europeans had to drop their baggage instead of repeating here the destructive ways of the countries they came from. My thoughts on this go with my strong desire for the US to have psychoanalysis. We need to explore that old baggage and the alternatives.
When I said the people of the US had to establish their civilization where there was wilderness, I did not mean this was a God-given mandate. I meant before they could do anything else, they had to turn the wilderness into the civilization we have today. Now that work is done, we can move on to rethinking everything and making necessary changes. Like take another look at the Native Americans and pick up some of their better ideas, like taking care of the environment is important! Their federation has benefits over European kingdoms. Like if you consider I may be on the same side of the arguments as you are, you may interpret what I am saying as I mean what I am saying, instead of imagining I oppose what you think.
Damn, excuse my pagan expression, but the timer says I am out of time and I must run. What a wonderful discussion we are having. I hate to leave.
Well, then the conquest, the colonizing, the land-grabs, the land grants, the settlement, that whole big 'civilizing the wilderness' process couldn't have happened, could it? Remember, the natives were pushed off the east coast first, then on from the center and westward, always killing more, to make room for the English and Spanish and French people. There would be no USA or Canada or Mexico, or those odious Latin American dictatorships.
Quoting Athena
Yes. But who's both able and willing to do that? Who doesn't bring their own uniquely American 'baggage' to the task? IOW, Who's "we"? This is the question I keep coming back to. I don't think the US has any coherent collective; just lots of partisan, more or less emotional, more or less entrenched factions. And even if you found a qualified body of adjudicators, how would their findings 1. be made known to Americans 2. Be received by Americans 3. understood by Americans and 4. accepted by Americans? Can you look around at your fellow citizens and answer those questions?
I can't. Not about Canada and not about any modern federation. Even the organic European nations, like Denmark, have lost their monoethnicity and divided on key issues.
Quoting Athena
That's okay, I have things to do, too. We finally liberated that kitten from behind my bed and I have to clean the room and move the furniture back.
https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2023/06/babylon-5-animated-movie-gets-trailer.html?m=1
Thanks for the info. I am grateful for some new B5 crumbs, but a cartoon!!!!! :groan: (I will of course buy it on DVD, nonetheless :sweat: )
A time travel storyline is also quite a lazy way to go imo, and my least fav storyline of any sci-fi series.
I was never a fan of series like 'Time Tunnel' or 'Quantum Leap.' I also never enjoyed any of the time travel Star Trek episodes, or any of the alt universe episodes.
A full reboot of the series along with TechnoMage and Psy Core spin offs remains my demand!!!
How come it's always 20th century Earth? All the same, I did like those episodes.
There was one or two that were set in times other than the 20th century.
The series 'Enterprise,' set at the point where humans first set off into inter-stellar travel with Captain Jonathon Archer, had a lot of time travel episodes that went forward and backwards in time.
'The temporal cold war,' was a recurring theme.
In deep space 9 we had the two episodes called 'past tense' set in 2024, etc
But in general, you are correct, most of the Star Trek franchise, restrict their time travelling episodes to the 20th century. My favourite time travel style episodes were from Deep Space 9.
The two part episode called 'Far beyond the stars,' But I enjoyed that more because it was also about the terrible racism of those times and the 'fun' episode 'trials and tribulations,' as it mixed with an episode from the original series.
Never watched much of Enterprise, probably because it was made in the monochromatic period of scifi - also couldn't engage with the new characters. The 2024 episodes of DS 9 were good, but the 1930's ones were better - or rather, I enjoyed the role-changes of the actors; some of their best work, I thought. The alternate universe ones were overdone. (Of course, we've seen them so many times, we're down to minute criticism of makeup and set design, hooting at the big clumpy copmputers and comparing the relative beauty of facial features.)
I guess this is all relevant to culture - if tangentially.
I think that series with Neil De Grasse Tyson was a complete waste of time. Why try to remake the same series Carl Sagan delivered almost to perfection. The animated sequences were sooooooo poor. They even tried to promote their own stupid historical judgements such as portraying Joseph Hooker as some kind of evil character, in that awful and shameful animated sequence.
It would have been much better if they made some episodes that updated Carl's seminal series.
Quoting Vera Mont
Well, @Athena has been typing a lot on the importance and influence of 'storytelling' in the human experience, and how it is and always has been a vital and very powerful tool in shaping the minds, and influencing the thinking of the next generation. I think that is very true, but which stories we emphasize and which fables are allowed to be peddled as true or fact, is where many of the big problems begin.
I think the story of science is 'the greatest story ever told.' I really enjoy sci-fi but we do need more sci and less fi, until enough humans become less easy to fool, all of the time.
Quoting 180 Proof
I do think Mr Straczynski is trying to protect his 'baby' from the corporate profiteers, but I suppose it's hard to know who are the true good, bad and ugly characters in that world.
I decided it was made for schoolchildren.
Quoting universeness
There is also the aspect of futuristic, dystopian, post-apocalyptic and speculative fiction: occasions to consider what kind of future we're likely to have if we proceed on a given direction - and what kind of future would be preferable. To which end, we have to make decisions in the present.
"They" all are. Though I'm not a fan of B5, I nonetheless tip my glass to Mr. Straczynski's creative struggle against Mammon.
My reasoning involves an explanation of East India and Hinduism as well as some knowledge of the 6 Nations of the Iroquois The Hindu story begins with a violent war and comes to an agreement about having peace. I am not sure, but the agreement to have peace seems to rule, however, Muslims have forced war on them in some areas. And the British occupation led to violence.
Quoting Jeff Wallenfeldt
My conclusion is it is possible for people to live for peace and to benefit from forming unity. Each tribe would have sovereignty as the United States are supposed to have sovereignty. However, the warring Europeans have a different cultural motivation that I think is worth studying, and that all these groups of people need to be taken into consideration when discussing human nature. A continental civilization ruled primarily by those who have a spiritual relationship with the earth could have occurred. However, such a civilization may not develop technologically.
Quoting Vera Mont Whoever wants to join us. Quoting Vera Mont Would you please include those knowledgeable of Greek and Roman classics in the discussion of coherent collective? Preferably everyone who becomes one of us will be at least a little familiar with our history and cross-cultural studies or is at least willing to learn. If thinking stops with people only knowing their own life experiences that is not going to be helpful.
Quoting Vera Mont
I think the answer is education and some awesome information is coming to us in the form of movies and documentaries. As in all human movements there needs to be leaders. Are you willing to be one?
Quoting Vera Mont
Guaranteed things will keep changing. Civilizations tend to swing. When things get bad enough they swing in the opposite direction. But do all of your concerns really matter? The only one you control is you. In the 1960's we said, "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem". We can either devote ourselves to being part of the solution, or we can be part of the problem.
Quoting Vera Mont
:love: Good for you. You turned something bad into something good. Enjoy your freshly cleaned room.
Quoting Athena
No thanks!
The first one gets crucified and becomes a folk-hero; the next thousand are tortured and killed in creative and humiliating ways; another 10,000 are wounded on the barricades or jailed. Then the side either wins and puts up all new flags and statues or loses and sinks into oblivion.
Who wants to look up at a homely version of Queen Victoria in her declining years?
Quoting Athena
There are some things worth trying. Find a place - a park, a garden a balcony, even a favourite room, where you like everything your eye can possibly land on. If there are jarring or annoying bits, remove them or turn your back on them. Sit in comfortable chair with a soothing drink of choice, and just veg out. Let yourself drift for a while; don't think; don't try to process information; don't speculate or wonder. Just drift. Emotions come - don't try to analyze or resist them, just let them wash over you like waves. One passes on, another one comes to replace it, passes. They leave you tired and feeling empty. Then do a minimum of necessary chores and go to bed. Stay there as long as you need to.
When you get up again, cope with one thing at a time, until you feel in control again.
I do.
My reasoning normally begins around, 'I am not directly responsible for everything bad that happens to everyone in this world.' Then at some point (normally within the hour),' I get fed up being fed up and I reach the 'the next hour will pass, thought, regardless of whether or not I decide to pass it in a depressed and pessimistic state, or a renewed optimistic state.' I can choose, to live the next hour as a curse or I can go and look at something more positive. Maybe I can observe something positive happening, that happens all around me, all the time. The pulse of life and living continuing. I sometimes just look at my bookshelf, and that can do it, based on my own notions of legacy or I stare for a while at the big print I have on a wall of the hubble ultra deep field. Looking into the content of that print, always destroys any moments of depression, I may temporarily experience.
My final recovery, normally involves some personal gratitude to myself that events in the world and around me can still depress me, as that must mean I still give a shit!
Do not surrender to 'tock' Athena, when 'tick' still tolls for you!
Quoting universeness
Thank you. I seriously need to find some way to get my forest mural on the wall. My apartment has paint that will not stick to the alien tape and the wall is too hard to put thumbtacks in it. But I think your suggestion of looking into a picture is excellent. My favorite place of beauty is along a river and in the forest.
Actually, a good night's sleep has done wonders and somehow I have to get his car windows up so the rain doesn't get in his car and also so I can lock his car before someone steals his stuff. Having something concrete to do helps. And my self-defense has kicked in with a sense of denial. We will see how my body reacts when I visit him this morning. I pick a great-grandson later this morning, for his special day with me, so I can not get upset. The child needs a positive influence. I need to keep moving forward.
Reading we are not responsible for what happens is helpful. I will work on that and I may actually walk by the river while I meditate on that point. Thank you.
Yipes your explanation of what happens to the good guy could be very depressing. However, there is an upside too. What is the saying, "A martyr is worth ten thousand of us." I often wonder if we would know of Socrates if he did not drink the hemlock instead of leaving Athens. To be known for centuries is a pretty big achievement and Socrates did lead us away from superstitious belief in the gods. Teachers impact the lives of many children and in some cases, the students impact the lives of others as the student goes on to do great things.
Sometimes we can have a strong influence on someone and not ever know it. There is another saying that when we meet someone, some of us goes with that person and we carry some of that person with us. We can see everything as interconnected and that our being could be more important than we will ever know. Like, our disagreement is equal to saying the glass is half empty or the glass is half full. Both are a reality.
About handling negative feelings I must find the energy to walk along the river. Another guy I help, would love it if I took him and his dog to the river path. I use a walker on the paths so I can sit wherever the view of the river is pleasing and wait for my friend with the dog to catch up with me. I am getting a deeper sense of why some Greeks argued that beauty and good music are important. Both are a part of good maintenance. So is reaching out to others. I feel supported by both of you and that helps a lot.
Socrates didn't lead anybody anywhere. The stubborn old sod just did his own thing, whatever anybody else said or wanted.
Some students, then and in the distant future were influenced by his ideas in their thinking. Not as many as were influenced by Marx or Zoroaster, but some.
And then what? It did him no good. It didn't change the governance or future of Athens. It subtracted nothing from the worship of gods, which continues to this day and beyond. It didn't end slavery, halt religious conflict, prevent territorial wars, curtail imperialism, end racism, sexism, ideological madness or genocide.
Quoting Athena
Both are a reality at some minuscule point in the cycle, just as a broken watch tells the correct time twice a day for second. In the real reality, at any given moment, it's an unknown hour and minute and the glass is either in the process of filling or emptying.
Quoting Athena
So do dogs and rivers! And your own resilience.
Thank you!
Read it now
The Aesop for Children interactive book is designed to be enjoyed by readers of any age. The book contains over 140 classic fables, accompanied by beautiful illustrations and interactive animations.
Quoting Library of Congress
What I would like all citizens of the US to know is that these fables and fables from around the world have been used to teach morality since the beginning of secular public education. Originally our secular education was about transmitting a culture for a highly moral civilization and turning all our young into good citizens. Thoams Jefferson so such an education as vital to having a strong and united republic. This is the very reason I write. Christianity is no more compatible with democracy than Islam and the Koran. Both the Loran and the Bible originate updated versions of the Torah and these religions are divisive and favor a kingdom, not democracy. And education for technology is NOT education for good moral judgment and democracy.
My goodness, Socrates has influenced western civilization for centuries. He was Plato's teacher and Plato was Aristotle's teacher, and I can not think of anyone who has influenced Western civilization more. These men have influenced much more of the world than Athens.
The Catholic church developed Scholasticism based on the teachings of Plato and Aristotle.
[qutoe]The Scholastic period
The period extending from the beginning of Christian speculation to the time of St. Augustine, inclusive, is known as the Patristic era in philosophy and theology. In general, that era inclined to Platonism and underestimated the importance of Aristotle. The Fathers strove to construct on Platonic principles a system of Christian philosophy. They brought reason to the aid of Revelation. They leaned, however, towards the doctrine of the mystics, and, in ultimate resort, relied more on spiritual intuition than on dialectical proof for the establishment and explanation of the highest truths of philosophy. Between the end of the Patristic era in the fifth century and the beginning of the Scholastic era in the ninth there intervene a number of intercalary thinkers, as they may be called, like Claudianus Mamertus, Boethius, Cassiodorus, St. Isidore of Seville, Venerable Bede etc., who helped to hand down to the new generation the traditions of the Patristic age and to continue into the Scholastic era the current of Platonism. With the Carolingian revival of learning in the ninth century began a period of educational activity which resulted in a new phase of Christian thought known as Scholasticism. The first masters of the schools in the ninth century Alcuin, Rabanus, etc., were not indeed, more original than Boethius or Cassiodorus; the first original thinker in the Scholastic era was John the Scot (see JOHN SCOTUS ERIUGENA). Nevertheless they inaugurated the Scholastic movement because they endeavoured to bring the Patristic (principally the Augustinian) tradition into touch with the new life of European Christianity. They did not abandon Platonism. They knew little of Aristotle except as a logician. But by the emphasis they laid on dialectical reasoning, they gave a new direction to Christian tradition in philosophy. In the curriculum of the schools in which they taught, philosophy was represented by dialectic. On the textbooks of dialectic which they used they wrote commentaries and glosses, into which, little by little, they admitted problems of psychology, metaphysics, cosmology, and ethics, so that the Scholastic movement as a whole may be said to have sprung from the discussions of the dialecticians. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13548a.htm [/quote]
Eventually, Aristotle (inductive reasoning) became all-important, and then Bacon brought in deductive reasoning and there was a huge backlash against Aristotle and inductive reasoning. At this point in time begins the modern age and the development of science as we know it.
Are you sure you want to continue your argument? The HUGE problem today is Christians are so ignorant of the importance of these men and their understanding of God which is Platonist.
Quoting Vera Mont
:grin: :heart: Thank you. I wish I could have my own dog, but bending over to pick up what a dog leaves behind is too painful for me and I can not afford vet bills. But I just had to buy a stuffed puppy when I lost my dog. That was harder for me to get over than dealing with people leaving. That was a visceral experience that lasted for weeks. I had to have a friend walk with me in the parks where I had walked my dog because I didn't think I could bare being in the parks again. Thanks to that friend, I am enjoying the parks again.
His death served the personal purpose, causes and meaning he cherished most in his life imo. If your death can serve your life, then you die well, imo. It then becomes a legacy question for those who hear the 'true' story of your life, to agree or disagree that your death served your life. A suicide bomber may also think their death served their life and they died well, but we always have the counter point that one persons hero is another persons terrorist.
You have no way to measure the affect the legacy of Socrates had/has on any of the issues you mentioned above. The nature and spread and power of slavery, god worship, territorial war, imperialism, racism, sexism, ideological madness and even genocide, have all changed significantly since the days of Socrates. It's just as valid to credit all improvements made in those issues, directly to Socrates as it is to credit no aspect of improvements made whatsoever to Socrates.
Quoting Vera Mont
The difference is that the pessimist will continue to complain that there are too many broken watches that only have any use twice a day, whereas your time would be better spent planning and plotting how to obtain a new more reliable, more robust, functioning timepiece, whilst quenching your thirst, on a hot day, by drinking your half full glass of ...... and planning and plotting how you intend to refill or even half refill your and everyone else's glass.
Good to hear from you! I read your recent posts on the AN one trick pony trek. As usual your points were well made. What for you is 'true' regarding the concept of balance?
Is the concept of balance critical to the Hindu 'culture?'
In any human culture can good=evil achieve balance?
In my own life, I have seen the pitfalls of leaning too much towards abstract ideas or going uncomfortably close to materialism. Therefore, I try my best not to be pigeonholed. This doesn't mean that I never adopt a definite stance; it merely makes it true that I, usually, do not go extremely near any pole.
I hope that you will have a wonderful day/night.
Which definition of materialism are you cautioning against here?
1. A tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values:
2. The theory or belief that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications.
3. The theory or belief that consciousness and will are wholly due to material agency.
I will put my 'balance' questions another way?
Does 'balance' exist as a linear mid-point between human concepts of good and evil?
If so, is political/social/economic/emotional balance a valid goal within any human created civilisation?
If we achieved a balanced civilisation, would we quickly get bored with it in your opinion?
It's a complex idea (because the world is not a one-dimensional place) and much depends upon our intuitions. I don't necessarily deny the existence of good and evil, but I do think that the boundaries are more nebulous than we may believe. For example, it may not always be clear when we transition from a benevolent desire to ensure equality to a seemingly unending tyranny. At a more individual level, it does appear to be advantageous to the welfare of a family if a healthy balance between discipline (which doesn't turn into oppression) and freedom (which doesn't morph into utter chaos) is maintained. It is, of course, harder to know where exactly we have to stop, which is why constant evaluation and dialogue can be useful.
I think that, unfortunately, people do tend to get "bored" with certain good elements of life without appreciating their value. Here in India, it has become almost a fashion for people to incessantly attack people like Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru without recognising the fact that they were dealing with a situation that necessitated a holistic outlook. Howebeit, I do understand that there can be a threat stagnation, so we should always continue to explore new ideas. I would simply argue that adoption should not be done without consultations and too hastily. In the end, I remain optimistic that people will do the right thing. If we have managed to reach a point where people from all over the globe can jointly form a community around life's most profound questions, where smallpox is no longer a reality, where millions have been lifted out of poverty instead of being lost to a Malthusian pit of doom, I think that we possess good reasons to be careful but not unreservedly pessimistic.
Can the concept of balance exist in 1D or 2D? You cant 'fall' in flatland or lineland. :nerd:
the Greek poet Hesiod (c.700 bc), ‘observe due measure; moderation is best in all things’, and of the Roman comic dramatist Plautus (c. 250–184 bc), ‘moderation in all things is the best policy.’
Perhaps the idea of all things in moderation, would remove the possibility of 'passion' from our lives and reduce the 'buzz' of adventure and 'going boldly where no one has gone before.'
People will say bizarre stuff like "I will give this 110% of my effort,' etc. It's illogical but I am still attracted to the passion involved.
I think humans need a little imbalance, to feel more alive. It may turn out that some imbalance is culturally critical. Perhaps the wisest goal is for the human race to stop swinging from one extreme to the other, as we seem to have done, historically. But we should never covet perfect balance either, as we would lose too much. What do you think about 'no pain no gain?'
This part of my previous reply to you is essentially an expression of agreement with your position:
"Howebeit, I do understand that there can be a threat stagnation, so we should always continue to explore new ideas. I would simply argue that adoption should not be done without consultations and too hastily."
You are undoubtedly right that we should not cease moving forward altogether. My view would be that we should not do so at a breakneck speed so that we could spot potentially better roads.
I don't think that pain is always crucial for gaining something good (as that seems to make the positives depend upon the negatives). Still, I do believe that, once we have lost something valuable, we can overcome our difficulties and achieve an adequate degree of happiness. It's surely better to do so rather than being deprived of even more good aspects of existence as a consequence of inaction and trepidation.
I broadly agree but I also think that becoming over-cautious can also be unwise.
Is 'no pain no gain,' not cautious enough, in your opinion? Would you consider yourself risk averse?
I think that "no pain, no gain" is indeed cautious as long as we don't focus too much on the gain part and don't assume that it would always be there.
I would consider myself risk-averse when it comes to unnecessary risks (ones that are created out of a temporary but strong desire). However, I would not wish to single-mindedly obsessed over the risks and ignore the opportunities that lie before us.
But it can often be a great risk to try to fight the powers that currently be, especially if they are hurting sooooo many people, every day.
Mr Modi in India and his rather extreme 'manipulation' (if you agree that his use, is such) of Hinduism for example? Should people fight against such? Considering the potential risks involved?
In addition, great risks also can also give us great opportunities. If the risk involves a fundamental perversion of a religion or democracy, then the opportunity entails their redemption. People should definitely not avert their gaze if something invaluable is being taken away.
I think our broad common ground is maintained.
And Aristotle taught Alexander the Great Butcher. Socrates himself didn't set up shop as a master or found a school or lead a movement, or even commit a doctrine to paper.
Yes - they influenced warring, racist, slave-owning, religious crusading, imperialistic, clergy- aristocracy- and banker-ridden, nationalistic, militaristic, plague-carrying, mass-murdering, European civilization, which they then forced on other peoples around the world. And that's a good thing? OK
Really? Well, they sure got bigger in the ensuing 2000 years! What is the "before" you're comparing the "since" to? And how do you measure the contribution of Socrates vs the contribution of Paul of Tarsus - or all the other men who wrote down philosophies along the way?
Quoting universeness
No question. That doesn't mean being held up as a martyr, a legend, a beacon to Bacon, or long-term influencer does you any good at all.
Quoting universeness
Pessimists don't complain; they know it would be a waste of breath. They observe and comment and predict. I observe that the only way I know that each broken watch tells the correct time twice a day is that there is a still-functional watch to which I can compare it. I observe that more watches are being broken than are being repaired. I predict that, if all the watches are broken, nobody will know the correct time.
(I predict that an optimist will leap on that statement as a cheetah leaps on a gazelle and tell me that they'll check their cellphone for an even more accurate time, because "we" have progressed so far beyond watches, and it's all due to the ghost of Socrates in the technological machinery. Whereupon the pessimist observes that a metaphor can be stretched too far.)
Quoting universeness
Not plotting or intending; just prescribing. The ways and means are up to whomever I influence in my 'legacy'.
Yep, here is something Aristotle was supposed to have taught to Alexander the butcher.
"Aristotle taught Alexander that a monarchy is only better than a democracy when the king knows better than all of his people. He also taught Alexander that to be a great leader he had to conquer Asia. He told Alexander, “Rule the Greeks as your equals, but treat all others like animals.”
I think Aristotle would have got on very well with Hitler. Very little editing would be required:
"Aristotle taught Adolf that a fuhrer is only better than a democracy when the king knows better than all of his people. He also taught Adolf that to be a great leader he had to conquer the world. He told Adolf, “Rule the Germans (or perhaps the blue eyed blond haired Ayrans) as your equals, but treat all others like absolute inferiors.”
I think there are many other names and titles of evil men, admired by western cultures, that could be edited easily into the above aristotelian lesson. Okay. Hitler is not admired much by Western Cultures but his historical equivalents are, from Caesar to Ghengis Khan to Napoleon!
Such is based mostly on personal interpretation, as the reliable historical evidence is almost non-existent.
It seems to me that all the issues you mentioned were worse, the further you go back in the history of our hominid species.
The biblical Paul may be interpreted as a influencer for good by some but I interpret his life as an influencer for evil. I think he was an antisemitic traitor and a Roman lacky. The Romans were forever saving his skin from angry Jews. He is probably just another made up character, just like Jesus, his brother James, his pal Peter (both rivals to Paul imo.) They are all probably parodies of real rebel Jewish leaders that existed and fought against Rome. Did you know the name Mary, literally translates to 'rebellious woman?' The Romans might have referred to you as a 'Mary!'
Quoting Vera Mont
But you are not the only judge of such Vera! I don't choose to call Alexander 'great,' I don't think you do either but I would still have a lot of work to do to convince all future mention of him to replace 'great' with 'butcher.'
Quoting Vera Mont
Complaining is the main sustenance of all pessimists! They observe, yes, and then their comments are complaints and their predictions are doom laden and quickly become tiresome, unless they choose to finally employ some phrase such as, 'this is just my opinion guys,' or 'This is just how I feel about the situation.' etc. Then it's time to offer them some tea and sympathy whilst me, the optimist, twitches the curtain, just to check for any mushroom clouds nearby, in-case, before the blast hits, I get to shout, "YOU WERE R..........
Quoting Vera Mont
As an optimist, I know that there is no correct time, as all time is relative. Time is an individual experience from cradle to grave. I like that Carlo Rovelli based, description of time.
Quoting Vera Mont
So legacy does have some importance for you after all Vera. It seems to me that you have been previously touting the idea that it has no significance for those who are dead, so why acknowledge it's potential future role, now?
Quoting universeness
It seems to me; therefore it is so.
Quoting universeness
No; hence the 'quotation marks'. It's something you held up as a talisman; as worth striving, fighting, suffering and dying for. I'm with Q on this one: "Ah, your species is always suffering and dying..."
It didn't stop for Socrates, or Zoroaster, or Jesus or Nostradamus or Gandhi or MLK. For damn sure flattening me would not retard the wheel of progress by one microsecond.
Only in the same way that your opinions are absolute proof.
Quoting Vera Mont
I reject your 'talisman' imagery as such is woo woo based.
I don't think that people who have lived and are completely unknown today and have left no legacy we are aware of, left no legacy. We touch each others lives and our environment in so many ways we do not even realise. To me, having lived, is a legacy on its own.
Everything that has ever lived, brought their own purpose and meaning into existence and the actions taken by that life, affected the environment and other life that that life, encountered.
I think that's pretty close to being irrefutable. It does not really matter that we have no memorialisation of their existence. Their legacy is far reaching nonetheless.
Have you followed the full Q storyline so far? Q fails much more than they succeed.
One committed suicide, which resulted in a Q civil war, which was settled by two Q reproducing!
Q introduced humans to the borg? Q is portrayed as being obsessed with, and finally afraid of humans as they conclude that humanity is the one species that could potentially surpass Q.
Perhaps Q was deliberately portrayed as what the authors consider humanity should always guard against becoming.
Quoting Vera Mont
Your life is fairly well memorialised imo. Vera. Who is trying to 'flatten you?'
I am sure you have watched the rather theistic scenes from 'It's a Wonderful Life,' when Mr Stewart, acts out the impact on the lives of his family and the people in his local 'amurican' town of his characters non-existence.
I don't like the movie but I do think there is some truth in the cause/effect that happens when individual lives interconnect. I do think you underestimate the affects your life has had, and what impact your legacy will continue to have, after you are gone.
I know the Octopus had a sublime effect on Dave Warnock. Is it completely unreasonable to suggest that the Dave/Octopus video will continue to have an impact after Dave is dead, probably even more so than while he is alive? Would Dave be deluding himself in some way, if he takes comfort in that thought? and feels that he can die a little easier due to having such memories, that he may choose to recall during the actual moments of his dying and his death?
Fine. So what? If any one particular person's 'legacy' altered history, or left a trail of bitter vendettas, or inspired people to seek holy orders, or their recipe for christmas puddind is still boild in cheesecloth after 400 years, or somebody named a bridge, a school, a tulip after them, of if their statue is ignominiously pulled down and painted red - they don't know it; they're not harmed by or benefit from it - and they are in no condition to care. "So let it be with Caesar." So let it be with me.
Quoting universeness
The wheel of progress doesn't need to try. It just keeps rolling. Anybody tries to get in its way, slow it down, change its course, gets flattened.
Quoting universeness
I don't know whether he's deluding himself and don't care: whatever makes people feel good is all right with me, so long as what makes them feel good doesn't make someone else feel bad.
Having said that, I don't think that there is some sort of obligation to do something monumental if one doesn't wish to. In my discussions with Schopenhauer1, I have routinely emphasised my belief that non-existence cannot be good or bad for anyone, which also means that what happens once we are gone is also not going to directly affect us. Concurrent with that view, however, is the truth that I am inclined to think that, if there are those whom we deeply care about, it could give us meaningful satisfaction to do whatever we can to help make the world a nicer place for them. Undoubtedly, we cannot be certain that we will do everything we wish to or have to, but it may be preferable to no good being created. The wheel doesn't merely flatten; it is also capable of carrying. I hope that you will have a pleasant week ahead.
People often ruminate using a trigger thought such as 'I wonder what Vera Mont would have said about that,' then they go on to offer their opinion. That is part of my answer to your 'so what?'
I could go on with more of my examples of "that's what!" or 'this is what!' but you could probably predict most of them and you have probably already raised shields.
You keep insisting that the only important impact that matters to you is that which directly impacts you and if, before you were born, or after you are dead, means, that you cannot be impacted, then, that's all that REALly matters. But you are sooooooo wrong in that imo, for all the reasons I have already mentioned.
Quoting Vera Mont
Even if that imagery has some objective truth value to it, why is that not a cause for celebration?
Why can we not be riding comfortably atop this wheel, until we die, and naturally fall of and get replaced? rather than be crushed between it and the surface you imagine it rolls on.
Quoting Vera Mont
I broadly agree, unless the people feeling bad are those that Dave considers deluded and the bad feelings they experience, results in them beginning to question their theism as Dave wants them to.
I was, sadly, unaware of this crucial philosophical concept. Happily, I know about this now. Application might be shoddy, but knowledge always has value.
:lol: Yeah, It's used a lot on dating sites where they request contact from folks with a GSOH.
I have never been involved in any way with on-line dating. I don't condemn anyone who does however.
It seems to be the modern way, regardless of my personal lack of attraction to such a system.
Quoting DA671
Etc, etc. I know.
Lots of people were influential in their time, and for decades after... and maybe the centennial outcome will be nuclear war between India and Pakistan, or just the same old on-going land-war. In any case, some the Muslim population didn't fare so well since, and nor did some part of the remaining Hindu population. Maybe a civil war then would have resulted in a federated India, or a less nationalistic one than right now --- or something else. Meanwhile, in Uganda... meanwhile, in Chile....
Whatever way each milestone event, each giant figure, steers the history of their own nation, and however that nations will, as a result, interact with other nations, the world just keeps on keeping on.
My claim was not that nobody has influence, but that none of those admired, influential men ended war, religious conflict, racism, sexism, child labour, slavery or exploitation. History flows around them in whirls and eddies, but doesn't change its nature, nor the way humans behave when there are too many of them in too small a space.
And previously, I had simply said that a legacy after you're dead does you, personally, no good. If the expectation of a positive or important legacy makes you feel good, that's a benefit, even if it turns out to be illusory.
Quoting universeness
Celebrate. Give the peons a day off. Stage a parade! I won't get in your way.
Quoting universeness
Cripes!! Isn't that exactly what I've been saying?
I don't want to be a leader of any movement, because crucifixion is very unpleasant. I don't want to be a flag-bearer, because so are torture and prison. I don't want to be fighter, because they tend to get hurt. I'm an attentive rider. And thus, my life and 'legacy' won't have an impact on history. And that's OK.
Also, I don't think that perfection (like stopping wars altogether) is necessary for something to be enormously valuable. Just as the German dictator did not have to end the majority of societies in order to be seen as a source of unimaginable horror, people don't have to eliminate our issues completely for their work and life to be worth appreciating. If even one life is saved/made better as a result of our actions, I think that the present (which is another name for what would become history) has been changed.
As far as legacy is concerned, I agree that the benefit at a personal level in a materialistic framework would not go beyond the grave. Nevertheless, for those who care about the well-being of those who exist and will exist, being able to make a difference can bring them a non-trivial kind of joy. This, in and of itself, can be enough of a reason to act. We cannot know everything, but the chance for a rewarding result should not be casually discarded.
No, of course not. And I wouldn't dream of hindering anyone's struggle for improvement.
This whole sidetrack got started with my skepticism regarding the positive effect of Socrates on subsequent European thought. Scholars scribbled, philosophers argued, poets declaimed and schoolchildren endured bum-numbing boredom.
But mayhem and carnage, zealotry and bigotry, abuse and exploitation, did not cease.
Quoting DA671
They're not necessarily good or bad, any more than the factuals are; one result may be desired by a faction, a different one may be desired by another. How it did happen may be the best way it could have gone for the largest possible number - or not.
Point was: whatever did happen, history continues unhampered.
Yes, and the key word there is "necessarily". They could be better (and we often tend to think so), but the opposite is not out the question either. I do think that we can reasonably conclude that one outcome was better than another. For example, having studied India's past and its continual conquests as a result of internal conflicts, I find it improbable that further fragmentation (after the loss of countless innocent lives) would have been good for humanity as a whole.
It will see definitely continue, and the extent to which we are hampered will always be altered by factors that are both within and outside our control.
Will you join in, as you are one of the peons or would you join in and tell the peons to start a revolution, or would you not join in, in case you get reported to big brother?
Quoting Vera Mont
No, to me, you have been suggesting that come what may, we are unable and incapable of gaining full control over this wheel of progress, you imagineer.
You sound like a big fearty Vera! and that's ok to. As I have suggested before, you are not able to know the impact your legacy will have.
I'm not suggesting. I'm stating flat out: Nothing I have seen, read, heard or experienced leads me to believe that any one person, no matter how wise, determined and brave, and no valiant, steadfast band of "us", can ever gain control of history, whether history is progress or a big bad ship-train.
History is the cumulative effect of all the humans in all the times they have occupied this planet, theorizing, plotting, working, fighting, inspiring and conspiring, inventing, praying and preying, sabotaging, remodelling, revising, preening and lying; constantly in conflict or competition, working at cross-purposes, unable to agree on means even when they hope to accomplish the same ends, while another bunch, over there, is arguing over the means of accomplishing the opposite - tearing down structures to build new things and blowing up stuff others have built.
I don't believe it's controllable.
Maybe someday, when the human population is down to a number that can occupy much smaller, better-distributed spaces, they'll get their act together and create a purposeful civilization.
But not at this point in the cycle.
Quoting universeness
The dead have no possessions and no rights; they can be reinterpreted every two weeks, raised to beatitude or cast into villainy, relegated to footnotes or ignored.
Whatever I may leave behind is not my legacy.
It's a tiny part of their inheritance.
What I do not see as good is your attitude. "a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person's behavior." All the problems in the world are not correctly set on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle because there are as many positives, so it is like arguing the cup is half full or half empty. All the good also comes from that past and our democracy is one of them. To be clear I am saying our democracy, liberty, and justice for all, comes from the past, but I do not like the militaristic decisions made since the end of WWII.
Quoting Vera Mont
If I could, I would send you to 1400 Europe for a three-week vacation and then ask you if you think anything has improved. I am bored with the way you have lumped all the bad together and speak of it as though it were the only reality. This discussion of everything is a discussion of nothing. It is just two people being negative or positive and I have much more important things to do than continue such as argument.
Quoting Vera Mont
They spread their attitude and nothing good can come from that. It just is not constructive.
I want to support what you said about ideas having impacts on our lives and speaking of them one at a time is much more beneficial than ignoring the good because there is bad. And I am not sure if there is a better reality to be had?
I have no desire to have an eternal heaven of goodness. There would be no great novels and movies in such a reality. We would have no problems to resolve and our existence would be totally meaningless! The thrill of life is having problems to resolve and having a sense of meaning as we struggle to determine for ourselves what is a good idea and what is a bad one. Personally, I love Socrates' contribution to democracy and discussing the importance of education and exactly what should the young be educated about? What is culture about and how is it transmitted?
I would really like this thread to be about culture, not an argument against one person's negativity because at the moment I don't see any good coming out of that argument.
What a wonderful suggestion! To evaluate which stories are helpful and why. The Greeks were concerned with individuals becoming the best they can be. This was not a government-enforced program and there were very serious debates about the good or bad of teaching people how to argue in such a way they win the argument, even if the idea they are pushing is very bad. Socrates would not have approved of the change in education, because Socrates was most concerned with morality, ethics, integrity, and the search for truth. You know, the culture that forms our thinking and actions.
And I think I best use the little free time I have this morning to reassure the man I have been helping that I do care about him. I hope there is not a feeding tube in his nose, but if that is what he must have, I am glad the medical people can make that decision and take the necessary action. It is so hard to see the tears in his eyes as he must go through this ordeal again. It is his 3rd stroke and I am afraid he will not regain the physical ability that is essential to living on the street. On the good side, I think this time he is going into a facility where he will get the help he needs, but maybe his free spirit would not find that tolerable. Ouch, this hurts. The decisions are not mine but what I say will affect outcomes. Any words of wisdom for this situation?
No I have no advice to offer. It seems that you are the only one on the ground, who knows most about his situation, that is doing her best to help him. If you cannot bring anyone else in, such as a friend of his or one of his family members, to speak for him, then he has only you. What else can anyone expect from you, but your best efforts. I hope if I ever find myself in a similar predicament to this man you describe, that I have a good person like yourself, on and by my side! :clap: :flower:
What you leave behind (legacy), those who remain or are yet to arrive, inherit.
You are hair splitting Vera!
Sometimes, effulgence is enhanced by a sojourn in a Stygian cavern.
Between 400BCE Athens and 1400CE Europe? Not much. So much for Socrates' influence on culture! Quoting Athena
Absolutely true. It's my bad, negative, counterproductive attitude that's caused all the trouble in the world; the alternatives I've suggested count for naught. That's what they told me when I was Cassandra. If I could bear it through 81 lives, I guess one more incarnation won't hurt any more.
Maybe, but I refuse to hold Marx responsible for Stalin's deeds.
Wow!!!!! That's a mighty jump Vera! What did I post that suggested such linkage?
Marx cannot be blamed for a horror like Stalin, neither can communism or socialism, in the same way as Mahatma Gandhi cannot be blamed for opportunists like Modi.
If I created hell and horror in peoples lives, and claimed that I did so, based on my personal interpretations of Vera Mont's book, 'The Ozimord Project.'
That would not mean that Vera Mont was responsible for my actions, it would just indicate how much I had misinterpreted Vera Mont or in the case of Stalin, it would simply point to his devious means of conning people into believing he was a Marxist, or a Montist, or a communist or a socialist, instead of what he truly was, a self-aggrandising, narcissist, butcher.
The beauty of it is, we can't hold him responsible: he's not here to answer charges, nor to be feted or abused. (Just as well for poor old Darwin, eh?)
One does whatever one is impelled to do. One leaves whatever one has made. How it's interpreted, remembered and regarded is up to the inheritors. The dead cannot own or control anything; it belongs to the living, to interpret and use as they will.
A whole lot of guff about influence and legacy.
:rofl: :flower:
Darwin does not have to personally be here, he has many millions of defenders.
His number of defenders are increasing, globally.
Jesus, mohamed, yaweh, allah, buddha, Vishnu etc, not so much, except in very poor countries.
All the 'guff' about Darwin's influence and Legacy (or if you prefer the almost synonymous 'inheritance from Darwin.') seems to be alive and kicking and it continues to help to kick gods ass back into non-existence, in more and more human minds. I assume you approve of that affect of Darwin.
You may also be interested in the following articles:
1. https://www.ft.com/content/a0b17ed9-092d-4e83-90fe-2a6cea952518
2. https://indianexpress.com/article/education/references-to-gujarat-riots-purged-from-social-science-books-for-ncert-classes-6-12-8538768/
Alternative if the article doesn't load: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/ncert-textbooks-mahatma-gandhi-godhra-riots-removed-2356040-2023-04-05
3. https://m.thewire.in/article/history/why-rss-cannot-help-hating-jawaharlal-nehru-and-his-connection-with-the-people-of-india
I would highly appreciated your thoughts on these writings. The book, obviously, will take some time. However, I do hope that you (or anyone else who sees this comment and finds their curiosity being piqued by it) will be able to send your views on the articles.
"India against Gandhi — a legacy rewritten"
Another good reason not to do anything significant - you might end up inadvertently inciting riots, starting a civil war, giving a sadistic dictator a slogan or an emblem, providing a war-monger with a novel weapon... Once you're dead, you lose whatever control you may have over your product, but you're stuck with the reputation.
Quoting universeness
Wonderful. Me, in a soccer game, I'd rather be the time-clock than the ball.
Increasing my knowledge of the history of India and it's most influential politicians would be most welcome, but I currently have a large backlog of articles/papers/books/vids etc suggested by others, that I have stated I will read. I think science will have to increase my lifespan somewhat to read and watch all I would like to read and watch.
I couldn't find a TPF emoji for 'confused?'
How about:
Quoting DA671
Been lots of places; done lots of that; collected many teeshirts and wore them down to dust-rags.
It'll just have to do.
I can't even get my flippin Stage II book finished, so that I can at least tell you and Vera that I have at least managed to do that! :groan:
As eye-candy goes, 8.62 - he'll either improve with age or go to fat.
As for the metaphor: controversy over Darwin's work > attackers and defenders > kicking and kicking ass > football > players, object of contention > time-clock > observer > me
Yeah, I like that excuse! Thanks! :up:
:victory: (This conveys your triumph, not mine)
Quoting DA671
Sure. But that's a long, convoluted railroad journey from the influence of Socrates on european and subsequently American culture. I do try to stay on a straight line from post to response as long as i can, but the chain of reason, like evidence, tends to break down.
As the number of sources of influence increase, complexity does arise. At the same time, the fragments, even if they break and are consequently difficult to see, can continue to linger.
Quoting DA671
If Modi wants to sell to Hindus the idea that all things muslim are evil, then passages taught to all school children, that demonstrate, that one of the greatest and most learned leaders in India, who was also a Hindu, placed the unity of all Indians above all religious doctrine, has to go, or be diluted as much as possible.
Modi knows that cultural teachings are indeed critical, to establish control over the thinking of a mass of people, that will lead to actions taken by that mass of people.
Gandhi would never accept Modi's demonisation of muslims. So removing text from school books that demonstrate that Gandhi would never have supported a self-aggrandizing narcissist like Modi, makes sense to the Modi agenda.
This is where the threat lies.
I assume the Identifier DA671 lost favour with you. :grin:
I read the article:
3. https://m.thewire.in/article/history/why-rss-cannot-help-hating-jawaharlal-nehru-and-his-connection-with-the-people-of-india
This is ceratinly a passage that would concern me, if I lived on India:
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) describes itself as a ‘cultural’ organisation, and it is correct in the sense that it aims at changing the very way of ‘being Indian’ and conduct of all private and public activities. ‘Culture’ in the RSS discourse does not refer to the vibrant reality energised by common everyday experiences and creative expressions in India. To the RSS, culture means the rhetoric of hatred and actual violence and a system for concealing those conflicts and oppressions through subterfuge. It also refuses to see the fundamentally diverse character of Indian cultural experience. The pre-independence national movement, on the other hand, recognised this diversity along with dialogue and historical ups and downs inherent in it. Hence the slogan ‘unity in diversity’.
and this:
Despite all its claims to being authentically Hindu/Indian, the RSS nationalism is wholly adopted from Western right-wing nationalisms. The admiration of Nazi methods of ‘purifying the national life’ contained in ‘We, our nationhood defined’ (published under the name of M.S. Golwalkar in 1938; only much later was its authorship denied) can be easily seen reflected in day-to-day informal conversation of any RSS cadre or sympathiser. The glorification of lynchings and other heinous crimes is nothing but putting those methods into practice.
seems to have some kind of presence, in some equivalent shape or from, in every country in the world.
We must all unite against such groups whether we are atheist or theist.
I liked the comparison of Nehru's wish to maintain/incorporate/value the contribution of, all aspects of historical Indian culture. I understood his comparison with palimpsest (once I looked up what it meant) as his idea of not ignoring or disregarding the 'river forms' that form the ocean that could be compared to what modern India could become.
I accept that Nehru or Gandhi had no wish to establish Hinduism as the national religion of India and they were both against partition.
In Discovery of India, he said, “I find myself incapable of thinking of a deity or of any unknown supreme power in anthropomorphic terms… Any idea of a personal God seems very odd to me…I have been attracted towards the advaita (non-dualist) philosophy of the Vedanta… some kind of ethical approach to life has a strong appeal for me.”
Do you think Nehru was just too scared to declare himself an atheist?
Would he have been committing political suicide, if he had, during those times?
Is there any significant atheist movement in India?
It seems to me, this concept of hindutva, is a double edged sword. It seems attractive, in that it offers a pathway to atheism. But it also seems to be a concept/label, to absolutely avoid, as it seems to offer a parallel path of crazy nationalistic fascism.
Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was unafraid to voice his opinions when it came to superstition and religious extremism. He writes about the "horror" that organised religion arose within him in his autobiography. He also frequently emphasised the necessity of having a "scientific temper" (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thehindu.com/society/nehru-did-not-set-the-natural-experimental-and-exact-sciences-in-opposition-to-human-sciences/article37988383.ece/amp/). The person who keeps going on despite facing multiple assassination attempts (https://theprint.in/opinion/the-many-plots-to-kill-jawaharlal-nehru-from-1948-to-1955/170035/?amp) is unlikely to not present themselves as they honestly were. I believe that Pt. Nehru genuinely loved the culture of his nation and the pantheism of Advaita Vedanta. The analogy of the palimpsest demonstrates the former and the latter gave him a spiritual/transcendent vision that did not have to involve a personal God (as Advaita's "God" is essentially impersonal, beyond any qualities, and identical to the individual). He also used to give addresses to the Hindu pluralistic organisation Ramakrishna Mission (https://swarajyamag.com/culture/it-would-do-a-great-deal-of-good-to-the-present-generation-if-they-went-through-swami-vivekanandas-writings-and-speeches) without really publicising what he was doing (which we would have expected from an insecure man). I believe that Pandit Nehru ended up suppressing many of his religious/spiritual views as he did not want to encourage religious extremism in any manner. It is due to this that most people thought (and still do) that he was an atheist. Many don't have any idea about his sympathetic position towards the non-dualistic Advaita or his relationship with the Ramakrishna Mission.
India has had non-theistic schools of thought like Charvaka and most forms of Buddhism (many Buddhists). The increasing popularity of the atheistic Mr Savarakar appears to show that having a belief in God is not the most important thing for numerous Indians
Those who belong to the concerned organisations would, predictably, deny that their ideas were influenced by the views that emerged in 20th-century Europe. There are those who argue that such claims as a consequence of a "colonised" mindset and that India needs to think about "decoloniality" (which means criticising principles that are a part of India's constitution, such as secularism). The person who popularised Hindutva, Mr Savarkar, was actually an atheist. He was primarily concerned with the relationship Hindus have—and should have —to the political and cultural realms. Pt. Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi were both against Hindutva (despite being Hindus themselves).
Thank for sharing your insightful comments on those articles. The first one ('India Against Gandhi—A Legacy Rewritten' by Ramchandra Guha) is also quite fascinating. If you have any difficulties accessing it, please do let me know.
I certainly, personally think, that a much less religious India and a much less religious Pakistan would have much more reason to find enough common ground to consider reunification based on aspects of common cultural historicity. BUT, I don't know enough about Indian common cultural historicity, to have a great deal of confidence, in such a prediction, apart from the times when all Indians had common enemies, such as the British.
Pt. Nehru's The Discovery of India does a decent job in trying to boost the confidence, I think.
In the hot tub this morning I spoke with a very nice couple. The woman was confident about there being a heaven and it became evident she had not given much thought to what she believes. I mention this because you said Quoting Existential Hope. So when the woman spoke of heaven, I mentioned I think we all desire novel experiences and a sense that we are needed and our lives make a difference, but how does that work in a perfect heaven? I can not imagine enjoying life without a sense of being needed and that we can make a difference.
My friend who just had a stroke seems to be doing well lying in a bed watching TV but his brain is not fully active. Oh, who was it who said something about our laws would be different if we were different? Augustine? I mean, Eve never would have touched the forbidden fruit if she had a less active brain. A God could have programmed us like the rest of the animals, some that are mated for life. :lol: But some are naughty, like the squirrels that steal each other's nuts, and use decent to bury a nut so that another will not dig it up. God did not have to give us free will and I don't think heaven could be perfect if He did not take away our free will. What do you think? As long as we have free will, some of us will pay a quarter of million dollars to risk our lives. :starstruck: You can't have that happening in heaven. Once we get there aren't we immortal? That might take all the fun out of those mountain hikes where people die trying to get to the top. What do you think?
I would imagine that such a perfect state would simply not involve the desire for novel experiences, or it would somehow be fulfilled without significant effort (perhaps like a simulation). However, in this existence, new journeys will continue to await us.
Imagine a preferable alternative - and that's your heaven. Custom made for every angel.
Whoo, I unexpectedly had to replace my monitor. I am glad it was the monitor that went down and not the computer.
I think you made an overstatement about your negativity causing all the trouble in the world. And I am very sorry but I do not remember your solutions. If I were not working, I would go through all your posts, but considering my time is limited can you help me out by repeating your solutions?
Well, that's a relief! I never meant to start those world wars.
Quoting Athena
You either disregarded or strongly disagreed with them at the time, so there wouldn't be much point.
Doesn't Buddhaism address this?
Can you imagine a consumer economy without desire? Isn't that also a matter of culture?
Aw, come on. I may be in a better mood today. Today I may think your ideas are wonderful.
It doesn't matter. Most of the suggestions and links I offered are not my own ideas anyway - they're out there in the webisphere for anyone to access.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/climate-change-denial-fossil-fuel-think-tank-sceptic-misinformation-1.5297236
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCKz8ykyI2E
https://bravenewclimate.com/about/
If you were interested in climate change mitigation
or alternate social organizations,
https://www.ic.org/directory/communes/
https://equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/the-spirit-level
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09640568.2020.1837088
you would have looked up some of them.
What you are interested in is not in there, because I simply don't believe your agenda is viable.
This is happening "An estimated four million people worldwide took part in the climate strikes on Sept. 20, which are part of a broader movement to raise awareness about carbon emissions. (Shutterstock / Ben Gingell)" That is positive, isn't it?
This man is considered an authority and he is doing a lot with that authority.
"Barry is a leading environmental researcher, modeller, data analyst and author, in the fields of ecology, conservation biology, palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, and sustainable energy systems. He is a ARC Australian Laureate Professor at the University of Tasmania, where he holds the Chair of Environmental Sustainability. He has published five books, over 300 refereed scientific papers and is an ISI highly cited researcher."
That is a very nice list of communes and there are more communes. Thank goodness, because we might come to rely on what these people learn. I was inspired by the communal living in the 60s. I did not join a commune because that was not something that interested the person I married and I was still working with the 1950 values of family and owning a home. However, I wrote a few stories in the book "What Happened to the Hippies?" by Stewart L. Rogers. I enjoyed the creativity of the Hippy movement and paid attention to Buckminster Fuller and Alvin Toffler's Future Shock. Hum. I am thinking there is a lot we could be discussing if we shared the same books. That would be more interesting than insulting each other's character.
The information in this one was not possible a hundred years ago and it will be interesting to see what happens when it spreads.
I think I have said you need to ask questions instead of jumping to conclusions about me. You have no idea what I know nor how I feel. Whatever is going on in your head it is not knowledge of me.
Fair enough. Don't instruct me what I need to do, and we're even.
I am trying to figure out how this can fit into a discussion of culture. For sure if we grow up in a Christian country we are apt to be Christian. If we grow up with Hinduism we will likely be Hindus and so on for the religions. They all aim at a better lives for individuals and the nation. And let me say, I am shocked by how materialistic the US has become. I just do not see that as compatible with the teaching of Jesus.
In my old grade school textbooks, some over 100 years old, the values are social harmony, conformity, and sharing. One way to achieve this is by paying taxes that can be used for national parks that everyone gets to use without charge. If we do happen to be rich, we are to share that with everyone. We should not envy the rich because money is not always a source of happiness and the rich girl may be very unhappy because of something sad in the family.
Older books for children focused on virtues and character and our report cards graded us on character traits. The priority of education back then was good citizenship and I was shocked when in high school I was to choose a career and being a homemaker was not one of the choices. My sister who was a couple of years younger grew up angry with our mother who always did women's work for low wages and her failure to go for the money. :gasp: Our culture has changed a lot in my lifetime.
Especially the book of the 1917 National Education Association Convention, contains lectures about how we must conserve and how our waste is shameful. Public schools were used to mobilize the US for WWI and WWII and did not have the mass production we have today. Women knit socks and scarves for the soldiers, and schools became civic centers for supporting the war effort in many ways. Everyone was part of something much bigger than themselves, and public education made this so.
I have been listening to a college lecture about Athens and the difference between individualism and individualistic. One is just being a unique individual enabled to self-actualize and make one's best contribution to society. It puts the city-state first, as in God, family, and country. The other puts self first and I am horrified by our changed reality that has taken being self-centered to an extreme. For me, the best explanation for this change is the change in public education and putting technology above humanism. That is a cultural issue.
"She was like some ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed , and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written previously."
—Pandit Nehru's description of India in 'The Discovery of India'
Unfettered selfishness is undoubtedly a recipe for disaster. As someone from India (a society which is fairly collectivistic even now), I hope that we will find the apposite balance.
Thank you. In the post above I explained the difference between individualism and being individualistic.
One puts the state first, and the other puts the individual first. Socrates put his values and the good of humanity above any self-centered concern. My sense of that is, feeling a part of something that is much bigger than one's self.
As for Socrates moving us away from superstition, this is like a particle of water in a flood. Individual particles of water are ineffective and large bodies of water can be life-giving or deadly. Conscious living begs us to be aware and make good choices and Socrates was most certainly part of this growing consciousness. He did not stand alone but was a part of debates and changing consciousness.
You are from India? I have been so wanting an Indian point of view. In the US I don't think we have a collective awareness. We don't have a sense of how our lives impact everything and everyone. This is a disaster when dealing with a pandemic or global warming. :yikes: Democracy depends on the collective and serves all, but we think the US is democracy and don't know its origin or history and we are serving laize fair capitalism, not democracy. I see this as a huge problem.
Democracy depends on our ability to know truth and that sure isn't what is happening with those who deny the truth of pandemics and global warming. I fear we just do not loving the pursuit of truth as much as we should, and I think this is a problem with religion and education for technology. We have put our faith in a humanized god, not so different from Zues, and money, and technology, and our faith in humans has crashed.
It's an honour to be of some use. I cannot possibly hope to represent the views of more than a billion people, but from my experiences, I would say that there value can be present everywhere if we refuse to hurriedly take things too far. Not having collective awareness will lead to the sort of problems that you mentioned. But if group identity starts to utterly dominate our minds, we begin to terminate the individual and end up harming ourselves. Examples of this in India could be parents wanting their children to choose only a few career options for the sake of tradition or the good of the family and people blaming an entire community without caring about the fact that individual opinions can vary. This is why your point about the impact on everyone is so significant. "Everyone" makes it transparent that we are, ultimately, not dealing with some monolithic organism, but people. We should respect the beauty of the diversity of the sentient experience without turning a blind eye to our deepest threads of unity. This would allow us to sincerely seek the truth as egotism and antagonism would give way to concern for the fellow being and a more profound comprehension of our shared existence.
I have declared myself a democratic socialist and a secular humanist, consistently on TPF.
I value co-operation far far far more than I value competition.
My individuality is part of my identity, my socialism and humanism are my conclusions and my main/strongest drivers.
Your comment reminded me of Wikipedia's description of Pandit Nehru:
"Jawaharlal Nehru (/?ne?ru/ or /?n?ru/;[1] Hindi: [?d?????????l??l ?ne???u?] (listen); juh-WAH-hurr-LAHL NE-h?-ROO; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat,[2] and author who was a central figure in India during the middle third of the 20th century. Nehru was a principal leader of the Indian nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s. Upon India's independence in 1947, he became the first prime minister of India, serving for 16 years. Nehru promoted parliamentary democracy, secularism, and science and technology during the 1950s, powerfully influencing India's arc as a modern nation. In international affairs, he steered India clear of the two blocs of the Cold War. A well-regarded author, his books written in prison, such as Letters from a Father to His Daughter (1929), Glimpses of World History (1934), An Autobiography (1936), and The Discovery of India (1946), have been read around the world. The honorific Pandit has been commonly applied before his name."
There are those in India (or, as those belonging to the further side of the right wing of the political spectrum prefer to exclusively say, Bharat) today who accuse Pandit Nehru of possessing a colonial mindset as he encouraged ideas such as secularism that weren't "indigenous". People such as J. Sai Deepak argue that secularism emerged out of Protestantism and that Semitic/Western principles cannot be applied to Hindus (even though Pt. Nehru never made secularism synonymous with atheism/thoughtlessly attacking religion or Dharma). The strange thing is that these are the same people who talk about the tolerance of Hinduism. However, the spirit of genuine pluralism that guided Mahatma Gandhi and others appears to be missing. For the Mahatma, the common experiences of all men and women and the constantly evolving nature of India's demographics meant that indigeneity was not a rigid concept that ignored the good that lay elsewhere. His emphasis on equating what he considered the divine with truth itself (his autobiography is called 'The Story of My Experiments with Truth') made him seek value everywhere. Mindless competition will spell doom for us. As degradation continues, one can only hope that reason will prevail.
I am going to boldly risk looking a complete ass because the temporary pain of publically making a fool of myself is minor to what I can gain from someone with your understanding.
I have been helping a homeless man with severe brain damage and I am learning I am not the nice person I want to believe I am. Small things make me crazy like when he shakes the carton of almond milk, or I find a hair in the bathroom sink. I seriously need to live alone. He had a third stroke and this time he will be put a facility where he will get the care he needs. He may not stay. He may run but I don't think he will be physically capable of living on the street again.
This morning he had a procedure and after I waited an hour to see him, I was told he did not want to see me and I only thought of myself. :gasp: My reaction to being told I could not see him was too bad, but I wish I had immediately gone into reasoning and problem-solving with sensitivity to the possibility that he felt terrible because of the procedure and needed to be alone to heal and get past pain. Instead, I had a self-centered emotional reaction. I couldn't believe he didn't want to see me, the most important person in his life for the last 6 months :vomit: and I didn't trust the security guard and nurses, :worry: .
In my own head, I created a drama of everyone being against me. Fortunately, my paranoia lasted only a few minutes and it was in the privacy of my head, but it bothers me that I even had all these negative thoughts and so much ego tied into all this!
On the positive side, I see my wrong mental habit wrapped around my ego, and at this late date in my life, I know there is a better way. I have spent most of my life trying to understand how to be a better person and only in the last year have I met Asian people who have a totally different approach to life. I am thinking they are giving meaning to the reading I have done. Like I get it. But I am not there yet. Trying to understand a more Asian way of thinking is like going to a different planet.
Have I said anything that makes sense? I love what you said.
"as egotism and antagonism would give way to concern for the fellow" That is a new world.
Oh my goodness but how do we survive in the US if we think like you? I am beating myself up for not being a more successful person. I didn't try hard enough, or was there value in being cooperative and not competitive? I remember the 1970 recession when it was extremely hard to get a job and it was demanded that we dress up our resumes and perhaps exaggerate our qualifications. I was a domestic woman and just could not become competitive in that way. Not even college cured me of being a domestic woman. I knew the tricks for selling things and I could have been rich but I had to take a low-paying in-home aide job that fit my values. I have read women tend to be more attracted to meaningful work, and we do it for intrinsic reasons, not the money. Doing something just for the money was so wrong! That is being part of the problem.
I am not sure I am wrong. Now teachers and nurses are paid a lot and they want more, and this makes education and health care unavoidable. Our equality with men means more women and children are involved in crime as both victims and the ones who commit the crimes. Our technological development is doing fine, but our civilization seems to be spinning out of control.
Talk to me. Where do we go from here?
I would love to know the books he read because this explanation of him makes me think he was literate in Greek and understood the reasoning for democracy as it came out of Greek philosophy. I don't think religion is compatible with democracy. I think the religions have more agreements than disagreements, but their mythologies explaining human behavior are whacky. I like the notion of reincarnation and it might be part of reality but until we can test and validate that we should not be too sure of that possibility.
Quoting Existential Hope I wonder how got Deepak got that idea. I would credit the Greek philosophers for secularism. It goes with deciding our health problems have physical causes and those problems are not caused by the gods. Socrates rejected the line of reason for atoms because that just didn't interest him, but in general back in the day, some of the Greeks were interested in physical reality, and not the gods. Socrates did take issue with some of the god stories that promoted bad values, such as adultery.
But Calvinism led to Puritans and then the Congregationalists and it strongly influences our materialism, work ethics, and economy. It is so different from collective reasoning because that line of reasoning is based on God's chosen few, not the whole of humanity. I can see where Deepak might take issue with that line of reasoning.
There is much that I do not understand, but I sincerely appreciate your choice to consider my opinions.
What you wrote does make sense to me. I think that we would err to presume that the journey towards the good ends during a particular point in our finite existence. While having discussions with some antinatalists, I was intrigued to see how often this fact of deficiency was brought up to indict life. I think that this perspective, despite being understandable, is unidimensional. Why would one not adop a similar approach towards the negatives and argue that problems only arise when life is at the gates of hell itself? Also, even though we may not achieve perfection in this life, we always have a seed of the good and the truth that can grow into a giant tree. All of us may sometimes find ourselves wrestling with desires and thoughts that are contrary to our ultimate aim. What makes the difference is, as in your case, being able to recognise the unethical deviation and correcting it. Sure, perfection may remain unattainable, but we can still possess more than adequate goodness.
"I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good-wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed, but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. I admit it is a painful climb, but the pain of it is a positive pleasure for me. Each step upward makes me feel stronger and fit for the next."
—Mahatma Gandhi, YI, 9-4-1924, p126
As regards the way of life we should prefer, I think that the manner in which the Mahatma discerned the value everywhere can serve as an inspiration for us. This is what he, as a Hindu, thought about the various religions of the world:
"I believe in the truth of all religions of the world. And since my youth upward, it has been a humble but persistent effort on my to understand the truth of all the religions of the world, and adopt and assimilate in my own thought, word, and deed all that I have found to be best in those religions. The faith that I profess not only permits me to do so but renders it obligatory for me to take the best from whatsoever source it may come."
—Harijan, 16-2-34, p. 7
I believe that the example of people such as Mr Deepak demonstrates the pitfalls of being parochial. It is true that ideas such as secularism might have external origins, but that does not mean that it, with some modifications, cannot qualify as a useful tool for strengthening democracy. Eastern knowledge regarding consciousness and Western scientific implements can be an area of cooperation. In the final analysis, it will be a story of the progress of life.
Quoting Athena
The fact that he wrote much of his work from prisons says something about his erudition. As a Hindu, I am unsure if religion is incompatible with democracy if it is restricted to an individual practice that also acts as a fount of unity. What I am convinced of, howebeit, is the need to separate politics and religion. Whether this conflation is done by Dharmic/Indic religions or Abrahamic ones, the results do not seem to be particularly desirable.
I should also mention that Pandit Nehru was probably a pantheist who perceived both positive and negative elements in religion. The following quotations from 'The Discovery of India' bespeak this:
"What the mysterious is I do not know. I do not call it God because God has come to mean much that I do not believe in. I find myself incapable of thinking of a deity or of any unknown supreme power in anthropomorphic terms, and the fact that many people think so is continually a source of surprise to me. Any idea of a personal God seems very odd to me. Intellectually, I can appreciate to some extent the conception of monism, and I have been attracted towards the Advaita (non-dualist) philosophy of the Vedanta, though I do not presume to understand it in all its depth and intricacy, and I realise that merely an intellectual appreciation of such matters does not carry one far. At the same time the Vedanta, as well as other similar approaches, rather frighten me with their vague, formless incursions into infinity. The diversity and fullness of nature stir me and produce a harmony of the spirit, and I can imagine myself feeling at home in the old Indian or Greek pagan and pantheistic atmosphere, but minus the conception of God or Gods that was attached to it."
"Religion, as I saw it practised, and accepted even by thinking minds, whether it was Hinduism or Islam or Buddhism or Christianity, did not attract me. It seemed to be closely associated with superstitious practices and dogmatic beliefs, and behind it lay a method of approach to life's problems which was certainly not that of science. There was an element of magic about it, an uncritical credulousness, a reliance on the supernatural. Yet it was obvious that religion had supplied some deeply felt inner need of human nature, and that the vast majority of people all over the world could not do without some form of religious belief. It had produced many fine types of men and women, as well as bigoted, narrow-minded, cruel tyrants. It had given a set of values to human life, and though some of these values had no application to-day, or were even harmful, others were still the foundation of morality and ethics."
Quoting Athena
He could have received the idea from sources like this one:
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/03/17/the-rise-of-secular-religion/
Irrespective of the origins, the kernel of the issue lies in upholding the catholicity of Hinduism while constructing narrow walls between "us" and "them". This goes against the Upanishadic claim "Ekam sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti" (Truth is one, the wise perceive it differently). The world has already suffered severely as a consequence of our failure to learn from each other and respect that which is good. We don't have to propose that distinctions are illusory, but making all the bridges collapse is unlikely to be a decent proposition. I hope that we can continue to do the right thing.
May you have a great day/night!
I can but agree with your two sentences above, completely, and continue to act against our species continued use of money, unfettered capitalism, willingness to follow others blindly and party politics.
I am honoured to find common ground with the politics of Pandit Nehru.
I will still wag a disapproving finger at the small part of his legacy that involves his tryst with Mountbatten's wife, if it is true as reported.
I agree with you that secularism does not demand atheism but I think atheism accommodates secularism better than theism.
The problem with even a theism as universal as a pantheism is that it credits any human achievements to supernatural influences and reduces human reason, will, motivation and purpose to nothing more than a conduit for supernatural reason, will, motivation and purpose.
I think this is the curtain between you and I.
I insist in assigning credit to humans alone, and not (what I am 99.999% sure are non-existent) supernatural agents.
This curtain, of course can be opened and closed and we can still fully co-operate to help make the better world we both think can be achieved. A better and continuously improving human experience for those who come after us.
The antinatalists are short sighted fools, who utterly fail in their responsibility to help to make a better future for our continuing species, simply because they are so afraid of suffering.
In truth, suffering is limited, as an eternal hell of suffering, would make an individual into a creature that served no purpose, and learned to accept any level of pain as normal and probably even, eventually, enjoyable.
If I experience the 'limits of pain,' that can be done mentally or physically to a human, every given time unit, for tens/hundreds/thousands/millions of years, then such would eventually just become boring and meaningless, just like antinatalism.
You have already achieved that survival. You have reached a grand laudable lifespan.
Quoting Athena
I don't understand this mindset! What notion of success are you allowing to hold judgement over your life? Surely not the amassment of money and material goods.
Quoting Athena
Sounds to me that you know what your reasoning was, for not playing the money trick game, to buy cheap and sell dear, and become rich by doing so. Never forget the main problem the rich (especially the nefarious rich) have. If you can buy a Rolls Royce in the same way as an average person can buy a loaf of bread or a drink of water, then there is no joy, no satisfaction, no achievement whatsoever, in buying a Rolls Royce. This is why the rich get involved in weird shit, as they need to get involved in more and more extreme stuff, to feel anything.
Quoting Athena
We keep on the same path Athena!
We do whatever we can as individuals to help create a better world.
We speak out and vote against unfettered free market capitalism. We support ideas such as Universal Basic Income. We advocate nurturing people over profits. We fight for the basic means of survival to be accepted as a human right or else we declare our society, still, uncivilised. We support the removal of money as the main means of exchange from global humanity. We totally reject all forms of religious authority, for ever and ever, regardless of how convinced that woo woo is real, any individual or group is.
I could go on, but I wonder when you will finally accept that you have been, and continue to be, a 'successful' human being. Why don't you take that very very deep, very slow, inhalation and exhalation of breath, over and over again, that confirms your 'at f****** last, acceptance of you as a successful human.' It was NEVER about becoming one of the rich and powerful. The vast majority of them are, and always have been, and always will be, unsuccessful human beings imo.
"I mean a very deep love. The kind of love that the old knights of old, a chivalric love really. Now days everybody assumes that it has to be a carnal love, but you can have just as deep an emotional love with two like souls in a way, people who really grow to understand each other, and to be able to listen to each other and to complement each other and find solace in each other."
In general, I would agree that atheists would have an easier time accepting secular principles than theists who are always tempted to intermix the state and religion. Personally, as a theist, I simply don't see much good coming from doing so.
Concerning theism, reason, and human achievements, I would say that human achievements are ours alone. Even if there is an ultimate mind/consciousness, we (or the material world) are not separate from it (this is what distinguishes this view from traditional monotheism) and our ability to reason is simply a smaller version of something grander. At the same time, one's will and the good they do with it are their own. I am not even sure if the possible all-pervasive consciousness is actually "supernatural" rather than a higher aspect of nature that could be understood someday (panentheism and panpsychism, which also interests non-theists like Goff, do often interact with each other). I certainly would not say that people were simply created out of absolutely nothing for the good of a celestial dictator. Rather than conduits, we can discover reflections of the ultimate. Hindus believe in a cyclical model in which individuals have always existed in some form. Mahatma Gandhi frequently focused on truth over scriptures and religious authority. I, too, think that to believe that some texts written thousands of years ago contain unblemished knowledge would be to disregard the trajectory of evolution and the necessity to keep learning. Here, the Nasadiya Sukta (a prominent part of Hinduism) comes to one's mind:
"Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
Gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?
Whether God's will created it, or whether He was mute;
Perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not;
The Supreme Brahman of the world, all pervasive and all knowing
He indeed knows, if not, no one knows"
—Rigveda 10.129 (Abridged, Tr: Kramer / Christian)
(Here, "Gods" refers to the kind of anthropomorphic conceptions of a higher power.)
Hopefully, we will continue use our fascinating faculties for the good of all.
https://www.altnews.in/never-ending-propaganda-to-malign-jawaharlal-nehru-an-alt-news-compilation/
In the final analysis, Mr Nehru's relationship with Mountbatten's wife does not dilute the validity of his political stance. At best, it can be used to question his moral stance or social stance and Mountbatten's daughter Pamela does indeed insist they had no sexual relations.
Quoting Existential Hope
But you still have to qualify and evidence brahman or reject it.
From Wiki: Brahman
In major schools of Hindu philosophy, it is the immaterial, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists. It is the pervasive, infinite, eternal truth, consciousness and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes. Brahman as a metaphysical concept refers to the single binding unity behind diversity in all that exists in the universe.
Do you hold that brahman is true?
True
Quoting universeness
As I said earlier, I do believe that consciousness has a higher role to play here and that it exists everywhere (possibly in a rudimentary form as some panpsychists would believe). Although this may go against the beliefs of some Christians and Muslims, it can account for the difficulty in seeing how consciousness arises from a purely material reality. Whether one wishes to all this a mind/Brahman/computer is a matter of preference.
Also, I am not sure if it would be entirely accurate to say that Brahman does not change. Since I don't disconnect the world from the ultimate reality, Brahman must change in at least some way as we change and modify our environment.
So what is your preference? It's ok if you would rather not say but then saying that you are a theist, suggests you do have a preference and this means you must defend and justify your preference.
Why does a cyclical theory, such as Roger Penrose's CCC not attract you more than theism when theism has such poor evidence and CCC at least has hawking points, that it can demonstrate in the cmb, that are further evidenced/supported by data from the planck and Wmap projects.
I know there are alternative possible explanations for Hawking points but none that are strongly compelling. What convinces you most towards theism?
The something from nothing concept is invalid as there is no exemplar in this universe that science is aware of, for the concept of 'nothing.'
I suppose that the concept of nothing (as a term of negation) could also depend upon the context (nothing in a box would differ from nothing in a vacuum), but I do think that, at the final point, despite the seemingly finite nature of the material reality, pure nothingness does not make sense. I am actually quite sympathetic to the CCC. As a Hindu, I don't believe in creatio ex nihilo (something must always exist according to Hindu panentheism) and prefer a cyclical model (which doesn't go against my theism, or, more accurately, panentheism). This article mentions that Sir Penrose himself seems similarities between his model and Hindu philosophy:
https://nationalpost.com/news/what-does-the-penrose-big-bang-theory-mean-for-religions
But panentheism insists that a god exists as a separate entity, outside of spacetime.
The idea that this panentheistic entity is omnipresent, does not equate such with panpsychism.
Panentheism is a 'rigid concept of a divine,' is it not? It is posited as a prime mover, a first cause an agent of mind/consciousness that created the universe or started the now eternal cycle but it is not deist, is it? not if it is not ever changed but is the cause of all change, which again reduces all change caused by humans to be nothing more than divine relayed intent. 'Outside of spacetime,' is surely supernatural.
By "rigid", I was referring to insisting that only a certain text or interpretation should be accepted while other perspectives and experiences are not worthwhile. And like I earlier wrote, I do think that Brahman does undergo changes due to the inseparable nature of the physical world and consciousness. I would also like to repeat the fact that existence is eternal for Hindus, so the question of being intentionally created for a purpose is not that significant. Nevertheless, I would say that being created would not reduce our available options and our capacity to act in a way that benefits us.
Sounds to me that your thinking is naturally gravitating towards panpsychism, as your panentheistic contemplations seem to lie uncomfortably in you. You do not seem convinced to me that the source of this universe is a fully formed eternal conscious entity that exists outside of spacetime(supernatural) but nonetheless, inhabits every 4D (one dimension being represented, as a duration) coordinate, in spacetime.
:grin: Careful how far you stretch those terms my friend. I think that elasticity is gonna fail ya!
It's always very interesting and very pleasant to exchange views with you. :up:
I am just watching the live launch of the Euclid space telescope in the background on my TV.
It will hopefully move our species forward a great deal in its search for the nature of dark matter!
Another fantastic, totally human achievement!
India is launching a mission to the Moon this month. It's doubtlessly an invigorating time to be alive and behold the astonishing human achievements. They are "totally" ours, yet the legacy of creation has the potential to take us back to source that is reminiscent of what we call consciousness. The direction, however, must remain forward.
From moon missions:
[b]India plans to launch the Chandrayaan 3 mission to the Moon in June 2023, taking a landing module and robotic rover to explore the surface. India first reached the moon in 2008 with Chandrayaan 1.
Russia plans to launch its Luna 25 mission in July 2023, putting a probe on the Moon to gather samples from its southern polar region.
SpaceX plans to take Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and eight other passengers on the dearMoon voyage around the Moon in late 2023. This would be the first mission for its Starship vehicle, which is capable of carrying 100 people.
Nasa, the United States space agency, plans to launch its next Moon mission in 2024. Called Artemis II, it will take astronauts to orbit the Moon.
The US Agency is due to launch the Artemis III mission in 2025 or 2026, landing the first woman and the first person of colour on the Moon.
It will be the first time that people have walked on the Moon since the last of Nasa's Apollo missions in 1972. Nasa has said it will use the Space X Starship for the mission.
China has announced plans with Russia to set up a joint base on the Moon by 2035, but no timeline has been drawn up for the project.[/b]
Much better to co-operate, than to cyclically compete, via preparing for war, engaging in war and recovering from war and then repeating the cycle.
Time to go drink beers! Thanks for the exchange!
I read your words very slowly before selecting the Pandit Nehru quote to comment on. I think I need to read your thoughts again and ponder them because it is not possible to understand a different point of view with casual reading. I think I see an inseparable relationship between working with a collective consciousness and being tolerant of differences. This is delicious. I can not automatically hold those concepts and make them useful. I can only know there are different thoughts that influence our experience of life differently.
For the notion of religion being compatible with democracy, I can find words to express my thoughts on that. I love the line "I do not call it God because God has come to mean much that I do not believe in."
I am sure there was resistance to people having a personal God. It came with Judaism and speaking the name of God was forbidden along with making images of God. Christians deifying Jesus and turning him into a personal God is shocking! It is interesting Hindus have so many religious icons and so do Catholics but Muslims are sticklers about not making images of God. That is a curious cultural difference since images are a way of conveying concepts. The Greeks created Athena's temple with statues and pictures that conveyed the new democratic relationship of the gods. That is they used images to tell a story and Islam does not have pictures for knowing God.
I really do not know enough about these differences but when we come to collective thinking and accepting differences, I think the understanding of God is very important, and worshipping a God who is jealous, revengeful, punishing, and fearsome, is a long way from the collective consciousness. To pray "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done" is not exactly about being inclusive and tolerant.
In the US we are now struggling with accepting diversity. I suspect we are as far from the Hindu consciousness as people can get. Despite our idealistic claims of democracy, we have persecuted and killed people who are different. The history of Christianity is violent and bloody. It is democracy that gave us peace, not religion! But because the US stopped using education to transmit a culture, and left moral training to the Church, we are in a crisis that threatens the future of our democracy. And I sure would not want to be in a place like Afghanistan because of religious notions held to be true there.
For many years I was determined to write a book about democracy and education and I hit a roadblock when I had to address the Christian problem. It is so tied to our politics and so threatening at this time, we can not be passive about the relationship between religion and politics.
"I can imagine myself feeling at home in the old Indian or Greek pagan and pantheistic atmosphere, but minus the conception of God or Gods that was attached to it."[/quote]
If we see those gods as concepts we can appreciate their importance to democracy and civilization. But on an emotional level, I would love to have a time machine and travel to Egyptian and the building of the pyramids, and loving our pharaoh who is as a god on earth and to think of nothing but this loving relationship with the pharaoh and how I can serve him and the building of the pyramids. That relationship with the pharaoh is exactly like the relationship some Christians have with Jesus today. To experience that instead of all the responsibility that goes with living in a democracy, would be wonderful. It is not possible to have that relationship with Jesus or a pharaoh when we hold secular concepts of democracy and a sense of our civic duty that is so much more than periodically voting.
My recent experiences have shown me that flaws lie everywhere, even in the places where one has traditionally seen acceptance:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/06/godse-cult-gandhi-assassin-india/661154/
https://www.siasat.com/boycott-banner-on-muslim-traders-in-karnataka-temple-fair-2502764/
I think that possibly spiritual experiences can easily be corrupted when people start to bring politics into everything and insist that their interpretation is the only correct one (and every other position is completely wrong or evil). Mahatma Gandhi probably admired the fundamental idea of sacrificing oneself for the truth while not agreeing with every aspect of Christianity (just as he appreciated the discipline and simplicity of Islam without condoning its violence). The following article provides a gripping summary of Mahatma Gandhi's views on Christianity:
https://www.mkgandhi.org/africaneedsgandhi/gandhis_message_to_christians.php
Quoting Athena
I can't hope to speak for everyone, but my opinion is that one can have a genuine relationship with their understanding of the divine without relinquishing secularism and democracy if it is not understood as a process of languid devotion to a concept, but as a significant piece of a larger puzzle that also involves helping the fellow sentient being. We don't have to believe that the borders of the "kingdom" are so small or that the "will" is necessarily narrow.
I wish I had completed at least one book and then did a lecture tour to promote the ideas about democracy and education before my mind got so weak the effort is futile. :chin: It is interesting indeed to think of what I said here and then think about your question. I know a point in my life when I wish I had made a different decision. But now I can think of that with hindsight. I didn't know then what I know now.
Quoting universeness
I totally agree with you and the more I ponder what you say, the more I think I have a pretty darn good life. I remember fearing what wealth would do to me and I would again choose the life I have over having too much money. I love to think about how I would change my life if I won the lottery, but I am not sure if I would really enjoy that. It would mean taking on a whole lot of responsibility I don't have now and I suspect that would not be fun. Wow, I am so glad you replied and stirred all these thoughts. I am feeling happier and happier with the life I have right now.
Quoting universeness
On all those things I do not agree. I think a degree of incivility is desirable for the same reason too much wealth can destroy our enjoyment of life. If all the basic needs were met without a person making an effort, how would that be different from having too much wealth? What would motivate people to make an effort? This would really be disastrous if it killed industry because there was no way to measure success and reward those who took responsibility. Like I said, if I won the lottery I don't think I would want the responsibility of using that money to create and manage a town. What are you willing to do for no reward? Many jobs have an intrinsic value and many do not but they must be done.
I am trying to expand my great-grandson's life by increasing what he knows and helping him find his own interest and talents. That was the role of teachers played before IQ testing to identify those students best suited for higher education for military and industrial purposes. Today's education is producing products for industry and this leads to a mechanical society. Children who do not automatically follow this technological education agenda become excluded and part of the thrown-away population. It is a huge challenge to help a child discover his/her talents and interest and excite them about learning about the world instead of turning the child off. What do you think is the best way to motivate personal growth?
Exist there, in that realisation. Take your strength from there.
Quoting Athena
So, keep existing there.
Quoting Athena
It's very different indeed, as being able to take your basic means of survival for granted, does not give you the power and influence over others, and over what does and does not happen, that having excessive wealth can and usually does.
Quoting Athena
All the unanswered questions in the universe and the journey to discover who you are and what you want.
Quoting Athena
Contribute to the well being of others.
Quoting Athena
Those jobs that don't offer humans meaning and purpose and do not offer them a way to pursue personal vocation, should be automated asap and the burden of doing those crap but necessary jobs, that cannot currently be automated, should be shared by all, until they can be automated.
Quoting Athena
I touched on this on my most recent post on the masculinity thread.
What fun would life be with no challenges? One of those challenges is social position. Social animals have social positioning. Some will have more power over others and some will have none. This includes all social animals not just humans and our economic system. Our desire to be accepted leads to good social behavior and those with the best social skills will be leaders. The majority will be followers because they do not want the responsibility of leadership. This consideration is crucial to our notions of culture and education.
I look around me and see people who do nothing but play computer games or watch TV and eat! They destroy their bodies and minds in their pursuit of happiness. I can not comprehend the possibility that humans will enjoy actualizing their potential if they get everything they need with no effort.
Having family and a job are important parts of our identity and structuring our lives. The homeless people with no social ties or responsibility and accountability to others, become as referral cats. They are not "civilized" and are likely to spend the rest of their lives alienated from their own society without serious intervention. I must say, I speak because I am not at peace with my thoughts. I am not sure of what I think, only of what I have seen. If we do not take great care, we have serious personal and social problems.
Quoting universeness
That is not natural for all people. Please come spend a day in my life. I am heartbroken by how my own family can totally miss any pleasure in learning. They are locked into helplessness and defend themselves by avoiding any challenge other than computer games. And all around me are people who do much other than watch TV. They like to socialize but all they about life is the own personal experience of it, so to me they are very boring! I would say most people avoid life as much as they can. They most certainly avoid thinking. No thinking = no doing.
You are describing a non-existent state as far as I know. Everyone alive has challenges.
Being able to take the basic means of survival for granted will never remove 'challenge' from a individuals life.
Quoting Athena
This reads to me like Jordan Peterson talking about natural hierarchies.
The human race is not forced to accept the social consequences of following the path that natural hierarchies leads to. The kind of social positioning you are referring to, that ultimately leads to 'rule of the few' with some leader at the top supported by an elite, who control all the military assets, is a model we all know well and is why we are in the mess we are in.
Quoting Athena
This methodology has failed miserably. We need to keep pursuing a better one.
Especially when 'best social skills,' commonly means 'best at fooling some of the people all of the time.'
Quoting Athena
The leaders/followers model is a failed model, we need something better.
Government of, for and by the people must become vocational and be rewarded by high esteem, role model status, positive historical legacy etc, rather that personal wealth, and power.
Quoting Athena
That's a common interpretation that people have but I know many people who seem like that, but are actually also involved in trying to change things for the better, in many ways.
Old cultural stereotyping can cause some to hold an inaccurate image of others.
Completely Ineffectual, hermitical people, be they wealthy or poor, are often unfulfilled people.
If people are mostly unhappy then they need to communicate that and get involved in trying to change things for the better. There is nothing else that an individual can do. You either stew or you try to change your life and the lives of others for the better.
Quoting Athena
So we need to create a system that offers people good opportunities and has that 'intervention,' safety net you describe, no matter how long it takes.
Quoting Athena
Few people do have such 'peace,' of thought. I certainly don't, but I remain absolutely astounded sometimes, when I hear about the simple altruism demonstrated by so many, everyday, often towards complete strangers. Human beings can behave so much better than any god, I have ever heard the fable of. I recently watching a story on youtube about a guy, who just drives to the front line of the war in Ukraine, just to have the chance to save someone and bring them to safety. Civilian or soldier.
He is just a civilian himself. He does not work for any organisation. Just a man with a van.
Quoting universeness
Quoting Athena
Yes it is, If they are given the chance to think about such things.
Most are too busy being scared that they can't access the basic means of survival.
Quoting Athena
I don't know the mindset of the members of your family that you are referring to, but I would bet they would not accept your interpretation of them. I know my own immediate family members do not always agree with me as to what my strengths, weaknesses and priorities in life are, in the same ways that I do. I am probably also wrong about some of my interpretations of their priorities in life.
Quoting Athena
I think we all feel that way about some people in our lives or on the periphery of it.
I know that when I hear a tory politician talk about their priorities in life, I just feel like we are not the same species.
If we're serious culture, saving and improving it, what we need to do is stop fussing about the ancient past, the recent past, comparative politics, religion and the curriculum in schools controlled by governments and local school-boards who won't listen to any of us.
What we need to do is protect and support non-commercial public media.
I think that would be a good move, yes.
What do you think of the YouTube channels that are supported via public subscription/donation?
It's mostly organised via Patreon. I am not a fan of that franchise type system:
From Wiki:
[b]Patreon, Inc., was co-founded in May 2013 by developer Sam Yam and musician Jack Conte, who was looking for a way to make a living from his YouTube videos. They developed a platform that allowed 'patrons' to pay a set amount of money every time an artist created a work of art. The company raised $2.1 million in August 2013 from a group of venture capitalists and angel investors. In June 2014, Patreon raised a further $15 million in a series A round led by Danny Rimer of Index Ventures. In January 2016, the company closed on a fresh round of $30 million in a series B round, led by Thrive Capital, which put the total raised for Patreon at $47.1 million.
They signed up more than 125,000 "patrons" in their first 18 months. In late 2014, the website announced that patrons were sending over $1,000,000 per month to the site's content creators.[/b]
Is the model behind PBS not a good one? I don't know enough about the drilled down details. I enjoy the PBS channel we get in Scotland, as one of the 'freeview' channels. In fact, I think it's the best channel on 'freeview.' I have read a little about PBS, such as:
[b]PBS is funded by a combination of member station dues, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, pledge drives, and donations from both private foundations and individual citizens. All proposed funding for programming is subject to a set of standards to ensure the program is free of influence from the funding source. PBS has over 350 member television stations, many owned by educational institutions, non-profit groups both independent or affiliated with one particular local public school district or collegiate educational institution, or entities owned by or related to state government.
As of 2020, PBS has nearly 350 member stations around the United States.[/b]
I do think there is a great need for more communication systems that are non-profit and are owned and controlled by a local/national majority of people.
Fine, but it's not about public service, or information or education or impartial news reporting, and information about the facts, legalities and mechanism and diverse PoV regarding current events. Those - the political issues, the historical documentaries, the science and cultural programs - not influenced by the need to appeal to sponsors or sell advertising - that's what's important about public networks
PBS has been suffering from malnutrition for decades. So much so that they've had to take on sponsors - essentially, advertise those commercial enterprises - which makes it harder to remain independent.
On the whole, I have found their current affairs and history programs excellent and their news reporting reliable. Unfortunately, the entertainment programs are more popular as well as more expensive, so they have to solicit donations far too frequently.
I can't stream PBS here, but I subscribe to the Canadian public networks - three of them for the price of my You Tube or Prime subscription. (Truth be told, as entertainment goes, Prime is rip-off. We stay mainly for the free delivery of amazon purchases on which we relied heavily through the Covid sequestering. I get more out of You Tube.)
Do you have a model in mind that could work?
For example, let's say that a movement started in Scotland, which demanded that the Scottish government set up an internet communication channel called 'Scotland's people.' I wont go into the content that would be allowed on such a channel but it would have no advertising, other than advertising up and coming programs/content. Any non-profit grouping or individual, could place content on the channel, once it has been viewed and approved by a citizen body, which was made up of a single representative from the biggest 30/20/10 non-profit organisations in the country.
The money to set-up and run the channel, would come from national tax revenue/ the educational budget. The pressure to set-up such a channel, would come from the number of people who would be willing to declare, that they will only vote for those who agree to push for this channel to be set-up and maintained.
Just an idea that probably has many flaws I haven't realised yet, but whadyafink?
Do you have a better idea?
For internet access, that sounds reasonable. Is it controllable? I'm pretty sure the Russians or Murdochs or somebody could hack it - though I can't quite see why they would want to. Like cable tv, it could also have sections for each region or locality for various agencies to post community events, volunteering opportunities, municipal service schedules, health and weather warnings and for people to let their neighbours know there is a charity bazaar, or a plot at the allotment has become available - maybe even host a local discussion forum. And some activities for youth, school-aged children and little tykes. The educational and social consciousness raising opportunities are wide open.
For broadcasting, I like the PBS / TVO model : with an independent board of governors and department heads; staffed by well qualified technical people and on-camera talent; funded by an unconditional grant. They should, however, be fully funded, not subject to new budgetary constraints every time a conservative government comes along that wants to privatize the universe and they should not need to solicit viewer contributions to make up an ever-growing shortfall.
It's not that I mind chipping in the little I can in order to give someone who is worse off equal access. What I mind is the inordinate effort and time that goes into raising revenue that could so much more productively be devoted to content.
I realize that broadcasting is expensive. The acquisition of commercially made entertainment content is expensive. Investigative journalism is expensive. Infrastructure, equipment and energy are expensive. When a publicly owned entity has to operate in a capitalist economy it's swimming with sharks all the time. Guess who usually wins.
Saskatchewan used to have a good public television network, too, and that got eaten some years ago. We still have them in Quebec, Ontario, BC and APTN, a national network dedicated to the interests of our indigenous peoples, which is pretty important in itself, even more so, as it's available to us settlers, so that we may understand their concerns and learn what initiatives are being taken; the current events of First Nations communities. The English and Francophone networks also carry a fair amount of Native cultural content.
It seems to me that you confirm that there are valid models that could be used to counter, if not defeat the more pernicious affects of privately owned and privately controlled media.
I liked the uses you cited for community based media.
Quoting Vera Mont
I often think about the Linux community and their open source software system.
Often, when a new cyber attack happens, the Linux community is the best at identifying it, containing it, defeating it and preventing it from recurring. This is because so many in the community know so much about the detailed workings of Linux that almost every second user can act as a very effective defender of the system. Such an approach is, I think, a very good way to best defend against internal or external hackers.
What we need is ground swells of local and national movements of where real power actually exists.
The people united in common causes to make things better for all stakeholders and not just a nefarious few. I think significant, people controlled, independent media would be an important step.
The concept of PBS (public broadcast systems), under the full independent control of the people and not the authorities, would be a good step forwards.
Current examples exist but they are not yet significant or powerful enough.
They have existed for some time. Democratic-minded nations have been mindful, at least since WWII, that access to unbiased and factual information is a prerequisite of citizen responsibility. All the European countries have them, in some form of arm's length relationship with the government, even Japan, since 1953.
They must go some way toward countering the influence of commercial media, of there wouldn't be such a massive push from the right to defund them (even though they account for a small fraction of the national budget,) shut them down (on the pretext that they represent an 'elitist' left wing pov) or better yet, sell them (cheap, like they did the utilities and credit unions) to private enterprise.
If they have to keep competing with commercial networks for popularity and forced into heavy reliance on donations, people will be too bored by their content to bother. That's a serious danger to democracy.
On the bright side, commercial broadcasting has become so aggressively commercial, the advertising is so ubiquitous, intrusive and irritating that a great many have already forsaken those outlets and more will. What happens next depends on what choices are available to that audience.
... and of course, how interested they are in preserving democracy.
PS - I just signed on to a free BBC account. It comes up from time to time when I'm doing research - so when they offered, I though, what the hay? Haven't explored it yet. I'm sort of expecting that access to be limited, which is all right, or there may be an option to pay for more, which I's also willing to consider, since the Ontario government has just given me an extra $14 a month (property tax and energy price relief for seniors) and I've earmarked part of that for TVO.
I like that the BBC will take part in some very honest and deep probes into government and the activities of the nefarious rich and powerful, which does help a little to keep them in check. It's just not enough however. The main problems I have with the BBC, is the unacceptable pay rewards they give to their top executives and presenters and how they have tried to protect themselves when their own internal scandals have been exposed, such as the 'Martin Bashir debacle' and their disgusting handling of the inside knowledge they had of scum like Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris and Gary Glitter.
I think the BBC license money could be used to create a far superior publicly owned, people based, broadcast channel(s).
Nevertheless, it's one our last hope for an informed voting public.
I strongly support the need for (better than any currently existing,) non-commercial, non-profit, powerful and influential, free press style, media channel(s) of, for and by the people which is owned and funded by the people, via taxation or via a BBC license style system. I think we have broad common ground on that proposal.
at the risk of causing offense: amen
:up: Amen just translates to 'so be it,' theists have no ownership rights to such terms, that I recognise.
Well damn, you wrote exactly what is most on my mind, our relationship to authority. My homeless guy had his 3rd stroke and was found unconscious on the ground by his car. I have been overwhelmed feeling I need to visit him and take care of all his stuff. He was moved from the hospital to rehab and then moved to a long-term care facility about an hour away.
I could not move his car because of a mechanical problem so it was towed. Before it was towed I piled all his stuff in my living room. My actions resulted in a delay in towing his car away and that lead to repeatedly putting parking tickets on his car. I am horrified that I could immediately inform the powers that be that he had a stroke and could not communicate or get out of bed and that did nothing to stop the mechanical process issuing fines and taking the car. I feel like I have been caught up in this meat grinder that can not be shut off.
I intend to see a judge. I am pretty scared because I took the towing sticker off the window, delaying the tow. I wanted to bring the sticker inside so I could read it and learn what is the right way of handling this situation, but it came off in pieces that I couldn't read. That was after phone calls and going to a parking authority to explain he had a stroke. There is a huge breakdown in communication! I can not believe how mechanical the process is and that it cares nothing about the human being. I want to look the judge in the eye and ask him if it was understood the owner of the car could not possibly move his car because of a stroke. I want to say how challenging it was to get the information needed for better decision-making.
Everyone thinks I am wrong to do anything and that I should act cowardly and do nothing but stay out of the problem. But I am thinking if we do not hold this authority in check, we lose our liberty and that means we have fought every war nothing, and any acts of war we commit from here are wrong because we no longer have the personal power and liberty we once had. The authority above us in held in check and people who see this love Trump, but they do not see Trump is our Hitler, using our anger and fear to turn us against our government and put all the power in his hands and his hands only, just as Hitler did.
I really want to hear from others. Is a government a good government if ignores a man can do nothing to protect what is his because he had a stroke? The government not only towed the car away but it put fine after fine on the car. Isn't that equal to kicking a man when he is down?
I am highly in favor of what you said. People who think only they know God's truth and stand in God's favor, are very offensive. Thinking a book and their interpretation of it is equal to having God's authority is just wrong!
Before we can have better reporting we must have a better-educated population, so that people don't follow people like Hitler and Trump. Education for technology, and replacing the Conceptual Method with the Behaviorist Method, leaves us vulnerable to Charismatic Leadership such as Hitler and Trump. It is lead to Hitler's popularity the same as it led to Trump's popularity.
In the US we do not have a good source of information because reporting is no longer about defending our country with the truth. We are now all about popularity and money. The values that support charismatic leaders. And we have a mass that will buy almost anything if everyone likes the product and they might miss the boat and not be able to buy the product next week. Wherever I see these sales tricks for hooking us emotionally, I stop reading or stop listening because it is not ethical to use tricks to increase sales and I don't do business with unethical people.
Publically owned TV seems to be doing better than privately owned stations but often they are too opinionated and one-sided and flat-out rude talking over the person they are interviewing.
We already have good reporting; it just doesn't get sufficient support.
Quoting Athena
I haven't seen any of the PBS reporters be opinionated (unless it was an editorial comment), one-sided (unless it was coverage of one specific POV to balance coverage of a different one) or rude to an interviewee, but I've sure seen some ducking and weaving to avoid giving a straight answer.
Quoting Athena
News media are not there to teach values. They're there to impart accurate information. Children's programs are supposed to illustrate values, virtues and social responsibility, and I think public children's programming does that.
Leaders don't need "charisma", whatever that is; they need integrity, dedication, stamina and the good sense to surround themselves with knowledgeable advisors and competent administrators.
Trump was elected and many believe he won the second election too. There is a real chance he will win the next election and this is so because of his charisma.
Quoting Wikipedia
Charisma is perhaps the most important thing for a candidate to have because it is what gets the votes.
Quoting Emily May
Trump did raise an army to storm the Capitol Building to take the presidency by force and they all wrongly believed without question that was the right thing to do. It was this Trump's behavior that has him on trial, not his words. He can legally lie all he wants but attempting to prevent Biden from taking office was not legal behavior and it blows me away that his followers do not see that and do not worry about what he does with power when he is in a position of great power. That is the power of charisma.
And what you described was not a leader; it is a sociopath. US media should have ignored him to death from the minute he announced his candidacy - he only does what he does for the attention; he's an addict. Instead, they're still featuring his ugly, stupid smirk every single day on my annoying pop-ups screen. I see nothing in PBS broadcasting - not news shows, not documentaries and not discussion or interview shows - that promote any such behaviour. But I used to see plenty of it on FUX, before we cancelled regular television. Now I don't hear the vitriol or the advertising.
Minor point of accuracy: Trump didn't raise an army. Trump can't hide a few dozen boxes of stolen documents - what makes you think he's competent to organize anything? The yahoos recruited over half a decade by Wallace, Goldwater, Gingrich et al, propagandized by Sinclair/Murdoch, armed to the teeth by the NRA lobby and empowered by the southern GOP election-fraud machine, were economically insecure, emotionally immature, chronically aggrieved and primed for someone to point them out a scapegoat and say "Throw your tantrum. I'll let you get away with it." That's all he did, and he's still trying to bribe them with the promise of pardons. The situation had been set up by the constitution, pushed to the back-burner and pulled to the front by various political factions as it served their interest from time to time. All trump did was plug into a ready-made slot at the moment their two biggest betes noires were looming on the horizon and then keep telling them what they wanted to hear.
You may already be familiar with the content of the two videos below, filmed in Vancouver Canada and Kensington Philadelphia, only a few days ago! We both know there are many more examples all around this planet.
Good people like yourself, @Vera Mont, and many many other people online, will never accept this f****** bullshit and that is where my strength and outrage finds help, maintenance and hope.
This one in Kensington Philadelphia was filmed only yesterday!
Yes, that is what happened, exactly as it happened when Hitler became popular. That is why I keep talking about education. The masses must be prepared for democracy with liberty and at the end of WWII for national defense reasons we replaced that education with education for technology. We adopted the German models of education for technology and their model for bureaucracy and slowly all our institutions are organized as the enemy of democracy and this results in reactionary politics and the big mess we are in now.
I hope before I die people understand what I am saying and organize for a return to democracy and also that demand we replace the autocratic model of Industry with a democratic model. There is hope if we have both education for democracy and democratic Institutions.
Thank you for spreading the awareness. Right now my sister is in a hotel with a dying man. She has put out a request for help paying for the hotel room. She would take him to a hospital but he refuses to go. This is not the first time she has stayed with a dying person,
For the last couple of years, my sister has cared for the homeless using her own money and getting money from others to cover the costs that are essential to survival. She has a Facebook page where she posts what she is dealing with and she has gotten criticism for posting some really awful things. She moved to Salem, our state capitol, so she could testify when the legislatures are dealing with a relevant problem.
My oldest Granddaughter manages a Saint Vincent de Paul campsite for homeless people. She got to this because her mother was an addict and they were homeless while I cared for her sister and brother and their father returned to prison for drugs and violence. Her mother (my daughter) is now a drug rehab. counselor and is saving lives.
I began advocating for the homeless when Reagan was president because I wanted to get homeless people out of my home. I dealt with many homeless teenagers when we were in a severe recession and when that recession ended and rentals suddenly cost a lot more, and the number of home people increased with mothers and children on the streets, I had to take action!
All of this is tied to oil and our national debt and a dramatic change in education and culture. If you all know at least enough to relate to what I am saying, I will be very thankful.
My sister confirmed I should speak with the judge, even though she pointed out that if I ignore the parking fines the city can not garnish his Social Security to pay them. We are fighting for awareness and justice. I am overwhelmed with a 5 day a week job and the extra load of dealing with the homeless problems. That is why I have not posted for a long time.
I hope that posting on TPF gives you at least a small way to vent Athena.
If I had the power, I would make decent quality housing and the basic means of survival such as food, clean water and access to full health services, a basic human right, from cradle to grave. We can argue about the lazy f***wits, who would abuse such a system, after it is fully globally established.
No profit should be allowed anywhere!!!!! until it is.
All this is tied to capitalism and its own relentless internal logic. I do admire your perseverance and consistency, even as believe you misattribute the cause.
:clap:
Why do you consider religion as a bad invention?
Absafragginlootly!
And how, exactly does one acquire clothing and pamphlets (books being almost impossible to manufacture in the absence of a modern style economy) in the absence of the concept of money?
A resource based economy is one approach.
The Gosplan as employed in the early days of the USSR was another far better system than capitalism but unfortunately, political corruption destroyed it.
How much longer do you think paper and coin currency, will be in general circulation?
It's just numbers that go up and down in bank accounts nowadays.
There are currently many UBI projects happening as a temporary solution to the pernicious money trick that so many people have been suffering for so many centuries.
Here is a selection of UBI project discussions:
Other available reports are:
A new report that shows a basic income scheme could save the NHS tens of billions of pounds.
There are other reports that show that even a modest UBI scheme could quickly achieve the following:
Between 125,000 and 1 million cases of depressive disorders could be prevented or postponed.
Between 120,000 and 1.04 million cases of clinically significant physical health symptoms could be prevented or postponed.
A ‘modest’ basic income scheme (£75 a week, £3,900 a year) would reduce child poverty to the lowest level since comparable records began in 1961 and achieve more at significantly less cost than the anti-poverty interventions of the New Labour governments.
Why does one need to acquire things? The earliest clothing was made by the wearer or a member of their community. The earliest writing appears on cave walls and roadside rocks, accessible to all. Could have just carried on in the same spirit of sharing.
Quoting LuckyR
Why should that be so? Canoes, bows, teepees, rugs and beautifully beaded leather footwear can be crafted without using a single gold sovereign or dollar bill. Why are books an exception?
Actually, if any humans survive The Event there won't be any economy and all their needs will probably be supplied either by their own efforts or by robots that don't require payment.
I truly don't understand your first sentance. Of course that's my Modern human bias showing, but you can't write your sentance in this thread without acquiring a phone or computer. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you don't have the skillset to make your own electronic equipment.
True, humans could have stayed in the hunter-gatherer stage or even the most primitive agricultural stage by eschewing the concept of money. Of course large cities, nations and corporations would not have been possible in the absence of credit, which would have been unthinkable without the concept of money.
Books require investment in printing presses. Publishing companies similarly require investment. Nope, handwritten pamphlets is pretty much going to be it for you.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a Universal Basic Income require, you know... income? I'm interested to learn how income exists without appreciation of the concept of money. Money, of course being a mental concept, not a physical entity.
UBI helps reduce money/currency to nothing more than a means of exchange. It would remove its power to create a majority underclass of poor people and it would much reduce or remove the ability of a rich and powerful few, to control a poor majority mass. Job done!
If every person on the planet, gets all their basic needs, regardless of their ability or opportunity to 'earn' such, then the main imbalances caused by the money trick, that people have suffered from, since it's pernicious inception, will be at long last nullified. Such systems as a resource based economy, would remove paper and coin money, or a bank account balance that goes up and down, as the main mechanism of exchange of goods and services, all together, and completely nullify the power and influence of a rich nefarious elite.
I, too, live in and cope with the modern environment, like everyone else. But I'm not forced to limit my imagination to the present condition; I can learn about various pasts, speculate on alternative presents and project possible futures.
Quoting LuckyR
Well, they didn't. Some of them made the mistake of clumping themselves into walled cities and setting up lords and bosses to trample all over them, and whom they joined in trampling all over everybody who didn't live the way they did - in debt, alienation, fear and bondage. Modern civilization was a very costly experiment, and it has failed; at this very moment, it's tearing itself and the planet on which it stands to pieces. Pretty soon, the remnant of humanity will be divided into the billionnaires (minus their financial infrastructure) walled up in their bunkers, small bands of nomads hunting and gathering whatever they can find in the wreckage, and roving gangs of armed cannibals. None of them will have either money or the skillset to make things, so they'll have to make use of whatever hasn't burned up in some remote amazon warehouse.
And after the smoke clears... a long succession of radiation-induced mutations will eventually stabilize in a new species... or make way for the giant mutant rats and their cockroach armies.
Loved the Zeitgeist movie. The Venus project cities look clever and beautiful, but they're still cities, so I dunno about living in one. Work great on Mars, though, wouldn't they?
Well the Venus project certainly wont work on Venus anytime soon. Just toooooooo molten!
Maybe Venus used to be full of life ......... and then the early Venusions invented money and then ..... one day, BA BOOOOOOOOM! Maybe they manged to seed Earth via panspermia, just before the BA BOOOOOOOM! and ..... here we go again, so ...... yeah, Mars could well be the next attempt! But our story on Earth aint over till its over! I listened to the Sean Carroll, Ask me anything podcast for August 2023 last night. I particularly like his answer to the last question, when he said 'I think humans will survive and we will eventually populate other planets.' I'm with you Sean!!!!!!
Well like most opinions, it depends on whose perspective you view the scenario from.
I'm doing great and can't honestly come up with a past that puts me in an overall superior present. Of course I am not naive enough to not appreciate that (actual) history did not have those who ended up losers in the relative game of life. Chief among those being initial hunter-gatherers who converted to agriculture and those in the following millennia. But luckily (for us) past generations have already paid that initiation fee. We're free to reap the rewards of technological advances that continuing at the hunter-gatherer stage would have never realized.
No doubt other, less consequential mistakes have been made along the way. But never developing the concept of money would not in my opinion have lead to a superior current state, though I appreciate others disagree. BTW those are some mighty fine homemade shoes you're sporting there...
Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree that an idea superior to money can't come along or that UBI isn't a good idea. However, neither would be possible without passing through a time period where humans developed the inter-subjective concept of money.
Sure, blind alleys and paths that lead to destruction, have been and probably always will be, wandered down due to ignorance and fear and will continue to be taken by many. After 10,000 years of tears however, I hope each human generation can make better and better choices, faster and faster, before we make ourselves extinct, and this bit of the universe has to wait many many more millennia before evolution and natural selection, results in another permutation of sentient life, that might do better than the dinos, the early hominids or the humans did.
So... you happen at the moment to be somewhere that's not burning, blowing away in a tornado, flooded out, falling into a sinkhole, starving or getting bombed. Lucky by name, lucky by accident. Don't look up; it can change in a second.
Oh my, that is a hard thing to think about. :heart: We are on a radically changing world with far more humans than there are resources. Around the world people flooding out of overpopulated countries with the hope of having a better life where capitalism is strong. I don't think they know about the human exploitation of capitalism. However, some of the most successful people came from overpopulated countries where competition for resources is very hard and human kindness is lacking. I am not sure that is what we want? :chin: I have an audio explanation of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick- a curious mix of idealism and human exploitation. Please, come over and we can listen to it together and then talk about it. Would like some coffee or tea? how about finger sandwiches?
I sincerely wish we could all get together like the Athenians did and argue our different points of view and really get to know each other because the flavor of our relationships is so important to our understanding of each other. When I was young and struggling to feed my children, I thought it horribly wrong that we did not live with sharing as many primitives did. Humanity may not have survived if we did not have an instinct of caring for each other, but how did we make that work?
Since the days of Sumer there were stories of hard-working fathers and sons who expected to have everything without working for it. You make me so happy by causing me to think of such things. We so need to do this as the Athenians did. How do we have children we are proud of instead of brats like Nellie Oleson in Little House on the Parie of sulky Trump who always looks like he will throw a tantrum if he doesn't get his way? How do we prepare our children to be adults who help the tribe survive?
Wow, what an interesting subject! I am not sure that we are not already being forced into that. Jose Arguelles wrote of the collapse of our money system in his book The Mayan Factor- Path Beyond Technology and our money systems are struggling. Our money is no longer backed by gold and backing the value of money on oil and the productivity it makes possible, is not stable! If the world stopped trading oil in dollars, the value of the American dollar would collapse and that seems to be happening. I don't want to go too far into talk of money and what resources and military might have to do with the value of the dollar but the need to contemplate "a time period where humans developed the inter-subjective concept of money" is now.
For sure, if the value of the dollar collapses, everything else may seem unimportant.
Not when needing to tribe with the tribe that is far away and has rocks that we want. To make that trade we need a concept of money.
Quoting wikipedia
I gave you money to buy land and you did not pay me back, so now you are my slave for seven years because in seven years all debts are forgiven, so sayth the Lord. Only if you are not one of us, you become my slave for life and the slave of my children if you should outlive me.
Or, we must pay tax on the land alone the Nile that we are given to use, so may we help build the pharaoh's pyramid and receive our daily allotment of bread and beer as we work off the taxes we owe?
Poor deluded them! Wait till they're offered only $100 per kidney.
Quoting Athena
Balderdash! The overpopulation could easily be remedied - could have been, for decades now - if there wasn't more profit in keeping them barefoot and pregnant and dependent on the bosses.
and of course, the aid and comfort offered by successful capitalist countries to despots in less successful ones - you know that sweetheart deal, right? They give the foreign 'investors' free rein to plunder their nations' resources and the industrialists supply them weapons to keep the peons in check.
What percent of those resources are used toward the welfare of the natives who live and work on the land compared to the percent that goes into disposable crap for consumers in 'developed' countries? How much is wasted? How much becomes toxic waste?
Capitalism appropriates all the resources, exploits all the humans and then doles out a few drips and drabs of largesse (making sure their name is displayed in big gold letters) on art galleries, libraries and opera house - none of which benefits the gold miner in Africa or the South American farmer whose land was planted in coffee for export, so he can't grow food his family.... and no, he can't forage in the jungle like his ancestors did, because it's been bulldozed and burned to make room for export beef cattle.
Let's not get together to talk about Frick - some of us might have unkind words for him.
:chin: What do you mean misattribute the cause?
:lol: I do at times wonder about my thoughts looping back to a beginning point again and again. This has been a super good morning with posts that push me to learn more. I think the subject of money is way different from the discussion I want to have, but I can also see the connection.
Money and time are relatively new concepts that rule our lives and such concepts rule our lives and shape our culture even though we understand very little about the concepts and how much power, like a god, they have over our lives. Today I learned of the goddesses Nisaba and Inanna evolving out of agrarian goddesses who in the beginning caused wheat to grow, and then a temple was built to hold the wheat and priests to distribute it. Especial Nisaba was credited with giving us writing and this system of growing wheat, storing it, and distributing it required record keeping, some math, and some writing. This morning could not have been better as I learn of the evolution of a monetary system and its connection to gods and goddesses, which is a cultural/spiritual matter.
So, don't make that trade. We don't really need oil from Iraq. How many lives has that little transaction cost, so far? How much in money and resources? (That's a bare outline, with no mention of what's been going on behind the arras.)
But Chinese women and Indian children and African men work twice as hard for a tenth of the pay, and their governments, sufficiently lubricated with bribes, are not too fussy about what you spill on the way out. So all the garden gnomes come from China and the American Guild of Gnome Crafters is sleeping on the street.
Well, that is a lot of money in some places, especially when there are immediate needs that can not be met without money. There was a time when I risked going into shock by wearing extra heavy clothing so I would weigh enough to "donate" plasma for a few bucks. I developed a sense of black humor during those hard times.
Quoting Vera Mont
No balderdash. It doesn't matter what was possible many years ago, because the subject is present reality. The growing human population is destroying the planet no matter if this explosion of humanity is in a third country or a modern technological one. Yes, we should have put the brakes on many years, but we didn't, and like a car going 60 miles an hour can not immediately stop, neither can the momentum of population growth be immediately stopped. The ancients saw this day coming. If we think of life as fire, we see this fire will consume the earth, as the exponential growth of the human population, increased consumption of resources, and increased pollution destroy our planet and it could be too late to stop the destruction. At no other time in the history of our planet has the human problem been as bad as it is today.
Quoting Vera Mont
Oh yeah, I know that story! I think the best way to understand it is through geologists.
Yipes! I am late. Sorry I must run!
Alas, you are conflating the concept of money (an imaginary way of equating the relative value of various goods and services) with capitalism and multinationals/globalism.
No, I was replying to Athena on the benefits of capitalism. Of course, I doubt capitalism could operate without money, but capitalism is not a direct or inevitable product of money. In theory, money could have been restricted to paying the armies to plunder other peoples.
Quoting Athena
Except that the poor people, in either place, have a whole lot less reproductive choice than the rich ones. However, a rise in the standard of living for poor people, which invariably leads to a decline in the birth rate (the more babies survive, and the more choice women have, the fewer babies - works every time) But that's not going to happen. The growing wealth * of the already-too-rich gathering more wealth from the third countries to amass in the first ones by modern technological methods will continue to guarantee that the poor just keep getting poorer.
* If you ignore everything else, just look at this article.
Quoting Athena
Nor has the disparity of wealth. I wonder whether there's a connection. Is it really because a cycle rickshaw operator has six kids to feed that the rivers are poisoned? And do those six kids really use up twice as much of the world's resources as three of Walton's? Is it the extra child soldiers and slaves that contribute more to glaciers melting, or the trafficking of vast amounts of goods to well-off consumers?
Of the ten biggest strip mines in South and Central America, three are owned by South American interests; the rest belong to investors from Canada, the US, UK, Mexico and Australia. Beef farming is a great investment for North Americans: apparently, there is still 'undeveloped' land in Paraguay, and it won't be wasted on local people eating well. https://www.gatewaytosouthamerica-newsblog.com/cattle-ranching-in-paraguay-an-investors-perspective/
Glad you got past my word mistake. That was a dumb mistake. :roll:
I am also glad you seem to know more about the trade problem than most. The reason geologists know a lot about the problem is they are in those countries finding the resources and estimating how much is available so a price for removing them can be established. They study geology because it is interesting to them, and then they get jobs that seem interesting and after they are caught in the web, they gain an understanding of the problems such as the ones you talk about and their conscience begins to eat them up.
I don't think there is anyone to blame for our mass ignorance but if you want to be part of the cure, please spread the knowledge. In the1920s the price of gas was skyrocketing and this was an economic problem. A small article in the back pages of a newspaper warned, "Given our know oil supply and rate of consumption, we are headed for economic trouble and possibly war". The stock market crashed and the world went to war. We are totally ignorant of why this happened.
What can be done about that ignorance? Should someone be held responsible for our mass ignorance? Democrats starting with President Carter have talked about the resource/consumption problem while the oil companies lied to us and especially Republican leaders tell us the lies and maintain the ignorance. What can we do about this?
While the majority in the US seems to disapprove of :gasp: socialism and government subsidizing poorly paid workers but are in favor of subsidizing Industry and keeping the product cheap by keeping labor cheap, we do benefit from cheap labor. We buy the cheap products made by slave labor and put our own Industry out of business. This is how economies have grown. The condition of the working class in Britain was so bad the majority of military-age males were unfit for the military. When Industry was asked to pay higher wages, it argued they could not compete in world markets if they paid the labor more. This began Britians subsiding the poor.
Germany was far ahead of the rest of us with education for technology for everyone, a national pension plan, worker's compensation, and national health insurance. Oil is essential to national defense and Industrial economies and the competition for control of world resources is greater than it has ever been with modern warfare being far more destructive than it was during WWII. What should be done about this?
Should we talk about education and democracy? How about the good of Christianity? We all know God has favorite people and we are them. What is your problem with this reality? God blesses us because we please him, and it is not our fault the rest of the world is not as pleasing to God. And by gosh, we need to have the military weapons and a base on the moon, so we can do the will the God, and prevent the evil enemies who are jealous of us, from doing anything that might be against the will of God. :wink:
At least the American military boot industry is thriving! Unfortunately, 'we' have already supplied a great many weapons to the chosen of that other god, A---h, whose will runs contrary, while the blessed of Mao can make their own.
Perhaps the subject of gods and war would be interesting. I think if we look at all the religions we can see why an education limited to studying one holy book just is not enough. We are being bombard now with the wrongs of our Christian nation and appalling human abuses, and some Muslim countries also have a bad record. I don't know if there ever was a country that could not be found quilty of human violations?
I know such things are tied to culture and that cultures are learned. I would like to know what should people learn and how should that be taught?
Their own language and at least one other, including grammar and literature.
Arithmetic > mathematics, as far as their ability takes each student.
Science, from direct observation in nature, through general science to the separate disciplines.
World history - not starting from their own nations' glorious past, but from the Paleolithic > anthropology > sociology > world cultures > introduction to the food, social customs, art and music of cultures being studied.
Geography (criminally neglected)
Philosophy (introduction to the major schools and names > in depth; comparative religion. Discussion of applied ethics in each school of thought.
Health - nutrition, hygiene, sexuality/reproduction (and how not to), basic epidemiology and immunology.
Civics, elementary art and music - later to be optional subjects.
Hands-on:
horticulture, starting with a schoolyard garden in Gr 1; basic drafting and construction methods - as an adjunct to math; food preparation and preserving; animal husbandry; road safety, swimming and first aid.
From six to eight years old, I'd have them in open classrooms, divided into study groups of c. 6 students, each group representing the full range of age, academic ability and emotional maturity, and assign lots of group projects, so that they can learn understanding, teamwork, tolerance, self-discipline and the joy of helping one another (iow, socialization) No grades; at the conclusion of each module or project, a group discussion with the teacher presiding. Let them assess the results, divulge what was difficult for them, air any grievances an submit to peer review.
From nine to twelve, classes of 20-25 at individual desks, and a more structured schedule. At this stage, some form of testing should be introduced to establish standards, make sure the foundations are solid and spot problem areas in the instruction.
From thirteen to sixteen (when they're too antsy to sit still and pay attention anyway), I'd take them right out of the classroom and have small groups again engaged in team projects - this time, out in the community - under the guidance of one knowledgeable adult for every five or six students - it wouldn't need to be a certified teacher. Students should be in charge as much as possible. (This is a controversial and possibly contentious issue, but I suggest separating boys and girls for this phase, to minimize preening, posturing and status rivalry.) Encourage discussion and debate before and after each project, not during.
These projects should include some location work, taking the students away from home and letting them practice life skills in a camp-like setting. Leisure hours would feature cookouts, theatrical and musical performance, sports and games, reading, guest speakers and discussion.
At sixteen, bring them back into the classroom and get down to the hard subjects. Now they understand why maths and geometry, how genetics work in evolution, how physics and chemistry operate in the real world. Plus, they're physically fit, emotionally mature and have a clear understanding of their own aptitudes and limitations.
@Athena
I recently became a member of a UK group called 'Compass,' who describe themselves as politically progressive and seek common ground/cause, regardless of which current political party you support.
I joined them because of their strong stance and efforts in support of UBI (and their stance on many other issues). I thought you both might find the following 'New Settlement,' campaign, hopeful, in the sense that, 'there are groups out there,' who imo, are trying to make life for the average human, a better experience. What do you think of:
[i]"You may have seen that Compass is working on its next big project that we are calling The New Settlement.
Win as One is how we secure power, the New Settlement is why we want to.
The 20th Century saw the Post-War Settlement and Fordism, and then its successor; neoliberalism. We are watching this latest system break down before our eyes.
So what comes next? Given the perma-crisis world we live in, if it's not egalitarian, green and democratic it will be authoritarian.
The idea of this project is to lay out the corners of the jigsaw of the society we want to create and the key big drivers to get us there.
The goal is to produce a landmark publication in the early spring of 2024 that speaks convincingly and seductively of a better society that really chimes with people.
As always, our members are at the heart of this project.
Member-led working groups have started producing their own documents to contribute to the final paper. These groups are:
1. Examples of a good society in practice now?
2. Examples of new democracy in practice now?
3. New economy examples?
4. Cross-cutting themes"[/i]
Do you think this is just old rehashed, ineffective, paper exercises or do you see real value in such projects?
Hurray!
https://ecovillage.org/region/gen-europe/ecovillage-projects/
https://afairersociety.com/co-op-housing-5-uk-examples/
https://www.thenews.coop/156844/sector/housing/housing-and-climate-change-the-co-ops-pioneering-green-solutions/
That information goes with the book "The Necessary Revolution- How Individuals and Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World." By Peter Senge, Bryan Smith, Nina Kruschwita, Joe Laur, Sara Schley.
In that book, there is an explanation that goes well with an understanding of the Democratic Model for Industry. Include everyone in the task of solving problems. This has made the impossible possible because some Industries have made big promises such as conserving water, that they had no idea how they would keep. By turning the problem over to everyone the company got the benefit of group consciousness, the very thing that makes Democracy better than authoritarian Nations. Well, it helps to have education for Democracy to make it work the way it should.
Knowing what can be done, such as organizing for world war one by relying on schools to teach students necessary technological skills for the first time in our history, and a frame of mind the Spartans would admire, I totally believe we can turn things around. But we need respected leaders and respected reporters who can get us working together. Having media that caters to popular opinion and sensationalism, is a disaster and I don't think those problems will change without education for democracy and being united with shared values.
Having the actual housing so people can experience that housing and see how it is working, is more powerful than just words, so kudos for that advancement. I now wonder if something like that is happening in my community. Participating with others in coming up with solutions would be better than sitting alone at home wringing my hands and feeling totally powerless.
Absafragginlootly!
Interesting links Vera, cheers!
@Athena
This is a really promising group as well guys:
Citizens Network
Maybe they would particularly help support the work you do Athena.
This is their North American sub-group:
Citizens Network, North America
Thanks, I didn't know about this. So many good people still fighting the good fight!
Yep and all power to them!!!!
Thank you universes. The link seems concerned with love and I am not into love but you did inspire me to Google for an organization that is about civics education. I signed up for their newsletter. It is hard for me to stay focused but I think what concerns me most is protecting our democracy with education.
https://www.civiced.org/
???? So why do you choose to help strangers who seem unable to help themselves?
Quoting Athena
Good stuff.
Why not?
It has happened. That it has happened in India and in China are really game changers, because we are talking about a huge segment of World population with the two. We might see in our lifetime peak human population.
Quoting Vera Mont
And for this you refer to the opening a new bank vault for the rich three years ago?
Sorry, but the poorest haven't gotten poorer.
Too little, too late; running out of water.
Quoting ssu
No, they live on a princely $2.15 a day, instead of $1.90. Terrific!
Quoting ssu
Yes, in the context of possible redistribution. The stuff in there isn't paying anyone's rent or medical bills, ever. The more wealth - which has been made out of natural resources by human labour - goes in there, and into other such vaults , as well as safe hidy-holes for their owners is out of circulation; not paying wages, not paying tax with which governments might alleviate the burden of the working poor and the sinking middle class, reduce poverty and crime, repair infrastructure; and for damn sure not helping to avert or mitigate any of the natural disasters that continue to render more poor (even not, by definition, in extreme poverty) people homeless and destitute, every year.
If you want to pretend that capitalism makes everything peachier and keener for everybody all the time, no amount of ground-level reality will convince you otherwise, until you are personally affected. That's a popular stance. And that is the reason we're in this mess.
When you widen the viewpoint to let's say 50 years (1970's to 2020's) or more, the changes have been dramatic. Earlier there were widespread famine in Asia, which isn't anymore. Both China and India have made quite a dramatic change:
First the sign of absolute povetry and very fragile economies: people killed in famines
Then about transition that has happened now. For example India has had a rapid it's GDP per capita in ten years or so:
But someone might argue that the money has all gone to the rich. No, it hasn't. It has had an impact in India on the number of poor people falling:
In China absolute povetry has decline even more:
Half a billion of Chinese not being on the verge of famine and in absolute povetry is something dramatic that shouldn't be just ignored. And if over half of the India people were in absolute povetry in 1981, that being now just one tenth is a huge improvement too.
Yes, the post WWII to the Reagan/Thatcher Axis, were a period of liberalism, tolerance, and broadening of vision. In the new Conservative dark age, it's closing in again.
Your notion of poverty is different from mine.
Quoting Vera Mont
Post-WWII history in China was a bit different to Western history.
And you seem to look at the West, which in fact doesn't have the poorest people. But this is quite usual. As the West and especially the US hasn't seen a dramatic change in prosperity and in with many indicators Americans are worse off than before, many think that the World has to be too worse off. Because how could have a story that is something else?
Yet all those manufacturing jobs that did leave the West did have an impact in Asia. And many Asian countries did improve their prosperity in the last 50 years. These countries aren't just helpless pawns of the US and the West.
That's the positive development, which typically isn't told as it's trendy to be doom-and-gloom and against the current system. Anything positive seems like naive.
Then there are the real problems. As I've stated in another thread, the development in the Sahel looks very bad. We are not only talking about one country, like Somalia, but a whole region, which indeed can see large scale famine and collapse of societies. But to talk only about that and not to acknowledge what positive developments have happened is simply biased. And credit should be given to the countries that have indeed done a remarkable changes in fighting poverty and have improved their economies.
Quoting Vera Mont
And what is so wrong to start with the most poorest people in the World?
The evidence of improvements in the charts you posted are pathetic, in comparison with what should be happening globally. Our planet and the majority of our species, still suffer severely, from the wealth and power imbalances caused by global plutocratic elites? Are you seriously trying to claim that the improvements, (since we came out of the wilds,) made in the number of individuals globally, who are in abject poverty, is down to the trickle down crumbs that fall from the capitalist table, rather than from the social and political efforts made by humanists/socialist movements world wide?
Any improvements made, come from the pressure applied to the elites, from local/national/international and global humanism/socialism.
The following WHO information is a small indication of how much work still has to be done:
[b]In 2020 an estimated 5 million children under the age of 5 years died, mostly from preventable and treatable causes. Approximately half of those deaths, 2.4 million, occurred among newborns (in the first 28 days of life).
While the global under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) fell to 37 deaths per 1000 live births in 2020, children in sub-Saharan continued to have the highest rates of mortality in the world at 74 deaths per 1000 live births- 14 times higher than the risk for children in Europe and North America.
The leading causes of death in children under 5 years are preterm birth complications, birth asphyxia/trauma, pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria, all of which can be prevented or treated with access to affordable interventions in health and sanitation.[/b]
Things are getting better for many poor people in the world, that is true, but the reasons have almost f*** all to do with the actions of the rich, and have a lot more to do with the political pressure that comes via the utter revulsion felt by the more and more informed people amongst our species, regarding 'what is really going on.' The actions, lifestyle, imbalance and narcissism of the global elites are being exposed more and more. You need to be clear on what you are suggesting has caused the improvements you cite.
Sadly, despite the small improvements you cite, I think words like the ones in the song below are still horrendously true about the world we live in, do you agree?
Lyrics:
Come and join the score (it's a) very holy chore
(You must) Fight for freedom, Liberty (you must)
Fight for old men just like me
Now i'm not in the mood (to fight)
But I'll give you clothes and food (Alright you see)
Someone else is making more than me
And that can be, an economic policy
Ain't it funny, ain't it shame
While the fat man is snoring
You can die for his games (economy)
Ain't it funny, ain't it a joke
As you die for the fat man
He is lifting your joke
See I have no arm (for giving)
See I have no legs (to run away)
See I have no nose, no eyes
Don't hear no lies, I'm monkey wise
Guess I got my gun (You didn't run?)
Back in '41 (Where are you now?)
Now I wish I could just swim in the sun
Because whatever I won, it wasn't much fun at all
Ain't it funny, ain't it shame
While the fat man is snoring
You can die for his games (economy)
Ain't it funny, ain't it a joke
As you die for the fat man
He is lifting your joke
Your country needs you today
Your country needs you to die
I never claimed that the west had the poorest people; I said that making the rich even more rich keeps making the not-rich even less rich. As for the poorest people in China, South America and Africa, they, too are made poorer through the enrichment of the rich. In many, though not all, cases it is the western capitalist investment that co-opts their governments and institutions, and robs entire nations of their resources, their heritage, their autonomy and their health.
Quoting ssu
The fact that you want to "start" at the finish line; the fact that there are still millions of "most poorest" people, after all the decades you claim for improvement; the fact that you arrogate to yourself the power of treating millions of people like a project, instead of giving them back their lands and freedom to live as they choose.
The initial cause of their poverty: Imperialism. It hasn't gone away; it's just wearing $US instead of sovereigns and doubloons - it's still looting, with local cat's paws rather than directly; arming the little local oppressors in their great big imperialist pockets.
Really, is it a pathetic improvement that there hasn't been a famine in China in the last 50 years, but before that there indeed were? (Those who don't know, the largest famine that killed the most people happened in China after WW2) I think the first thing is when poverty is so bad that the survival of people is threatened. Only then comes poverty that excludes people from the "normal" society.
Quoting universeness
Well, those leaders in China still think of themselves as devoted Marxists. When talking of China and India, you aren't talking about the West. Yet there in those two countries the biggest changes have happened.
Quoting universeness
That work has to be done cannot refute the fact that things also have improved. And I myself have already stated that there looms big dangers especially in the Sahel region, but also in the Sub-Saharan Africa in general.
Quoting universeness
You call a billion people going out of absolute poverty a "small improvement"?
Quoting Vera Mont
Why there a persistent large class of poor people is a complex issue. In poor countries it usually starts from things like the vast majority of people that do work their entire lives don't have access to any kind of reasonable debt, like having a decent mortgage that people in the West enjoy. When jobs available to the vast majority of people covers only the basics (food, living which is usually a rental flat), people cannot get richer through work. Furthermore, the real difficulty is to get from subsistence farming to modern "capitalist" farming: a subsistence farmer has typically been dirt poor in every society, in the East or in the West.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yet look at the countries that have made it. South Korea, Taiwan, China, Malesia etc. They were drastically poorer earlier, but somehow haven't been robbed by the West. Weak countries are exploited, that is true.
Coulda swore that was down to communist central planning and rigid birth control.
Quoting ssu
Pfth!
Quoting ssu
Nothing complex about. Somebody with a big gun comes along, burns their homes, orders them off their land and into the mines, or factories, or cane or cotton or coffee plantations - whatever makes the rich even richer.
Don't cherry pick my sentences. Quote them fully.
Quoting universeness
There is no valid reason for famine, anywhere on this planet today! No valid reason at all. Apart from due to the actions of the nefarious rich and powerful elites.
Quoting ssu
What??? How naive of you! Do you really think there is much difference between a western billionaire and a Chinese or Russian one, no matter which political doctrine they claim they champion. Do you really believe Stalin and Hitler, etc were socialists for example, as well as being very, very rich and powerful?
Quoting ssu
Yes, especially when moving from absolute poverty to almost absolute poverty. That is not much of an improvement. Don't forget, you can manipulate stats. "There are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics." Sometimes that quote is very true!
Quoting ssu
No, it's fundamentally very simple, it started off with the majority of humans, in small communities, allowing the 'strongest and scariest f***wits,' to become their leader/king and accepting the primal fear manipulations put forward by the theosophists around at the time. It's such a pity that at the time, humans did not have a standard community policy of joining en-masse, every time it was needed to kill the brawn based gangsters, who would be king, consistently, from day 1. it's also a pity we had no effective antidote to religious BS at the time. The other reason that the rich and poor was created globally, was the application of capitalism via the money trick. Fundamentally, quite simple, but soooooooo destructive for our species and this planet.
Quoting ssu
I assume that is not ok in your opinion, yes? and if it's not, then what reparations do you think are due for such abominable violations of basic human secular morality and how are you helping to stop such from ever happening again?
The rigid birth control was introduced in the late 1970's, so that was later. Yes, central planning and the "Great Leap" are culprits, but then again you had central planning introduced to East European satellite states and there was no famine there. The China that the Communist got wasn't prosperous. China had famines in 1876-1879, 1901, 1906-1907, 1920-1921, 1928-1930 and then came the famines cause by the Sino-Japanese war / WW2 / Chinese Civil War.
Quoting Vera Mont
That comment sums up neatly the ignorance (and arrogance) of what some people, especially Americans, but typically Westerners, have to the agency of other people than themselves, to the views of these other people and their role in their own history. Just pawns or victims of the rich Westerners.
Quoting Vera Mont
Ah! No complexity, it's all simple.
Did it happen in your own country like that? Who ordered your parents / grandparents or you to work in a mine or factory after burning your home?
You think it happened like that in the countries that made the transition to industrialized countries in the 19th or 20th Centuries?
Right, what should be happening globally.
Well let's start with that. At first a question for you: do you think that historical examples of how now more prosperous countries did eradicate widespread poverty is still informative on what at the present should be done?
Quoting universeness
You do understand that what your saying is populism, if everything are due to the actions of the nefarious rich.
Quoting universeness
First of all, Stalin really was a socialists, or a Marxist-Leninist. If you argue otherwise, you don't know much about him or the Soviet Union.
And for the Chinese system, how much really power those billionaires have in China? Haven't you heard about China's missing billionaires? The Chinese Communist party has power in China, and the CCP is ruled by one man.
Again the US is the best example of a country what comes closest to a plutocracy.
In the US a billionaire who comes out of nowhere, can indeed get into power: he has the money to make an election campaign and there's a willing electorate that will vote for him (or her) as his or her wealth seems like a credible guarantee that the person is able and effective. Above all, his or her wealth is quite well guaranteed and American billionaires don't have the habit of falling from multiple store windows. In Putin's mafia-lead Russia that happens and also in CCP controlled China a billionaire has to avoid politics.
Quoting universeness
Dying of poverty is quite drastic, but yes, still if you don't die of starvation or cold or something like that poverty can really be bad. And I don't think at this level the statistics are wrong: thing like widespread famines or food riots not happening show that.
Quoting universeness
Definitely!
Sovereign states being sovereign is a good start, at least. A good guideline, let's say.
Quoting universeness
If it's so simple, then you think the answer is simple too?
Why do you keep harping on famines? Famines are caused by various factors, including climate, war and politics. Like Stalin's making of the famine in Ukraine and the Irish potato famine. But there are plenty of homeless, displaced and dispossessed people when there is no actual famine, and plenty of people who can't afford decent food, housing or medical care, even when they're working full time and making more then $2.15 a day.
You can mix together as many disparate facts as you like. It won't make any difference to fact that the accumulation of more wealth in fewer vaults is detrimental to the welfare of the world's population.
Quoting ssu
It's arrogant? OK. But I judge people by their actions, rather than the flags they wave. Most of the RC popes did not behave like Christians; most of the East Bloc leaders did not, and do not behave like Marxists. It's not the self-delusion that counts; it's the effect.
Quoting ssu
So, have the wars of European conquest, partitioning of continent, colonial rule, the plantation system, the copper, gold, diamond and coal mines all been swept under the revisionist version of "banana republics have only themselves to blame" doctrine? Quoting ssu
The Russians, actually - or rather, the Kremlin-controlled puppet government of not-so-dedicated Marxists, who got rich, invested abroad, mismanaged the economy, then sold out to American business. But that was later - a couple of centuries after the colonization of Africa, South America and Far East - you know, those very poorest poor people who are your first concern. Except, of course, South Korea, which did fine, entirely on its own.... sort of...
Quoting ssu
In the 19th, mostly under British colonial rule, yes. In the 20th, increasingly either through investment by the US or their authoritarian government's big guns.
Which ignores an important question: How does a transition from agrarian to industrial economy benefit the general population?
Only if the facts of the 'how' can be fully understood and can pass a basic secular morality test. For example, Much of Glasgow in Scotland, was built on the profits of the tobacco lords, which was built on the cheap, forced labour of slavery. Many of Britain's cities prospered on the profits of slavery and on the fact that the British military, pillaged other civilisations, just like other vile groups, such as the Romans, the Vikings etc, etc did before them. Are those the kind of historical examples you wish to exemplify as resulting in less poverty for their stakeholders? Historical examples of humanist/socialist/labour and suffrage movements, which actually did improve the lives of many, should indeed be championed and in fact always have been, by true socialists and humanists.
Quoting ssu
It's a pity you don't understand the local/national/international and global responsibility the nefarious rich have for the economic and power imbalance they created in history, and continue to create today. Calling it 'populism,' is a simplistic and very poor attempt to hold up an irrelevant shiny, to distract from and dilute the truth.
Quoting ssu
In my opinion, you are just displaying your naivety more prominently. Stalin was a vile opportunist, and a narcissist, who would dress in whatever political identity suited his only cause, that of his own aggrandizement. Its a well known, common pathology. I am surprised you cannot see past such disguises. Do you also believe that Donald Trump is a true man of the Christian faith? :rofl: and Boris Johnson was a genuine brexiteer, based on principle? :roll:
Quoting ssu
So the difference for you, between characters like Elon Must, Roman Abramovich, and Zhang Yiming (owner of such as Tik Tok etc) is that the Russian and the Chinese examples of nefarious rich, ultimately answer to a political overlord (King)? Whereas in the West, the billionaires are more independent and can abuse global populations, more freely? What other distinction between such characters do you think exists? Do you really think political doctrine is an important distinction between such individuals?
Quoting ssu
Dying as a slave or dying as an enslaved gladiator, for the entertainment of an audience in an arena, is quite drastic, yes? Such public atrocities do not happen anymore, as an acceptable part of a 'civilised' nation, do they? Does that mean we should focus on the fact that 'well that shit doesn't happen much anywhere today,' so we should all be very grateful for what we have, because no one has died as a gladiator in an arena for a long time, so we are doing well!
Famines and food riots have not even ended yet. They have globally reduced, yes but that is f*** all, to pat anyone on the back for, as it's at best, tip of the iceberg improvements. We have sooooooooo much further to go, and you, trying to congratulate, whoever it is you are trying to congratulate, for what has been done so far, is at best misguided and at worse, sinister.
Quoting ssu
No, No, No, No, No! ( as I have heard some on-line debaters such as Matt Dillahunty exclaim, when dismayed at an interlocuter.) We need global unity, not more 'nationhood' that uses outdated monarchistic words, such as 'sovereign.'
Quoting ssu
Yes, simple in concept but not so simple in execution, due to the current power and influence of the nefarious rich.
1. Get rid of money and build a resource based, global economic system, using automation as its backbone.
2. Abandon party politics and employ a system that allows an individual to vote for a person to represent them and not a political party.
3. Create very powerful checks and balances which would prevent any individual or group from becoming too rich, too powerful, autocratic, totalitarian, etc, etc.
I could go into much more detail on each of the above three changes I advocate but I doubt you would be interested. So I merely state them here, again, as I have stated such for many years, in the hope that others will find common cause with such ideas, which of course have been around for a long time.
For sure. But there is still the ticklish problem of all that blood and sweat tied up in luxury vehicles, mansions, animal skins and the bling in the vaults. None of the stuff, recycled, would be worth a fraction of its present market price. The mansions will make fine seasonal worker accommodation for the orchards and I guess you could use the airplanes as temporary shelter for scientific missions, and the boats would come in handy for fishing all that plastic out of the oceans. But the artwork, jewellery and impractical garments can never be sent back to compensate the people who suffered for their making.
Because it's a good marker when the country is really, really poor.
Famines happen in societies which are fragile, for example there are many subsistence farmers who are affected by draughts etc. You can have devastating wars, but a country prosperous enough can avoid famines. Hence there was no famine in Germany or Italy during WW2, and no famine in my country then either. Rationing food is the obvious solution. Yet poor and fragile states simply don't have the means and the ability to ration and feed their people. It's actually the rare case when a famine is made on purpose (Holodomor, the siege of Leningrad).
Quoting Vera Mont
I was on starting at first from the worst situation: when poverty means one does not have the financial means to obtain commodities to sustain life. That ought to be nonexistent in this World and we do have the means to eradicate absolute poverty.
When we come to things like decent food, housing or medical care, then we are in the realm of relative poverty. What is decent food, housing and medical care? In my country literally no citizen of this country is begging on the streets, the beggars are usually from Romania. Having a home is a right and there's no huge homeless problem, people don't live in tents on city streets. Here we come to questions like of how far should the welfare state go? Yet the issue isn't about welfare, but just how well the economy works for the people, does everyone have the possibility for a decent life through work?
Quoting Vera Mont
Obviously not, yet shouldn't we look at the examples of countries that have been poor, have been colonies and yet afterwards have improved their economies and have become prosperous?
Quoting Vera Mont
Aid (from the US) might have had some effect, but the long-term projects of industrializing the country had in the long run, were successful. And then when domestic industries were competitive enough, then competing in the global market was key.
Quoting Vera Mont
Outright colonies didn't industrialize in the 19th Century, it was those places that had dominion status that did, starting with the dominion of Canada in the mid 19th Century.
Quoting Vera Mont
Important question.
The answer is that the agrarian communities are made up of subsistence farmers, those who grow the food they eat, which doesn't create actually more wealth. But when industry springs up, those who have worked the fields get a better salary working in the factory. Then a lot of very poor agrarian workers are find themselves in a better position ...being just a bit wealthier, even if still poor, industry workers. Hence the lure from the countryside to the cities.
I won't bore you with statistics, but every industrialized country has seen the transformation of people generally living in the countryside to people living in the cities with now there being just a small fraction from earlier times of people working in agriculture.
Well, my country (Finland) never had colonies, it basically was a colony of Russia and earlier part of Sweden. South Korea was under Japanese rule for a long time (and didn't have colonies). Sweden in fact did have small colonies, but they weren't remarkable. Norway or Switzerland didn't have colonies either. Should we not speak of them, but just say the West has gotten it's prosperity by stealing from it's colonies or what?
Quoting universeness
In the reasons why countries have gotten more prosperous indeed the workers movement and trade unions do have an important part. After all, if I remember correctly, Marx himself was worried that the Proletariat might not opt for the revolution, but simply demand higher wages. Well, fortunately he was in this case right!
Quoting universeness
An opportunist you say, I think it is you who should show that Stalin indeed wasn't a Marxist-Leninist. Or you think that Lenin and other leaders would have taken a vile opportunist on their ranks?
Quoting universeness
Actually yes. The term plutocracy means rule by the rich. The term autocracy means rule by one. Who rules matters here.
Quoting universeness
And there is absolute poverty too.
Quoting universeness
Somehow saying that things have improved seems (from the emotional outburst) to you as an acceptance that everything is fine. Well, that's not the case. Yet not accepting that things have improved is biased, because there really are ways to eradicate poverty, starting from the obvious, absolute poverty.
And yes, if India and China have improved the situation of many of their people, why do you think it's misguided to acknowledge this?
What's wrong with money? Are you going to centrally plan what people want and what manufacturers produced or what?
Quoting universeness
Hows that going to work? And how are these elected persons then go and agree on what to do? What's wrong with representation and fellow minded coming together?
Quoting universeness
What's your definition of being too rich? Or too powerful? Whose going to decide that? I think that things like Montesquieu's division of power, term limits, keeping secrecy of government actions at a true minimum etc. are the ways to fight autocracy.
I am sure humanity can absorb such a hit. I like your other suggested uses for the ill-gotten gains, obtained sycophantically by the nefarious rich, from the toil of the many, via the money trick. I think we should also take all church property into state ownership, without compensation for the current owners and turn them all into shelters for the homeless. We could also turn all Vatican wealth over to the current poor, cold and hungry of the world. Surely Jesus (if it ever existed) would approve of such actions.
Scotland, Ireland, Wales were not in themselves historical colonialists either. Their warrior men were employed or press ganged, by the far larger and more powerful Anglo/Saxon/Norman English nation.
I am not suggesting that the wealthy Welsh, Scottish and Irish nefarious few were not fully complicit in benefiting from building the vile 'British' empire. I am sure a minority of nefarious Finns, benefited from using those with a Finnish warrior mentality, who fought for the Swedes or the Russian actions to plunder and pillage their neighbouring peoples. Those who embark on conquest, pillaging and plundering have notions of personal gain, more than they have an interest in establishing the empire notions they were probably not even aware they were establishing. That's why the term mercenary was and always has been part of our bloody history. With all due respect, you seem to have a very naive, 'picture book' sense of human history.
Quoting ssu
That's a bit better!
Quoting ssu
Back to naivety I see. Lenin was also an opportunistic butcher. I think Trotsky was a true believer in the socialist cause and did hold true to his cause of trying to make the world a better place for the Russian people, which is why Stalin's need to have him assassinated, was a top priority, when the Russians were stupid enough to let him take power. Such a pretty picture you posted, they almost look like friends, don't they. :lol:
Quoting ssu
Oh come on! how deep does your naivety go? Can 'one' maintain control without a supporting plutocracy? The one autocrat will get assassinated or brought down/replaced, if they don't keep the plutocrats happy. The autocrat will try to keep his/her closest supporters a bit terrified of them, yes, all gangster leaders do this but as Gandhi correctly pointed out:
"When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always."
Quoting ssu
Do you think that in the current western cost of living crisis where many who are fully employed, still have to go to food banks, is a big improvement on the Dickensian days of the poorhouses and soup kitchens?
Do you think that people, currently dependent on food banks, should be sooooooo happy and should spend their time celebrating that things are not as bad as those Dickensian days and should they also spend their time celebrating the fact that they are not suffering in the same way as those who suffered during the Irish potato famine or the Scottish highland clearances or the various ethnic cleansing projects that have been imposed on various populations in the past, or perhaps the deliberate horrific actions of Stalin such as the deliberate starvation of millions of Ukranians during the Holodomor. or his slaughter of the Kulaks? Is that the message you offer? That we should all be grateful for the tiny crumbs the worlds poor has been allowed to enjoy from the vast resources the nefarious rich control? Are you f****** serious? I don't mean to sound annoyed at your suggestions, but it's hard to disguise the fact that I am, even if you don't care that I am. I hope others can see how misguided your suggestions are.
Quoting ssu
Thanks for at least asking that question. It's misguided, because you have presented your argument in a completely imbalanced way, imo. You have suggested, imo, that it is the mimicry of the dictates of western style rich and powerful individuals, and the acceptance of capitalist doctrine, the money trick and the free market economy, in places such as India and China, that has lifted so many of the poor, out of absolute poverty, and into a state, that you are trying to peddle as a great improvement that the global poor should be sooooooo grateful for.
I am suggesting that your position is misguided and naive because, I think that the truth is, that the nefarious rich and powerful, are becoming more and more afraid of the great mass of poor people who are getting more and more pissed off at them, and are sharpening their pitchforks and getting braver and braver in their wish to organise and protest, the imbalances they suffer, every day, which are beyond their individual power to influence/combat.
The nefarious rich are throwing the poor more and more little crumbs, in the hope that they can do enough to placate them but still maintain their own vile position and lifestyle. You are suggesting the poor should be content with the little crumbs they are receiving and they should also sing the praises of the crumb givers for their efforts. I am insisting that you are talking BS and that the people of this planet should continue to organise globally and increase the pace and power of their just demands. It's time to end all plutocracy/autocracy permanently, everywhere it exists.
Oh Just that it helps create and maintain the rule of a nefarious few 'haves' over a vast global population of 'have nots.' It's a human invention that has proven to be toxic for the vast majority of human beings.
A global resource based economy supported by as much automation as possible, can be locally/nationally/internationally and globally organised as centrally controlled, and/or distributively controlled systems, as dictated/required by the conditions/human needs in a particular area.
Quoting ssu
The details of how I and others think it could work are heavy in detail. Initial ideas include:
1. Historical political systems are taught in all schools, as a subject with a similar standing to that of Maths or science today.
2. Political debate is established as free online and via publically owned, state funded, televised channels. Anyone can take part at any age. Just expand what's going on on sites like TPF on a gobal scale.
3. There is a pathway from local politics to national/international/global politics open to all who wish to apply. This would be issue by issue politics and not party based politics.
4. Using the UK system as a base example. 650 mp's would be elected as independents. They would all form the government for 4 years and argue and legislate on an issue by issue basis. No prime minister and no official opposition required. Any one of the 650 can be chosen to represent the UK on international or global issues.
5. There would be a second elected chamber to check and accept or reject all legislation agreed on by the first chamber. This second chamber would consist of two (one male, one female) elected independents from all significant stakeholder groups, (youth, middle aged, old, education, medical, military, police, LBTQ+ etc, etc)
These 5 suggestions are of course, only the smallest beginnings and are open to full democratic debate.
Quoting ssu
Too rich or too powerful is a measure of an individuals ability to influence political policy. If they can do so by use of their money then they have too much of it and are too individually powerful
Quoting ssu
We, the people through our directives to our elected representatives, regarding the checks and balances we insist they establish and rigorously maintain.
Quoting ssu
I agree with 'division of power' and 'term limits'[s]but certainly not 'keeping secrecy of government actions at a true minimum.' Fully open, transparent, full disclosure governance is an essential check and balance.[/s]
UPDATE: Sorry ssu, I misread your sentence 'keeping secrecy of government actions, at a true minimum' So I would change my disagreement with that goal to agreement.
So what? That says nothing about what caused the poverty and fragility in the first place. If there is no famine for a few years or decades, that's not an indication that the country has become rich and stable; only that a transitory situation has passed - for a time. There are famines enough yet to come in countries that are not poor right now.
Quoting ssu
Can there be a famine in Switzerland? Say, a global economic collapse halts food imports and a new strain of rinderpest wipes out the cattle? All the worthless money in all the vaults won't feed dthe people. They'd have to pick up a hoe and become subsistence farmers within six months - assuming the private food supplies are nationalized and rationed, along with the government reserves. They can't grow much grain, but they might do all right with vegetables and fruit, if they convert the shopping malls into hydroponic gardens asap.
What do you think 'created' original wealth?
What makes you think wealth is a good thing, that ought to be created and accumulated?
What prevents famine, short of a major climate calamity, is local independent, diverse agriculture. But who needs that, when the food importers can make a fortune by burning down some other country's forest, take away the subsistence of the farmers there, turn them into low-wage slaves and then mark up the produce in an industrial country?
Quoting ssu
Yes, I know. And I'm familiar with the process whereby it was accomplished. I wonder whether you would have liked to be on the less privileged side of those transitions.
O, happy, happy factory workers!
That genuinely doesn't come at all to the reasons why Finland became and industrialized country from being a poor hinterland of Europe. But it suits perfectly the typical anti-Western anti-capitalist rhetoric. Starting from the whimsical belief that prosperity cannot be created, but has to be robbed from some others. Actually it's quite questionable how much colonies really profited people of the main countries. For Portugal having Angola and Mozambique were really a burden, not an stream of income. The real way for countries to have become rich is through trade.
Quoting universeness
During the time of the photo was taken, I think they were.
Yet telling is that you find only Trotsky to be a true believer in the socialist cause, but not Lenin, who according to you, he is the butcher. Well, I guess people haven't heard about Marxism-[b]Leninism[b] or just who was the founder of the Red Army and who started to use barrier troops to shoot their own front-line troops if they retreated or deserted. :lol:
Quoting universeness
Does it have to be a plutocracy supporting autocracy? How far goes your populism? You really think that everywhere, starting from Soviet Union to Pol Pot's Cambodia there was somehow behind a class of very rich people, plutocrats?
Quoting universeness
Great, we agree on something!
Quoting ssu
Quoting universeness
It really helps transactions, is a great way to measure tradeable stuff. Been there in our society a lot longer than present day capitalism has existed.
Quoting universeness
Ok, you've put a bit of thought to this.
Some questions:
So you ban parties, won't accept them, assume 650 mp's act as "independents" (ahem! No grouping around tolerated), yet then in 5. you say there would be a second chamber either with just two people (male / female) or two from all stakeholders (I didn't get that part, sorry) as varied places as youth to LGTBQ+ to military and police???
Wowwowoow, hold on here!!!
So you are literally putting military and police into the legislative branch when they clearly belong in the executive branch. It's really not up to them to be in the process of making laws, on the contrary! I guess the military and the police as "stakeholders" will have a lot more weight on for example on national security issues than the LGTBQ+ stakeholders.
There is ample amount of examples how military being outside it's main realm of defence and embedded in the states governing really doesn't work and basically leads to inefficiency and corruption... and not even a great military.
Besides, both the police and the military are usually such professionals that the legislative branch does listen to them if they really have something important to say. But there's never a formal put that the generals have to accept legislation and have some kind of veto.
And anyway, how does this quote sound to you:
Sounds great, eh? Well, it's from the Green Book of Ghaddafi, the "Brotherly Leader of the Revolution" who went into schools to pick nice looking girls to deflour and was really let's say an eccentric dictator. But his point was that his dictatorship was masked, even if whimsically but still, in direct democracy. That "direct democracy" worked through "revolutionary committees" that basically surveyed the population and crushed all opposition.
The point of this is that what some formal political design looks like theoretically, isn't what you are going to end up with, especially if there aren't any kinds of safety valves.
It is hardly a shock that those who support capitalism, see the claims of its critics as merely engaging in rhetoric. I am sure we are both more interested in the conclusions any readers of our exchange come to, rather than the conclusions each other comes to.
Quoting ssu
No, I think the recipe started when we were wandering hominids in the wilds. An individual rise to power has always corrupted humans and the gaining of absolute power via political intrigue and economic competition has always corrupted absolutely. This lesson has been demonstrated, time and time again to all humans who have the wits to perceive such. Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. It's long overdue that the human race finally bars all individual pathways to too much individual or small group power and influence.
Quoting ssu
So has god posits and kings and aristocracies and class systems and caste systems and familial dynastic, inherited wealth, privilege and power, regardless of mental suitability or stability, etc etc. The fact that such phenomena have been around for a long time does not dilute how pernicious they are.
Quoting ssu
No, group forming of similarly minded individuals will happen, and is encouraged on an issue to issue basis, for the 4 years the elected 650 independents govern. Each action taken by an MP will however be scrutenised, at the constituency level. Once a month, the MP must report to a meeting held within the constituency they represent. Any voters from that constituency can attend that meeting and ask the MP questions regarding their report of their activity. All political meetings of the first chamber will be recorded and can be viewed by the public, as a way of ensuring that the MP has acted in the way they report they have acted. The second chamber would have as many members as required to allow one male and one female rep from each group.
Quoting ssu
The military and the police would be represented at all levels of government, but the military and police would not be under the full control of the first chamber. The first chamber would not have the exclusive power to declare war, they would however have complete access to all military and police forces, in the situation where war had been declared against us, or an attack was immanent or in progress. They can unilaterally defend but they cannot, as the first chamber, unilaterally attack.
Quoting ssu
No, it sounds misguided. Those who represent the people in a parliament are the people, they are of the people and they are elected by the people and they are tasked with acting for the people and if they don't, then they must be removed and the system must have robust enough checks and balances that those who abuse the trust put in them, can be identified and removed, easily, quickly and fairly.
Quoting ssu
History absolutely confirms how correct this statement is, so we need to be wise and not repeat the same old mistakes and make damn sure that we do employ 'all kinds of safety valves.' One aid towards this goal might be to encourage ssu not to keep over-stating congratulations towards the not fast enough and not significant enough tiny improvements in global poverty imbalance or ecological damage.
This becomes true about ten minutes after you remove the influence of money from the political system. If there is no social or financial gain to be made in governance, it's just a civic duty.
Only, make sure that essential services and institutions are protected from government interference, because people elected for a short term in office may not be able sustain long-term projects.
(Eg. Look at the roads. Nobody can build a proper road, probably not since the Romans, because it's too expensive: allocation for any single project is determined by the lowest bid and annual budgeting means the infrastructure can only be patched, a little at a time, when absolutely necessary. All the patching and repair over the lifetime of a road ends up draining ten times the resources and worker-hours it would have to build well in the first place. Obviously, all this is even more costly when done by private contractors, who also make a hefty profit, both on the initial construction and on the annual maintenance.)
In my opinion, the human story will remain, and forever be, a corrupted story, until our extinction, if we are mainly about 'countries' and 'becoming rich.' These are the kinds of notions which I find soooooo 'unsatisfying.' We ask questions and we seek answers, that's what we do! that's who we are!
The real way for people to live better lives is to create a global system where the basic means of survival do not have to be the daily focus of any individual person. In such a global society, the human race might become a net positive for the universe, because we have the ability to create meaning and purpose. Such is non-existent imo, in a universe without lifeforms such as humans.
Absolutely but not just a duty, a very worthy cause and vocation, which offers those who take on such, a respected status. A career which can allow an individual to make a real positive impact of the lives of so many and help direct our entire species in new and better ways to be and exist. The politicians who serve the people well or exceptionally well, will really deserve the memorialisations we dedicate towards them and the legacy they leave. Imo, this is a far better thing an individual can do with their life, than they have ever done before, especially when compared to becoming a Putin, a Thatcher, an Elon Musk, a Kardashian, a Roman Abramovich, etc, etc.
Quoting Vera Mont
Individual good politicians can get re-elected. You might serve as one of the 650 for much of your life, if you represent your constituents well enough. Long term projects which are popular with and valued by the electorate, will be sustained imo.
Quoting Vera Mont
These issues will no longer be present in a moneyless, resource based economy which employs automation as its backbone. Future roads will be built and maintained by automated systems. We just need to develop the necessary tech capability.
We have the technical capability now. But money doesn't build roads and bridges; it only buys the materials, energy and labour. For a big, project, resources have to be allocated and dedicated over some considerable period of time. Once begun, it can't be left up to popularity whether to continue working on a costly project or abandon and allocate the material, energy, equipment and human supervision to some idea that sounds sexier during election week.
Quoting universeness
I'm not a fan of career politicians. They become campaign-savvy, manipulative. Anyway, a career without pay or kickbacks has only the rewards of social status and admiration, and one can get as drunk on that as on any kind of power. The other danger of long service is the formation of influence-networks, from which cabal is not a step too far. You're teetering on the edge of what happened last time: a good leader was made chief; in the next conflict he became the war-lord; victorious, he was crowned king... next thing you know, his eldest son automatically inherits the throne, collects tribute from vassals, carves his legal code on an obelisk, stamps his ugly mug on a gold coin...
I would like to see a firmly established civil service of professionals, administered by a council - parliament, congress, what have you - drawn form the general population. Maybe by lot or rota system, like jury duty, serving short overlapping terms of two or three years. That way, the governing body really would be of the people. There would always be enough members - half, two thirds? - with experience for continuity and enough fresh minds for perspective, and civic service wouldn't remove people from their own regular life long enough to deform them. No medals, no accolades, no parades, no bloody statues or name carved into schools and libraries - just another job that gets done because it needs doing for the common weal.
When you say 'costs' here, I assume you are referring to the material resources required to complete a large project and not money, as we want to remove money. Yes, if a large project was started then it should be finished or else there would be a lot of wasted resources and the reasons for such bad and costly mistakes would need to be rigorously investigated and prevented from happening again.
Quoting Vera Mont
I agree that can happen and I have no problem with that if it's healthy enthusiasm, but not if it has became a personal addiction towards a goal of establishing a cult of celebrity. I am fine with 'hero worship,' at the level I myself have for such as Carl Sagan, but yes, I would be concerned if the admired person was being damaged, due to developing an addiction to the praise of others. I agree that dealing with the praise of a multitude of fellow humans, needs to be psychologically 'supported'/rationalised/grounded.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes, a very worthy warning flag to raise and always wave, especially considering how many historical examples there are of such.
Quoting Vera Mont
See, lots of good people have lots of idea's for trying to improving things for the better.
That, plus, effort, disruption of other services, people tied up in planning and overseeing - the material and social costs. Economy doesn't just mean money; it means the balance of what is available against what is used up; what is lost against what is gained.
Quoting universeness
That's the safeguard I was asking for. Once it's decided, set up a committee for the duration and declare it hands-off to the sitting government until its completion. The same with a communications network or a hospital: no tinkering by amateurs or fickle voters.
Quoting universeness
That's been known since prehistory. I can't recall which tribe it was that considered seeking praise a major source of corruption - I'd have to go back to the book https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374157357/thedawnofeverything - but even Christianity considers pride a deadly sin.
Quoting universenessYea, we've always been here, mostly ignored.
Sounds reasonable to me but there would have to be some wriggle room. There is no such an existent as perfect pre-planning that has been exhaustively tested and every possible barrier to completion has been identified and all needed contingency plans established. Unforseeable happenings can occur that could make the completion of a large project, untenable. Hopefully such would be very rare but not impossible.
Quoting Vera Mont
I remember watching the old film, 'The rise and fall of the Roman Empire.' They had a scene where a conquering Roman general has re-entered Rome to the ticker tape parade style adulation of the population. The senate placed a slave in the chariot of the general, with orders to whisper gently in the ear of the general, every so often, during the adulations, the words, 'remember you are just a man.'
It turns out that such an action by the early Roman senate, was historically accurate.
Perhaps we could get a small innocent looking child, to do the same to all world leaders (male and female), who are about to deliver a political manifesto to the population they represent.
Quoting Vera Mont
You don't get ignored here Vera! You are not a force that is easy to ignore. :smile:
That's why you put a panel of experts in charge; so that they can make whatever decisions need to be made form day to day. Practical and technical decisions, not political ones.
Quoting universeness
Haw! I just flashed on an image of Parliament, with 500 tiny winged putti hovering over the big, serious representatives. I sure hope they're potty-trained!
Did the whispering slave trick work? Of-bloody-course not! And I'm not prepared to put little innocent children to such unrewarding work. It's simpler just not to celebrate anybody for doing their job or even doing something popular. Recognize, sure: when one lot has served their three years, give them a nice going away party and a commemorative coffee tray or something.
You remember Donald Trump? The whole disaster of his presidency and its aftermath could have been prevented by the simple expedient of denying him media coverage. He's an attention-junkie; it's his main reason for disputing the election and wanting to be king: he can't bear the thought of losing the spotlight. He should have been ignored to death long before all those other died.
It could still all go pear shaped but in general, I agree with your suggested processes.
I had to look up winged putti and noted that it was the plural of the Italian word 'putto,' described as:
A putto is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually naked and very often winged.. I do like the idea of supernatural entities, shitting on the heads of politicians from a great height, who have been proved liars. The trouble is, putti don't exist, so, I think I would actually prefer a real, fully clothed, teenage Glaswegian NED (Non-Educated Delinquent), who simple said something like 'Aye pal, but yi better no be a bullshitter by ra way!' every so often, and then made physical gestures towards the speaker after every manifesto pledge, such as switching a pointed finger between their own eyes and the politicians eyes, in a threatening manner, BUT that's just my strange tastes. The exact check and balance we should employ remains fully open to democratic debate.
Quoting Vera Mont
Well they didn't have a surround sound system or close circuit tv, displayed on big screens so that all the people present could witness the warning to the general that the senate was trying to deliver. The senate did carry out their warning in the case of the vile Julius Caesar, when they correctly decided to kill the monster, but you are correct, that the fact that Octavius became the first Roman emperor soon after, proved that particular attempt at a check/balance, failed.
Quoting Vera Mont
Ha! if only I could refer to him in the past tense. I think vileness like trump only grows and gets fed, when so much discontent and fear is allowed to fester for so long amongst a population. We need a politics which allows individuals to air personal grievances properly, and we need to establish a pathway of arbitration that such folks can take, which will earnestly try to find the best compromise solution that would best suit all parties involved. It's the notion of justice that we all favour the most, imo.
Hey! Before, you said Quoting universeness
Don't you go shifty on me, comerade!
Quoting universeness
It wasn't just allowed; it was engineered, provoked and orchestrated. And that's why I would like to see neither network-formation nor campaigning - or politics, for that matter - in the administration of economy, social services and justice.
As for the grievance arbitration, I totally agree.
:lol: Mia culpa!
Quoting Vera Mont
:up:
I love your question. I question myself and realize I regret not helping some people in the past because they are as deserving as those I have helped lately. I think the difference in my judgment is the result of having more physical and memory problems myself. This awareness of how hard it can be for physically or mentally impaired people (including children) comes from experience and this is lacking in a young population. When we have never experienced a problem, we expect others to do what we can do. We expect a lot of children! Perhaps our expectations of ourselves and others are too high?
I help others because it is the right thing to do. You know, the bottom line is, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you". It is not about who they are and I don't want what I do taken as a personal relationship thing. I see myself more like a nurse who takes care of a wound and then moves on to the next patient, than a loving person.
Emotions change and change, but being virtuous hopefully is not so changeable. I think we need to do things that are the right thing to do. In the 60s we said, "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem". This is the only way to have a better life. The better we make life, the greater the chances are of us having good lives. That is reason, right?
Why do you choose to disconnect, empathy, and altruism as facets of love.
I don't propose to answer for Athena, but for myself: because "love" is such a loaded, booby-trapped word. It evokes sentimentality, hypocrisy, Christian doctrine and a whole a passel of emotional stuff with which I don't want to be lumbered. I have compassion for people I find quite unpalatable and for animals I would never want to encounter in the wild. That empathy, or sense of rightness or whatever it is is quite distinct from my personal relationships in which affection plays a major part. Also, I consider some constraints on my freedom, some obligations of time an effort, as a civic duty: the price of living in a society that affords me protection and support.
I tend to consider love, as a spectrum/domain, which has a very large number of emotions/members.
I primarily go to it's practical use in the history of the human species.
The label 'love' itself is perhaps too misused, when exclusively related to physical/emotional/biological partnerships between humans. At it's fundamental level I think the love/empathy/altruism/selfish genes/narcissism/hate range of our emotional spectrum, allows cooperation between humans in very simple and loosely connected ways to a maximum, whereby an individual can become so integrated and dependent on others that, their complete well-being becomes totally reliant on the relationship and then onto that which dictates the deliberate manipulation and control of others via emotion, up to and including the hatred of other people and other objects
I think @Athena does what she does, as deep down inside, she is more a persona of cooperation than she is a persona of competition. I am the same. Some folks can be as cooperative or competitive as they deem they have to be, depending on how they have personally interpreted a situation they encounter. I tend to encounter any new scenario with the golden rule in mind but I can also turn primeval, if pushed, prodded and abused enough. I think you and Athena are similar but I accept we don't know each other well enough for me to be sure of the statement I have just made.
Many other people prefer the predator label or the lone wolf label and are almost incapable of maintaining any significant form of cooperation.
I have certainly been surprised by aspects of people in the past that I did not predict and would never have predicted. I personally think that love of competition, love of fighting, love of morally unconstrained personal advancement etc, are those members of the 'love spectrum,' that belong to our 'jungle rules' early experiences and are IMHO, residuals from uncivilised and somewhat backwards thinking.
Yes. I'm an ogre about words, precision of meaning. Some words are stretched over so broad a spectrum of meaning that they lose definition altogether. Love and hate are foremost among those overtaxed words. I enjoy walnuts and dislike garlic; I am uncomfortable in wet clothing and feel good in a warm bed; I prefer arts to sports; I favour social justice over social Darwinism; I fear and distrust right-wing zealots and support intelligent, progressive agendas. But my love is reserved for immediate family and at this stage of life, I hate nothing and nobody.
I use the words like everyone else, carelessly (I love mac & cheese, hate winter mornings) in daily conversation, but I'm more mindful of specific meaning in forum discussions. I think part of the reason for that reserve in vocabulary is the emotionalism and histrionics that so pervade our current culture. I believe it distorts people's perspective and overwhelms reason.
Isn't that group forming, which is even encouraged, basically the function of political parties? And just what means "on an issue to issue basis"? Somehow there wouldn't be representatives that have basically "conservative" values and then representatives who have "progressive/leftist" values? How do you assume the issue to issue basis?
Quoting universeness
Who decides just who gets a "stakeholder" representative woman and man? You don't need anymore lobbyists acting as middlemen, heck, you will have everybody there simply as "stakeholders" obstructing/promoting what they need.
Can then corporations have their "stakeholder" positions in the second chamber? What about foreign countries? Aren't they too stakeholders???
Quoting universeness
No really, don't you see the threat here?
You are putting part of the government (armed forces, police) that is under the executive branch in control or having partly control also of the legislative branch. This goes totally against the separations of powers principal. Because now, in your system, generals themselves are deciding on the laws that regulate them and how much will the government give money to them. There's really a difference of the generals asking politicians for money and generals deciding themselves on the money.
The military really should be out of politics. They are there to serve the people and follow the laws passed by the elected representatives. It's enough that politicians select those who are going to be high ranking officers. That already introduces enough politics into an organization that shouldn't be interested in day-to-day politics, but focus on security issues and to create a deterrence that the country won't be attacked.
Yeah, there are so many over-burdened words in human language. Love and hate are definitely two of them.
I cant explain 'issue to issue basis,' better than the words used to express it. Surely I don't have to exemplify to you what an 'issue' is in politics.
The views that an individual currently holds, can be impacted almost instantly, by placing you in a 'team/tribe/party,' think mode. Group forming of independents, on an issue by issue basis, is not impacted to anywhere near the same degree, as people who are faced with a very well established, long history of tradition and hierarchy, such as that established by political parties and internal party politics.
In party politics in the UK parliament, a 'free vote' has to be actually 'allowed,' and is declared by the party you are a member of, to allow you to vote, based on your own views or based on the majority view of your constituents. If a 'free vote' is not declared on an issue or proposed policy then an MP will mostly vote the way their party hierarchy dictates. That must end. Political representatives must vote on an issue by issue basis, based on negotiation between the representatives own views, the views on the issue they have garnished from their constituents, and the results of the debates with their fellow MP's regarding the issue. I may have common ground with you on one issue and none on another. No party loyalty should be able to veto my common ground with you and cause me to vote against an issue merely because my political party hierarchy demands that I comply. That is not democratic imo.
The people often benefit most from coalition governments, rather than from left or right dominated party based governance, as they have no choice but to negotiate on an issue by issue basis, as the have no majority to force legislation through. In the case of a ruling majority government, one group tends to just spend most of the 4 years they have, reversing the worse of the damage they think was done by the other side, during their administration and because nothing much actually changes for the better in the day to day lives of the people who voted them in. Due to that frustration, they vote that lot out again, move to the other extreme, or some ineffectual middle ground, and the situation repeats. There are many progressive political movements, growing today, who are calling for serious and permanent changes to how we do politics.
Quoting ssu
The people will decide. I have already indicated how it might be achieved, other stakeholder groups that I have not yet mentioned, would most likely be, two(one male and one female,) from the transport industry, the leisure industry, the fuel industry, the construction industry, etc, etc. They are there to represent the interests of the workers in those fields. All profit based businesses would have a maximum of 4 reps (2 from small and 2 from larger based, privately owned companies). That is my personal view regarding private businesses.
Quoting ssu
No.
Quoting ssu
The army, navy, air force and police would each have two reps in the second chamber. This is because those fields all have workers, who are the same as any other worker. I have already indicated that the first chamber would not have full control over the assets of the armed forces or the police. The details involved are complex.
Quoting ssu
This is completely wrong, and money would be removed from our lives completely. Perhaps you should read up a little on how a resource based economy, which employs automation as its backbone, would work. You need to stop thinking of the military and the police as 'them,' when we need to ensure in the future I am attempting to describe to you, that they are an integral part of 'us.'
That's your personal view. How about cooperatives, public companies? So I guess you are then the dictator that decides just who get a "stakeholder position" and who don't. :roll:
Now here's the problem: your system is extremely convoluted and very hierarchial. It's really about the "etc, etc." and just who decides who are the "etc, etc." in the first place.
First, you have members of second house of parliament based on like sexual minorities (how then on sexual majority, no?), then you have members based on where they work (which give a plethora of industries and services, if for example construction industry has it's own representative), then representatives (2) on companies. Then based on age. Then based on education. How about religion? (And missing is that people live in different places in the UK.)
Yet here's the basic problem: people actually are made up of nearly every category: they are either young or old, they are either in a sexual minority or not, they are religious (which can vary) or atheist, they work in some or another work. AND SELDOM none of these issues matter on what they think about policy.
How about let's say assistance to Ukraine that the country is given after the Russian invasion? Is that a sexual minority/majority issue? Is it an age issue, really?
The apparent reason to make such a convoluted system to my view is to make the whole system unworkable. When it's unworkable, someone other has to do the actual ruling and day-to-day management of the system. It's like Ghaddafi's Libya.
The system has to be understandable and simple for the ordinary person to understand it. Why cannot it be so that people elect representatives that promise to advance issues that the people want to be advanced?
I think you are rather confused. In a socialist democracy, dictatorship is impossible. I would be one voice only and I would have only my vote and ability to persuade others via democratic debate. Cooperatives and public companies are not private businesses.
Quoting ssu
Only in your, imo, confused thinking.
Quoting ssu
It's very simple. The second house is made up of the main significant stakeholders from human society. These form two broad categories. Workers and Social groupings. The military and the police are workers for example. Binary and non-binary sexuality are two social groupings. Exactly who fits in to which worker or social group, is a matter of decision via democratic debate and such groupings would be open to change, as the term 'social' and what counts as 'worker' is open to change. For example, I consider all home carers as workers regardless of their relationship with those they care for.
Quoting ssu
That does not matter, the young and old will have two reps in the second chamber and your last sentence above is just nonsense.
Quoting ssu
:lol: Are you serious? Are you really asking me if I think the Russian invasion of Ukraine affects Ukrainians of different ages and different sexual orientations in different ways as well as in the same ways? My answer would be yes!, of course it does, but that would also be a rather 'no shit Sherlock,' statement for any rational thinker, yes?
Quoting ssu
I assume that you understand that your opinion is just that. So you are a vote against my proposals. If the complete removal of party politics is ever voted on, then you can vote no and I will vote yes. I hope for the sake of our species that you and those who agree with you, lose the vote.
Quoting ssu
It is exactly that, imo. I don't understand your last sentence, as that is exactly what I am advocating and that is exactly what party politicians often promise to do but rarely do, once they are elected, due to either being opportunists or due to being burdened and controlled by party political hierarchy.
Nations that have called themselves socialist and democratic have been typically dictatorships.
Quoting universeness
Isn't that exactly what existing democracies are about?
Let's have an theoretical example:
If there's a very popular movement in the UK that wants to save the British cultural heritage of silly walking, wants silly walking be encouraged, advanced and assisted by the government and have the objective of a ministry of silly walks to be formed, then an elected administration will form a ministry of silly walks. If it doesn't, this movement will vote for the party that will do this. Or form their own party to do this. And because it is so popular among the electorate who feel silly walking is crucial for British culture, existential for Britishness to survive and far more important than any other issue, why wouldn't it happen?
This is something very crucial to British culture!
You don't need have to entrech it in the system as a "stakeholder" as the man and woman representing the advancement of silly walks. Because once they have that stakeholder stance in the parliament, dislodging them is difficult, when they have that stance. What if people later find silly walking not so important to the existence of the UK? The two representatives surely will find it important: after all, it's their jobs on the line. For example Lebanon had (I think has even now) a very convoluted system where representatives of the various ethnic and religious groups have permanent positions on the government. It was intended for the benefit of the multicultural country, but it's made Lebanese politics even worse.
Quoting universeness
Again, who defines what stakeholders are significant? And once you have decided that, how are you going to change it?
Quoting universeness
Where do you define the young and old? Who is young and old? And how do these differ from others?
Quoting universeness
No, I'm asking about the second house of the Parliament in the UK you are describing. You think sex matters are important in this case? Because you will have people representing LGBTQ+ (and wouldn't some of them be offended by the man and women division?) deciding on the British assistance on Ukraine. And then people representing the fuel industry deciding on it. And so on.
Quoting universeness
What I get is this frustation on politics and political parties. Well, it's naive to think that politics will become better if we just ban politicians and political parties. As if then somehow by magic how people do politics would change. I say it wouldn't: you would simply have political groups that act like political parties but say they aren't political parties. It would just make things murkier because the factions deny themselves being factions...or political parties.
He never claimed otherwise. It is a proposal outline, not a rigid system. I have suggested ways it might be improved. I have found that carping at them doesn't improve ideas.
Yes, it's a proposal.
But just how rigid the stakeholders are is in my view a relevant question. The actual upper house of the UK Parliament, the house of lords, is a perfect example of how rigid these systems are in reality. If in the 11th Century the system fitted the needs of the times, the role of the UK aristocracy has dramatically changed when we come to this Century. And even if the hereditary membership was abolished in 1999, there still are exceptions. So there's an example of how rigid these systems are.
Quoting Vera Mont
Especially in a Philosophy Forum where the people are anonymous, I think it is good to get answers even to stupid questions. And also get feedback to own ideas.
Oh, certainly... as long as the the questions are based on an accurate reading of the proposal and not on assumptions brought over form a different system of thought, a different economic organization, a different set of political criteria.
I don't understand why you try to labour this, when you and I and the vast majority of folks with an average political education, know well enough, the truth of such. Any historical revolution of a mass of stakeholders at a the level of 'nation' has began with 'true socialism,' as it's main driver. Animal Farm by Orwell, and a vast collection of other literature and documentation, explains in a crystal clear fashion, what often goes very wrong after that and why. The fact that the pigs who have in the past formed a dictatorship, out of what started as socialist revolutions against the actions of monarchistic/aristocratic rule in such nations as China, Russia, France etc, does not mean that continuing to describe them as socialist and democratic, is in any way valid. It is utter nonsense to suggest that it is valid, and you know that. So your reasons for doing so, will hopefully be plain for any intelligent reader to see, and only serve to demonstrate your obtuse intentions.
Quoting ssu
I hardly need to make much effort here at all, to combat your claims. Your example above is an insult to all those in the UK who are serious about their politics. If your best attempt at combatting my position is to invoke a monty python sketch then imo, you defeat yourself, as your example, in the context you try to employ it, is too stupid to be taken seriously, and will do no more, imo than cause mockery, but not against my proposals, but at you.
You have some strange impressions about UK people. Its better to judge the political priorities of an individual as you encounter them rather that make bizarre blanket comparisons as your 'silly' example above try's to do. Does this guy speak for all Finn's?
Quoting ssu
Again, you describe another example of a situation that I would be totally against. Where did I advocate that the second chamber I described to you would have permanent members? and that such permanent members would come from 'various ethnic and religious groups?'
Quoting ssu
Quoting ssu
How many times do I have to restate to you, that the people will decide such, via democratic discussion/debate and voting for representatives that best represent their personal conclusions.
Quoting ssu
You need to ask the LGBTQ+ community what offends them most, not me. I would personally include that social group, with two representatives in the second chamber yes, if you would not then, you can use your vote against such a proposal. Is your fog regarding how true democratic socialism works, beginning to clear up a little?
Quoting ssu
This paragraph is rambling and full of ridiculous projections and claims that either I have not suggested (emboldened) in any way, or are just your badly formed and somewhat ridiculous predictions (italicised)
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting Vera Mont
Absolutely!
Quoting ssu
So, you agree then that getting completely rid of the house of lords would be a good first step in starting to improve the way UK politics works?
Quoting ssu
I agree, as you are not my target ssu. You are helping me to put forward some of my opinions on how I think politics could be done in far better ways, compared to those methods that humans currently employ. My target is of course, any readers of our exchange, which will not be many here on TPF, but even 1, is still worth my effort.
If you can defeat my positions, on a point by point basis using very compelling, well structured, well reasoned, counter points, backed up by powerful historical exemplars, that support your position. Then you will help ensure that my political visions, never even get attempted, anywhere on this planet.
You can start to do that, anytime you like?
You hardly wan't to answer my questions, I guess. Well, I could have given the example of the whole Brexit thing...and not silly walks.
But what's not to like about silly walks? Monty Python is really part of modern British culture. Well liked and even mimicked abroad.
Quoting universeness
That's the idea. It's far better to talk about one's own ideas, really, on this forum because people do think and do engage seriously in the matter.
Quoting universeness
My point is that WHEN you give any stakeholder status in the upper house, be it as now the remnants of the aristocracy and retired politicians, or in your proposal "important stakeholders", once decided, the elected stakeholders will fight for their right to have their position in the house. Even if they aren't important anymore. They will be against change as the aristocracy has been in reality. Hence you need elections on just who are stakeholders. And what are "important stakeholders". For starters.
You have to design a system for the existing people ...those too that you don't like and oppose your political views. They'll participate, I guarantee you. One way or another.
I have answered you questions fully. My answers just don't fit your agenda, that's all. I am unconcerned about that. Brexit might have been a slightly better (but not much,) alley for you to wander down but party politics does not look good in any way, under the light of Brexit. Especially, when you have such opportunists at the centre of that issue, such as Boris Johnston, whose political stance was, is and always will be, for sale to the highest bidding plutocrat or organised group of plutocrats. Then we had even more seriously vile individuals, such as Dominic Cummings, who created a whole campaign of lies regarding the benefits of Brexit. We in Scotland voted 62% against Brexit, as creeps like Cummings are better understood here, imo.
Quoting ssu
It's nice that you are a Monty python fan, but you need to end your confusion about the connection between UK people, political comedy and the realpolitik of life in the UK under it's current abominable party political system.
Quoting ssu
If you are smart enough to understand that, then perhaps with a little more depth of thought, you will begin to see the benefits to the vast majority of the human species on this planet that the abandonment of party politics would have. No more presidents or prime ministers, they are just surplus to human requirements, imo.
Quoting ssu
The basics of the structure of second chamber I am trying to describe to you, would not be an 'upper house,' in any sense of the term. It is a check and a balance to the first chamber or the sitting government. That is its main mission. In the system I advocate for, there would be no titled people and no monarchy. These are embarrassing, ridiculous, outdated notions. Would you bow to some dickhead who had the title King? :rofl:
I would not. I would also offer zero respect to any title such as lord, duke, duchess, dame, count, sir knight or any other such utter crap. I would legislate all such titles to the oblivion they should have been sent to after the English civil war. There would therefore be no such creatures as aristos, in the second chamber. I am not proposing anything that looks like or functions like the current UK house of lords, so stop conflating my proposed second chamber with that toilet/useless house of a privileged few.
You are correct that the current nefarious rich and privileged groups, will not approve of my suggested changes to the current party political system, but with all due respect ssu, the words I underlined, in the above quote from you, seem to be another 'no shit Sherlock,' moment for you.
That's pretty much what a constitution is. The constitution must include an amending formula to accommodate changes that are deemed necessary later on. Once you have a constitution in place, even if it contains some unavoidable compromises, governance can proceed. (I suspect there would be minimal support in the constitutional congress for a ministry of silly walks. But I suppose it's worth proposing, to replace the Paymaster general's office.)
However the constitutional congress is assembled (referendum, I suppose, but have no ready proposal for the questions - well - one: should animal rights be included? ), it could do worse than take its lead from the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Quoting universeness
Could you please rename, without rescinding, the honours bestowed on persons who contributed to culture and human welfare?
Quoting ssu
Why? What is left to fight for, once you've been recognized and represented?
I love your question. I love it when I have to question what I think and feel.
Quoting Vera Mont
That is a pretty good explanation of why I want to avoid "love".
There came a time in my life when I realized respect is much more important than love. Abusive people can "love" those they abuse and this would not happen if they respected the other person and didn't feel justified in being abusive. I got this from a couple of guys I lived with and their military understanding of respect. Somehow I had lost awareness of the reasoning for respect that I grew up with. Perhaps it was all those dopey songs about love and hormones that led to intimate behaviors and our Puritan thinking about morality. Like it isn't sinful if it is love, right? So we take the abuse and take the abuse because we "love" the abuser. :vomit: Only humans will stay in bad relationships because of the concept of love.
Compassion is also important. The golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do to you. I would not have taken in the man I took in last winter, except, I thought that could be me and how awful would be if I could not figure out how to get housing or get assistance and no one helped me. By the way, this man had a major stroke and is now in long-term care, unable to communicate or get out of bed.
Back to love. Love is a feeling and feelings change and change. We should not base our decisions on our emotions.
In one of Kurt Vonnegot's novels, that I don't have time to look up right now, he says "What the world needs in not more love but more common decency."
Oh my goodness, I think it is high time for the US to clean up its Congress and get real about aging. I do not see how our present system can not be corrupt! Our presidency is limited to two terms and certainly, that should apply to all of those sitting in elected offices. This should also go with stronger rules for serving the people rather than serving one's self. Kick out the Industrial and foreign lobbyist and their gifts. We should not be ruled by those who can be bought.
Would that include all media decision-making?
I do not think our freedom of speech means the freedom to say anything we want because it would include immoral speech. A moral is a matter of cause and effect. If the effect is bad, it is immoral. A lack of morals leads to anarchy and that is not tolerable so it becomes a police state.
The only way to have a moral society that is not does have authority over the people, is education for good moral judgment. That is education that transmits a culture where liberty is not harmful. The education teaches, that we defend our liberty by obeying the laws and if we think the law is wrong, it is our duty to take the action to change the law.
That's a longish stride from moral and immoral speech. I was there when it was considered highly immoral to mention homosexuality and perfectly acceptable to feature blackface in a performance. Morality is as suspect in my book as brotherly love. But I think we can agree on a standard of public discourse - so long as everyone has an equal share in decisions-making.
And my questions are:
1) How are these stakeholder groups decided?
2) Once decided, can these stakeholder groups be changed? And when, in what time? When some stakeholders aren't anymore "important stakeholders", just like the aristocracy.
Quoting Vera Mont
I assume that like the aristocracy, some stakeholders become less important and don't have the earlier importance to have a constitutional say on legislation. But they themselves likely will see themselves as important and worthy of the "stakeholder" position.
1) By plebiscite would be my choice.
2) Amendment to the constitution; at least 2/3 majority.
3) I doubt regions and genders will become obsolete anytime soon. I don't know who the other 'stakeholder' groups are; if they were listed earlier, I've forgotten.
Quoting ssu
How would any one or two representatives have more or less say in a democratic decision? Why would any particular stakeholder group be more or less important than another? It's nothing like the aristocracy you seem so concerned about.
Political parties should have to be frightened that they really lose it, all of it, not wait just for some time (perhaps in a lucrative think-tank job or working for the private sector) until the electorate is so disenchanted with the other party that they vote for them again.
Now in the both American parties have this rigid career path of being just loyal and waiting for one's turn. And in the end, you have things like this:
You know, what comes to mind are the Soviet Politbyro members of the Brezhnev time, waiving from the Kremlin (or above Lenin's tomb) during some parade:
Such vitalism, such energy to confront and solve the present and future problems of the socialist experiment in the picture above.
In my view giving the military a "stakeholder" status wouldn't be a good decision, as obviously the military and the police are part of the executive branch, hence the proposal goes against the Montesquieu's separation of powers. From their role of being the armed forces of the country they have already enough say in government's actions, they don't need to have a direct say on legislation in the process of making laws.
Quoting Vera Mont
The person that decides just who has "important stakeholder" position can decide who rules. If you leave it for the voters to decide, then there has to be a proposal on what the people vote. You simply cannot ask the voter to invent themselves a list of what are "important stakeholders". Hence if universeness gave to various industries (I assume here the workers) stakeholder properties, then obviously the trade unions would have a large say.
Quoting ssu
There is no 'of course' about that. Is there an executive branch? Who put the military and the police under a single jurisdiction, anyway? Last I heard, police served individual municipalities, townships or states/provinces/counties. Since the proposal universeness tabled eliminated nation-states to begin with
Quoting universeness
So I don't even know what this military stakeholder is, unless it's a global peacekeeping force, like police, to prevent regional warring. If it's that, it would come under the justice department, as might police forces also. I'm not sure the arrangements and chains of command have been fully worked out.
As far as I can see, the inter-regional legal body should be represented in the second house, to make sure any new legislation doesn't conflict with standing agreements. The individual troops and police personnel would, of course, still have their votes, one to each rookie, one to each general.
Quoting ssu
You seem utterly hung up on "important", as you were earlier on famines as the sole indicator of poverty.
Nobody "rules"!!! No group is more important or less important or has more say or less say. Is that really so hard to understand?
Quoting ssu
That's the definition of democracy, yes. In the very unlikely event that the representatives are deadlocked and the second house can't come up with a viable adjustment on a particular issue, then, yes, the next step would be direct democracy.
Quoting ssu
Not necessarily just the workers - of whom there are not so many as to require a trade union; since most of the labour is carried out by robots, the human workforce consists of supervisors, engineers, designers, planners, programmers, troubleshooters. However, the communications industry, or energy production or healthcare may have particular needs and problems of which the average elected representative is unaware. If those sectors are represented in the second house, they can suggest changes to a proposed legislation which involves their area of expertise.
If you stop thinking in terms of the cruddy old world order, you might more positively contribute to a fresh new vision.
Usually there is. Or was the question if in universeness idea there would be. I'm not sure about that, ask him.
Quoting Vera Mont
The military and the various police departments don't a) pass the laws or b) act as judges in the courts themselves. But they are under control of usually the administration, the president or prime minister. That's the idea in separation of powers and the different branches.
As I said to universeness, putting an institution like the military also having a say in passing the laws isn't a good idea in my view.
Yes, KBE, OBE, CBE etc, to be replaced with the NCA (National Citizenry Award). ICA(same but international), GCA (Global citizenry award) and perhaps even the GOD. Grand Order of ....... Democracy (I am sure I could come up with a better 'D.' :chin: ) I just so want to have a GOD award, perhaps even as a way to compete/combat the theist notion of GOD, by having many humans who can correctly state that they have also gained an award with the same name. :lol:
I will respond to the other posts by yourself, @ssu and @Athena tomorrow.
I'm happy with that one. Maybe for solving some problem related to climate change or mitigating its effects - a big service to all the world, that a half-decent god would have performed but failed to.
Quoting ssu
I'm well aware of what the present American system is - in theory. If you wish to discuss that, fine, but I wasn't. I was responding to criticisms of univerness' proposal, which is not the current norm.
Quoting ssu
Why? They're the ones who have to enforce the laws. Do you want them just to follow idiotic orders from some politician with an axe to grind, the way they have been doing? One hopelessly bogged-down, costly, destructive war after another? AND AGAIN - WHY?
Because now you are putting the enforcers also work as legislators.
When the military has a bigger role in politics, just look at the consequences in Egypt, or Sudan, or Myanmar.
There is a true reason just why separation of powers is important for democracies to work and it's surprising that you seem to think that this is irrelevant or unimportant. Civilian control of the military is important. But now, when you constitutionally give the military the power legislative power, it does matter. It's one matter for the military to ask for those tax dollars to invest, it's another thing when the are taking part of deciding just who or what gets tax dollars in general.
Quoting Vera Mont
If the political leadership wants to start a truly idiotic war, then I guess they have to go through a lot of generals until they find the yes-man they want. Again typical what has happened in history.
And if you are referring to the US, then the reason is that as the sole Superpower, it simply has the capability to go off in idiotic wars where other countries are simply uncapable of doing: absolutely no other country could fight a war like in Afghanistan without having it's border next to it. In the end (when the US had lost support of all of the countries around Afghanistan), the US was airlifting everything from Romania to Afghanistan! No other country can fight an insurgency in a country of the size of Afghanistan and airlift everything there.
The UN is such an important international step towards global unity but it needs a complete overhaul. The fact it exists at all, demonstrates the wish humans have to elevate the priority of cooperation, way way above the priority of competition, imo.
I think humans need to utterly reject that stupid term from theism. Sin does not exist!!!!!!!
If a person does not accept the existence of god(s) then it is not possible to go against it morally.
If humans break any aspect of secular moral code or human law then they have broken our laws or went against our moral codes, not non-existent gods. Godless humans cannot sin!
In my exchange with @Vera Mont regarding the love label, it becomes clear that it's an over-burdened label. I think you have acted often, in support of the well-being of strangers and that shows that you have a great capacity for compassion towards your fellow human beings. You should be awarded the NCA (if it existed,) in my opinion.
Yes, this is foundational to establishing good governance.
Quoting ssu
Quoting Vera Mont
Vera has already offered you answers to your questions. I would add, for detail:
The majority of stakeholder groups would be obvious, under the two broad categories of worker group and social group. The initial stakeholder groups would be proposed by academics and a maximum number established, so that the second chamber is not so big that a stakeholder group rep size of two, remains significant and is not overwhelmed. The population would then vote by order of priority of which of the list of proposed stakeholder groups should become established.
Let's take the construction field as an example. So, plumbers, bricklayers, plasterers, painters, electricians, architects, labourers, steel erectors, scaffolders, joiners etc, etc. These folks would elect one male and one female rep from the candidates standing for election to the second chamber for a 4 year period, for that group.
Some folks in the construction field, will also be between 16 and 21 and some will be LGBTQ+, so they will be able to personally vote, 3 times for 6 reps overall.
The construction field is becoming more and more automated, so I think that a 'minimum membership' would be established for a proposed stakeholder group. So, yes, established stakeholder groups can change. This 'cut off' number would probably be established by consideration of the size of the average size of the most obvious stakeholder groups that would be established initially. We would then be left with 'minority' groupings. I would suggest that these could be joined, until their joining passes the minimum requirements for two reps in the second chamber.
The biggest concern I have with the abandonment of the current party political systems, is the structure, function and power wielded by a still essential civil service. I still think a lot about how to establish the vital checks and balances, that would be vital to establish, for any permanent worker in the civil service.
These people would be soooooooo important to the daily work of the first and second chambers and they would have a lot of influence. My main thought at the moment is that I would automate as much of their role as possible. What do you think about this area @Vera Mont?
I agree with the very real problem you cite but your solution would exacerbate the problem, not solve it.
In the UK, you even have such ridiculous waste of everyone's time, such as 'the monster raving looney party' standing for election. Americans wont vote for a 3rd party because they hate the other tribe so much that they, quite understandably, want all their warriors to face down the main enemy directly, when they are needed most and not go off to support some other 'little tribe,' who have no ability to win the fight alone, but can give victory to the enemy, as they took too many of your warriors away from the main fight.
This BS must end. The way to end it, is to offer the voters independent reps to vote for, based on their personal political stances and not based on a party manifesto, with a well established, tradition and ossified hierarchy. Vote for a person, not a party!!!!
No more national political campaigns, full of political soundbites, cults of personality, damn lies and fake news. All campaigning would be restricted to the local constituency you are standing in. All televised debates would be local. No central party HQ's and no massive party political fundraising events allowed.
Quoting ssu
Quoting ssu
You keep offering evidence of how broken party political systems are but also, you keep rejecting new proposals. Why do you insist in trying to defibrillate an already dead but still deadly system?
Quoting ssu
Quoting Vera Mont
Unions exist to protect workers rights against the nefarious actions of capitalist profiteers. They would hopefully no longer be needed in a resource based economy. As long as they do exist, they would not be able to dictate who their members should vote for as reps for the second chamber but a standing candidate could be an ex-union official.
The military and the police contain workers. The military and the police are made up of humans, so they must be represented in the second chamber, or else your notion of democratic representation is farcical imo.
Quoting Vera Mont
:clap: :clap: Quoting ssu
No, I do not advocate the separation of state into these often competing insular branches, who are supposed to cooperate but rarely do. I would advocate for bringing these sub-systems much closer together so that they work in tandem and compliment and reinforce each other. At the moment they are open to individual isolation and corruption. It is unacceptable that some sitting f***wit president can affect the balance of the supreme court in the USA. Checks and balances should never allow such. It is also unacceptable that a criminal such as Trump should ever have been able to achieve election as president of America, via the collusion of the powerful elites controlling the now completely toxic GOP.
Never forget two important lessons from history that we should all know well by now, but yet the Americans who voted for Trump still fell for both of them or/and some knew fine well what they were voting for:
1. You can fool some of the people all of the time. (mostly attributed to Lincoln)
2. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” - Joseph Goebbels.
We must do a lot better at combatting these very serious threats to human governance via the democratic consent of the people. How will you protect us from 1 and 2 above ssu? More party based, tribal rooted competitive politics? The very recipe that encourages and facilitates 1 and 2 above and eventually allows such to be realised?
No, No, No, No, No! I am not suggesting we give such power to the military, they would have representation in the second chamber but two reps for the military and two reps for the police does not give them a majority in the second chamber! Stop exaggerating my suggestions ssu!
Really???
From wiki:
Afghanistan is a mountainous landlocked country at the crossroads of Central and South (Southern) Asia. Some of the invaders in the history of Afghanistan include the Maurya Empire, the ancient Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great of Macedon, the Rashidun Caliphate, the Mongol Empire led by Genghis Khan, the Timurid Empire of Timur, the Mughal Empire, various Persian Empires, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and most recently the United States.
Oh, I really like that comparison!
Yeah. They do the killing and dying. They ought to have a say in what for. Helps if they actually know the purpose of their actions, too, rather than just carrying out political assholity directed by old farts in safe bunkers. You're allergic to the notion of soldiers and cops not being automata? OK; make and entirely robot army of enforcers.
Quoting ssu
Oh, I don't know... Putin's is quite idiotic enough. Great Britain has been known to indulge in some spectacular wastage of human life. Japan was no slouch at having at the Chinese population, and China's gearing up to the next idiotic superpower. It's really past time they were all abolished.
Quoting ssu
You haven't heard a word univerness and I said, have you?
You do understand that this is the way that the two parties hold on to power: the other side is so bad, so evil, that you have to vote for us, because otherwise they will win. And Americans do take play along: they back their side whatever it takes. Never they will be critical about the party that they vote, because then they seem to be giving their finger to devil, or just more ammo to the assholes on the other side. The present political polarization is a way to uphold the present system.
I'm not worried about the civil service. It's largely free of party politics already, except at the very top, where political patronage helicopters in incompetent (in some case, inimical) ministers and directors who then disrupt the function of an agency. Simply make the civil service politics-proof by giving each agency autonomy to run itself. Then make it democratic: have department heads elected by the workers in that department and the chief executive elected by the entire agency. They know who the best leaders are.
Remember, too, that without money - no patronage or kickbacks - you only attract people who actually want to perform that service.
Back after doing some chores.
Of course
Have you watched shows such as 'yes minister/yes prime minister,' 'the West Wing,' and 'the thick of it?'
I realise that 'yes minister/yes prime minister,' and 'the thick of it,' are UK comedies, but their satirical approach and the parody they depicted was considered by many, to quite accurately and horrifically depict the power wielded by those in the civil service. I think such was also clear in the West wing series. I do think the potentially powerful levers, open to abuse by experienced permanently employed individuals within the civil service, would have to be countered. I accept your important comment about the removal of money, as a driver for bad behaviour would help a lot, but as you yourself stated earlier, power addiction and/or individual aberrations in mental pathology/psychopathology, can also be drivers of bad behaviour.
Not quite so. Last I heard, there were 54 registered political parties in the disUnited States. What happens in presidential elections is that the minority parties drop out early, since they're regional and/or not rich enough to compete, so they throw their support to one of the giants. What choice do the voters have, but to go along with what they perceive as the lesser of two available evils. Of late, hate propaganda - predominantly and sometimes unilaterally from the right (What some fairandbalanced commentators tell you about "both sides" is not what I've witnessed.) has played a disproportionate role in American politics. There has always been some vulgar sloganeering, flag-flapping and hoopla, but hasn't traditionally been rife with death-threats.
The first two yes; the last, I've not heard of, but will look for
Quoting universeness
Not really. They are quite good illustrations that, in the present system of rewards, those at the very top of an agency can fulfill their ambition by undermining an elected party hack's policy decision - and in some cases, pulling said hack's chestnuts out of the fire. A good deal of the machinations, too, are about funding and expansion, which are moot points in a resource-based economy. None of them depict the body of the civil service; all the people beavering away in cubicles, behind counters listening to complaints and stamping forms, driving snowploughs at 5am, or trying to wean welfare moms off crack.
Those programs, and I can also recommend Madame Secretary along with both versions of House of Cards, are very good illustrations of why the old system has to go.
I think this sums up our exchange with ssu pretty well!
Quoting ssu
It's you that does not seem to fully grasp the total failure of party politics, in every country that employs it.
Your suggested solution so far, is to have more political parties, smaller ones. We could arrive at the same solution here. All you have to do is keep reducing the size of your notion of what constitutes a political party, to a political party with a maximum membership of 1. 650 of them could then form the next UK government. Then we would have a common cause ssu!!!! :grin:
In the background on my tv at the moment is a horrific BBC News story titled:
BBC news: 'Rise in children forced into sexual exploitation'
It is a very harrowing report about people in Mombasa, Kenya asking/compelling their own children to sell themselves sexually so that the family can buy food. Some kids depicted are 14 or younger.
There are not enough expletives in English to express how angry this makes me.
All this utter crap is because of the money trick and the intrigue caused by party politics means that governments just utterly fail to sort such unacceptable circumstances quicky and permanently. You did not answer this question ssu:
Quoting universeness
How will you stop such situations such as the one currently being reported from Mombasa Kenya?
Is that another question you will just ignore, because the children of Finland are not experiencing such .......... at least for now!
Every day, in every way, capitalism makes everything better and better.
I think you would enjoy 'the thick of it,' its much more raw and harder hitting than Yes Minister, very funny to, in the same cringy way that 'the office,' in the UK, with Ricky Gervais was funny. They made an American version of 'the office' with Steve Carell. I assume you have watched some of that:
I remain 'uncomfortable,' with the current checks and balances placed on top civil servants in particular and on all civil servants in general, but I also accept than no political system will be anywhere near perfect. We can however, certainly do far far better than the current party political system.
Yeah I have saw some advertisements for 'madam secretary,' it looks good. I watched some episodes of house of cards, the original UK series, many years ago, with Ian Richardson, playing Francis Urquhart. Ian's sinister delivery of the great lines he was given were excellent enough for me to still be able to recall some of them. Two examples below:
I have not watched any of the American remake with Kevin Spacey.
Yeah I have heard commentators comment on many of the early stage votes in America, being assigned to other parties, based on their stances on individual issues, but it all comes to nothing as the stages move on as you describe. Sounds like a broken system to me. If the early stages of vote distribution, demonstrates clearly, how issue by issue politics is soon subsumed and overwhelmed by party political tribalism, then the glaring problems with such party based systems, cannot be more clearly demonstrated, imo.
I love your argument.:heart: What is going on here? In other forums arguments are terrible but here the arguments are so mentally stimulating and fun! I guess maybe that is because the people who are here understand the limits of a point of view and enjoy questioning what they think as much as I do.
I totally get the change in morality and that is why we must make these arguments without attacking each other. The progressive mind expects change, whereas the conservative mind may resist change and can not explore why yesterday this __________ was okay and today it is not.
Okay about homosexuality, sex was taboo. I don't care what a person's preferences were, sex was for studs who could be manly and force themselves on women, and a good woman was a pure woman, untouched by a man. Bad girls did it but not good girls. Oh my, we had so many sexual problems back in the day and in some countries, the sexual issues are still terrible!
So how is talking about our sexuality okay today? Power. Does anyone want to talk about what power has to do with our sexuality? We could create a thread for that and a thread for our changing morality about blackface entertainment. Moral, is a matter of cause and effect. When the consequences are good it is moral. If the consequences are bad it is immoral. What does this have to do with democracy?
Yes... um.. OK, some of it was funny, but I didn't stick around for long. I also saw a bit of the UK version, back when Ricky Gervaise was funny, before success in the States swelled his head to the size of a dirigible.
Quoting universeness
Remember that in your new world order, without having to administer, allocate and fight over money, the entire civil service will be pared down to fewer departments, each with far fewer offices and white collar workers. Train people well who are willing to take on the challenges of environment cleanup, education, healthcare and disease prevention, food and shelter allocation, disaster relief, infrastructure maintenance, etc. and let them vote for their own leaders. I promise they'll the choose the most knowledgeable and competent; the ones who are least likely to get them killed or make them repeat tedious tasks unnecessarily.
I have the series Madame Secretary on DVD and plan to watch it from the beginning when I'm up to it. There is a lot of international awfulness in that one, as well as the usual political infighting.
The UK version of House of Cards is a little dated now, but for quality of dramatic production, hard to beat. The US version, with Kevin Spacey (whatever else he may be, the guy could act rings around most stars) and the magnificent Robin Wright, was protracted to ever more Byzantine episodes - good show, all the same.
Quoting universeness
No guff! Rapidly sinking into Civil War Part II, even more ignominious than the first one.
Under a world government, the US would probably become 8 or 9 regional jurisdictions, with free movement of people across the borders, until everyone finds the neighbourhood that most nearly suits them, and that they can influence in its further development. Canada might be 5 or 6 regions, each with stakeholder representation for the first nations within its boundaries.
The fact that good for one group is very often bad for another. If the majority is happy in the power of a patriarchy, they'll censor anything that threatens or appears to threaten that power-structure. Patriarchy is naturally dictatorial and monolithic; any lifestyle or view that fails to support that is targeted for elimination. On a large scale of the father slapping the child who asks a pertinent question.
Whatever demeans and disenfranchises Black people reinforces the power and superiority of white people, which White people perceive as being good for themselves and therefore moral.
When there is a wider distribution of ethnicities in a reasonably secure economic condition and they all have the same democratic voice, the majority begins to see that inclusion, tolerance and equal opportunity is actually good for all of them, and that affording respect to people who are unlike themselves reduces friction and conflict in their communities, which is good for their children.
A relatively uncorrupted democracy tends to move in the direction of socialist ideas. That's why government by the megarich and their lackeys resort to the most backward systems of oppressive thought, belief and morality.
Because not all party political systems are braindead or not working. But I guess you will not hear anything about it in your hate of political parties.
a) If political parties do give the respect to others that in a democracy you should have. This is possible when the parties have to create coalition administrations. When they need to form coalition administrations, the relations towards other parties have to be civil or somehow cordial. This makes the discourse rather boring, but it doesn't lead to polarization.
b) Political movements need to come and go. Once they lose their reason, they just being in power isn't enough.
c) And finally, I'm not so sure if your insistence of banning political parties will do the trick. Still politicians will group, form coalitions and groups.
Quoting universeness
Yes, really.
In earlier times you simply gathered a large force that then by pillaging the countryside for food roamed forward and this way Alexander the Great or the Mongol Empire came to Afghanistan.
Modern warfare is a bit different.
I disagree that is impossible to put an end to the two party system. Simple adopt the Australian voting system.
I especially like being able to vote for several candidates by numbering your preferences, so if the first person you vote for does not win, your vote goes to the next one. For years I would have voted for people who are neither democrat nor republican if that didn't mean risking the worst person winning the election. I think most of us in the US are voting against the other guy, not for someone. I hate our system. My state is testing the Ranked-choice voting.
So do I. But Americans simply have to understand that the present system can totally change, and actually quite quickly. The naive thing is to think that it's the Presidential election where you could have someone not being either a Democrat or a Republican that can change things. Nope, change starts from the communities and the states and also the federal level. And it's possible.
Whatever for? In a moneyless, wealth-free society, what does anyone have to gain by being 'a politician' in the first place? It's just a service to perform: no kickbacks, no corporation boards to retire into, no well-paid speech circuits, no secret service bodyguard and nobody gives a damn how many cardboard boxes of old correspondence you keep in your bathroom, because nobody's going to set up a library for them.
Thank you for your argument. I see things differently. :lol: Sometimes I think I was an alien who got stuck on Earth because my UFO had mechanical problems.
I have zero problem with thinking sin is a matter of ignorance. I am out of time. Mostly my thinking on this matter is Cicero and when I get time I will find Cicero quotes that I believe are essential to understanding morals and democracy.
Ignorant people can and do sin. Their ignorance is a lack of consciousness because when they know they are doing wrong, their conscience bugs them. We are programmed to do the right thing and to feel bad when we don't but most of the time we are ignorant of why we should do this and not that. We really do not understand the importance of truth!
We are destroying our planet and sooner or later we will have to deal with the truth. I think most of the world is having to deal with the truth, but they are in denial, while they flee floods, hurricanes, and fires.
Logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe. A better understanding of God than what mythology gives us. Mother Nature will do things her way and we better figure out how she does things and learn to live with her. Truth is very important and so is living in harmony with nature very important.
Great way to say that: I agree, a moneyless society is genuinely and literally wealth free. Poverty is abundant and people can often experience a famine. :up:
And you really don't have anything to gain in being a politician in that kind of situation.
(The Soviets tried that first, the moneyless society, and they failed and then Lenin had to resort to NEP for the Marxist-Leninist experiment to survive.)
Much of the world, including the US, has its head so far up its own ass in denial, you have to wonder whether the species is viable at all.
Do you have the slightest notion what resource-based economy means?
Yes, I agree that we see some things quite differently. I think you assign some value to that which may be labelled mysticism, the transcendent, the numinous, the esoteric, the 'spiritual' or perhaps even the the theosophistic. I assign zero value to such notions. If I used a word like 'spiritual,' I would use it to mean, human functional movement which results in breathing and therefore living, the 'animated/dynamic/moving human.' Nothing more woo woo than that, but that description is exciting enough, so no woo woo notions are needed, for a human to enjoy and celebrate the fact that they are alive and are animated. I don't see why any woo woo notion would make a person more excited about being alive than I am, imo.
Quoting Athena
I am sorry Athena but I could not disagree with you more, on this important point.
Ignorant people, defined as 'people who have learned very little in their life,' are people who are manipulated and abused by vile notions such as 'sin.' This word is commonly defined as:
"an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law"
For all atheists, there is no divine law. It's existence is an utter lie and the best evidence for that, is divine hiddenness. In comparison with the crimes of god, as described in the bible or the crimes of characters like Mohammed as described in the Quran, I am totally sinless. I am convinced I am sinless anyway, as it is not possible to perform an immoral act considered to be a transgression against non-existent divine law.
Quoting Athena
I try not to anthropomorphise nature in such ways, although I do fall into these old traps often.
Nature has no gender or sex. It is very important to understand the workings of our planet, for the sake of the survival of our species. We both agree on that I think. You just choose to invoke more 'esoteric,' anthropomorphised images to do so, compared to me.
Quoting Athena
Your first quote above imo, should be used by @Jamal to promote TPF.
Your second quote is is very well put, and makes me feel a little regretful that I just posted an attack on you personally :yikes: for your willingness to accept the use of the word 'sin ,' as an accusation against humans, ignorant or otherwise. :grimace:
That's the direction of travel I would prefer, but as I suggested earlier, I think automation could help greatly reduce the opportunity for personal abuse of the civil service system by long term, experienced participants.
Sure: they'll be directing and overseeing machines to do much of the work. But humans still have to be at the fire or flood or evacuation to direct the equipment and instruct the people and comfort the victims. I honestly don't see what, in the absence of money, they would be tempted to abuse.
Again, you exaggerate. Hate is a very strong term that I would not choose to use against anyone who is a member of a political party or against a particular political party, merely because it exists. I would apply the term to extreme right wing members of political parties or towards such political parties just for existing. This hatred would be strongest against fascist political people or parties. So, there is some truth to your accusation but you do so exaggerate at times!
Quoting ssu
Wow! I think I will quit while I seem to be ahead here ssu. That's the closest to common cause I think I am going to achieve with you/from you, in this exchange. You are at least giving me some hope that your view on maintaining the current party political national systems is not ossified and carved on stone tablets. :up:
Are you rejecting out of hand, my earlier suggestion of:
Quoting universeness
Sometimes people do bad things just because they get a big thrill from 'getting away with it all.'
That reminds me of a song by the band 'James' that I used to have on repeat, when I came home pissed and alone from a good night out, feeling a tad melancholy. I am not sure if the words can be imagineered into the topics we are currently discussing on this thread but ...... what's an important exchange of ideas without a small musical break or two. :chin:
That applies to the general population. Less, if there is a reasonable standard of living, no big disparities and liberal education with fewer bad influences on the young. I don't see it disproportionately affecting people who have voluntarily, without promise of material reward, opted to put their skills at service of society.
Thing is: when you change the underlying principles by which a society operates, you change everything: the dynamics, the opportunities, the relationships, the assumptions and motivations of the populace.
In a well-functioning society, you simply don't get so many malfunctioning people. The child who is aggressive or destructive or deceitful is spotted early by the day-care provider or elementary teacher, discussed with the parents, referred to appropriate counselling or given the appropriate medical care. An adult who exhibits antisocial behaviour is likewise noted and restrained from harming others or himself, with good luck, in time to forestall criminal acts, or with bad luck, arrested. We wouldn't wait till he killed 18 schoolchildren before we noticed that something is wrong.
I hope I understand you correctly. Before things will change, we need to know there is another way. How many people do you think are aware of other ways of doing things than the way they have always done them. Maybe especially so in the US the belief that the way we do things is the best possible way so their minds are totally closed to knowing anything else is possible. Making matters worse is that increasingly people are feeling disenfranchised and they believe they are powerless to make things be as they think they should be. Their world is very small as they know only their own experience of life and in defense against rapid changes they have no power over, they intentionally isolate themselves or believe they are part of a political party and go along with their party without thinking.
I don't know what I think until I start writing. I am not sure but I think circumstances have us in a bad place right now. We need strong leaders who help us see there is a better way and that we can make a difference. There have been periods of rapid change in history and the unrest and uncertainty led to chaos until adjustments are made. Hum, :chin: a time or two civilizations have collapsed because they could not make necessary adjustments.
I can't believe you said that! :rofl: Well, yes, that is what I was thinking.
More every day. There are lots of books out on alternative living; there are intentional communities based on a different principle; there is a tiny house movement, people learning to do things for themselves, eating local food, conserving water, pooling resources, teaching one another -- there's lots going on that you never hear about, because somebody doing something sensible is not as scary or tearjerky and therefore not as newsworthy as somebody deliberately running other people down with an SUV and buying fresh food at the farmers' market is not as emotionally cathartic as turning $15 worth of cut flowers into garbage on a sidewalk.*
(* It's a pet peeve of mine, all those bouquets, teddy bears and stupid mylar balloons piled up at the scene of every minor atrocity.)
:brow: You say what?! How do we know truth? :chin: I think that might require the scientific process, but not all things can be processed scientifically because they are personal experiences and feelings. Then we have to rely on communication and reasoning. Our technological society is running very short on the ability or willingness to do that.
I am hoping, that understanding Daniel Kahneman's explanation of two different thinking modes will improve our ability to reason.
I am really curious about why you associate my writing with mysticism? For sure there are many things that mystify me but I don't think that is what you mean. As for numinous, I do enjoy spirituality but I do not think of myself as separate from spiritual reality. The spiritual feeling arises in me when I walk along the river or sit on the beach. As the ancient Greeks, I think beauty is very important to us and good music. I think we need to nurture our spiritual being because our mental and physical health depends on it. An evening of watching police and forensic shows is not my idea of a good way to take care of myself and I have come across the science that says so. :lol: Unlike Socrates, I do think I know a few things, but what I know is very little compared to what I do not know.
Quoting universeness
Ah yes, but what is divine law? Is something bad because the gods say it is bad or do the gods say is bad because it is bad?
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Divine_law
Divine law is any body of law that is perceived as deriving from a transcendent source, such as the will of God or gods – in contrast to man-made law or to ...
?Citations · ?References[/quote]
It is not so because the gods make it so, it is so because of logos, and to know logos is to know science and even the gods had to surrender to logos. Now if you want to prove to yourself you can fly close to the sun with your wings made of wax and feathers, you can do so, but know this, the heat of the sun will melt the wax and you will fall to the earth and die. This is not because the gods make it so, but because that is the way the universe works. Nothing can rile me faster than denying the reality of universal law or equating universal law with the gods. That denial is to not know reality. Go ahead and fly into the sun and test it for yourself. No amount of praying or burning candles and chanting will change logos. It is what it is.
Quoting universeness
Okay, you got on that one. I do love my relationship with the Mother Goddess. I am she, you know. Hum, I don't know what words to use to explain my pleasure of thinking in Mother Goddess terms, but I wonder if men get this wonderful feeling when they identify with a male God? However, you are right that I do not think of the Goddess as a manifest reality. I am strongly matriarchical, and when I speak of the Mother Goddess, I am thinking of values and my own identity. Historically she did not punish her children as the God of Abraham punishes his children. She also does not help them. She does her own thing and leaves her children to do our own thing, and if we eat poison, or destroy the planet, oh well, she isn't going to clean up the mess we make, so we darn well better figure how things work and do the right thing. That is very, very important to me, and blending what I think with superstition can make me a little hysterical! Failing to know truth and do things right can have very bad consequences.
I really like what you said until the last thought. As I see it, those flowers, teddy bears, and balloons unite all of us. It is shared mourning and I am glad to be part of that. But I have rather odd notions. I enjoy feeling connected with the whole of humanity. I nurture this by learning as much as I can about history and the mothers around the world. Men, I think identify with their work, while traditionally women have identified as the caregivers. That is a kind of oneness that perhaps men do not share unless they do so as soldiers. The Veterans Administration takes care of its own and they have always done so. A few Roman generals made history by assuring those who fought with them were well cared for. While us women folk take action to assure all children are fed when they go to school. I think men are more willing to cough up the money for veterans but if it is women and children who need our help, that is socialism- a very bad thing.
Sorry, universeness got me hung up on wondering about how we identify with our gender. If I am off topic it is his fault. :wink:
Hum, culture is critical but who defines the culture? How does our gender and religion play into the culture?
Back to what you said, it gives me hope. There are as many good things happening as bad things, and maybe those bad things will pressure us to do more of the good things. :grin:
I like that! Some things were seen as bad by the very first people who can be considered human - and many of the same things are considered bad by species much older than humans. They're considered bad because they harm individuals, families, communities, their relationship with other communities or their environment. When humans finally came up with the notion of supernatural entities - not gods, at the outset; they came later - they would naturally believe that those entities considered the same things bad that they did themselves. So a few laws come down from the canines, the lemurs, the apes and early humans through the spokesmen of gods.
But a whole lot of other laws put into the hands (it's always a scroll or tablet or wall with whatever writing the humans of that culture used - funny coincidence, that!) of the gods were about things that some of us knew were not wrong or harmful but the men in charge didn't like. And we've been living with these obvious lies for 6000 years, just because they were written next to some truths we needed.
I define a sin as an act that leaves a blot on one's soul. For soul, you can read character, spirit, atman, conscience, or whatever you like that corresponds to one's essential self. You know when you've committed a crime, a misdemeanour, a faux pas or a sin, just as you know what needs to be done to atone for each. Logic is great, but it doesn't replace self-awareness.
Attending a candlelight vigil is shared mourning. A demonstration for better gun laws or a traffic light or control over rogue police is shared mourning. So are all those athletes dropping to one knee and wearing armbands. Putting flowers on a street unites nobody; it's an anonymous gesture, which doesn't require anything of the person making it but puts money in unconcerned pockets and it's a waste of resources.
That's a personal opinion, nothing more. Quoting Athena
That, too, may be changing (back to primitive times) with more women having meaningful careers and more young fathers bonding with their babies from birth onward.
The stratification of society has deformed us in so many ways that we're largely unaware of our unused dimensions and how a family unit ought to work.
Few if any! And that's the worst part of it. Just look at the history: People really wanted change after the Bush years and got Obama. Then other people really wanted change and we got Trump.
When that "Third Party" comes that finally wrecks the duopoly in the American political system, you are very lucky if it's something you can support. But likely it's a disaster and the incompetence of these totally new people can be seen. But that's not the point: the real point is that when both Democrats and Republicans find themselves either in the opposition or working in a coalition government, then they have to change. In many countries with stagnant political systems, when new parties finally come and win elections, do reforms and then years later people decide to vote for the old parties. Because many times the old parties still have competent politicians if the party isn't totally tarnished and politically dead.
And democracies can make huge mistakes, don't think otherwise. But you can learn from mistakes. The best example is the UK and it's Brexit. Just ask the British how well that has gone or look how popular the UKIP is now there. Brexit was such a huge disaster for the UK that all the euro-sceptics in the EU countries have really toned down their criticism.
How can self-awareness be increased? I think this needs to go with the awareness of others too. Racism blows me away because it is such an expression of unawareness of the other human being.
It makes me aware and includes me in the mourning even if it may not include you. I very much like the bicycle that is permanently on the corner where a bicyclist was killed. It keeps waking me up to the awareness of bicyclers and the need to be alert. And for the biker's loved ones, I am sure that memorial gives them comfort and that one life is not completely gone from our consciousness. I wish we would do more to remember the people worth remembering. At least one school memorialized a janitor who had been a part of the school for many years. I like that the memory of a janitor was honored.
Many truths in our lives are not shared truths because our individual experiences are not the same. Clearly how I experience life is not the same as others experience life. I think I have more of the forbidden spiritual experience. When I was young, during that time of the month, I would become hyper-sensitive, as though being extended beyond my physical form. I think there is a hormonal element to how we experience life.
I am sorry I am very aware of what happens in other countries. I do not any British people to ask about Brexit. I know US citizens are strongly opposed to one world government because they fear that would diminish their power to do as we do. Hum, that could make a delicious topic. Why is it so important that we have the freedom to do as want? What is gained if we give that up?
When it comes to learning from history the lesson that dominates my life is Hilter and the power of his charisma and how I see the same things happening in the US. The US adopted the German models of government and education for technology for military and industrial purposes and it is curious that we would imitate Germany and deny the changes in our culture, economics, and politics.
Every child learned of the American heroes and the American mythology that made us a united nation and a very moral nation. Today, Christians have taken credit for our democracy and we think God wants us to engage in wars against evil nations. And I have no idea what Trump and his followers think "Make America Great again" means. Without education for democracy, that is never going to happen and Trump is doing the same as Hitler did and his popularity keeps increasing as the legal battle with him continues. For sure Trump and his followers are in favor of isolating the US from the rest of the world.
In an adult, I suppose it must be internally motivated; I don't see how anyone can induce anyone else to examine their own thinking and assumptions. Unless they're referred by a court or marriage counsellor to some behaviour modification program.
In a child, it's the easiest thing in the world. We are an intensely self-preoccupied species: every baby is utterly absorbed in its own needs, sensations and perceptions. As the infant is socialized, as the toddler acquires language, its caregivers should pay attention and take an interest in what is being expressed, help the child articulate what it feels, what it thinks, how it reacts to things - and why. A little bit later, as its world expands, the child can be directed to regard others with the same attention. "What would you think in her place?" "What do you suppose the dog wants?" "Can you tell from his face how that little boy is feeling?" "Could you make up a story about this picture?"
What we mostly do instead is, "Mommy's busy, go play with your trucks." and "It's not polite to point." and "We don't talk about that kind of thing!" and "Don't play with those children!" "Because I said so." and worst of all, "God will punish you for thinking bad thoughts."
It's adults who discourage awareness in children, who close them off to ideas and insights.
Quoting Athena
That's an excellent memorial!
Nor have I any objection to plaques or markers at the scene of a shooting or accident, or someone's picture displayed in the lobby, or their tools left in situ in remembrance. A neighbour put up a little wooden cross on the verge where his dog had been run over and I used to put one of my wreaths on it from time to time. (JD was a very nice dog; it was a personal tribute.)
Very different from wilting flowers and sodden teddy bears piled on a streetcorner to call attention to the death of someone who might have disliked teddybears for all we know and been allergic to flowers. And mylar balloons are an abomination in any context. I find such wasteful effusion distasteful, just I find the news reporters shoving microphones in the weeping face of a bereaved mother for public consumption. The display itself is a minor bugbear of mine, not an actual issue - it's merely symptomatic of the gluttony for impersonal emotionalism, which I think is an issue for serious consideration.
All over the world! Quoting Athena Because you are a or the major world power. Nobody likes to give up power. (see white supremacists... or nazis). Many individual Americans have no power at all and very little freedom of action, even while their "leaders" shout slogans about liberty. (Even while some of their financial elite were active collaborators with the Reich, just as they presently collaborate with undemocratic, repressive governments.)
However, the nations that are dominated, bullied, oppressed and intimidated by major powers would have a great deal to gain. It's all in the perspective.
Ah, I got you. Wanting change and depending on someone else to change things, is like being a good Jew, Christian, or Muslim praying to God to fix things. In the 60s we said, "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem".
Quoting ssu
:chin: The topic of this thread is culture because there are two ways of having social order, culture or authority over the people. To have liberty and a strong nation, we must rely on culture. Authority over the people is not democracy. So now what is it that political people need to know and what are they supposed to do?
I believe that concept of power is a delusion because no group of humans no matter how create their numbers or their wealth and technology, that power is not the ultimate power. Above the gods and humanity is logos. Those who do not understand it correctly and live in harmony with it will eventually fail. Democracy is not rule by the powerful over the powerless. When correctly understood, democracy is rule by the people and for the people to rule successfully they must be well educated and capable of good moral judgment. Moral being a matter of cause and effect.
In history, Britain was able to exploit less advanced peoples, but Britain failed because they were thrown out of those countries. The US stepped in and tried to take the place of Britain and it is failing too. Let us hope this delusion and failure does not bring us to a nuclear world war.
That is a very interesting term. Is that mob rule? Being caught up in impersonal emotionalism. If it is impersonal, the individual is not responsible but caught up in the wave, no longer alone but part of the mass, as happened on January 6, 2021, when the US Capitol was attacked by Trump supporters. Those people who attacked the Capital were so happy to be a part of something bigger than themselves. I don't think any of them thought they could be held personally responsible.
That is exactly the mentality and emotionalism of the Nazis. Those tried for war crimes were shocked when they were held accountable for what they did. They thought of themselves as the good guys and part of something much bigger than themselves.
Your second quote is is very well put, and makes me feel a little regretful that I just posted an attack on you personally :yikes: for your willingness to accept the use of the word 'sin ,' as an accusation against humans, ignorant or otherwise. :grimace::lol: /quote]— universeness
:lol: I am glad I read this. I hate it when I make an ass of myself and I have not always been as courageous and honest as you. I have been listening to a long explanation of better communication and you have practiced a principle of better communication.
As for not accepting my use of a word, I am constantly in a battle with Grammarly. It tries to correct me constantly and that feeds my concern that this technology is a huge evil! It can not think conceptually and when I want to speak of a concept like "industry" or "education" it wants me to use "the". Grammarly wants to turn all concepts into tangible nouns. The horror is, what that does to our thinking when we think everything is a tangible thing, rather than an intangible concept. :lol: I was once banned from a science forum for using the word "God". The moderator could not get past "God" being a being instead of a concept such as logos. It is not a false God until you add mythology to it. Whatever, a large part of our communication/thinking problem is our understanding of words and tendency to think everything is a tangible reality instead of a concept or metaphysical matter and Grammarly is part of the problem!
Quoting Ben Taub
I am very excited because it sort of explains how my understanding of words is not the same as everyone else's. In the private world of my head, thoughts are arranged differently.
This leads to a lot of arguing and frustration. Hopefully, by learning better communication skills I can overcome the problem. :lol: Maybe someday instead of feeling like I landed from Mars, I will feel like I belong here and have a valued point of view.
If you say so... But logos doesn't catch the bombs before they hit Baghdad! Or redirect American investment from oil to clean drinking water. Or inform Americans that their freedom to do whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want will eventually fail through lack of correct understanding. And that's why they value their individual freedom over any collective benefit.
Quoting Athena
No, not at all! It's an ersatz sharing through media exposure and public display, to fill the void left by the lack of genuine connection with other people, which we crave, but have lost through suspicion and fear. I was talking about the overblown grief at the sites of tragedies.
The mob you're talking about was actually a poorly organized army. It was mustard, called up and deliberately and goaded into a specific action, after having been stoked, over generations, with resentment at fictional grievances and imaginary threats. That "rage" of the no-longer-privileged has been carefully nurtured by a succession of political and religious manipulators, continuously since 1865.
If panspermia is prove true then perhaps we all come from Mars. I can confirm that you do have valuable points of view. I think it's just that many many words are very over-burdened. Many words are also considered as 'strictly belonging to,' a particular umbrella subject. Spirituality is one of those words that is traditionally associated with theism or theosophism. Even though the etymology of 'spirit' is, 'breath'.
To be spiritual originally meant, to be alive, to breath and be animated. It had nothing to do with ghosts or gods.
You are right. Logos is the laws of nature that can not be violated without bad consequences.
Quoting Vera Mont
That is nuts! :rage: I am unsure of what you mean to communicate but I put that problem squarely on Christianity and believing in a god that can violate the laws of nature and be controlled by human behaviors such as reacting to human rights and wrongs. We are so vain, deluded, and ignorant. That is not logos, the laws of the universe.
Education in the US was based on an understanding of logos and what men like Plato and Cicero said, not the Bible or German philosophy. It is not Christianity that made America great, but the ancient world and those who came to us from the past.
Quoting Vera Mont
That is agreeable but not the whole story. The story is not complete without awareness of the harm done by well-meaning Christians who believe it is them and their god that made the US great and their interference with education as they worship a god who has favorites and blesses his favorites with slaves and wealth. It is an old problem starting with Judaism and a god telling them they can not be slaves because of their special relationship with Him, but they can owe someone their labor for 7 years and they can own slaves for life and their children will inherit them. This just gets their head in the wrong mindset and instead of acknowledging the wrong of such a belief, they use denial and counter statements such as we are all God's children. Rationalizing away much of what the Bible actually says.
Yeah! :grin: What you said is so agreeable to me. I remember spiritual concepts such as "He is in good spirits today". Meaning the man was happy. Sometimes the happiness was related to drinking spirits meaning he got drunk.
The Spirit of America and the Spirit of the West are portrayed as women leading the way forward. These are not beings but representations of concepts.
When I realized there is no Santa Claus I was unhappy with my mother for lying to me. She explained Christmas is a spirit, a feeling we have and it is real. For me being spiritual is about a feeling. We can nurture positive or negative feelings and happy or unhappy thoughts. That is actively being spiritual.
See US gun lobby/ gun laws/ mass shootings. See Munroe Doctrine. See the unending wrangle over health insurance. The argument against doing what's good for most people is: "Freeeedomm!!!!"
Quoting Athena
And the US is a christian country, formed and constituted and ruled in the Abrahamic tradition of might makes right. Plato did not sign the Declaration of Independence.
Like oh my God, I am White and I am all messed up and there is no one for me to blame for this. Well, I am female. I suppose I can blame men for oppressing me but now that women are "liberated" who can we blame?
Back to the topic of this thread- we need a culture that resolves more problems than it creates but when people want to maintain ethnic differences how can we achieve a culture that unites us? Boo hoo hoo, those ugly white people took me from my alcoholic mother and cared for me and put me in a White school where I was treat treated like one of them because they hatefully won't let me have the culture of alcoholism, rape, stealing, and self-pity. Help me with this. I am angry about all the divineness and victim mentality and the lack of identity with a multi-ethnic democracy and united effort to raise the human potential.
a...hem...That view is hugely conducive to Quoting Athena
I am sorry I do not know what you mean.
So am I! Profoundly.
It's an imbalanced statement Athena. Open to a great deal of perhaps misinterpretation.
Why do you use 'white people' in the context and imagery invocations you do?
Could this also be non-white people, rescuing white 'children' from white parents engaged in a culture of alcoholism, rape, stealing and self-pity? I assume you are not suggesting that skin colour has any influence at all, on culture? But the underlined words you typed above, could be misconstrued as such. Are you referring to that experienced by indigenous native American tribal peoples?
It's one of those songs that leave the interpretations of the lyrics to the listener but does set a definite base focus, as your words that I underlined above, indicate. My personal interpretation was a variation on yours. I took the song writers to be suggesting that the images they were invoking were accurate for many people but the fact they were 'getting away with it,' was 'messed up.' The writers could also have been admitting that this is what is 'messed up' about themselves and aspects of their own life experience, so far.
"Are you aching for the blade?" (are you violent, or attracted to violence or attracted to being the victim of violence?), "Are you aching for the grave?" (Do you have no fear of death, but in fact welcome it and don't give a flying f*** for anyone else life?)
"That's ok, were insured" (we have protections against such viewpoints.). "That's the living" (the way some people choose to be and choosing to live life as a curse, has a negative affect on us all).
"Daniels saving grace, she's out in deep water, hope he's a good swimmer"
Grace as a person Daniel is trying to save or grace imaged as a feminine aspect of Daniel, which is currently saving Daniel.
Whichever image you choose, that 'grace' is in trouble, as it is in deep water so, the writer hopes Daniel is a good swimmer and he and his 'grace' can mean, he can survive his own inner turmoil.
"Daniel plays his ace (life as a card game of chance), deep inside his temple (his mind or his place of worship). He knows how to serve her (his grace imaged as his feminine side, or saving grace, depicted as his 'ace' or best chance to serve that which is the best of himself.)
"Daniel drinks his weight. Drinks like Richard Burton. Dance like John Travolta. Now"
Oh, how familiar this line is for me. My youth spent doing exactly this, in the pubs and night clubs of Glasgow. I was also a good dancer and did very well, attracting female attention. My main two friends were also good looking guys and we did not often, go out to a night club without ending up going home with a girl. But, what did we achieve, absolutely nothing, shallow, hollow, but seemed fun at the time. Getting away with it all, but basically 'messed up.' That's why the way the lead singer Tim Booth emphasised and stretched the word 'Now,' a little, spoke so clearly to me, as pub and club escapism fun, is very much of the moment, and can seem very 'mis-spent,' when looking back. But, I do think that the reality is more nuanced, than such a conclusion would suggest.
"Daniels saving grace. He was all but drowning. Now they live like Dolphins."
I always considered this as a 'hopeful' ending to the cautionary tale. But I never had a satisfactory personal interpretation of 'live like dolphins.' They look very free in their domain and they look like they are having a great time, as they do their water base acrobatics, to entertain an audience and show off a little, but they remain an endangered species, that still get killed a lot.
I hope I have explained a little better, why the song was important to me in my younger days and still is, today. I also loved this James song and its lyrics.
The only lines I could not relate to, were the ones about the hope that god exists. I never had such a hope, in fact I always hated the idea.
Sometime its good to see the crowd appreciation of the work of James:
Part of enjoying the human experience is the existence of such songs, when they can have personal importance to your personal life experiences. I am happy to suggest that such aids my personal 'spirituality,' in the sense that such encourages me to keep breathing and helps to maintain my ability to keep animated and keep fighting for a better way for humans to be. Even though my contribution to such a goal, will remain as small as it is now. 'Those who find themselves ridiculous, sit down next to me!'
I am not sure but I think your freedom may be, anarchy and I think anarchy is intolerable. On the other hand, understanding culture and the importance of education is vital to human beings being ruled by reason rather than authority over them.
I agree that the Abrahamic tradition of might makes right is problematic! It was not demons or a fallen angel that made humans behave like animals. We evolved to be as we are. It was not a god who made us good, but knowledge and full bellies and a sense of security. Take that away and quickly we degenerate back to animals fighting for our survival, running on hunger and fear, not reason.
I understood the song to say that being human is being messed up. I don't know what we might get away with because sooner or later the consequences of our actions catch up with us. It might not be us personally who face the consequences of our actions because the damage may take three generations to be felt. At least that is what Socrates explained in the debate about justice. Sooner or late those we exploit will become a problem for us. We can most easily see that as we deal with racism and a history of slavery. Our forefathers screwed up and we are paying for that today.
I don't think the song meant the whole of society but as individuals, unless we got super good parents and all the advantages of society, we will be screwed up. That is just how it is for humans.
Quoting universeness
I appreciate those words and how you presented them. That is youth. I was a Greaser and that included risk-taking and willingness to fight. I kept a notebook from one high school year because I had a sense I was going through a crucial life-changing time in my life. On the cover of it, I drew a creepy hand representing death and a tree stump representing life. I see in the song that period of transformation.
Quoting universeness
Being both male and female is Jungian. I think the stage of determining our sexuality justifies restricting any medical treatments for our sexuality until we have that status of adults. Preferably this would be 30 years of age. This is a little off-topic but perhaps interesting enough for its own thread? Perhaps we could pull more people into the discussion if we start a new thread. What you posted here is a great way to start that new thread.
Quoting universeness
I very much appreciate your explanation of this. It could have been my X out dancing with you, while I stayed at home alone with our son that he thought he had to have to prove he was a man. Unfortunately, he was not interested in being a father and eventually abandoned us. And so we spread human suffering from one generation to the next, but when I was young I resented civility and wanted to be on the wild side when I married the guy with the biker's jacket and boots. Hey love, I don't know the best words to convey how good I feel looking back at that past from the wonderful perspective of old age and with that song in mind. Thank you so much for this wonderful gift.
It's not my freedom. It's the American conservatives'. Yes, they are intent on tearing down the federation. https://www.commoncause.org/resource/u-s-constitution-threatened-as-article-v-convention-movement-nears-success/
You're welcome Athena, but I think Tim Booth should get all the credit, for writing such good lyrics.
I found this wee website, with this introductory comment about the song. I don't think it's far away from our interpretations:
"This song is very much open to interpretation, and depending on they way you process the words, it could can be a warning against overindulgence, a look at surviving life on the edge, or a commentary on how you can always turn your life around. James vocalist Tim Booth, who wrote the lyrics, has explained that the character Daniel in the song saves a woman named Grace from drowning, and adds, "He doesn't realize that in saving her he's really saving himself."
I read some of your link and do not understand how it applies to concerns about our freedom. Do you want to explain what concerns you?
Philosophically I am seeing a question about what makes us good. Most ancient people used a notion of family for social order. Going out and drinking and catering to one's impulses in the moment is a life without purpose. Family and saving Grace gives one's life purpose and this might be better than indulging one's impulses at the moment.
I can not read or hear the word "grace" without thinking of the "grace of God".
Here are some definitions of grace and they are fitting in this thread about culture being critical because graces calls out the goodness in ourselves and others.
Going from the last definition, being a person of grace is being god-like. In this case, the god is a definition of excellence, not a supernatural being and truly I believe we are healthier with a concept of god that brings out the best in us. This is possible without the superstition that destroyed one other religion, Zoroastrianism. This possibility depends on knowing truth. Truth is in harmony with nature. Superstition is not.
No. It's not about my concerns. You said Americans value their freedom to do as they please over co-operation with others. I replied, and it went on from there, - thusly:
- I know US citizens are strongly opposed to one world government because they fear that would diminish their power to do as we do. — Athena
- All over the world! - V
- Why is it so important that we have the freedom to do as want? — Athena
- Because you are a or the major world power. Nobody likes to give up power. (see white supremacists... or nazis). Many individual Americans have no power at all and very little freedom of action, even while their "leaders" shout slogans about liberty. (Even while some of their financial elite were active collaborators with the Reich, just as they presently collaborate with undemocratic, repressive governments.)
However, the nations that are dominated, bullied, oppressed and intimidated by major powers would have a great deal to gain. It's all in the perspective. - V
It was about how Americans regard individual freedom of action and what they're willing to sacrifice for it.
Your intention is fine, if a little too rigid imo. I think:
Quoting Athena
Is without purpose, if that's all you do! I did a lot of weekend pub/disco, adventure/indulgence etc but I worked hard during the rest of the week and managed to complete an apprenticeship, study at night schools, complete an honours degree course at uni, a postgrad in education and had a 30 year teaching career. I was never unfaithful to anyone in that time and only had two serious relationships in my life. I was engaged twice but both relationships failed. No kids, thank goodness. I am not against having kids but I agree that it's important to have as stable and as strong a support system established, as you can possibly achieve, before you do. Including contingency plans.
The trouble with the main quote above, is that the 'god' label is so soiled with woo woo, and pernicious scriptures, that it's use in any paragraph, which is designed to make a moral statement or give moral advice to others, simply totally fails, imo.
I would reword the quote above as:
"A person of grace is a person of strength and humility. Human grace, is a definition of excellence, not a supernatural being, but a human potential. I believe we are healthier with a concept of grace, that brings out the best in us. This is possible without superstition. This possibility depends on knowing truth. Truth is in harmony with nature. Superstition is not."
The Greeks had their three charities/graces. Three goddess inventions. Wiki describes them.
Aglaia represented elegance, brightness and splendor
Thalia represented youth, beauty and good cheer
Euphrosyne represented mirth and or joyfulness
Education should utterly remove the need for such child like notions, imo.
Notions of Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Brahma etc, are absolutely no different to these three Greek metaphors, for desired human states/ predilections.
Quoting Athena
"Family and saving Grace" also traumatize many in various ways which drive them into a "life without purpose" of "catering to one's impulses" via incessantly "going out" to self-medicate – numb themselves – with alcohol, drugs, porn / sport-effing, gambling, conspicuous consumption, bible-thumping literalism, magical / conspiracy groupthink, gang violence, gun-fetishism, etc as a social normative corollary of living in this highly atomized – individualistic – near-sociopathic, neoliberal republic (i.e. post-war corporatocratic America).
The Hellenistic philosophies of ataraxia / eudaimonia had developed in response to the turbulent decadence of waning Greek and Roman imperialisms but the Epicureans, Stoics Kynics & Pyrrhonians could not prevent the inevitable (i.e. entropic) collapse of those Classical civilizations. Cultivation of philosophical practices as a way of life (P. Hadot) had in ancient times given many lives "purpose" (independent of "family and saving Grace" which had served – ideologically justified – tyrannies as they cannibalized their respective societies.)
'Pax Americana' is the latest and greatest civilizational collapse due, in no small part, to its near-century long, corporatizing / plutocratic policies of atomizing decadence that has now become impervious to attempts at viable, effective public reasoning and equitable public cooperation. Conspicuously, (if we are honest enough to admit it to ourselves) the US is a failed state, riven by homegrown, populist tribalism since our national founding, that has become an unsustainable empire. For most Americans under fifty, I suspect "going out and drinking and catering to one's impulses in the moment" is what gives their postmodern (i.e. politically as well as philosophically disenfranchised) lives some solipsistic "purpose".
Damn good words sir! Encore! Encore!
If only all who have the right to vote, could really understand the points you made.
The horrific right wing gangsters currently seeking, and in many cases, successfully gaining power, all over this planet, would not be happening. The path towards a better experience, living as a human being, would then become far more populated imo.
You forgot to mention left wing gangsters.
No, I didn't, it would have been a superfluous addition imo.
The position I hold, is that political gangsters are unacceptable, no matter what 'honourable intentions,' an individual claims, is their political foundation. Hitler and Stalin or Putin and Trump are pairs of equal horror. Horror that rises from the left or right of politics is the same horror. I see no need to always state that horror can rise through either side. I think it is important to type the following however:
[b]You cannot be a true socialist and be a gangster. The two concepts are mutually exclusive.
You have to stop being one to become the other.[/b]
:clap: :clap:
That's why it's always necessary to eliminate the true socialists when you take their flag.
It has been ever thus. The historical exemplifications offer overwhelming evidence. But we always come back, in every new generation. I like a quote from the Kirk Douglas, Spartacus movie, that I think has always been true, since the first murdered socialist. They will be back and they will be millions!
In the movie, Kirk uses 'he' rather than 'they' but I thought I might update it. He had just killed Tony Curtis, to spare him crucifixion. Hollywood license but I still very much liked that particular line.
Then they'll have to be killed all over again.
True socialism is therefore inevitable imo, as they will be back ad infinitum, until the better global human society we know can exist, does exist. I know many folks think our extinction via our own stupidity or our obsolescence via AI will come first, but I remain unwilling to accept that, after all the hard work and very costly advances made so far over the past 10,000 years of tears.
There’s always room for better, and maybe even inevitably better. No one knows if inevitably better is good enough to at least be sustainable though.
Just keep nurturing your fellows guys and keep your dissent against those who prioritise personal profits and power over people, very high. I predict you both will, despite your doubts, because it's the best option we have. A better way to exist as humans, has always been the biggest and best idea humans have ever had imo. You can't kill that goal by killing the people that maintain it, as it exists in all of us and just like a rotten apple can infect the rest of the barrel, attempts to kill the best idea we have ever had, can often turn even rotten apples into new true socialists/secular humanists.
The actions of vile human beings like Maggie Thatcher created as many, if not more socialists in Scotland and elsewhere, than any British socialist leader I have heard of.
There is also the famous line of "The most effective way to convert a Christian to atheism, is to get them to actually read the bible."
I get emails from various groups based in the USA, regarding the work they do. This is only because I donate to one or two groups (UK based), who are fighting for causes I believe in. This is from an American group called CFI or The Centre For Enquiry. At least they are trying to combat, right wing excesses. What do you think? How aware is the average American, of the direct affects, that the now imbalanced SCOTUS is having or can/will have, on eroding/weakening the protections the average American currently has, against the increasing level at which "corporations will be freer to act in their own interests."
[i]The dog days of summer tend to be slow ones for lawyers across the country. The Supreme Court has gone on vacation, as have many practicing attorneys, so there is a lull in headline-generating court cases.
As I’ve written many times, in recent years the Supreme Court has not been kind when it comes to issues CFI cares deeply about. The Establishment Clause—that guarantee of our rights that requires that the government not favor one religion over another, nor favor religion in general over nonreligion—has taken a series of body blows in the decade I have represented CFI, and this latest term is no exception. On a practical level, this means we are likely to see a quiet period in Supreme Court religion jurisprudence. That doesn’t mean our well-funded opponents on the religious Right have decided they’ve won enough and will be resting on their laurels; I have no doubt that they will seek new ways to advance the cause of religious, and especially Christian, legal privilege. But cases take time to work their way to the Supreme Court level, and the religious Right’s recent successes have left no immediate backlog of cases for the Court to hear.
One matter that will be in front of the Supreme Court next term that has a direct impact on CFI’s mission is Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. This case gives the Court’s supermajority something it’s been eagerly awaiting: a chance to readdress the level of deference courts have to give government agencies when they interpret the statutes that govern them. For forty years, this area of law has been governed by what is known as Chevron Deference, which states a court shall not rule an agency has overstepped its bounds unless its actions can be shown to be arbitrary and capricious. Justice Thomas in particular has long sought to rein back the administrative state; with Justice Jackson having recused herself from the case, it seems inevitable that tighter restrictions will be placed on agencies’ ability to regulate. What does this mean for us? It means the EPA, the FDA, the FTC, the DEA, and many others will find it harder and harder to protect the public, and corporations will be freer to act in their own interests.
To hear more about the outlook for the Supreme Court, especially in the religious arena, keep an eye out for an upcoming episode of our Point of Inquiry podcast, where host Jim Underdown will interview CFI Board Chairman and constitutional law guru Eddie Tabash and me about these matters.[/i]
Thatcher helped to destroy the labour movement and accelerate the decline and disappearance of socialism as a credible challenge, and oversaw the move to the financialization and neoliberalism that we have today, and which remains almost totally unchallenged. Thatcher —> capitalist realism.
Not only that, but she enticed millions of people away from socialism and organised labour, e.g., with the Right to Buy legislation.
It might be personally comforting to think that Thatcher’s policies backfired by radicalizing the working class, rather in the way that tsar Nikolai’s intransigence helped to bring about the Russian Revolution, but except in isolated cases that represented the last gasp of the political working class (the miners’ strike), that’s not the legacy. She certainly produced a lot of resentment, but it was and remains a resigned and inactive kind of resentment.
EDIT: On the other hand, Thatcher might have helped to instil or maintain a broadly left of centre tradition in Scotland in particular, so maybe there’s a kernel of truth in what you say.
Yep, that was her plan from the start. She wanted revenge for the unions crippling the Heath government. Her engineered miners strike was well planned and her happiest moment came from her own lips when she said that she considered Tony Blair her greatest achievement.
Quoting Jamal
Also true, and a common tactic the rich use when they are losing. They make some of the poor, much better off, but they do it in a way that eventually damages the majority of the have nots, via the current unaffordability of housing, the unavailability of council houses, and the unaffordability of private rental accommodation. This helps deepen the divisions within the majority and takes the focus away from the nefarious rich. The SNP removed right to buy in Scotland. It's utterly shameful, that Labour did not, under Blair/Brown.
Quoting Jamal
The words I underlined in the first quote above and the paragraph I quoted from you, immediately above, is where I disagree with you most. Scotland moved away from the labour party, because after Thatcher used us as guinea pigs for her vile poll tax and we showed her just how much we hated her in response, we then got Blair, and we soon learned how 'New Labour' was actually a shade of tory. Blair was revealed as a tory succubus. Scotland abandoned labour for SNP. A party that was not even very socialist but demonstrated more socialism, in their policies than labour ever had in Scotland.
Now we are in flux in Scotland. SNP is waning and labour under Starmer is not much better than Blair/Brown. The socialist movement in Scotland is very much alive and is becoming more and more organised. It has yet to find it's renewed true expression. It was hoping to do so, after Scottish independence was achieved, out of what would then have been the ashes of the SNP. The long haul seems to be the main tactic for now, but a lot depends on events elsewhere.
The best response to Thatcher's Blair/Brown/Johnston/Sunak legacy, is imo, the progressive political tactics happening steadily and surely in Scotland, with a renewed and reinvigorated intention to become an independent socialist/secular humanist nation.
How aware the average American is of anything is not so easy to gage. All we can see is what's on the media, and they are largely muzzled on controversial subjects. I suspect most Americans are still clutching the tattered constitution and claiming it will shield them from bad government, in spite of recent Supreme Court decisions that illustrate the opposite. None of the sitting judges look ready to kick off any time soon, so this SCOTUS can certainly cut up any safety net the people still have.
But, if Trump or one of them manages to grab the White House next year, court intervention won't be necessary: they'll dissolve or defund the beneficial agencies (or do as Trump did, appoint the agency's worst enemy to its directorship) and tear up the constitution itself.
This is all a logical progression - regression, I guess, would be more accurate - from Reagan (I date the inevitable slide into the middle ages from the Reagan/Thatcher/Mulroney Axis. Though Nixon had made a pretty good start at unravelling America, Carter was a brief glimmer of hope. 20 or so states are almost there already; they're poised to disenfranchise women and minorities and turn their states into feudal duchies.
I'm not seeing a silver lining there. Lots' of stormclouds gathering here, too.
Scotland may do better. Is independence still in the cards? Mind you, the EU is not in great shape either, atm. So... unless Putin blows us all into the stratosphere, we shall see.
Not anytime soon, I hope SNP declare the next general election as a dry run on an independent Scotland for the Scottish voters. If the SNP state that if they win a majority in Scotland at the next general election, then that is a demonstration of the will of the Scots to be independent. Then I think that's about the best that could be achieved for now. I don't mean that the SNP should then hold an independence referendum, regardless of the agreement of Westminster, as I don't think we could handle the repercussions and such a move could end the cause of Scottish independence for the following 50-100 years. We might even end up with an SNA clone of the IRA, and that would be a disaster for all concerned. I remain conflicted as to what has the best chance of producing a socialist nation, as an independent Scotland or as Britain. A socialist grass roots movement, launched after an independent Scotland is realised? or a new grass roots socialist movement within the whole of Britain? I know many would say neither option has any chance but I personally, kinda place such folks, with those who said TV was just a fad. If it was a whole new grass roots movement, I would start with something more simple like a national campaign to officially remove the 'Great' from 'Great Britain' or officially remove the name 'United KINGdom,' and the British Monarchy. The republic of Britain sounds good to me.
As the USA 2024 election gets closer, I do get the impression from online American folks discussing such, that this is almost a civil war of words, that could really turn into violent insurrection. Perhaps the most important election ever held on the planet.
Would you agree with that? Do you think it's that bad?
Had to look that one up. A paraphrase of Heidegger I assume. Not a guy I know much about, but I am trying to learn a little more about the philosophers TPF members like yourself, know a lot about.
Quoting 180 Proof
The problem is that the term 'singularity' is another very over-burdened and often misunderstood label.
Even the mathematicians call singularities, 'where the mathematics misbehave.'
Unfortunately, I think that for the best idea to work it requires an enlightened society, and even then the prospects are dubious. Many current trends seem to be anti-enlightenment.
I just hope that's not true as I have to believe that we can do so much better, than our bloody history exemplifies. We have achieved incredible, ingenious, solutions to the terrible and terrifying dangers we faced from our environment and from each other, as we went through and left our jungle based beginnings. Despite all the wars, natural disasters and the actions of the nefarious amongst us, there are more people alive today, than there have ever been in the past 13.8 billion years. Over-population is now a problem, only because of who is in control of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
More advances in technology and automation would indeed help us become a united species and a united planet, where everyone can take their basic means of survival for granted, but only if such tech advances, are not controlled exclusively by a nefarious rich and powerful few.
I know you are more referring to AI surpassing humans and replacing us in the governance of us. I am for stopping that from happening.
I understand and you are correct, we need to all become more enlightened, but far too many of us are just not there yet, so as Ocean Colour Scene sang , "we gotta fight some more."
What's the alternative? Are you willing to now throw your hands up in jaded despair, and declare, We are all f*****, we don't deserve to exist, we have failed to be a net positive in this universe and we can NEVER achieve better. I just cannot and will not do that!!!! Can you? Will you?
For best possible outcome, I would hope for the second.
Quoting universeness
Save your campaign funds. You just lost a fair chunk, if the not the majority, of the working class. People don't like 'greatness' taken from their self-image. Not too sure they'd go along with abolishing the monarchy, either. Maybe in a couple of generations - but by then all the stalwart trade unionists will have died off, too.
Quoting universeness
The American civil war never really ended. The South has been nurturing the hope of rising again, has never concealed its smouldering resentment of the North or stopped displaying its defiant secessionist icons. Now, CW II is palpably close, it' very likely to break out. There are some interesting question associated with that prospect. However it turns out, it can only be bad for an awful lot of people and devastating for the country.
I didn't say any of that. Accepting that we're animals and unable to control ourselves isn't giving up. Stoicism is realizing that we have all but no control and doing what we can with the little control that we do have.
Speaking of socialism, this guy was in the news the other day for blatantly saying the quiet part out loud...
I guess people like this just want to be kings and fuck everyone else?
Quoting 180 Proof
If I had to bet on 'our future', I'd bet on the posthuman tribes of less than a few percentages of the teeming global population in the coming decades or centuries. Our synthetic children might be our genome's salvation.
Unless the mutant ants take a dislike to them. Maybe it's time for another species to be dominant.
'Great' Britain originally just referred to an area that was bigger than that occupied by the ancient Britons/Celtic Britons. It was also a way to distinguish us from the French Bretons (sometimes called lesser Britain). My problem with it comes due to it's later connection with the British Empire as 'the greatest empire in history' and as an indication of military might. 'Great' used to indicate power rather than as a comparison to a lesser physical area. I would like to dilute the 'mighty' notion of empire that imo, acts as a barrier to Britain becoming a socialist nation. The empire legacy has to be 'dealt with'/accounted for/moved past, for us to grow up, and become something far better.
The union of the crowns and the union of the parliaments were not democratic processes. This place became the UK, mostly via forced conquest and the collusions of vile familial dynastic nobility groups who were spawned from early tribes, from the early Celts / Germanic Saxons and Angles / Romans/ Vikings (who founded the Norman French) etc. We need to become a democratic union of peoples as we have never been a united kingdom. Either that or we become separate, independent nations and then hopefully join in 'federation.'
Our Monarchy is a legacy/spawn of all that is bad about how 'Great' Britain and our 'un-United KINGdom, came to be and we must first deal with all that, if we are ever to earn a worthwhile socialist/secular humanist better future. It just requires a grown up debate, a large amount of campaign funds would not be needed imo, just a lot of time investment from dedicated volunteers.
Good to know that you will do what you can to help.
Quoting 180 Proof
I continue to keep putting a sticky label of doomster on you and then pulling it off again as many of your posts seem very socialist and secular to me. The glue on the label is now compromised. I am sure you see good in humans as well as bad.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting 180 Proof
I knew you two would find common ground! :lol:
Your problem means nothing to the average working yob. Nor does the historical background. There are still old imperialists who take pride in past 'glory'. If you want to encourage a grass roots movement, you need in sync with grass roots sentiment. Quoting universeness
Cassandras of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose that's not already lost.
Hey! I am down with da kids round about Glesga, Scotland, Britain and da world!!
Rather than strong unionists dying out naturally, (I think they reform just as strong, in each new generation) I think it's the old imperialists you mention, who are dying out (good riddance).
The grass roots movements I mentioned have started and have actually been around in Scotland since Thatcher's demise. I am in sync with them but I am not a direct part anymore because I am now so against party politics. I am still affiliated however.
Addition: Scottish Young Socialists!
Quoting Vera Mont
:lol: Hey @180 Proof does this ring true 'bout' you?
"Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed."
Let me begin by telling you know how much I appreciate how your post pushed me to a new realization of a better way to explain the importance of education transmitting a culture.
What you said is a nice popular mythology. Let us check it out with a Sumerian story.
In this odyssey is a character from the back woods who is not civilized. He behaves more like an animal than a citizen of the city. This uncouth, backwoods person wants his freedom and will live or die for his freedom. Is this something to be proud of, to be like an animal rather than a civilized person who understands the reasoning of law and is willing to give up some of his freedom for the benefit of living in a civilization?
Uneducated people are not honorably defending freedom because they know nothing of the principles on which honor is built. They know what they want and like a dog will fight to have what they want. This is the mentality of Trump followers. They have permission to be so uncivilized from Neitzche, who they never read but thanks to colleges Neitzche has penetrated our shared consciousness. His Superman who is superior and does not have to follow the rules is very attractive to men like Trump, they have disdain for the civilized whimps. Their understanding of making America great again is contaminated by Neitzche or just raw backwoods mentality. "I want it so I will take it."
Please give me feedback so I can know if I am getting close to a good explanation or not. Thank you.
As usual, your post is so profound I am a bit overwhelmed. My thought seems very little compared to the concepts of your explanation however for the sake of discussion I will proceed with my peppercorn of a thought. :smile:
What is important here is the concept. Without a god/concept how do we think about our higher potential? How do we lift ourselves above the animal kingdom? :heart:
When I write of logos as "reason, the controlling force of the universe", I am cutting short the Webster Dictionary explanation of logos. The fuller explanation says, "made manifest in speech". I stop there because I want to avoid notions of the Creator (noun)while speaking of the creation (verb). But you kind of push me in a corner where the power of a concept must be explored. :heart:
I keep putting in hearts to convey I love it when I am forced to think about what I think. Does it exist before there is a concept of it, or does the concept come first? Was it made manifest when a god spoke? Do we manifest it when we become aware of the concept?
I think stories to explain our concepts are essential and perhaps we should be more tolerant of our human condition of having to learn so much because we are not born knowing it all. All the gods and goddesses are concepts and we learn of these concepts through stories. Rather than saying they do not exist, I would say they are real but this does not mean they are individual supernatural gods. A concept is not a being. A concept is of the mind. The separate concepts must be named before they can exist in our consciousness. :chin:
We need a god so we can project all our notions of goodness into the god. Their projection of goodness is what makes supernatural beings so real to those who believe in them, and their belief can work miracles. The concepts are real and can be effective. :grimace: Does any of this work for you?
I meant it as refutation of the nice popular mythology of the rugged individualist, Davy Crockett spirit of America: barely constrained personal freedom; unbounded national ambition.
Of course it was never true: of the 2.5 million American citizens, only adult white unindentured males had any freedom at all, and for most of those men, freedom was limited by economic and social constraints.
The notion of individual liberty was false then and is even more false now, but people keep waving flags and supporting antisocial policies in defense of the illusion.
It's nothing to do Gilgamesh or ancient Mesopotamia. Quoting Athena
They have no frickin idea what they want or why. They have a long-nurtured sense of grievance and want revenge, want their 'manhood', want things to be like the good old days that weren't, when they were masters over Africans, Indians and wimmin. Trump promised to make America "great again" - which means, make America theirs again.
It's nothing to do with dogs, a loyal species that will fight to the death not only for its own pack rights and offspring but for its human masters.
Quoting Athena
That's the sociopath they follow, not the masses who are swayed by folksy rhetoric.
Gilgamesh and the present have something to do with human nature. We need to be careful about our understanding of freedom.
We have more agreement than disagreement. In early adulthood, I realized I knew nothing about economics and that knowing something about economics was essential to success. Our ignorance keeps us slaves to those who provide our labor and the bankers. The best reason I can think of for schools neglecting this important part of our education is we are not attracted to economics. High school students want economics classes as much as they want math classes. Sure some nerds want that information but not the average student.
However, as long as we had a wilderness to the west, we had real freedom. I think that is something we should be aware of when considering economic matters. We no longer have that wilderness and we might want to update our thinking with today's reality.
Almost daily, where I live, the homeless are in the news. When Reagan was our President he said we don't have homeless people, just bums. That was a lie and people loved it. Reason scapegoated the poor so he could slash domestic budgets and pour all resources into military spending. Today the pressure is to do something about the growing homeless problem. A totally different reality from Reagan's day.
We need to wake up to reality and I think that is as likely as high school students demanding a class in economics. But as things keep getting worse there is hope we will eventually want to understand our changing world and new realities.
At least the math is accurate and true. They can apply it to non-capitalist-propagandized economics later, should they be so inclined.
Quoting Athena
"We" - white protestant males - had freedom to kill and displace Indians, extirpate entire species of plant and animal, blast holes in mountains, clear-cut hillsides, drain swamps, divert and dam rivers, disrupt ecological balance, claim land and mineral rights. That's the kind of freedom still being touted to debt-slaves and wage-slaves, the disenfranchised and marginalized.
Even back then, the women and children, indentured and enslaved people were unfree as well as unsafe. The big commercial franchises with government patronage - mining, rail, mail, weapons - had a whole lot more freedom, plus the capability to exploit imported labour, who had none or very little freedom and no rights.
Quoting Athena
Sure... assuming there is an eventuality in store for any humans at all. I'm quite convinced there isn't one for the united states of America... unless, of course, it's reconfigured into several separate unions. The current arrangement isn't working and has never worked for more than a few decades at a time, and even in those periods, for only part of the population.
It might have, hundreds of years ago, but not now. I understand your 'use' of the gods as folklore which has value in it's representations of human dilemma, human desires, human projections and even human politics and human morality, but, notice how often I used the word human and not god.
The basic disagreement between us is that you believe the god and goddess representations still have value for humans. One of my goals is to convince as many people as I can that we have progressed enough in the past 10,000 years of tears to rid ourselves of them. The Klingon advice and reasoning below, works very well for me.
I also loved the god representation and the dilemma's (depicted in the disagreement between Bashir and O'Brian) offered in this clip. We have plenty of modern stories we can make use of Athena. We don't need all those old ones that have been so soiled and twisted and manipulated into the pernicious affects organised religion, peddled as the real words of real gods have on the everyday lives of humans. We can't continue to be the knuckle dragging moronic god victims, depicted as the Jem'Hadar, in this clip.
Those bad things were not rights. They were a failure to know better. Greek philosophy, if it gets good results it is good/moral. If it gets bad results it is bad/immoral. When our understanding is limited to knowledge of ourselves, we can think everything that benefits us in the moment is good, however, if it harms another animal or human or the environment, then it is harmful and not good/immoral. We may be unaware of the harm we have done, but sooner or later it becomes a problem. It may take 3 generations before the problem is so bad we are made aware of it. For example, slavery benefitted a handful of people and they knew they were facing a problem but they did not end the wrong and now we are dealing with that wrong daily. This is the importance of understanding logos rather than believing in a god who punishes and rewards people depending on whether he is pleased or angered. That belief stands in the way of good reasoning.
Quoting Vera Mont
And this is why I argue so passionately! Immediately, we would see huge improvements if we replaced autocratic Industry with a democratic model and we had education for democracy preparing the future generations to be self-ruling no matter what happens. They could be reduced to a small band of people wandering the earth and sharing it with other nomadic tribes and they would know how to best organize for the best chances of surviving and maybe even thriving.
They were rights under American law. You have no power to rescind them, and they continue to go unpunished. Indeed, many of the fortunes acquired then, by those methods, continue in the possession of similar people through inheritance and consolidation. The privilege accruing to those robber barons is still enjoyed by their descendants.
Quoting Athena
Horsefeathers! When you kill someone they end up dead - you can't fail to notice. You can't not know that someone chained up in the damp, dark, rat-infested cargo hold of a ship is unhappy. You don't whip them to make them feel better: you do it to hurt them.
People were not any dumber than we are. Human brain capacity hasn't changed much since Neanderthal man. And morality wasn't invented in 400BCE Athens: stone age people knew right and wrong. They also knew that what is detrimental to one person may benefit another, so as long as the benefit is to them and the harm - no matter how much or how grievous a harm - is to a designated scapegoat, it's fine.
People then, just like the people now, just like the people in ancient times, knew what they were doing. They didn't care, just as they don't care now, what damage results from serving their short-term gains.
Who gives a damn what happens three generations down the line?
Much worse, they very often go out of their way to do harm when they have nothing to gain, out of hate, fear, resentment, to satisfy a lust, or simply for entertainment.
Quoting Athena
That would have worked in 1270 or 900BCE or 1795 or 1928. Didn't happen then; doesn't happen now. Not because people didn't know it would be better for most of them, but because the ones with the power to bring about that change will exert every erg of that power to prevent it.
But they did know a lot less about 'the big picture,' the planet they lived on and the universe they exist within. They had no notion of 'pale blue dot,' for example or the cosmic calendar scale.
Quoting Vera Mont
True, except the Neandertals were a different species to us. Related yes, but not the same species.
You might find this interesting:
[i]Neanderthals had bigger brains than people today.
In any textbook on human evolution, you’ll find that fact, often accompanied by measurements of endocranial volume, the space inside a skull. On average, this value is about 1410 cm3 (~6 cups) for Neanderthals and 1350 cm3 (5.7 cups) for recent humans.
So does that quarter-cup of brain matter, matter? Were Neanderthals smarter than our kind?
While brain size is important, cognitive abilities are influenced by numerous factors including body size, neuron density and how particular brain regions are enlarged and connected. Some of these variables are unknowable for Neanderthals, as we only have their cranial bones and not their brains. But anthropologists have made the most of these hollow skulls, to learn what they can about the Neanderthal mind.[/i]
Quoting Vera Mont
True for the ones in control, not so true for those given the choice to kill/abuse those who their masters instructed them to, or face their own demise and the deliberate demise/starvation of their loved ones.
Depicted in Braveheart. Via the Bob the Bruce characterisation: "Men fight for me because if they don't then I will throw them off their lands and starve their wives and children."
Quoting Vera Mont
Soooooo true in the case of the nefarious rich! That's why the battle against them is so hard and rate of progress so glacial. But nonetheless undeniable.
Addition: We even had the theists trying to appease their god invention by having the likes of Jesus, speaking to his trinity self with the words 'Forgive them father (of forgive them trinity), for they know not what they do"
The ESV translation of Luke 23:34 says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” How's that for a get out of jail free card?
What's that to do with robbing, killing, dispossessing and enslaving other people, in the name of their own freedom?
Quoting universeness
You mean most of the pillaging and killing was done under duress? An even bigger pile of horsefeathers! The ones in control wouldn't be in control without all the willing henchmen, lackeys and mercenaries who expect rewards for their service. Settlers wanted the land; the government sent the army to clear the Indians off it. Prospectors wanted gold; farmers wanted water; cattle ranchers wanted grazing rights; lumber barons wanted the redwoods. Thieves don't all steal for Fagin and drug dealers sell to kids, knowing it's bad for them. Neither ignorance nor coercion are acceptable excuses: they know what they're doing and why.
Quoting universeness
I always thought that was incredibly silly - not unlike your excuse for Custer.
Jesus was always meant to be a redeemer. He was created expressly to pay for the sins of that young couple who pissed off Jehovah by nicking one apple, literally before they knew any better. The cutest part is, they were cast out of Eden in order to keep them from taking also of the Tree of Life and becoming immortal. So, Jesus was to die as a human, to issue humans a ticket to heaven so they could live forever.
*(of forgive them trinity) The trinity wasn't invented until 400 years later.
:grin: Not a term I am familiar with? The only horses I have heard of with feathers are mythical flying ones like Pegasus, but google explained it to me with:
Horsefeathers are not literal feathers that you see on birds. They are long, sometimes very thick hair that grows on a horse’s lower legs, fetlocks (ankles), and pasterns. Some breeds have more feathers than others. The feathers help protect the horse’s leg from water and hazards, such as rocks and prickly bushes.
So, I learned something new, and my brain has the capacity to learn that which for me is new information. Brain capacity has not got much to do with intelligence or wisdom. A relatively empty, high capacity, vessel could be a description of the brain of many humans, past and present.
Quoting Vera Mont
It's got to do with the very large range of monotonic greys between your rather black and white treatment of the area. Do you think evil people are born or created via there own experiences?
I am sure you would agree, it's probably both but many many more are created than born, would be my bet.
Some folks are brutalised from day 1. I may slaughter innocents because my innocents were slaughtered and I was unable to understand that two wrongs don't make a right.
I think many more of us now accept that an eye for an eye makes everyone blind.
Quoting Vera Mont
No, but do you accept that some of it was?
Quoting Vera Mont
True, but that is just the main 'gang,' does that make every soldier who has ever fought in a battle, a gangster?
Quoting Vera Mont
Settlers wanted a better life for their family and for themselves. I agree that many of them knew exactly what was happening to the indigenous people and did not care, others were too dumb to know/understand, some excused themselves, by claiming that god chose them to run this land and some arrived way after the indigenous people had been removed, and assumed that the land was waiting for them, unoccupied or that the original owners left, because they wanted to.
Quoting Vera Mont
No, some of them did it to survive, as at that time in their life, they could see no other way. If another way was offered to them, I am sure most would have taken it.
Quoting Vera Mont
So if I came after that which you loved most in this life and gained full control over it and I threatened to destroy it, if you did not comply with a task I insisted you perform. You would feel able to deal with that? and you feel all people should be able to deal with such situations?
Quoting Vera Mont
Any excuses I might offer, may come from detailed investigations into the lives of some of Custers soldiers, certainly not Custer.
I try to judge people on a case by case basis, rather than suggest something like all German, Japanese and Italian people, or even all members of the German, Japanese and Italian forces in WW II were evil, Nazi b*******. I am not suggesting you are doing that, but you do seem to be suggesting that every member of the 7th Cavalry who was killed at little big horn, was as bad and as guilty as Custer.
Quoting Vera Mont
Some new information can help folks become more enlightened and some sends them deeper into confusion and division with their fellows. Our big brain capacity is merely a potential. Becoming an enlightened human with a progressive moral compass was much harder to achieve in the past than it is now imo.
Okay. How about horsepuckies? It's less polite. Quoting universeness
Athena claimed that Americans had true freedom as long as the western wilderness existed. I pointed out that the freedom was limited to few Americans at the expense of many others, both human and non.
Nothing to do with big pictures, space travel, Scottish independence or brain capacity. The white settlers and their government were perfectly aware of the consequences of their actions and considered it within their right to do whatever it took to get what they wanted. It's not that complicated.
Quoting universeness
I wasn't allocating individual guilt. Only mentioned that Custer could not have forced any soldier to slaughter Indians if most of them were unwilling, any more than Custer himself was forced to accept the commission.
The fact is: the American polity wanted westward expansion. Settlers and prospectors were already in the territory, the Lakota, Arapaho and Cheyenne were in their way. So the government, rather than move the relatively few white people, chose to break its treaty and sent in the army to move the Natives. The Natives won that round and there followed a major military campaign to force them into reservations - where they still are, pale blue dot or no. Somebody takes; somebody dies. If that stark reality doesn't fit the grey spectrum or the American mythos of rugged individuals taming a wilderness, too bad.
No, I have never heard of that term either, let's settle on horseshit, we will both have heard of that one, even though ( As George Bernard Shaw suggested) we are separated by a common language.
Quoting Vera Mont
That was the very point I was trying to make to you Vera and to Athena, I don't agree with either of your notions of 'true freedom' on this mote of dust/pale blue dot. It's the 'big picture' that's far more important.
Do you not agree that our species is still in it's infancy? You are suggesting that those in history had the same ability as we have today, to make better decisions than they did. I agree with you that some did but there were far less enlightened and less educated people in the past, than there are now.
The entire knowledge base we have gathered, due to all historical efforts made to memorialise such, so far, is, imo, tiny, compared to what we don't know. That's true freedom for me! The freedom to seek that which we currently don't know.
Quoting Vera Mont
Your generalised historical description of those events are accurate and you know I fully agree that they cannot be justified. My question to you then becomes. Do you think many more humans, all around the planet, now utterly condemn those events, than ever have in the past? If you agree, then does that not speak well for the progression of the general enlightenment of our species? I would also say to @Athena, that I think such improvements in general enlightenment, are happening, despite regressive god posit influences or old Greco/Roman fables. My main argument with you Vera , is, as you know, your at times, general disdain of your entire species, because of the vile actions of a nefarious few.
On what what do you base your opinion of my notion of freedom when it was never mentioned - except by Athena in a misunderstanding. I was referring to the American myth: land of the free, home of the brave.
Quoting universeness
To what? Not a discussion of American history and education.
Why do you keep going off into space? Quoting universeness
No. I believe this is our dotage. Bucket list time. We stopped evolving some 40,000 years ago. Since then, it's been accelerating technological progress, but only one major change in social direction at around 7,000 BCE: from the first city states to the present, there has been no appreciable progress in our thinking. Everything the philosophers and political organizers and legal reformers have done since Ur was a repeat of some experiment that had already been tried somewhere, sometime for some duration.
Quoting universeness
Of course they did. Same choices, same decision we're still making. "Better" and "worse" are a matter of perspective. Good for one, bad for another; winners and losers.
Quoting universeness
Commendable. Entirely off topic, but lovely.
Quoting universeness
I doubt it. Everyone is nostalgic for the recent past (especially if they were on top) and disparaging of the distant past, when people didn't know any better. "So sorry for the massacre at Wounded Knee. Support our troops in Afghanistan."
Quoting universeness
Not with all those missile silos and landmines, deep water oil rigs and container ships, it don't.
Quoting universeness
And my disdain comes from the vile actions of multitudes in the service of the nefarious few, whom vast crowds worship and obey.
A fair criticism. I perhaps did make some assumptions about your notions of 'true freedom,' by projection rather than by clear statement from you. You seem to me to be quite dismissive of the notion of the global unity of our species, due to our individual notions of personal freedom, but I accept that might just have been my misinterpretation. Am I wrong in my assumption that you think competition between humans will ultimately defeat the benefits of co-operation, even though your personal political stance is socialist?
Quoting Vera Mont
I think, because that's were I think our future lies and we can't allow our bloody past to continually delay that purpose. I hate that notions of territoriality, xenophobia, the money trick, BS religious fear, etc, keeps so many pinned on and to this little Earth.
Quoting Vera Mont
No, for me, that's just too rigid and not nuanced enough.
Quoting Vera Mont
Not imo, if the topic is 'culture is critical,' but I appreciate your encouragement.
Quoting Vera Mont
Why do you not also type, 'There are many many Americans who were against the American invasion of Afghanistan. Would you say that today, most Americans consider wounded knee an atrocity?
Quoting Vera Mont
No attempt at balance? by at least mentioning the global movements trying to achieve global ecological protections, nuclear arms reductions, better and stronger welfare systems, better social care systems, improved political cooperation, cooperative space exploration and development, more cooperation between national science universities, improving attempts to feed, house and educate more of the poor, etc. I am not suggesting that we are in anyway doing enough, or easily winning the battle that co-operation and not competition is the only way forwards, but it seems to me that you are rather fixed on the negatives.
Did you not recently post here that many good folks are still fighting the good fight?
Quoting Vera Mont
I then must assume (but again I admit I may be projecting again, as you have not actually stated this) that you think those who don't fit into your category above, are too few and too weak to defeat the group you disdain. Perhaps it is on that point, that we disagree most.
Right and wrong. I think global unity is a very good idea that will continue to fail - just as the EU is failing. But not because of any notions of personal freedom. Because of stupidity, gullibility and myopia.
My idea of freedom is quite different and way, way off topic here. Might be worth a thread of its own to see whether people's idea of freedom as varied as their idea of meaning.
Quoting universeness
Well, fine. You can fly off and contaminate other solar systems, but it's still not relevant to Athena's ambitions to reset US educational standards to pre WWII.
Quoting universeness
Many may be against invading Afghanistan, but the nation as whole supported it. Minorities don't make the crucial decisions - but still have to pay the costs. If you said "Wounded Knee" to them most Americans would stare at you like fish on ice at the market. If you said "atrocity" to them, most Americans would say "9-11... baaastaards!" But some might recognize Wounded Knee and say, "Well, they didn't know any better back then."
Quoting universeness
What for? There is no balance. One nuke can take out two dozen of those wonderful improvements, just as one Christian mob took out the library at Alexandria. And there are lots and lots of nukes out there, pointed at all of them. Thing is, you can list all the progress you want, but it's been done before on some smaller scale, and it's all been destroyed before. As long as this scale of destruction is in the control of the least stable, least reliable, least nuanced and most self-assured people in the world, nothing is safe. The particulars change; the situation remains the same.
Quoting universeness
Yes, I'm aware of them. My heart goes out to them.
Quoting universeness
Yes.
Quoting universeness
Yes. The difference is that, though I still have the same ideals, my illusions have been blown to ratshit. I preserved their remains in fiction, like Cinderella in the glass coffin. Who knows - maybe someday a prince will come and resurrect them.
:up:
Quoting Vera Mont
That's a horrible view you have of what humans do. That comment/opinion reminded me of the character Agent Smith, from the matrix:
Quoting Vera Mont
I hope you wont take this the wrong way Vera, but I do feel sad, perhaps even pity, for the burden you carry, as a socialist who has been so jaded and disappointed by those you sought to help and that which you sought to change. Feel free to tell me where to shove my sadness/pity.
Your youtube link suggests maybe I/we are persuading you that we're circling the drain of our own ten thousand year
making ... :smirk:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/805683
Unfortunately, I haven't read all of this thread.
I have a question: "Why is it in The Lounge?"
@Jamal @Baden and team.
OK. I think that was a mistake.
It's more than a 'chat'.
It's a fascinating philosophical conversation. Better than some on the 'Front Page'.
Hidden away. Such a shame...
Again, I disagree with your judgement. This thread is full of philosophy.
But, you're the boss.
But just to be clear, technically I’m one of three administrators.
Yes. I did notice Les Trois Mousquetaires - you, @Baden and @fdrake.
"All for one, and one for all"?
Yes... unless that's a trick question. :scream:
What do you think is the real question? :chin:
Maybe you want my opinion on this issue? Honestly, I haven't read enough to pipe in, but I do understand the frustration of good lounge threads being backgrounded.
Yes, I would like that. Also from the OP @Athena and the participants.
From the last page alone: @praxis @universeness @Vera Mont @180 Proof
How would you describe this thread?
Is it only a 'chat' or is there more to it? Has it touched on philosophy? How valuable have the exchanges been? What ideas/posts have made you think? And think again...
Would it be out of place in the main area?
Quoting Baden
Given that there are 25 pages, its place in the Lounge doesn't seem to have done it any harm.
When was it moved here? Perhaps it already had enough momentum to motivate.
That being said, there will be those who haven't even noticed it, tucked away as it is.
I haven't read it all. Only sampled a few pages. That was enough for me to 'pipe in'.
I felt the need to question. But that's me being me. Avoiding housework.
The footage of a beach covered in oil, all in motion with floundering fish and waterfowl and some good guys attempting to save them was shown on broadcast news. The oil industry had to pay some money, which it quickly recovered in government subsidies. Car sales did not decline.
Quoting universeness
It's yours to bestow or withhold, just as my disillusion is mine to carry or abandon.
I have been contributing to this thread from its beginning by @Athena
I would first, again clearly state, my lack of academic qualifications in philosophy.
My field of academic expertise is Computing Science
I think however, that there is a great deal of philosophy in this thread and some chit chat as well.
I would use terms like social, political and cultural philosophy and perhaps even 'philosophy of life as a human,' but these are probably considered 'flippant' concoctions and associations of the word philosophy, which are not robust, academically accepted, uses of the word or field title as compared against those listed on TPF.
I don't think it should be in the lounge and I thank you for your protestation.
I also accept the mods/administrators decisions, even though I often disagree with some of them.
@Athena and @Vera Mont have lived very interesting lives imo, and the thread title 'culture is critical,' casts a wide net. I have really enjoyed my exchange with both of them on this thread and I have enjoyed the contributions of others. This is one of the best threads on TPF, if you ask me. @Athena and @Vera Mont are also two of the most interesting TPF members, that I have exchanged ideas and viewpoints with.
I am just about to post a response to another very interesting member of TPF, @180 Proof.
There are many other very interesting folks on TPF, including some that are mods and administrators.
But yeah, if TPF management introduced a democratic voting system, where there was a mechanism by which a decision made by the mods/administrators, could be overturned, if an agreed number of the 'active' membership, voted for such, based on an agreed minimum number of active members calling for such a vote. I think that would be a good and fair addition, to the way this site is managed. But, then, I am a democratic socialist! who does not own this site. :smile: But I am also expected to be banned at some point from TPF, according to some members. So, my suggestion here could only be taken forward by others, in that possibly inevitable eventuality.
It's so full of disparate topics and ideas and individual convictions, in no coherent pattern, that it belongs nowhere in particular. It reminds me of some long, wine-soaked nights of my youth. Nostalgic, y'know?
:lol: No sir. The points you and some other (shall I say doomsters or would you at least accept pessimists) folks make, when projecting the future of our species, based on reflections on our past, are well made and have a lot of supporting evidence.
I maintain however, that 'we' or perhaps I can only claim for sure, 'me,' as an optimist, about the qualities and future potential of our species, also have significant evidence, of past and current human endeavour to improve who we are, what we want, and how we choose to be, exist and progress.
We currently know of no other source of manifest purpose and intent, that can assign meaning and purpose to this, and within this, universe in the way that humans can and do.
We need to celebrate that, and we need to unite as a single species on this little pale blue dot. Then we can start to do what we seem, imo, compelled to do. Find out that which we don't know about yet.
That's the greatest adventure I can ever imagine, much much greater imo, than anything offered by deference to notions of gods and the very stupid decision imo, that many humans have made, to see ourselves as nothing more than unfortunate wretches, whose best chance of salvation is only available at the whim of supernatural intent and intrigue, and can only be awarded based on the ridiculous judgement of such.
You have not been fooled by such nonsense. My debate with you continues, for as long as I can communicate with you, on the basis that I still hope to convince you, to be more optimistic about the future of our species. Ditto with @Vera Mont.
Yeah, we all need to work much harder to prevent such. Do you think we can, if we all cooperate more.
Yeah Vera, I know I must sound like I am stuck on repeat, but it's not like I have not cited and exemplified the efforts that many groups all over the world are making, every day. I am just asking you to recognise those efforts a bit more, rather than handwave them away and minimise their efforts with such as:
Quoting Vera Mont
They need your support and active assistance not your sympathy.
Quoting Vera Mont
True Dat! (sorry just trying to kid myself that I am still hip!)
And the effect of that past upon the present. Three main obstacles to the progress you envision:
It took 13 years to build the World Trade Center (badly) and 15 minutes to knock it down.
The good are armed with placards, shovels and stethoscopes. The bad have armaments up and down the wazoo, financed by the good and the indifferent.
Good people's actions are constrained by ethics, scruples and compassion; evil people's is not similarly hampered.
Okay, rather than respond to each of your three points, which I will still do, I first would ask, how would you combat such? I assume you don't want to just give up and surrender to such, as inevitable events and circumstances that there are no antidotes or solutions for?
I can't. And I have tried, while I was physically up to volunteering and marching. I still give money when I can, and write a lot of utopian guff. But that is, at its longest possible stretch, an ounce of mitigation to every pound of harm.
Yes, I can see that there is no coherent pattern.
But that's to be expected when it comes to a 4-month long philosophical conversation!
With 25 pages and 736 replies - that's a helluva long, wine-soaked night.
Like wine and cheese you and others have matured and I don't think this sharing of convictions, topics and ideas is a flippant chat.
Quoting universeness
Philosophy might be an academic subject but on TPF, there is more of a mix. Some excellent contributors don't even consider themselves philosophers.
I think the discussion deserves to be Front Page. Perhaps in this subcategory:
Interesting Stuff
Politics and Current Affairs
Humanities and Social Sciences
Science and Technology
But the decision by @Jamal seems final and perhaps he is right!
Nah!
Exactly, it reminds me of that kind of thing too.
@Amity that is why it belongs in the Lounge, and also because it’s not just like any old wine-soaked evening, but like a wine-soaked evening that goes on for months.
Plenty of those under 'Interesting Stuff'!
But I know when to leave it...with liver still functioning. Cheers.
I believe you. But what you can still do, you should do. What you should not do, imo, is suggest that the efforts of those on the front line or in support of such, are hopeless and pointless. Don't surrender to tock, whilst tick is still ticking.
Quoting Vera Mont
As horrific as that was, we humans are very, very good at rebuilding and starting again and we often rebuild better and stronger than before.
Quoting Vera Mont
Only up to a point of that which is survivable. If the only input from the other side is to unleash hell upon us then, we will put the placards down and pick up/steal/make armaments, until we also have them up the wazoo. It has always been our final and most bitter choice, but when the masses make such a choice, the so called 'bad' soon fall, because most of their forces are actually made up of our kin!
Quoting Vera Mont
A similar response Vera, only true up to a point of collapse, we can become evil to defeat evil but I agree we pay a terrible price when we choose that final option. But need and justice can mean there is no other option.
Just as well it was virtual; don't want to imagine the morning after.
Perhaps we can improve the status of the lounge threads. What is your take on the OP for this thread?
I've just opened another case of wine. I'm Glaswegian, we have some different ideas about party longevity.
Yeah, right. Every two hundred years of so, we rise up against the oppressors and cut off their hydra heads. Even while the revolutionaries are binding their own wounds, new evil head grow and swallow up the gains. Time is always on their side. While we're rebuilding and improving, they're growing more heads and feed them. It always takes longer to build than it does to destroy. There comes a point when you don't realize it's not survivable until you are actually dying.
Quoting universeness
There is no return from evil. When you become as they are, you are one of them.
When projected ends justify means, those means determine the actual end.
I've never tasted Scottish wine. Your whisky, OTH, is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.... We dabble in both, make some decentish potables. Parsnip wine was the most potent of my amateur efforts; elderberry was the most palatable.
Two hundred years is no time at all considering a scale of almost 14 billion.
So how come Kings and aristocracies don't still rule in every country?
How come I can shout 'not my King,' in the town centre and not be hung, drawn and quartered?
How come unions exist?
How come I have human rights?
I could list a lot more hard fought for improvements but you probably know them all.
Quoting Vera Mont
I think there is much truth in that first sentence but not so much in your second sentence. If the evil is removed then the next generation can do better. I agree that those who become evil to defeat evil are mostly destroyed by the experience, but if it can free the next generation from that original evil, then it is worth it, imo.
Quoting Vera Mont
Neither have I. The wine I mostly buy comes from California, is red and made by Earnest and Julio Gallo. Merlot or Cab Sav! I don't even know if wine is made anywhere in Scotland?
Quoting Vera Mont
Uisge Beatha (water of life/Scottish whisky). The peatyer the whisky the better the swally, at least for my tastes. Quoting Vera Mont
What what what??? par...snip? elder .... berry? :grimace: :yikes: :chin: I like red wine, made from grapes, about 11-12% full bodied, that's about the extent of my knowledge of quality wine.
Because they took different titles. It's a good enough disguise to fool many.
Quoting universeness
Only it's not measured on the cosmic scale, but in human life-cycles. It takes about 8 generations to build a viable nation; two to corrupt it and a single cohort to shatter it. In global terms, the next two hundred years will feel to the survivors like two million. Even without the several anticipated deployments of WMD withing the next two years, imminent climate changes will do us enough harm.
Quoting universeness
I never said I made "quality wine", and if California is your hallmark, you'd be content with many Canadian vintages.
Yes, as far off into the rough of this topic it may be, you can ferment pretty much anything organic. (I do not recommend blood.) Apples, cherries, plums and pears can make acceptable wine and go on to become excellent brandy. To bring it a little closer to the fairway: in every culture I've heard of, alcohol and other psychotropic substances have played significant roles in social bonding, medicine, ritual and taboo.
So we scared them so much, they are now in heavy disguises and working only in the shadows. Sounds like a big success for us. But , yeah still more to do, in ripping such out, by the roots no matter how well they try to hide.
Quoting Vera Mont
Human lifespan is also improving and may go exponential, due to tech advances.
Quoting Vera Mont
True, you did not. I also drink some OZ wines and some cheeky wee French ones, that my sis, who married a Frenchman, sends over from time to time.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yeah, I know, I have tasted quite a bit of various moonshines, Irish poitín, strange Polish vodka type creations, very strong versions of absinthe and even some petrol style tasting stuff I was told was Greek ouzo, etc All best avoided, if life longevity is one of your goals.
I just have not tasted the kinds of wines you mentioned you make. But if I am ever offered such I will have a try, as such is part of my birthright as a member of the Glaswegian swally appreciation population. Hic Hic!
Hell, no! They're wearing $6000 suits and sitting in boardrooms on top of very tall glass buildings or flying around in private jets, being served endangered species on platinum skewers, surrounded by mercenary armies with higher standard gear than the national army. Of course, some of them command national armies. They have nothing to fear: a hundred ranks of expendable commoners stand between themselves and any danger.
Quoting universeness
Yeah. You get to be old, useless and helpless much longer.... assuming the bomb or tornado or riptide doesn't flatten your rooming house. Of course, with national healthcare schemes gutted by Covid and right-wing politics, that tech-assisted longevity will soon be available only to the aristocracy and their top-level catspaws.
Quoting universeness
Home wine makers use all manner of fruits and flowers and herbs, some with great skill. I was an enthusiastic experimenter and not terrible at it. I even made a passable coffee wine that paired well with dessert. All the Hungarian and Italian home winemakers I've known stuck to red grapes -- where's the fun in that?
I stopped making them when the space I used was repurposed. It's quite a messy business.
So why don't they declare themselves King again? Seems to me they are afraid of something or they would reveal themselves for all to see, how can you be King if most don't even know you exist, in the same way the Kings of old existed and were known to all their subject and no-one could dare challenge their divine right to rule. These powers which wear expensive suits, seem to me to pale, in comparison to what I traditionally understand as the total power of a King of old. They do not even seem equivalent in power to totalitarian autocrats like Hitler or Stalin. Who, to me, did wield power that was comparable to the Kings of old. People like Elon Musk or Donal Trump currently almost seem like comical parodies of such horrors as Stalin and Hitler. They could become like such however if we let them. The real power remains with the masses, not the nefarious few. The problem is that the masses don't realise the real power they have, once they cooperate. United we stand!
Quoting Vera Mont
Or you get to travel around the solar system in a very comfortable, robust, protected, life sustaining, exoskeletal suit, whilst engaging with your built in AI system, which controls your navigation and directly works with your brain to provide all the inputted sensor data you need to take whichever actions are required, to get you safely to the next, stepping stone space/moon based/ facility on your journey towards your exciting destination, to perform the very interesting task you have been assigned.
Quoting Vera Mont
It's good to have hobbies, I still have a lot of fun doing my oil paintings and trying to finish my wee sci-fi book.
One of them is hoping to - already has the throne and succession lined up; another is shooting for godhood.
Quoting universeness
You're the one hung up on monarchy, not them. They're mostly okay, pulling the strings, enjoying the benefits of control, without having to show up for tiresome ceremonies, marry pallid princesses and getting overripe fruit thrown at them. A few like to put on a show.
Quoting universeness
Sure.... All 8000,000,000 of us, plus the next generation and the next....
The phrase "hot mess" comes to mind.
Quoting Amity
I'd say there's more to it than mere blather.
Quoting Amity
Not that I've noticed but I haven't read all of it.
Quoting Amity
Generally good though there are some odd ideas being bounced around.
Quoting Amity
This:
How would this understanding apply to something like abortion? I think that for any normal person abortion 'feels' wrong, so one consequence of it is a bad feeling. That indicates that it's immoral, according to the cause & effect view. On the other hand, studies indicate that legalizing abortion reduces crime/poverty, a good consequence.
Things become less clear when it comes to personal rights, authority, and tradition. The values that shape our personal and social identities often disagree on the consequences of abortion.
Quoting Amity
It was in place there for months, if I'm not mistaken. In any case, the topic seems to have only three major contributors and moving it to the lounge section didn't seem to bother them at all.
:100:
:up:
Thanks for taking the time to answer my specific questions. Your responses make sense.
Love the 'hot mess'!
Quoting praxis
Interesting.
I wonder if the blethering aspect increased after the move.
Unfortunately, I think I've added to that!
King Kim is a great example, look at how he and his supporting gangsters have to terrorise and supress any democratic socialist rumblings within North Korea. That system will fall, you and I both know that. I reiterate my insistence that the efforts of past and present grass roots movement/revulsion/fury against such systems have mostly destroyed them and we are doing all we can to stop them ever rising again. I do agree with you that that is the goal all good people everywhere are finding most difficult to guarantee.
Quoting Vera Mont
Not 'hung up' as you put it, but more celebrating its global destruction via the power of the masses.
Quoting Vera Mont
8 billion galaxies is a splash in the cosmic ocean, never mind 8 billion people. A human is currently one of the rarest objects in the known universe.
Quoting praxis
:lol: Well said!
Quoting Amity
In my case, probably yes. The lounge, as it's name implies, is a more relaxed environment than the main page. So from that angle, perhaps as you suggested, @Jamal was justified in moving the thread here. But I still think ...... nah!, as I think many of those currently on TPF, who consider themselves, 'heavy hitters' in philosophy, are 'missing out' on many of the aspects of realpolitik and real human life, that has been exemplified in this thread and threads like it. This is of course only my opinion, and it remains strongly held.
I hope future on-line social media becomes publicly owned and financed only. Its mods/administrators elected by the membership and are democratically removable. However, this could only be achievable if state controlled horrors such as the current Russian, North Korean, Chinese state media can be guaranteed, not to be possible, due to very robust checks and balances established to combat such.
Perhaps AI could help us achieve this. I accept that such a reliable, fully democratic system has never been achieved in history, but that does not mean that such can never be achieved. Some publicly owned broadcast systems are quite good imo.
You don't see a logistical problem? https://qz.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-visit-the-international-space-1850461158 That's just getting one person into orbit, not across the galaxy or over to Andromeda, and does not even include the initial cost of constructing suitable containers. Where is all that metal and fuel supposed to come from?
I begin to suspect that your expectations of the future are less than realistic
Massive logistical problems Vera, absafragginlootly! My imagery of spacefaring individuals in AI augmented, exoskeletal, spacesuits, was at least restricted to travel within our solar system only.
I don't expect an ability to travel interstellar any time soon. Intergalactic travel is I suspect, still a very, very long time away, unless something like wormholes are real.
I think I might see a moon base get established before I die and maybe even the first human footsteps on Mars and maybe the first significant space station which can hold and maintain many more humans than something like the ISS. I was only trying to exemplify the kind of exciting human future, I am attempting to present to you. I was not suggest that all 8 billion people currently living on this planet can start becoming spacefaring, any time soon. But such thinking could encourage many more folks to support and yearn for us becoming a globally united species who have new and better cause, meaning and purpose, in their lives.
To boldy go ..........
I understand that.
Quoting universeness
How many man-hours of their effort, how much of the natural resources on which they rely for subsistence, do ordinary people currently contribute to sending one rich buffoon into orbit for a couple of days? (Or under the ocean - but at least that buffoon won't do it again.) How much planetary degradation, how much pollution, how much climate warming does each exciting human adventure contribute to an already fatally damaged ecosystem?
Logistics, forsooth! Quoting universeness
More of that frickin subservience under the banner of cause, meaning and purpose! All that will happen is another damn race to grab most of it faster.
I think you should clean your own room before you go renovating the town.
How much waste is spent on allowing a nefarious few to have dominion over the planet? How much more could be achieved if the resources humans can access were employed in ways that would best preserve the planets ecology, meet the needs of the people on it, without destroying all other fauna sharing it and best progress our species to become the spacefarers we are compelled to become. With all due respect, I think your targeting system has malfunctioned. I am not afraid to recommend that the human race become extraterrestial, due to concerns that we will bring all of our bad habits with us, and be doomed to repeat all of the horrors some have perpetrated on Earth, everywhere we go outside of Earth. The universe is vast and the base resources it contains are abundant, we just need the tech to access them. We will not find new knowledge if we don't go seek it out, we wont find all the answers we seek on little Earth.
Quoting Vera Mont
My room and my house are very well maintained but I am not hermitical. The universe beckons. Those who wish to exist only on Earth can do so, but such people have no right or power to stop our species from exploring where we have never been before. The curiosity of the cat was always far more limited than the curiosity of humans. Exploration is critical to human nature and culture.
[b]"We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew with undiminished wonder: What are the stars? Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars."
Carl Sagan[/b]
Exactly! Conservation, cleanup, flood protection, urban agriculture, underground shelters, clean water, housing, refugee placement, fire prevention...
Compared to any feasible climate mitigating measures or emergency relief, the resources that required by the spacefaring few are hugely disproportionate.
Quoting universeness
Yet, that is precisely what will inevitably happen, unless we figure out how to stop behaving this way before we go anywhere else. We are not mature enough for extraterrestrial exploration without extraterrestrial despoilation.
Quoting universeness
You're already putting resource exploitation before knowledge collecting. And you're a Sagan acolyte, not one of the potential interplanetary conquistadors.
The stars "beckon" mankind the same way a diamond beckons a jewel thief or a bottle calls to a drunk. They don't want you; you want them.
That's a big assumption Vera. You don't destroy a river by drinking from it. We will need to tap into extraterrestrial resources yes, but, I don't advocate for mindlessly exploiting resources in some dystopian mimicry of the nefarious rich, here on Earth. As an 'acolyte' of Carl, I follow his determined stance, against the way some have ravaged the Earths resources. He was 100% for space exploration and development and he was 100% against misuse of resources, as am I.
Quoting Vera Mont
Only true for those with nefarious intentions or pathological addictions. As I suggested in my previous post, your targeting system is malfunctioning.
What makes you think you would be in charge?
Let me put it this way: If Picard were to visit Earth today, do you sincerely believe he would recommend us for Federation membership? Quoting universeness
My targeting system is fine. I see who calls the plays, who pays the price and who gets left lying in the dust. Until that equation shifts significantly, we have no bright future anywhere.
... where no Artilect has gone before. :nerd:
Quoting Vera Mont
:smirk: :up:
No, not as we are right now, but if we (or Gene Roddenberry) can imagineer the federation and its directives and mission statements then, I think we are also capable of creating such.
I don't advocate for any single leader, in fact I am against such, but I do advocate for checks and balances which are formed from the mentality of a human mind such as Carl Sagan's and are made as robust as possible (probably via AI and automation), against any who would try to usurp such checks and balances.
Quoting Vera Mont
Using some of your own 'emotive' examples.
Quoting Vera Mont
Your targeting system currently describes a person who thinks that humankind would greatly benefit from an attempt to unite all nations in a common cause, of space exploration and development as the equivalent of a jewel thief and an alcoholic. No, your targeting system is definitely malfunctioning.
"Until that equation shifts significantly, we have no bright future anywhere."
Do you think you are currently doing all you can to help 'shift the equation?'
Quoting 180 Proof
"An artificial intellect, a supposed artificial intelligence that may outstrip its human creators in mental capability."
Not enough 'human' for me in your projection. How about human/AI symbiotic augment, ya auld pessimist! A.K.A @Vera Mont
To boldy go where no human/AI symbiotic/Cybernetic augment has gone before.
Would more fit my own projection. HASCA's for short.
Humans, live their normal life, very similar to the way we do now, and then can, if they choose to, become a HASCA, as an alternative to death.
That is not the person I described. The person I described has so far done everything in his considerable power to thwart all attempts at uniting people at all levels, from ethnically mixed and gender unmixed marriage, through trade unions, co-operatives and party coalitions to the United Nations. The one who spends $100, 000, 000 on an airplane that does exactly nothing but waste vast quantities of fuel, until it's ordered to destroy some other airplane. That's the guy who will be in charge of the next big project and the next - with total disregard to what you or I advocate.
Quoting universeness
Yes. I believe - on the basis of evidence gathered over some decades - that no significant shift in power can take place in the present configuration of humanity. I believe that our only hope for a happy and stable future is the collapse of this civilization, as so many civilizations have collapsed before and made way for something new. That collapse will leave its survivors better equipped to start again than their predecessors had been, and with the benefit of some lessons learned the hardest possible way. May then...
So we agree with what and who we don't advocate. The difference is that you think we cannot defeat the nefarious and I think we can. I think the nefarious prefer you to me.
Quoting Vera Mont
There are a few James Bond movies with such plotlines:
The Spy Who Loved Me: Use stolen submarines to provoke a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviets, then rebuild humanity under the ocean.
Moonraker: Fire a nerve agent from space to kill the entire population of earth, then create a new civilisation in space.
Even Deep Space 9 had a go, on the holodeck (things often went wrong on the holodeck), in an episode called 'Our Man Bashir' (No doubt a take off of 'Our Man Flint):
Are you a potential super villain Vera? I don't think we need to start again. We just need to do better.
It doesn't matter. They're defeating themselves. They have to, because you and I and all the other powerless widgets, in spite of all our efforts, have failed to slow down their headlong rush to global annihilation.
You imagine a 'nefarious' few wielding Wizard-of-Oz style magic tricks that, once they're revealed, the Munchkins will no longer revere. You're putting an inordinate and unwarranted faith in the Munchkins.
You can reach for all the movies you like: they are fiction. This is fact :
Civilizations, cultures and traditions that once throve, in which the people expected to continue doing what they did, living as they did, improving and innovating where they could. I didn't destroy any of them, yet they no longer exist. Everything has a lifespan - even in despite of mighty technology, life can only be prolonged for a finite duration. When it ends, something else takes its place. Whoever pronounces an imminent demise is a villain. SBI.
The wizard of Oz and the munchkins are also fiction.
Egypt, Greece, Iran, Italy, Syria, India, China, etc persist. All the cultures/civilisations you mentioned changed. Even the ancient beaker people are still within us. As are the celts/picts/vikings etc, etc and probably some neanderthal, and Cro Magnon contributions. I already stated that there are more humans alive today than at any previous point in history. Despite our savagery towards each other. We have ever been in flux. It's just such a pity that that flux had to be so bloody at times and so more based on the competitive and savage rules of our jungle based Darwinian origins, than on the different stages of our enlightenment.
Quoting Vera Mont
A better and wiser augmented 'us,' is what will be the something else that takes our place, imo.
Yes. That's where you seem to feel most at home.
Quoting universeness
Exactly. Dysentery is quite a messy condition. The different stages of enlightenment achieved not only the the vast present population, but also the numbers killed in each succeeding major conflagration. We haven't had a world war since the 1939-45 one... the next war is already begun and shaping up to be a doozy. Epidemics keep getting bigger, too. Wonder the scale of destruction is proportionate to the scale of destroyable targets.
Quoting universeness
I hope you're right, but we have to make way for them, and that's never a tidy process. That's the part all optimists prefer to gloss over.
Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My! :scream:, but the wicked witch get's her ass melted and her troops switched to Dorothy, and her little dog to!
Pity Frank Baum was rather inconsistent in his own enlightenment:
When Baum lived in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he was secretary of its Equal Suffrage Club, much of the politics in the Republican Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer dealt with trying to convince the populace to vote for women's suffrage.
and then, we have:
During the period surrounding the 1890 Ghost Dance movement and Wounded Knee Massacre, Baum wrote two editorials asserting that the safety of white settlers depended on the wholesale genocide of American Indians.
Many people have some good positions and some bad ones. I think that about you and you think that about me. But on the majority of issues that would directly affect our fellow humans, I think we have mostly common cause.
Quoting Vera Mont
See what I mean!
Yes, I do. And thanks for the comparison to Baum; it should help keep me humble.
:up: Yes, well put. Many writers have compared our high-tech yet unstable culture with adolescence. Strong and bright but reckless and headstrong. And certain that their elders (indigenous cultures) have absolutely nothing important or helpful to offer.
Even with a stable civilization behind it, space travel requires an enormous amount of everything, as you suggest.
Paramount requirement: stop making wars, preparing for wars, cleaning up after wars. Firstly, they keep disuniting both peoples and purpose and secondly, they're monstrously costly. If I were running a world government, that would be my first order of business: put every country on Earth out of the business war.
That's the only way we could possibly put a stable civilization behind such a monumental shared effort. Even so, it would have to be a robust civilization, not one that's in continual crisis from weather events and related displacements.... which we won't have any time soon, whatever else happens, and can't have at all, unless the present economic system collapses very soon.
Definitely! The business of death taints and poisons everything it touches with its bloody skeleton fingers. Even during ‘peace time’ it hovers over us darkly. I use the term ‘business of death’ too.
Because Death is in business, and business is good. No one ever went broke dealing weapons.
But how to put War out of business? What is the thinking and belief system that fosters warfare?
One answer might be that we live in a culture where warfare is inevitable. That we live in a dominator culture, a culture of oppression at every level.
To which the spokesmen for the status quo would plead that “the law of life is ‘survival of the fittest’, and we modern people follow that perfectly!”
To which I’d say “raspberries!” :razz:
Follow-the-leader.
I would prefer 'wonderful organic, sentient, intelligent, progressive, unique, lifeform,' to 'meat payload.'
As an omnivore, I can eat meat, but not human meat, so the labels we choose to use are more important than your I hope 'tongue in cheek,' use of the label 'meat payload,' suggests. I could do something similar with,
fake/artificial/machine payloads are not - never have been or will be - the point of any 'mission' of discovery. Your mecha based technophilia, seems to trump your biophilia. :sad:
I wanted to answer this with a bit more detail.
Extracted from the data table from the wiki article List of epidemics and pandemics:
1 Black Death 75–200 million deaths 17–54% of estimate global pop.
2 Spanish flu 17–100 million 1–5.4%
3 Plague of Justinian 15–100 million 7–56%
4 HIV/AIDS epidemic 42 million (as of 2023)
5 COVID-19 pandemic 6.9–28.3 million 0.1–0.4%, so far.
So, no, epidemics / pandemics are not getting 'bigger' compared to historical data.
This last one covered the entire globe in less than a year. It's the sixth major epidemic in the first 20 years of this century. 2003 SARS; 2009 swine flu; 2012 West Nile; 2013–2016 Ebola virus; 2015 Zika More people died before modern medicine; now more survive, but many of them with ongoing symptoms and debilitating after-effects. And these diseases are draining modern health care systems the world over, so that there will be no reserves of material, medicine and personnel for the next one and the next and the next. Meanwhile drug-resistant cholera, TB and measles are coming back.
Quoting universeness
The operative words there are "so far". This the fourth or so iteration of coronavirus and it hasn't gone away, though people like to pretend otherwise. The past is not the future.
In historical data, wars are not getting bigger, either. All we've had - constantly - since WWII is little wars scattered all over the place. Meanwhile, arsenals have been accumulating that can destroy every living thing on the planet, 20 times over. Natural disasters have not grown bigger since the last ice age - just more frequent and widespread. The potential of future war, like the potential of future pandemic, like the potential of future climate are not represented by their modest little predecessors.
Perhap orga is only mecha's way of – raison d'être for – making more mecha. :smirk:
Sometimes I wonder who (or what) the top leader is. Who’s giving the orders?
Presidents, ministers, corporations? Banks?
Little pieces of cloth-paper with numbers on it, with pictures of royalty or dead presidents?
A giant quantum computer overseen by workers in dark robes?
A fallen angel misleading humanity to skip church and dress as the opposite sex?
And then sometimes I think there’s nobody there…
that it’s the ideas and dreams (or nightmares) in our mind that we follow… or don’t.
What about voting for the opposing party, writing to representatives and the newspaper, and unions?
The State took my grandchildren and I joined with other Grandparents fighting for their grandchildren and our effort became a radical change in the Department of Children's Services flipping the department's relationship with extended family. Making change depends on how much someone wants that change and the person's ability to mobilize the public for change. :lol: That is not easy, no one pays attention to what I have to say about logos, education, or democracy, and some days I get really discouraged but fighting for change is what a democracy is about and we have made progress. We would make even more progress if we understood a few things differently.
Quoting Vera Mont
Being dumb and having a different understanding of life are two different things. Your understanding of life is based on your experience of life and those who have a different experience will have a different way of understanding life. Our experience of life and our understanding of what government can and should do has changed greatly in the past 200 years.
Yes, morality was invented by the Athenians. A moral is a matter of cause and effect and it goes with an understanding of logos. I do not think the word moral can be found in the Bible. Christians have Christianized the concept of moral and they like to take credit for our democracy which no one saw in the Bible until there was literacy in Greek and Roman classics. We have a serious problem with Christians but that goes in another thread.
If we had the understanding of morality that began in Athens we would understand it means to know the law (universal law) and that violating the law leads to problems that get worse if the wrong is not corrected. This understanding is very important to democracy. The concept also emerged in Asia and to some degree all humans who survived had ideas about what would harm them or benefit them. But knowing what will hurt or benefit us, is not that useful without a notion of logos. It is as it is because of universal law, not because of gods that make it so.
The Bible explains slavery and believing people who look different are not humans equal to ourselves is a lie. But also speaking of slavery as though all slave owners brutalized their slaves also creates a lie. Their awareness was different from yours and today if you run across a brutal person, it is very likely that person had a different experience of life than yours, and has a whole different story of life in his/her head. What we think of that person and how we treat that person, depends strongly on the story we tell ourselves. In some persons the guards are brutal and there is agreement this is necessary because the brutal person must be dealt with brutally. In some counties, the brutality is tolerated and in some counties, it is not.
This is what philosophy is about, comparing our stories of life with other people's stories of life and arguing until we have an agreement on the best reasoning.
What is the life story in a person's head when the person is intentionally brutal? What was the life experience that led to that?
It's not one person, like an emperor. It's a loose association that shares a single interest: to own and consume the world. There's a book I haven't read yet...
Quoting 0 thru 9
Yes, and throw in the odd monarch and pope. In the olden days, it was simple: the emperor and his immediate advisors really did rule. In the even older days, the warlords of northern tribes actually led their warriors in fights for territory and resources, which would then be shared among the tribe. African, American and Oceanic cultures were usually organized on somewhat different lines, but the chieftains still had to lead and to make decisions that would benefit their people. While they led well, they were followed; when they could not, they were replaced.
Enlarged empires complicated these roles and arrangements. Peoples who were not blood-kin had to live under the same ruler; there was confusion, internal strife and unrest. More people, more ways to share, more co-ordination, more laws and layers, administrators and enforcers. And greater costs to reckon before and after each decisive event.
Now, the complication is global, as are the confusion, strife and unrest. The heads of nations are figurative and the real empires are not drawn on maps.
People who rule financial empires that need to grow are behind it all. Some deliberately pull the strings of politicians; some directly influence the mind of the masses; mostly they just invest - in media, in political campaigns, in arms manufactury, in retail and shipping, even in philanthropy. What they really control is capital - an insatiable caterpillar. Like every other life-form, the imperative of capital is to grow and reproduce. Capital itself is as mindless as a protozoan, but as it eats up the world and its human and other populations, its byproducts are luxury yachts and planes, exclusive spas, jewels and paintings and $100,000 bottles of wine, chateaux and glittery skyscrapers and silk-lined bunkers against the collapse of the civilization that their ver own activities are pushing toward collapse.
These people don't desire war, or mass shootings or terrorism or genocide; those are just some of the means to get things done. They just want to own more stuff, so they promote and support men who get things done . And because we humans are tribal, we always follow men who get things done. Except, of course, they don't: we do. The 'leaders' are absolutely sure of what is wrong, who is to blame and how it must be fixed. They are very good at communicating their certainty - and we are so thirsty for certainty, we'll follow them anywhere for just another drop. In pursuit of certainty, we are eager to take direction from them, take instruction, take orders, take up arms and leave our individual selves behind, just to have a meaning in their cause.
Of course, when it comes time to charge, the modern leader is usually in a tent or bunker or dining room far behind the lines. And his invisible, anonymous backers are farther back still, ready to abandon any 'leader' who falters, loses his grip on the peons or is defeated by some other leader. Those 'leaders' are practically interchangeable: every generation throws up a few dozen sociopaths who thrive on attention, adulation, subservience and awe. One gets stabbed in the back, the next one is already in line for the throne, with his own loyal army to secure it. The backers simply choose the next 'leader' and back away while he's installed. The changeover is always a messy business; they don't want any blood splashed on their own hummingbirdskin loafers.
Quoting 0 thru 9
White lab coats. That computer is our best hope of redemption, because the aliens are not coming.
Yes, I agree.
Thank you for the mention. You made me think of today's news about national leaders who appear to benefit themselves by exploiting others. To jump on universeness's side of the argument, CEOs who get million-dollar salaries are no better than those terrible leaders who use force to silence unhappy citizens. I am really quite amused right now by the unions demanding the workers get the same pay raise as the millionaire CEOs have gotten. Auto workers, nurses, the entertainment industry.
:chin: How long do you think it will take the capitalist to realize their is a problem with their formula for wealth?
I was a caregiver for a while and my wages were so low I could provide my children with a decent standard of living. Doing my very best was not good enough for the children's well-being and they turned against the values they were taught. They came back to those values, but not before having children of their own and really messing up their lives.
If I were king, all decisions would be based on what is best for the children and living sanely within the limits of nature. It would be a law that the population can not exceed the resources of the community. Diverting a river that many states must use, to provide for overpopulated places would be forbidden.
Laws would be based on laws of nature!!!
Okay, I now hope we can bring Universeness around to the possibility that is the foundation of our democracy- humans will do as well as they know how to do and if we want to change things, we need to begin with education, including the education of adults. That is the importance of this forum.
We need to make some agreements about how things should be and then how we can achieve it. People breeding like rabbits was great when most of us died before our 40th birthday but it is not a good thing today. Waiting for a God to solve our problems is not an option if we destroy this planet, He is not going to give us another one to mess up and we will mess it up as long as He gives us free will.
:heart: Humans are intelligent animals and that is best when they are well educated but that is not thinking of the young as products to prepare for industry or education for technology that makes them dependent on authority over them.
This thread has wandered all over the place and I hadn't noticed it was moved to the lounge but I can live with all that because I think the few of us who stayed with the thread have made progress. What is happening here will seep into other threads and eventually, the movement may change the world because this is not the only place that is part of the movement. The whole notion of democracy and logos has been around for thousands of years, but right now that knowledge seems seriously limited.
The priority purpose of education in the US was good citizenship that would make our republic united and strong. We prepared everyone for good moral judgment without the Church! As the Athenians did we created an American mythology and this was part of preparing our young to be good citizens. That is education transmitted a culture that is essential to democracy and our liberty. Only when democracy and liberty are defended in the classroom is it defended. That is what makes culture critical.
It is not knowledge that is the end all but how we process our thoughts. Anyone can be valuable in the discussions providing the individual has had preparation for logical thinking and is not 100% driven by emotions. Today most arguments are nothing but emotionally driven conflicts. Especially in politics.
The conflict Athenians had with those who taught rhetoric skills and the old-school philosophers tickles me.
Wouldn't Plato and Socrates have a cow if they saw today's advertisements and political campaigns?
OK, that's good to know. :smile:
Athens's patron goddess favored the life of a man over a woman's life and I have a problem with that patriarchy.
I
I think, when it comes to abortion we might want to ask what does "liberty" mean? For darn sure a woman with a child, in her belly or her arms, does not have liberty. If she does not want to be a mother and/or does not have the ability to provide for the child, the effect of her pregnancy will not be good.
How does society look at mothers who need help supporting a child? Is she honored almost as much as the Great Earth Mother or is she shamed and marginalized? Will her child be welcomed by the community and be valued by this community? It is not just the mother and child we need to consider but also the community the child is being born into.
PS How about privacy? I think privacy is very important and what we do with our bodies including not only abortion but also the right to die with dignity, is between ourselves and God. There are some things that are public and others that are private. Government and our neighbors should stay out of what is private.
Unwilling parents have been known to rise to the occasion and a child add much to their lives, so the overall effect could turn out to be good in many cases, in which case your cause-and-effect moral theory doesn't pan-out so well.
Unwilling is not the same as unable.
Yes, some able but unwilling parents have 'risen to the occasion' in some ways. Usually by giving up what they wanted to do with their own lives for what they needed to to do for the child. However, many more able but unwilling parents either attempted to rise to the occasion and failed, having to give child up, willingly or more often by force, and some end up hurting or killing the child while some raise the child so badly that he or she becomes another liability to society. Overall, not a happy outcome for the people involved or for society.
There would seem to be no moral issue for women who are unable to give birth, given that there's no choice in the matter.
Quoting Vera Mont
You seem to be suggesting that forcing birth, or rather that making abortion illegal is immoral because in some cases it may result in bad consequences. Why are you identifying giving birth as the cause of the bad result? It would seem more reasonable to identify the raising of the child "so badly" as the cause of the bad result.
Moral, is not a matter of cause and effect. It's a matter of intuition and culture, to put it broadly. It involves reason of course, though I don't know if it can be said to be rational, not strickly rational anyway.
Getting them to care, is the problem.
Quoting Athena
That's just not true. I very much agree with Education! Education! Education! I just don't see much value in any emphasis on Greek/Athenian values or on the musings of ancient thinkers such as Plato or Aristotle. I prefer more contemporary musings.
Of course they do! Lots of women who can't give birth adopt babies from women who could and didn't want to, or children taken away from parents who could not or would not adequately rise to parenthood, or import one from a country too poor to care for all of its children, or commission a surrogate or buy one on the black market. All those children are available and negotiable.
Quoting praxis
I don't see that anywhere in the quoted text. I will say now that forcing parenthood on the unwilling will always have bad consequences, especially for the unwanted child. There are several ways both for the woman and her society to avoid that bad outcome; abortion is only one option. I didn't invoke morality on either side of the issue, nor do I wish to engage in yet another debate on abortion.
As regards education, which was central to this thread all along, it could and should imo be instrumental both in preventing unwanted pregnancies and in promoting sound family management.
Quoting praxis
Because without a birth, there would be no child of contention. And of course I did not identify the birth as the cause of a bad result, but rather the forcing of a child on unwilling parent(s).
:up: Thanks for your reply!
If our civilization as a whole were a car, it would be one being held together by duct tape and wire with a frame so rusted that hitting a pothole could cause collapse.
We are like the children in the backseat fearing for our lives.
Daddy driving the car is a penny pincher who thinks he can squeeze more mileage out of it.
And he doesn’t want the kids to mess up his other car, a Lambo.
Quoting Vera Mont
Interesting. Why do you think that computer is our best hope?
(Besides the nonexistent aliens who are not coming, not surprisingly :yum: )
Humans have so far proved incapable of rational resource management.
@universeness
[quote=Albert Camus]He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.[/quote]
We seem to have lost the plot here so I will ignore this part.
Quoting Vera Mont
Really? You can't even imagine parents who were initially unwilling but ended up with a good outcome for themselves and their initially unwanted child??? Personally, my wife and I chose not to have children but I can imagine that if we were unable to avoid it things could have turned out well.
Quoting Vera Mont
That doesn't dismiss the question in any way. Forcing parenthood is only one cause out of literally countless causes that could be identified for a bad result.
I think the bottom line here is that sapiens are not rational beings and therefore suggesting that morality is essentially rational, that it "is a matter of cause & effect" is false and misguided. Morality involves personal and shared values, identity, and intuitions that we may not even be consciously aware of.
I can imagine it, but that image doesn't fit with anything I've seen in the real world.
For a grown woman in a stable marriage with reasonably secure income and health insurance, an unplanned baby is no great hardship. For a 15-year-old homeless girl whose boyfriend/stepfather/john/rapist agent of conception is long departed from the scene, it's the disaster. Which do you suppose is more likely to want an abortion? Which do you suppose has less access to one?
Quoting praxis
Fine. I didn't say a word about morality. But now it's here, I might remark that I'm not a fan of people who are not required to pay the price of the outcome thrusting their moral judgment on the people who are, and justify it by being able to 'imagine' a situation where the outcome isn't bad.
This is a crucial question.
And because it seems difficult to not think it sounds like a naïve question or adopt a jaded, cynical, or pessimistic attitude towards it, may illustrate how low our expectations have slid.
A culture that can’t cover such a basic need is in trouble. (Probably not breaking news to anyone… )
Ok, won’t argue with that point!
But the computer would have to be given authority to make important decisions with many nuanced circumstances and possible consequences.
As of now, AI is having trouble driving a car without doing something bafflingly dangerous.
Also, Elon Musk would probably own the world-ruling quantum computer.
So that’s gotta be a strike against it.
But seriously though, as a tool to help guide those truly interested in helping the world at large (instead of their own bank account, if there are any such people) then sure… let’s eventually give it a try. :nerd:
It was there from the start. It was the entire focus, actually, and abortion was merely an example. I could have used many other examples. I guess it was too good an example, you getting so caught up in it that the point was lost.
Sounds like a man who experienced a lot of self-contradiction. He probably died quite young in a car accident.
I wonder.
He was a candle who burned at both ends, lit by an older, fluttering flame ...
[quote=Franz Kafka]Oh, plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope – but not for us.[/quote]
I’m pro-choice, by the way, in case that wasn’t clear and it matters at all, and I wasn’t arguing for or against abortion because that wasn’t the point.
"Hope springs eternal."
Alexander Pope in An Essay on Man (1732)
Humorous sidenote: Pope is an interesting second name.
There is a Glasgow story about a fight/scuffle, started in a Glasgow 'orange hall,' (orangemen were/are anti-catholic. They are called orangemen, after their main hero 'King Billy' or the dutchman 'William Of Orange.') Anyway, the story goes that an American group visiting Glasgow, entered an orange club and it was explained to them that the club was 'members only.' After some discussion the management said they would 'sign them in.' There were 4 of them. An argument and a scuffle then broke out after the Americans signed the visitors book. Only after they showed their ID/passports, did the 'scuffle' end.
One of the Americans was genuinely called IRA POPE! and that's why he wrote that in the visitors book. :lol: :rofl:
I can explain why I find that story so hilarious, if you don't understand it, but, the more interesting 'cultural' fallout, is perhaps expressed in a question such as, are the implications of names, culturally critical? Are all 'Macs' always Scottish, no matter where the person lives or ended up due to the movement of diaspora? Does a Kelly always belong to the Irish? is 'Ben' always Jewish? Is a Pope always Catholic? Does IRA always for some, stand for the Irish Republican Army and is 'Alexander,' always Macedonian Greek? How come Alexander is still valid for naming a child in the UK or USA, but naming your child Jesus, or even Plato or Aristotle is unlikely to ever be in vogue? :chin: I know some 'cultures' will use such names but most parents wont.
Sorry @Amity,@Jamal et al, my mind does jump a lot, but as I said 'culture is critical,' is imo, a wide casting of a net. At least my mind jumps, helps keep some threads alive and kicking.
Why are you apologising to me?
In recognition of the possibility, that it was mostly my mind jumps, rather than the contributions of @Vera Mont or @Athena that caused what you considered a thread worthy of maintaining its position as a mainline thread, getting sent to the lounge, where other TPF members have opined, is the place threads go to die. Which at least, has been shown, is not always true.
Perhaps my 'sorry' was more of a recognition of a possibility that 'influenced' @Jamal's action, rather than an aspect of my thought processes that I sometimes regret. I consider my 'butterfly mind,' a great asset in the main.
No. My concern has more to do with the transfer of discussions to The Lounge without apparent notification or reason given at the time. Also, related to the descriptions of TPF categories and correct placements of topics. But I've said all this before.
I doubt we really needed all that background info. I went to highschool back when they were still teaching history, and in a recent ex-colony, where heavy emphasis was placed on British history.
Surnames are passed down largely unchanged, long after the original meaning of the word, the place or occupation it denotes is forgotten. Some names are easy to transplant from one language into another; some are very difficult, either because they have a different meaning or because of some ideological association in the other culture - these, people usually abbreviate or change altogether. Your particular example is even more ironic
As for given names, it's a matter of tradition (naming children after parents, grandparents or godparents) and fashion. An actor or athlete or general becomes famous and has lots and lots of babies of a generation named after him. There are periodic waves of Biblical names or literary names, or even names from popular movies and songs. The English have generally eschewed direct Christ references, perhaps regarding it as sacrilege; other nations embrace it as homage. 19th century Americans were quite enamoured of Old Testament prophets and heroines, whose names still turn up from time to time, and the apostles are ever popular.
Each nation has its historical and legendary figures whose names come into vogue in little waves of national pride. Aristotle and Alexander have never been in shortage in Greece, as well as the perennial Peter and Christopher. Every second generation in Hungary yields a crop of Attilas and Csabas; the French and English have their kings.
Naming may have been indicative of what was considered significant in a culture, back before global networking. Now African children may be named after American fictional detectives, while Austrian children may bear the name of some legendary figure in what the parents fancy as their Mideastern roots. And of course, for a mercifully short time, we had a crop of babies called things like Moon Orchid and Indigo River.
What was the point?
Athena said
and you responded
Which had no relation to her argument that other people should not be dictating what an individual does with their own body. You then seemed to be arguing that, yes, they did, because you can imagine a situation wherein an individual might change their mind if they accepted society's dictate. In this instance, I agree with Athena: Government and our neighbours should stay out of what is private.
But I'll add that it would make a better a society and easier personal choices if government and our neighbours were more supportive of the individual's needs.
Ah yes… education. A definite necessity. But the details… what kind of education?
In the USA, the public schools do an excellent job of getting the kids ready for the mindless machine of entering the work force (or work farce) and dealing with hypocrisy and oppression.
Overall for the public schools, it seems to be a game of spending as little money as possible while cramming in as many kids as possible. (Despite millions of dollars coming in from lotteries and taxes). All while keeping up a positive chatter about Science! and The Future! etc.
I know several former caring teachers who were totally burnt out by the system.
Yeah, I think that's what @Athena has been stating since the beginning of this thread, even in her OP.
Quoting Athena
Where Athena and I disagree with each other, is along the lines of what I stated and have underlined below:
Quoting universeness
Much of this thread, is a discussion about how educational curricula should be constructed and what it should focus on, and how critical, national/tribal culture is, to that process.
Quoting 0 thru 9
I am an example of such a teacher, who took early retirement at 55, because I was burnt out because of the education system in Scotland.
:up: Thanks for your reply!
Sorry to hear that this is an international crisis. Sounds like you were on the front lines and did all you could.
Quoting universeness
Students today (in the USA if not elsewhere) are in a battlefield. Both literally with gun attacks, and figuratively with the war over book bannings (burnings?) and ‘Don’t stay gay… or race… ‘ or anything else not approved by self-righteous propagandists.
If they can somehow manage to graduate high school and get accepted into college, they will sail into a bright future of a rewarding and well-paying job. Or at least 10% will.
Did we mention the crippling debt for getting that college education?
In terms of education, this thread could be named ‘Culture is in critical condition’.
The exact curriculum is an extremely important question, of course.
But deep foundational structures lay beneath it, and the foundation is cracking.
A culture as a whole is like a huge ocean-going vessel.
The young (and their education and health) are metaphorically at the front of the ship.
The front of our cultural ship has hit an iceberg.
What could a solution be? It strains my imagination to even think of some.
As the culture goes, so goes its components such as education. And conversely so.
If the individual organs are diseased, the body will suffer. And vice verse.
When money dictates the rules and sets the pace, everything becomes a facade, a front.
Our culture is a drug addict, and the drug is money. All other concerns are given lip service or forgotten.
Such melodramatic analogies are imprecise and don’t solve anything. But that seems to be roughly the situation in general as I see it.
This is partly why the exchange I had with @Athena and @Vera Mont took a more political direction.
I advocate for working towards the further dilution of all tribalism, all notions of creed and all notions of national identity and traditional/classical presentations of what constitutes a successful civilisation/society. All historical civilisations have failed. We need to teach why, not just teach the dates and what events occurred on those dates.
I advocate for a united species, no more nations, one planet, global governance with a resource based global economy that has automation at its core and good stewardship of this planet, as one of it's prime directives. The removal of money as a means of exchange and the removal of the money trick and religion, as the main means by which a nefarious few, can gain control over a divided and ill-informed global mass of people.
I further advocate for no more party politics. Vote for a person, not a party, not at a local, national, international or global level.
And the bigger empires grew the faster they collapsed.
My contention is that civilizations fail because they attempt to eradicate tribalism, in order to subsume the members of the tribes they conquer into a unified whole. It's never worked, so far. People do not want to be relived of their group identity and loyalty. They fight onto the death to liberate their tribe from the domination of a larger, more powerful civilization - even if that civilization is by all of its own standards superior to their own. Children assimilate more easily - which was the original idea behind the residential school system: the benevolent and beautiful white people were going to capture young savages in the wilderness and civilize them. It didn't go according to plan.
Quoting universeness
Unfortunately, we believe and/or profess very different versions of that "why".
Quoting universeness
I agree with that vision, except in one particular: let the global union be a federation of self-defined tribes, because that is the level of organization at which human societies have been cohesive and stable for the longest periods. The global government needs do nothing more than arbitrate inter-tribal contention, oversee equitable resource distribution and make pooled knowledge available to all.
I think the difference is that I advocate unison via consent and not force. Your paragraph above describes a history of conquest and not cooperation through reason. I advocate for unison through argument that cooperation, rather than competition in the better way. Imo, traditional tribalism, learned in a rather shallow and narrow scope, will naturally fade over time, due to the wider scope on offer, with more cooperation.
Those who enjoy their traditional foods, for example, often find that their lives are enhanced when they can access the traditional foods of other tribes as well. I know tastes in food and the way a tribe traditionally treats it's women, are not really comparable but, such differences have always been hard to negotiate but it can be and has been achieved.
Quoting Vera Mont
There is good and bad about that. The bad happens if we cannot find any common ground at all, ever.
The good comes from the fact that opposing positions creates choice and choice is always better than no choice.
Quoting Vera Mont
See, common ground! If only I could find as much common ground with MAGA Trump supporters, as I can with you.
Quoting Vera Mont
A good comfortable piece of common ground within which useful and fruitful negotiation, action planning and trial projects can be agreed upon and can begin.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ~Upton Sinclair
"It's easier to imagine the end of ]the world than the end of capitalism." ~Mark Fisher
Quoting universeness
Short of total armageddon – in this scarcity-driven global civilization, my friend – how do you propose to get the "nefarious few" to relinquish "control over a divided and ill-informed global mass of people" who are, for the most part, "money tricked" (from Glasgow to Guangzhou, Brooklyn to Benin, Tel Aviv to Tazmania) by a 24/7 global, virtual menagerie of various hedonic treadmills schemes from cradle to grave? :chin:
What do you mean by "learned in a shallow and narrow scope"? Ethnic identity tends to go quite deep and encompass culture that was centuries or millennia in the making. There is no reason tribes have to compete instead of cooperating. There have been alliances and federations since long before history, and intertribal trade and social gatherings to exchange information and mates go back to Neanderthal clan structure. Cooperation doesn't require homogenization.
In education, choosing among different versions of history does not lead to resolution, but to conflict. And we have no objective source, because the computer has been fed its information by humans. The best we can do is supply teachers with all possible facts and encourage discussion in the classroom.
Quoting universeness
You and I live in the same universe. They don't.
There is no way. Armageddon begins with a couple of wars and climate crises, proceeds to multiple displaced populations carrying overlapping plagues, and somewhere in there, the economic system collapses, never to rise again. Human society resumes - if it does - after a long interval, with much reduced numbers and resources. But at least the more provident and farsighted among us have already laid up caches of knowledge, seed and DNA for their use.
We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win
Here are some more I got by searching for: "positive quotes about the future of the human race."
[i]Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi in 1925 in Practical Idealism predicted: "The man of the future will be of mixed race. Today's races and classes will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice."
H. G. Wells said: "Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race."
Stephen Hawking said: "I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be space and that it represents an important life insurance for our future survival, as it could prevent the disappearance of humanity by colonizing other planets."[/i]
Mr Fisher also proposed:
Capitalists maintain their power not through violence or force, but by creating a pervasive sense that the Capitalist system is all there is. They maintain this view by dominating most social and cultural institutions. Fisher proposes that within a capitalist framework there is no space to conceive of alternative forms of social structures, adding that younger generations are not even concerned with recognizing alternatives.
I think he was completely wrong in suggesting this situation cannot be changed. His own personal struggles, resulted in his own suicide. My statements here are only based on my brief searches on Mr Fisher, who I had not heard of prior to reading your post. So, I fully admit that my comments here are not in any way based on an in-depth knowledge of Mr Fishers work.
Quoting 180 Proof
Via the needs, demands, and the protestations of the many, and via the political representatives and the political systems, a better informed populous will vote for, in the future.
Information systems like the internet can be used for the good, as well as the bad. Just like a bad idea can be spread across the internet like wildfire, so can a good idea. With all new tech, humans tend to take it down many blind and quite destructive alleys, but we eventually find ways to use it for the better. Even the threat of m.a.d from nuclear weapons, has been somewhat useful.
Okay, but back on Earth One, how will the well-organized/resourced "nefarious few" (most of whom are anonymous, even secretive) be "removed" – not replaced – by the hyper-divided-n-controlled, scarcity-wired, "many"?
Limited land boundary. Limited knowledge base. Living under a hierarchical authority system, often with a single leader at the top. A small tribe on a big planet.
Quoting Vera Mont
I broadly agree. It's a pity that many decided that competitive conquest of the neighbours was a more efficient solution, than trying to negotiate and cooperate with them. All the ideas that you mentioned, 'alliance,' 'federation,' 'trade,' 'cooperation,' 'social gathering,' sound good to me. We should keep and nurture all of those and get rid of as many aspect as possible, related to 'autocracy,' 'dictatorship,' 'survival of the fittest,' 'war,' etc. I am quite happy to go with a global united people, made up of smaller sub-groups of separate flavours of human.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yeah but they don't live in a different universe, or even on a different planet, or for many, even a different country, city or town. So, we have to get through to them.
Do you agree that any excessively rich and powerful individual can be, identified and scrutinised, whenever a popular focus, lands on them? There have been many examples of rich and powerful horrors being brought down, almost overnight. even some who were hitherto, complete unknowns to the majority of the global population.
If you do, then I think this reveals one way, that what you are asking about, could be 'progressed toward,' or actually achieved.
We could legislate, that if you become rich and powerful, then your day to day life will become far more open to the 'monitoring' of the checks and balances system that I would advocate for.
I can offer many details on how such a system would function, if you want me to.
I think anyone who holds a position of trusted authority should come into the domain of 'checks and balances.' I think anyone who is excessively wealthy must be scrutinised by that domain. That is my version of 'big brother is watching you.' Big brother would become a label for the mass of the population of the planet. This is the way a good 'big brother,' was always supposed to be, in a human family. A guy who helped protect the family from nefarious b*******.
That also applies to the globe. If you wanted to preserve some remnant of nature, humans would have to be limited ion what land they can occupy and exploit.
Quoting universeness
Why? Won't they all have internet access, once the economy and governance is technology based?
Quoting universeness
Who says? Tribal systems are organized in a great variety of ways, most of them far more egalitarian than what we now, with a bitter laugh, call democracies.
Quoting universeness
Many small tribes on a big planet beats all hell out of one ginormous tribe on a small planet.
Quoting universeness
Theirs is a self-created reality-bubble that they want to impose on the real world, which has already had a number of dystopian alternate realities imposed upon it.
They would still have such as freedom of travel.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes, I was referring to older tribal systems.
Quoting Vera Mont
I say. Most tribal systems are similar and there is not a 'great variety' in the ways they operated. There is some variety yes, but not 'great variety.'
Quoting Vera Mont
Do many individual bricks, beat the hell out of a wall or a home? Do many individual quarks and electrons, beat the hell out of atoms? Does a universe beat the hell out of one big multi-verse?
And why would members of tribes in a federation, not be more free to travel than citizens or nations are now?
Quoting universeness
Even they were not restricted in knowledge. They travelled all the time - on explorations, personal quests, for trade and education. They exchanged skills, craft items, seeds, tools, geographical information and stories, as well as sons and daughters.
Quoting universeness
Read more.
Quoting universeness
Yes, if that home is built on a sinkhole. Besides, bricks are a lousy construction material. Not as bad a concrete, but pretty bad.
Quoting universeness
How should I know? I haven't see either.
Right back at you! and watch more docs on old tribes!
Quoting Vera Mont
Do people deliberately do that? :roll:
No, they did it through a series of disastrous blunders. So no we're all sinking.
This...
Quoting praxis
I think if Orwell could have imagined an artificial general intelligence in 1949 his book 1984 would have been a bit different. Can you imagine the power of media manipulation and surveillance it could have? We appear to be rapidly approaching AGI and those who develop it, the excessively wealthy, will be in control.
Thank you. I can remember that question from my childhood as my mother could only work for low women's wages and was paid less than a man hired to do the same job. Back in the day, our economic structure favored men. I was somewhat confused as I thought poverty was shameful but we all had an opportunity to get an education. On the other hand, that did not include equality at the college and career level. I was totally unaware of any assistance programs and wondered, how caring was our society? As an adult, I have heard other nations are doing much better. I have not experienced other nations so I am not sure but I still wonder about what are the possibilities.
Growing up in constant insecurity and feeling like a less-valued member of society left me wounded and in my old age I wonder about these things even more because now I can look back and see how the condition of a child's life shapes the child and the problems are passed on generation to generation. Christianity has not made a big difference. In fact, governments intentionally used it to make some people believe poverty is tolerable and even virtuous. So is there something better?
One thing I am relatively sure of is the importance of education and I do not think education for technology and leaving moral training to the church is the best education for a civilization. Coming from Socrates and Plato I think good moral judgment is a vital part of education. And here I agree with Nietzsche. A pagan zeal for excellence may serve us better than being humble and passively enduring inequality and injustice.
I think we should consider that possibility.
Have you seen the British show "Humans"? It is pretty heavy as it pushes us to take another look at our values. Not everyone you see in this clip is a human. Some are programmed robots. A few of them have self-awareness. Do you want one?
I want to assure you of your value. I have noticed I am writing with your influence on my mind. I say something and wonder if it would be agreeable with you and I have a desire for that to be so. For me this is progress. You and others have expanded my mind and I agree with the mods that what is happening here is not technically philosophy as our technologically correct times judge philosophy. But I think Socrates and Plato would approve.
That is so sad. I have never thought of Socrates or Plato getting burnt out as teachers but they did not attempt to educate anyone younger than 30 years old. Being a school teacher today would be so different from education as they saw it.
It might help if you explain why you got burnt out. I am curious and I think it is something we need to seriously explore. My grandmother was teaching her whole until Alzheimer's destroyed her ability to do so somewhere around 80 years old. Her generation of teachers believed they were defending democracy in the classroom by preparing the young to be the best they could be. Their job was to help each child discover his/her interests and talents. I love the older school books that I have. This is why I write. Teachers are so valuable and we should not tolerate conditions that burn them out. Please, tell me more.
You and the Universe make me regret I have been too busy to carefully read and participate in the discussion.
Please be patient with me. It is past bedtime:cry:
Everything has become about money and war. Today's education is not the education children once had. We educated our young to be well-rounded individuals and to have good moral judgment without religion. I promise I will do my best to return as soon as I can. I think what we are doing here is very important. I am about saving the world and that is a hard job when I am all by myself. It is great to not be alone with my mission.
I appreciate your kind words Athena.
When I started at the classroom face, my enthusiasm was at 100%. I was a showman and over the years of my teaching career, I had so many fantastic connections with individual pupils that have left me with a conviction, that my career did make a positive difference for many pupils. But I much more remember the failures, than the successes. I have kept and still read, individual letters I got from parents and pupils about how I helped, but they reduced in number, as the years went by, because I became more and more fatigued and challenged, as I got older and they kept piling on the pressure.
In Scotland, they brought in such initiatives as 'Higher still,' 'Curriculum for excellence' and 'inclusion.'
The best of these was 'Inclusion,' but it was also the hardest to deal with, as they did not resource it, nor did they bring in the extra expertise required in the classroom. I was a great fan of inclusion but I could not achieve it's goals with the resources and support I was given.
I remember one year where I had a mixed ability standard grade class of 20 kids in front of me.
One pupil was partial hearing, so I had to wear a special mike, that connected to an earpiece the child wore. I had to remember when to switch it on or off, during a lesson. If it was on when a staff member came into speak to me, during a lesson, then the pupil would pick up the private chat. If I had it on, when sitting beside another pupil, helping them understand a bit of the lesson they were struggling with, then the partial hearing pupil would pick up the conversation and have to indicate to me, that this was disturbing their concentration.
Another pupil had to have all their printed material on blue paper and I had to remember to set my whiteboard projections in the way, that allowed that pupil to see the material projected on the whiteboard, effectively.
Another pupil was a 'selective mute,' and she would only talk/respond/communicate to me or anyone else, when she chose or felt able to. So I could rarely confirm if she understood the lesson or what I wanted her to do next.
In that same class, I had two dyslexic kids, a pupil with Asperger Syndrome and a pupil with Motor Neurone Disease who had a walking frame and a bad speech impediment.
This was not the only challenging class I had on my timetable. My lesson prep time went through the roof. I was exhausted all the time. I did not ever get a proper lunchtime, as I had pupils up every day at lunch, as I was trying to give some of those who were falling behind in class, a little extra help. The work I had to do after I left the school for the day, was ridiculous. I had a classroom assistant for two periods out of the three that I took that mixed ability class. A lovely person, but not a subject specialist, and not particularly trained to help significantly with special need pupils.
All my efforts meant that those mixed ability classes produced good results and I got a lot of praise from senior management but the cost was eventually my own total burn out. As the years went by I could not keep up that level of effort, so my class results began to drop off. I knew I was a spent force and it was time to go.
Thanks for your reply! :smile:
As for the identities you mention are deeply ingrained in our bodies and minds, so it’d be difficult to actively dilute or dissolve.
And it would be met with the immediate resistance of a cornered animal.
However, I’d agree that this aspect of identity tribalism and politics has become overly large.
We are more than our nationality, color, etc.
And simplifying everything politically to Red vs Blue (in the USA for example) is so boring basic and dumbed-down, it’s difficult to even know how to interact with the ‘other side’.
One has a better chance of having a conversation about the history of art with a person in the stands during a football game / match.
Quoting universeness
This may be quibbling over definitions, but I’d say that not all civilizations prior to the current global civilization (aka Western Civilization II: The Takeover) have failed.
Firstly, simply ceasing to exist doesn’t exactly equate with failure, not completely. (Might be a whole other topic).
But more importantly, some extant tribal cultures have been going for several thousand years.
Some may hastily dismiss these as ‘not examples of a civilization’, but I think that is too narrow a definition.
Just because these cultures may not have become colonizers and taken over large swathes of territory doesn’t diminish their feat of continuing survival.
These cultures, as different as they are from ours, may have something we can learn about survival… even if the people were in an ‘oral culture’, not a written one.
In fact, their existence may show the limits of ‘imperial overreach’.
Although current world power is clever and has deviously improved upon the old imperial game plan.
The new plan: don’t take over smaller countries (that’s too costly), just go in with tanks / bribes / propaganda and [s]take whatever you want[/s] secure the needed resources for your country.
Quoting universeness
That sounds good, a huge improvement over ‘poverty with a sugar-coating of bling’ lol.
But… the devil is in the details. (Actually the Devil, if you read the Alt-Right’s literal demonization of everything 6 inches to the left of them).
As you are aware, there’s a long-standing suspicion of anything that smells of ‘one-world government’ amongst many people, most (but not all) on the right-wing.
Until it was abundantly clear that any talk of ‘global unity’ wasn’t the wolf in sheep’s clothing of world authoritarianism, even progressives and new-agers will be skeptical.
But to live in a world like the one described in the song ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon? Sure! :victory:
:up: Thanks for your reply! :smile:
I was going to respond by saying something like “this (situation you described) is completely unacceptable in an affluent First-World country… ”.
But that sounds a bit hollow and callous to my ears for some reason…
Would it be acceptable anywhere? Why?
Our Mother Culture’s* answer: [i]“It is difficult to accept, and so very tragic [wipes away a tear].
But we must face Reality, and see how the sausage gets made. However, such suffering is inevitable for those on the primative low rung. Only the strong can stomach the harsh reality.
(We didn’t make the rules! Darwin did). But wait! There is an upside! If only those (natural but backward) people join us in our technological journey to the heavens, then they too will get a delicious piece of the pie!”[/i] (A tiny piece, mostly crust lol).
But what are the consequences of following such thinking?
(For it is meant to be followed, and definitely not just theoretical).
Unfortunately, I’m still trying to rinse my brain clear of the persistence of our cultural propaganda, an indoctrination that’s even deeper than party politics. (Deeper because it is uncontested by both parties, and even by most of the ‘fringe’).
There’s an ignorant (and thus quite insistent and loud) though unwanted voice that lingers in my mind, which tells me that those people in distant lands living in makeshift huts are actually just squatters on the property of Civilization.
Not unlike the squirrels living in an apple orchard: tolerated as long as they don’t get in the way of progress.
Then I realize that I may not agree with every persistent thought that pops up in my head.
I think I have more brain rinsing to do, to hopefully get rid of the brainwashing…
(it’s a work in progress).
* ‘Mother Culture’ being a term I find useful, one used by Daniel Quinn to personify the cultural indoctrination that lives in our unconscious and carries immense influence.
On my part, it's not a case of dismissing tribal cultures, but rather of differentiating tribal cultures from urban ones. What people usually consider 'civilized' begins with city states with a hierarchical social structure, work specialization, standing armies, currency and written laws. These civilizations have a pressure to accommodate growing populations and material consumption through aggressive expansion.
The need and greed for more land and resources invariably means subjugating 'other' peoples. If the conquered tribe is small enough in numbers, it is assimilated over time. If it's a substantial enough population to keep its own traditions alive, it remains an unsightly lump under the carpet for the rest of the empire's life. Of course, much depends on how the minority is treated. Celtic and Germanic mercenaries fared well in Rome; Mesopotamian slaves were distinctly unhappy.
Imperialism, like capitalism, demands continuous growth. This always ends in internal corruption, schism and overreach. That alone may result in the collapse of an empire, but the collapse is usually hastened by the advent of the next empire forming at its flanks, waiting for an opportunity.
What happened to US politics is not in any sense tribal. A political faction, a bunch of yahoos united by nothing more than license to oppress another group, a deluded minority of underachievers dreaming of reclaimed privilege, those with actual privilege too jealous to share - these are not tribes.
:100: :up:
Much respect.
:up: Thanks very much for your reply! :smile:
That makes perfect sense. Urban cultures definitely have unique features to them.
Our entire world seems to be urban now, for better or worse.
The Mayan civilization started as tribal, grew to a large urban population.
Then when factors were no longer favorable for large cities, many people left to return to smaller communities.
The Spanish conquest closed the deal, as I understand it.
If ‘pre-modern’ peoples are not dismissed as quaint, bloodthirsty, ignorant, or impossibly saintly, then there exists a chance that their way of life will be studied and taken seriously.
What things did they know that could help us?
For starters: how to survive and grow and live sustainably for over 1 million years (or 2 million if counting Homo Habilis).
We would have to adapt the knowledge to our circumstances, of course.
Our wonderful imaginations would be of immense usefulness.
We could ask ourselves “what are the most important things in life, and how could we keep them and not selfishly treat the earth like our own personal cookie jar”.
We could drop our aggressiveness towards anyone or anything that gets in the way of our ‘progress’.
Maybe they are giving us a message we’d best listen to, like “slow down, what is the hurry?”
The existing tribal cultures are not yesterday’s news, they are tomorrow’s hope.
Quoting Vera Mont
Agreed! (And nice catchy metaphor, too).
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes… unfortunately yes. The Dominator Culture theory mentioned before lives on unimpeded.
As a whole, we seem to be reaching some sort of wall or limit, on multiple levels.
We can run the outdated old playbook of domination: against the planet, animals, women, minorities, the poor, the ‘primitive’, etc etc until the Earth resembles a zombie movie.
Or we can emerge from our cocoon with wisdom and live freely, allowing others to do the same… because they are our future friends, and friends are much more interesting than victims.
Thank you. I loved being a teacher and I remain so angry, that a human invention such as money and how it is employed, makes a great concept such as inclusion, be almost impossible to implement effectively. It could work, and it could work well, but not by just a single subject specialist teacher, in a classroom where a team with the skills that match the needs of the pupils in that particular class is required. Either that or automated systems that can become all the specialised assistants a single subject specialist would need, to cater effectively to the mixed ability levels and any special needs of the pupils in front of them.
Quite a lot, seems like. And have, including the use of corn, yams, peanuts and tomatoes.
[/quote]Indigenous Peoples’ contributions are essential in designing and implementing solutions for ecosystems. Traditional knowledge and heritage can contribute to environmental assessments and sustainable ecosystem management.[/quote]
Quoting universeness
Me too, for some little whiles. I was lucky enough to do it in informal situations. Pottery class in a summer camp for children with cancer; ESL for adults at night school, practical instruction for tech students in the laboratory. Way more rewarding than the daily slog and paperwork of a classroom!
Stratified civilizations have to regiment every aspect of life, lest the citizens break formation and forget their place.
Did you not also experience anger that something as pathetic as money, dictated the availability and quality of education for any individual human?
It's akin to how I feel about images of starving children on the TV or charity adverts like, 'we need your money, as these people are dying, for lack of this particular medicine, which human science can make easily.'
When my first response is, 'well f****** give them what they need,' I just hate those counter responses that start 'well, it's more complicated than that ........'
Just 'f****** lies and f****** excuses for unacceptable behaviour.
WE CAN feed everyone and WE CAN well educate everyone, etc, etc, and give all current 8 billion of us a better life, than most of that number are experiencing since they woke up today.
But the big feed pipe is blocked by big lumps of utter bullshit. These blocks need clearing.
That's the common ground we should all be starting together from. To me, that's what's important, not the semantic arguments between members of the masses.
Get 10 democratic socialists in a room and they will over-debate all issues.
Get 10 nefarious b******* in a room and the very quick, very base unison between them, is something the 10 democratic socialists need to learn how to achieve, as quickly and as efficiently, as them.
K.I.S.S.
I’m trying to visualize/think about whether there are ANY ‘pipes’ (flow of material, energy, information etc) that are NOT blocked. Maybe some that are only partially blocked… :confused:
WE CAN! If the masses would just occupy the common ground between us all. Perhaps we do need something like AGI, to help us make the required transitions, to reach a point, such as your described 'post scarcity.' I don't think we need a vastly reduced population however, or to break up back into small tribal or epicurean groupings first. You are correct imo, that 'something significant,' has to change soon, or else we will all have to suffer a Trumpian style future horror first. Which will prove to be yet another historical waste of time, another blind alley that enough humans, may well be duped enough, to dart down, before enough of us see the actual changes that are needed, and are soooooooo long overdue imo.
BS remover, is now the most important job we all have. BS creator's are the common enemy.
:rofl:
Mate, that proletarian ship has sailed (and sank) a long while ago. (vide T. Veblen et al). The carcass of :victory: :flower: was ripe by Spring '68 ... we've just been loitering in its shallow grave ever since (vide S. Beckett, J. Baldwin or T. Ligotti). What's that? "Doomster speak!" No, just one latter-day primate all-too-soberly gesticulating this old blues to another :monkey:
It is not enough to want the very best for children. We must also take good care of the teachers. I think today, in other professions as well, we are demanding too much of the people doing the job. Our Industrial age was dehumanizing and high tech has increased the problem, and there is a pushback, that is unfortunately burnt out people quitting. I don't know how things are going where you live but we can not find enough people to do the jobs that need to be done and this is matters worse!
Culturally, what is driving this problem, and might we improve how we treat each other? I am thinking of the class in public administration that I took, that taught when someone is over stressed the job needs to be divided and more people added. But if everyone is driven to cut cost and demands more and more of workers, things can go wrong. What can we build into our culture that might prevent that?
We might surprise you yet, ya auld [s]doomster,[/s] [s]pessimist[/s], curmudgeon. :joke:
What you just said is fundamentally the same as what universeness said. We can not have quality lives unless we meet our human needs and that means more than money. If a person works under conditions that are physically and mentally exhausting more money will not resolve the problem. I always volunteered because in general volunteers are treated better the paid workers. We seem to live a slave owner mentality, of "I paid you and you better meet my demands".
My head is screaming we must replace autocratic industry with a democratic model. All the workers need to feel appreciated and we need to respect the whole person by empowering the individual to say what would improve the working conditions and therefore manifest a better outcome for everyone.
I attended workshops teaching the democratic model for supervisors and was blown away by realizing how the democratic model of Industry would greatly improve the quality of our families because the democratic model treats everyone very well and the worker who learns how to treat others well will bring this home to the family.
Oh, sure, since I can remember. When my grandmother urged me to finish all my dinner (she was too generous with the helpings); think of the starving children who would be grateful for it, I wanted to go find those starving children and let her feed them. When I got older and understood why they were starving, I knew some adults someplace were screwing up, big time.
But since then, what with charities collecting everywhere and volunteers going everywhere, all of you Pollies have been reassuring me that every day in every way we're getting better and better. Just wait another century of progress and everyone will be fine. Thing is, the Doomsday Clock won't wait.
The spectre of scarcity is a crock. Today it's artificially and selectively created, through agencies that promote overpopulation (state religions, mainly, over long periods) to keep the peons fighting over scraps, while the prosperous waste and the wealthy convert resources+man-hours into useless luxury.
I'm reading a novel right now Awaking Hope about a Zeitgeist inspired world order.
That post is super great. I want to add to what you said that Athenians thought democracies must have a small population. Here is another important thing about using a democratic model for Industry, the size of our population is huge and we can not have the democratic experience without belonging to organizations that are democratic.
Ouch, words fail me. How can we have anything but a slave mentality we are paid labor and nothing more. This is very much about how many people live in our city. If we know everyone in town we have a human experience with everyone. That is not so in large cities where we work to avoid each other because our numbers are overwhelming. Biologically we are limited to knowing a few people intimately and a few more on the friend level, then the associate level, and maybe 600 people on the tribal level.
At the tribal level we can know everyone's name and who the person is related to but not much more.
In our large cities, we are lonely people in the crowd. We live as strangers to each other and hopefully, we share some values and ideas about appropriate behavior. Culture gives a sense of safety as our lives are full of strangers, and if someone violates that culture, we may instinctively pull away and avoid that person. If we grow up with too much adversity our primary goal is to avoid people and new situations. Poverty can destroy hope and without hope, we go into avoidance behavior. Now make money the bottom line and further marginalize the less competitive people, and well- the social problems grow like bacteria and petri dish. Relying on laws and law enforcers for social control, will not work!!!
When we are living alone with strangers, our biological moral system goes out of order. We all know we can steal anything we want from the big box stores because they have plenty of money and our stealing doesn't hurt them. I am being sarcastic as I try to make a point. There is honor among thieves because of the personal associations. If I know you and become aware of hurting you, I will feel bad but I don't know you and don't have to deal with hurting you, then what I want is all that matters. What I am saying is we are part of something bigger than ourselves, but if we don't feel we belong and do not have personal caring relationships, there is going to be trouble.
We can not have the democratic experience without belonging to a group that provides that experience.
When speaking of an experience, words are not adequate. How responsible do we feel for our family, our place of employment, our community, our nation? If we do not feel responsible, we are not having the democratic experience.
That is not necessarily the case. This was a run-down, trouble-prone housing project near the hospital where I worked. It got better since that time. There are many community gardens in big cities in the US, too. As gardening brings people together, so can an industry or reclamation project.
Any neighbourhood can become a community; given the resources and freedom, any well-functioning neighbourhood can become a self-governed political unit. One of the key factors to involve everyone, down to the toddler old enough to remember which weed to pull and big enough to carry a thermos, in the planning and in the work, to the extent of their capability, as well the benefits. Not to do things for other people, but with other people.
In my early career, I had good relations with line management and senior management, all the way up to local authority level. As the years went by and I understood a lot more about those who wielded authority within our education system, I became far braver and argumentative at our weekly departmental meetings.
I would describe what pupil A, or B needed or what class A or B required, to reach the educational standard the course I was delivering, was supposed to be offering, to each child in front of me, in the classroom.
I would be listened to, complimented for my insight and suggestions, and then (more often than not,) be told why they could not provide what I asked, but they could offer this or that (normally something far short of what was needed).
So I would try to compensate for the shortfalls and succeed or fail to a greater degree, depending on how much of my own, reserves of time, energy and ingenuity I could muster.
I am not fully blaming every member of management I ever dealt with, as I know they had finite resources and timetable, staff and curricular considerations they could do little about, but there were many, who were more interested in their own career than they were in the educational progress of every child in the school. So they would not 'rock the boat' of those who were senior in authority to them for the sake of the pupils. My promotion prospects were quickly destroyed, due to my 'honest' interactions with parents during parents evenings.
Senior management became more and more concerned regarding what I would tell parents, because they would have to face the fallout. I remember once, when I told a parent why their daughter was not doing so well in the Higher computing class that I only took 1 period a week. I explained that it was because that class was getting supply teachers for most of the time, instead of a subject specialist, and my one period a week with them was not enough to make up the slack. I said that to the 5 parents who had the same concerns regarding their child, in that class. All 5 went to see the deputy head master or the head master, to complain.
One turned out to be a well established lawyer, who I think was able to scare the headmaster significantly. By the end of that week, a fully qualified computing teacher was found to take that class for all 4 of its weekly periods, until the absent member of staff (who was going to be absent for 4 months) returned. The pupil work in that class improved dramatically as a result, but I had to endure yet another meeting with the deputy and the headmaster, whereby they tried, yet again, to explain to me, how what I was doing at parents evenings was not helpful to them and that I did not appreciate the toxicity that existed at the local authority level, that they had to deal with.
Quoting Athena
I think the answer lies somewhere between more help for those on the front line, from AI based expert systems and the establishment of more robust grievance procedures when you don't agree with the actions or decisions of your line managers. I think this would apply to all service based employment.
What are Pollies?
Positive psychology https://positivepsychology.com/pollyanna-principle/
Pollyanna
That sure resonates! I was lucky in my regular job, too: hospital laboratories are better managed and have better atmosphere than many other workplaces. But my SO was a software architect who would talk back to managers with their own career agendas about their counterproductive decisions, and was labelled "not a team player" - which in Corporateland is akin to a yellow armband. In the end, he had no viable option but to go independent at one third the income of contract work. Happiest decision he ever made.
Nobody should have a job. Jobs destroy integrity, self-respect, family, community and democracy. As long as humankind is divided into employers and employed, masters and minions, democracy cannot flourish.
From Wiki:
Pollyanna is a 1913 novel by American author Eleanor H. Porter, considered a classic of children's literature. The book's success led to Porter soon writing a sequel, Pollyanna Grows Up (1915). Eleven more Pollyanna sequels, known as "Glad Books", were later published, most of them written by Elizabeth Borton or Harriet Lummis Smith. Further sequels followed, including Pollyanna Plays the Game by Colleen L. Reece, published in 1997. Due to the book's fame, "Pollyanna" has become a byword for someone who, like the title character, has an unfailingly optimistic outlook.
I reject the comparison. The actions I propose and the improvement they would bring are imo, very plausible, possible, practical and progressive. We keep getting it wrong until we get it right, yes?. The fact that the human race still has to 'get it right,' but is capable of doing so, is not an optimism, that is comparable with a child character such as polyanna. I don't think it would be accurate to compare your position, to that of the character chicken licken, would it?
Quoting Vera Mont
Yep, sounds familiar, but I think a grievance procedure could be established that allowed better balance to exist between the authority of line managers and the wishes/wants/needs/concerns of workers.
There is a fairly decent grievance procedure within the Scottish teaching system, that allows a teacher to take out a grievance against a line manager. But it often results, at best, in an apology if the grievance is upheld, rather than a reversal of any decision made. So, mush tweaking is required. But at least a half-decent system already exists, at least within the Scottish Education system.
Quoting Vera Mont
Well, I would certainly prefer it if people could contribute to society by doing what they love doing most, and I think that should always be the goal but we should all share in the crappy jobs as well, until they can be fully automated.
It wasn't a comment on your proposal; it was on your view of achieved and achievable progress. Anyway, some psychologists consider that attitude healthy. My comparison referred to
(first citation) and added the second in case you didn't know its origin.
Quoting universeness
Absolutely not! I will accept Chicken Little or Henny Penny
Which turns out to be the more accurate prediction, we will probably not find out. (If we're lucky)
Quoting universeness
The workd that needs to be is what needs to be done. Self-employed people do all of it, direction and scutwork.
But I don't put a time limit on my proposals of what would be a better way to live as human beings.
I do insist that we will get there however. Even if it take another million years. In the cosmic calendar, 1 hour is more than 1.5 million years.
I have often also accepted that we may well drive down many more horrific dead ends first.
As I stated, we will keep getting it wrong until we get it right.
I accept that you think our species will have to experience an almost, close to extinction event, before we learn how to 'get it right.' Would that be an accurate summary of your position?
I remain confident that it wont get as bad as that. I think that's the only main difference between us, or do you see more important differences in our viewpoint compared to that one?
Close enough. That's the optimistic end of my spectrum.
Quoting universeness
Correct. Ish. Close enough.
Then I think the imagery and invocations involved in an emotive but accurate statement, such as 'we/they/I will be back and we/they/I will be millions/billions, encompasses both of us.
Such thoughts, help me maintain that 'optimism,' that you and @180 Proof find so naive.
Do you not feel connected to those in the past that fought/died/failed/succeeded to do what they could to change peoples lives for the better? Or do you think they should not have bothered trying as our species is doomed anyway?
Quoting universeness
Of course I do. 'Histories are ghost stories', which haunt us, whether or not we believe them.
Living things survive in spite of – not because of – their inevitably "doomed" state. Facticity. Entropy. Extinction. "The blues is life itself." "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." After all, there ain't no immaterialists in foxholes. :fire:
That's all that matters to me. As even though you are prepared for, or perhaps even expect the worse, you will continue to strive for the best, why is that? Is it more than mere forlorn hope?
What do you think of this.
If you are falling from a tall building, you may as well flap your arms, you have nothing to lose!
(I think the idea here is, you might catch a a grip on a flagpole or such, on your way down.)
Is the fight you have in you still, more, less or equal to this? For me, of course it is much much more than this.
Like breathing or a beating heart, defiance – striving – is involuntary. Conatus, will to power / amor fati, revolt. A 'happy warrior' does not succumb to the despair of "hope". :strong:
What you said is agreeable but who is going to put in the effort to make that happen and how can such a dreamer activate the community? I am in the Bethel district and monthly I am notified about the committee's plans and I have done nothing! Especially since the meetings have been online, I have no desire to participate, yet I really want to address education and take action to make civic education mandatory. I think I am doing all I can do with my present commitments and that I don't have the energy to do anymore.
I have worked in a community garden and strongly agree with what you said. I don't think there is a community garden in Bethel and maybe I could do something about that, but until I end my present commitments I just don't have the energy to do more. But keep sending out your message and my desire to take action might get stronger than my concern about not having enough energy to do more.
To me, that describes what true spirituality is, when it is directed against injustice.
Quoting Athena
You do what you can Athena, as will I. I would rather be too busy, than be too bored.
My work in education burnt me out but since my early retirement, I now have quite a pleasant, 'fight for what I think is right' / chill out, have some whisky, beer and good cheers, paint, write, play computer games, etc, balance. Getting the balance to a stage that suits you, is what is needed. You cant help others, if you are 'messed up' yourself.
Okay, that is so for most schools and hospitals and social services. Reading your story I see only one possible solution that does not mean change but does mean good reasoning. Focus on facts! As long as you were giving parents facts, those above should be supportive of you and they too should deal honestly with the facts. How dare those SOB's leave a child believing his/her failure is his/her fault because s/he is just too stupid to succeed and the parents believing it is the child that needs to be corrected not what happens in the classroom. When parents understand the problem, they will hopefully be able to hire a tutor. Deal with the school's limits in a sane way! And here comes the cultural point....
We absolutely must end autocratic order that leaves those on the frontline powerless and failure unavoidable. Your favoring of AI terrifies me because it can make the problem worse. Can you see the possibility of our reliance on AI becoming a total nightmare? We must empower the people, not take another step towards destroying their power.
A post from an old thread Ethics in four words ...
Quoting 180 Proof
Ethical & political, respecticely.
:up: and such comes :100: from the human mind and I get sooooooo annoyed when some folks give credit for such moral standards, completely, to the god that they believe in, but have no evidence for its existence.
That's one of my biggest issues with theists. All good that humans ever achieve, either individually or collectively is credited, by theists to their particular god, and all bad performed by individual or groups of humans is blamed on human free will alone. You cant get more unjust than that!
Thanks, I do understand. I am taking off for the beach today. It is not a great day for the beach but the recreation center bus goes today and I have a great raincoat. This is a rare event because I have clients 5 days a week and don't usually take time off for me.
And this chatting is what got us in the lounge. At least here we are free to be full humans and I think that is very important to everything else. Human relationships strongly impact everything. How we understand each other, strongly impacts what we think of someone and what we think that person thinks of us. It seems like we are trying to close out this humanness with unrealistic standards. Such as teachers should work miracles despite the lack of support and parents should help their children despite not having the preparation that teachers have. All these demands without concern for the bottom line- how do we feel.
I see that as a cultural problem made worse by technology. Comparing ourselves to computers is worse than comparing ourselves to the gods.
:100: I am a democratic socialist and a secular humanist.
Quoting Athena
I have spent my career in Computing science and AI can be a fantastic assist to humanity, in all the problems they face, on a day to day basis, both individually and as a community.
In my experience, 'expert systems,' have helped our children's education, advance, more than (or at least as much as) direct interaction with people/teachers/school systems.
Absolutely yes, yes, yes! Athena, AI can be used to spread fake news and AI can be used to deceive and manipulate. But please remember, that is only currently done via nefarious humans, not nefarious mecha. I don't know if a future AGI/ASI would become anti-biological life, such as anti-human life. That has been a long time discussion on TPF and is currently a main discussion happening on-line and in the global media today. So far, the only evidence I have encountered that suggests projected mecha might turn against us, is in sci-fi productions.
The warnings recently stated by those in the field of AI, regarding projected AI advances, seem to me, to be currently concerned more about how some nefarious humans might manipulate AI advances, rather than how AI might become independently malevolent towards us. Do You agree?
Thanks for your input. :halo:
What you are saying here appears to be close to democratic socialism perhaps?
Which is quite fine in my book. Just wanted to get your feedback on that.
Now for a country like the USA to get a TRUE democracy joined with a TRUE socialism is the difficult part.
It’s difficult because the Elite (rhymes with excrete) the 1% and their servants and wannabes are pulling with all their mighty might in the opposite direction.
(Sorry, if it’s been covered already in this long thread. If so, point me to it).
Quoting Athena
Oh no! I take it all back then! (just kidding :blush: )
Hope you have a brilliant time!
Quoting Athena
That sound like good philosophy to me! The personal philosophy people use and live by every f****** day! Surely has a place on TPF. If that place is the lounge, then so be it. I hope we can each sit on a nice comfortable lounge recliner, and discuss the individual philosophy we each have amassed, that influences the way we live and the actions we might take, day to day.
As I have already stated, a thread title such as 'Culture is critical,' casts a wide net imo.
Quoting Athena
You remind me of the response I got from the 5 parents, who caused such a brilliant fuss when I told them the truth, about why their kids were not doing so well in that class. Two of them almost whispered to me, that they intended to take what I had told them further, but they would say to the headmaster that the information did not come from me, but from their child. This shows how familiar they were with the kind of bullshit consequences 'whistleblowers' can face and they wanted to try to protect me from such. These are good people. But I told them I was happy for senior management to know I was the source. The senior management team was treating this class like this, purely to save money. Its much cheaper to try to cover a class internally due to an absent member of staff than it is to find a replacement outside subject specialist. The system is called 'please takes.' Any teacher in the school, can be asked to take the class of an absent teacher for a period. The PT of the department is expected to set work for the class and the 'please take' teacher would simply babysit it. BUT, this was a higher computing class. The result could mean entry or non-entry into a desired university degree course. This class was getting 'please take' teachers for 3 out of the 4 periods they had in a week. This is within the rules but will totally 'f*** up,' their chances of completing the course successfully. Totally unacceptable, imo. My report to those 5 parents forced those senior management idiots to pester the region to fork out for a temporary replacement subject specialist.
This is only one of the many tedious battles I had with my line managers to try to get the pupils in front of me, what they needed. Again I am not saying that my line managers were all f***wits that did not care about the pupils but I do say that too often, they would not fight for the pupils, if it meant going up against their own line managers.
Case by case. Some past efforts were seriously misguided; some had the right idea and tried to achieve their goal by the wrong means; some chose unwisely in their alliances; some were clever and competent and persistent. I am connected, Dog help me!, to all of humankind. And while I feel just as, or more connected to the animal kingdom, the dolphins won't invite me on their exodus.
We might have done better but for a handful of terrible decisions. We had some pretty awful tendencies from chimphood on, which we might have been able to overcome with intelligence in all that time you think we have. But we took a wrong turn; embraced the wrong side of our character, and so lost our way to enlightenment - even our Enlightenment was fatally flawed. There were decisive moments when we could have gone changed direction, but we have somehow gotten into the habit of following all the wrong leaders and ignoring all the best advice. The very last such moment that I'm aware of was 1980. We didn't take corrective action then, and have now passed the point of no return.
And I still hold out hope for the species. It's the civilization that is doomed.
Quoting Athena
Lots of people have, and are doing it. https://ecovillage.org/urban-ecovillages-north-america/
I hope it's the right video this time.
Quoting universeness
Damn real! I liked Jesus - at least in the pictures where his heart wasn't exposed (*shudder!*) until I read the NT. So there he is, this hero with super powers, and how does he use them? He smites a fig tree because it's not the season of fruit, and then throws a herd of innocent pigs off a cliff. At 12, I had very strong sense of justice. I've tempered it with some forbearance since then - a feat the Judeo-Christian-Muslim god couldn't manage.
No, that's not fair! He was actually doing a little better in the ecumenical 1960's, except he did nothing about the child molesting - too busy scoring football goals in Brazil? Then got hijacked by white southern Baptist preachers in pursuit of fast bucks and political clout. "So it goes.... "
You still have 'us'!!!
Quoting Vera Mont
There are many aspect of our current global civilisation that I hope are absolutely doomed! So, we both think our species will survive all of the threats it currently faces. That's quite optimistic of you, all past posts considered. :party:
Quoting Vera Mont
A great paragraph that I hope many theists read.
Just not in the same way that you envision. This time-line has to break before a new one can begin. The breakage itself will be.... unpleasant.
:up: Exactly, not with the way most jobs are now. Although our culture agrees that nobody should have a job… they should have two or three jobs if they want the lights to stay on.
A savings account? What’s that? Let me google it…
If we could make work as fun and as casual as possible, like an Amish barn-raising… people would be falling over themselves to work. But we don’t have the sense of community as a family.
Where is the love? :love:
It's out there!
The economy would fall on its face without the people helping - that's beyond their own family obligations - without financial recompense.
:up: Well that is good news! And only a fool would argue with good news.
Thus, Let me begin my arguments… :wink:
If only they don't get bombed, starved, burned or flooded out.
Absolutely not possible that a computer program can be more important to a child's learning than the teacher. What motivates us to learn is not a computer program but our human contacts. Oh, if you have an anti-social, angry young man, he may delight in using the computer to find out how to make bombs, but that is the most important education for a child. I think directing the student to use the computer rather than interact with the student because there are too many students in the room, could lead to a problem.
Last night on the news was an interview with the woman who wrote "Your Face Belongs to US". Face recognition technology is not widespread yet, but it has been used to direct security to prevent a person from entering places. Imagine someone like Trump with that technology. It does not matter that AI would or would not decide to do something evil because the humans who use it, gain the power to do evil. It does not take more than a handful of people to do a lot of evil, like spread the lie the vote was corrupted and the country must be protected by those who fight against the evil of corruption because good people can so easily be led to do the wrong thing.
I am not worried about AI being anti-human. I am worried about us being anti-human. Thinking computers are superior to humans or can be, is dangerously anti-human. We are not born knowing everything in our lifetimes we can make terrible mistakes as we stumble through life. However, I think the only way things can better is for us to truly love each other. If the God of Abraham didn't have favorite people and if this belief did not go with a Satan and demons, and believing in curses and give us a totally false story of creation, religion might be a good thing. I think we need to work on a good religion, not AI that can give a human terrible power.
Socrates and Plato were strong on us learning morality before we held the power to govern.
I do not like labels and I know nothing about socialism because I ignore labels. I also do not pay attention to human names but what a person does will get my attention. I don't have a head for individuals but perhaps a universalness? How do I say? My head asks where is humanity going and what is the best way to get there? This is not about me and you, but us. Does that make any sense?
universeness favors socialism and perhaps the two of you can agree on what it is and share that with me. I understand democracy as individuals having liberty and justice. Democracy enables people to be the best they can be, but autocracy prevents that. In an autocracy, you do not dare be insubordinate! this mentality prevents people from making their best contribution and it can lead to serious economic problems because it means Industrial problems do not get the full benefit of having humans who enjoy doing the right thing for the good of all.
I am concerned that socialism may require government control and that disempowers individuals.
As for the elite intentionally protecting the autocratic status quo, yes, I believe that is so. We do not have a good understanding of democracy. Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended.
Whoo I just realized how paradoxical my thinking is. We are a small part of something much bigger than ourselves, yet we are individuals with liberty and justice.
Which individuals are most empowered by lack of government control?
Thanks for your response. :smile:
More and more, I’m leaning towards democratic socialism.
I was pulling for Bernie Sanders, but I don’t think the country was ready for him, unfortunately.
Seems to me the two (democracy and socialism) go together like peanut butter and jelly.
But one without the other leads to some kind of imbalance.
I’m no expert in political science, so I’m probably over-simplifying this…
Socialism without democratic representation seems like it’d slide into Soviet abuses of power.
Democracy without socialism is kind of the status quo in the USA.
I suppose technically the USA is a constitutional democratic federal republic.
What is most important (politically and metaphysically) is not so much what we ARE,
but what we WANT to be, and CAN be, and CHOOSE to be right now.
But… (and there’s always a big ‘but… ‘).
Big Money needs the government to make the laws favorable for maximum profits.
Government officials need Big Money for money lol.
The only losers are the pesky citizens who keep claiming they have rights.
By the time state-sanctioned Capitalism has its way with us, we are like the character in the fairy tale who sold his cow for some magic beans. (for example, ‘health care’ = you pay us now for insurance, then later we perform unnecessary surgery and tests and give you toxic drugs in order to maximize both our profits and the profits of our cronies).
From Wikipedia:
I Agree. :100:
Modes of "us being anti-human" (driven by material & symbolic, often manufactured, scarcities):
• over ten millennia of pathological dominance hierarchies (aka "civilizations" ... "hegemonies")
• consisting of enforced class-caste exploitation (e.g. imperialisms, monarchisms, (democracy-in-name-only) republicanisms, totalitarianisms)
• policed by indoctrinated sexual, racial/ethnic, tribal, sectarian descrimination (e.g. colonizing genocides / ethnic cleansings, mass enslavements, patriarchies & apartheids, 'strategic neglect' policies, anti-democratic economies, etc)...
Intelligent machines (AGI) can do no worse than what we humans have done and continue to do to each other (and our biosphere-descendants), and possibly intelligent machines might do much better than we can by, to begin with, eliminating and/or exponentially more equitably – humanely – managing resource scarcities. I suspect that we "anti-human" humans will only ever learn to be pro-human (in every practical and psychology sense) once we have been sufficiently removed from the evolutionary conditions – facticity – of scarcity that is constitutive of our "anti-human" atavisms. I'm convinced that the most likely prospect for pro-humanizing the human condition itself is, though quite risky, by machine intelligences automating global civilization ... before we anti-humanly off ourselves (through action or inaction) as a species. Appeal to a classical / liberal 'humanism' that never worked well enough to be adopted globally is just an empty utopian nostalgia for what never was and will never be on that basis alone.
Well, here’s an idea… make a law that a candidate may delegate their votes to another party, if they themselves don’t win. They would have to be clear and upfront about it, of course.
For instance, Bernie’s imaginary son Bernie Sanders Jr runs for POTUS as an independent or socialist party. He states that if he’s NOT elected, his votes would swing to the Democratic nominee.
That way, we could see who people really want, not who they are afraid of not voting for because they are the lesser of two evils… or something.
Is this idea crazy? Even possible?
There is no functional democracy in the United States. A representative and relatively uncorrupted democracy tends toward socialism, simply by the power of numbers: given the chance, most people want and would vote for what's good for them, until you end up with a government that acts in the interests of most people most of the time. This is why, in America, you get this sort of thing a tour de force in misdirection.
And of course, socialism cannot exist in a non-democratic society, regardless of the label it sticks on its facade. That's why so many autocratic regimes go through the charade of elections.
It's a very modest proposition in the circumstances. And I doubt it's possible in the circumstances. No reform seems to be possible - until Premier Dumph abolishes the present form of government and stick all his detractors' heads on the spikes of the White House fence.
:up: Is that the best icon we can muster for "Right on, Brother!"
Apparently – *Raised FIST*, Sistah! :cool:
That really depends on so many factors. There are many bad teachers, impatient teachers, 'moody' teachers, authoritarian nutjobs, slightly psychotic teachers. I know, I have worked amongst such.
A child being taught via a high quality VR (virtual reality) or/and AR (augmented reality) system, can be far better for the pupil involved, than getting taught by a teacher of 'limited' or inconsistent ability.
Consistently good teachers are relatively rare imo. Those that exist should be the 'experts,' used to model electronic expert teaching. I agree with you that there is no current AI system that could replace a good teacher, but there are many which could aid a good teacher, and future AI based VR and AR systems, may well be able to replace a good teacher.
Quoting Athena
I think that is the main concern for now, yes, the abuse of AI by nasty humans, rather than a justified fear of AI becoming totally self-aware and conscious, any time soon.
Quoting Athena
True democratic socialism has never been successfully implemented as a national governance, anywhere today or in history. Many attempts have been made but none have been successful so far.
To nurture people and not profit.
To prioritise cooperation and not competition.
To act as the political equivalent of secular humanism.
To control the means of production, distribution and exchange, for the benefit of all and not just elites.
To govern by the democratically obtained consent of all stakeholders, and to continuously consult the population you represent at all levels.
To govern openly and accept all established checks and balances.
What does 'be social' towards other people, mean to you?
Do you think. a system such as the Additional-member system, used to elect the government of Scotland, would be a big step forward, if it were used in America to elect its government?
Quoting 0 thru 9
I would of course, prefer to see someone like Bernie Sanders elected in the USA, but the American notion of what a socialist is, is certainly rather different to what I would call a socialist. Socialism is not well understood by most Americans I have ever spoken to about it, (which is not that many). Most seem to think its a one party, autocratic led, state dictatorship and their mindset, cannot separate it from China under Mao or Russia under Stalin.
I know Bernie was not a millionaire all his life, but he is now reported as having a net worth of over $3 million. The idea of a very rich democratic socialist, does not sit well with me, But, if I was an American voter, I would still vote for him, in preference to any other candidate standing for president of America, as the best of a horrific bunch.
Quoting 180 Proof
You can post any emoticon you like on TPF, just post it using the 'image' feature, eg:
Well yes, unfortunately. The USA is like some rich or noble family with a long history, who has had turmoil and corruption and infighting and are trying their best to appear as noble as ever.
Some are at least still trying. Others may be tired of the facade, and just get drunk at every gathering, whispering and shouting their disappointment for all to cringe or laugh at.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes, I agree. Well said. :clap:
Quoting Vera Mont
For the parasite living in someone’s brain, things are going swimmingly!
(The person in question feels otherwise). :scream:
That is why i have a particular contempt for Herr Chump.
(In addition to his attempts to ignite a civil war) His pose as an outsider, a man of the people, braving slings and arrows to drain the swamp in order to build a clean new society that is exactly like America circa 1950 (with internet and tech gadgets)… is so grossly manufactured and phony that an average dog could tell you it smells like crap.
The Democratic party is not spared my contempt either, for their phony progressive stance bullshit. (The house is on fire, and the DNC wants to sit on the couch because there’s pizza and a good movie on).
A quick glance at the link seems like it’d be worth investigating. Thanks!
But the main change in procedure the two parties are interested in is redistricting and dividing the territory to better suit themselves.
Quoting universeness
Yes. “Commie” and “pinko” are old slurs, but still around.
Even Socialism is seen as giving up the highest American virtue: individuality. :cool:
And ‘if you aren’t with us, you’re against us’. :angry:
If you are against us… prepare to be destroyed. :death:
(An odd conformist kind of individuality).
That's the most bizarre thing about this system. The Republicans, who yell loudest about Freeedooom!!! always line up in formation behind their candidate, however odious - at least since Reagan-Norquist because all the moderate or reasoning or dissonant ones have been ousted. The Democrats are at constant odds, as there are always young firebrands sprouting up among the old plodders. The second most bizarre aspect of American politics is that you always know what *nefarious* scheme the Republicans are hatching, because they accuse the Democrats of doing, having done or intending to do that very thing.
* * I hope universeness hasn't copyrighted it yet.
It may be a lame attempt at explaining away the makeup artists' lack of imagination, but still...
The last two lines were
"Maybe one day..."
"Yes. One day."
What do you say we make that our secret password?
Thank you for all you do! This is a very interesting and informative conversation indeed.
Yes… love all people (animal persons too like the baby cardinals at my bird feeder
and even the nimble little chipmunk who stuffs all the food in his fat cheeks lol).
Working for peace is one of the strongest and highest things we can do.
I think the ingredients of peace are wisdom, compassion, and freedom.
Bake all the ingredients in a pie, and share with everyone! :yum:
Then no one will be hungry.
(Would love to hear feedback from you on this post. And from anyone else too.
Apologies for the long post. Drinking strong coffee while writing is dangerous lol.
And please excuse my experiments in ‘text formatting’. I’m trying for something more
readable, less ‘big block of text’ looking. Feedback on this is also welcome.
I may edit this text for clarity and grammar.
Thanks for reading! :flower: :blush: :sparkle: )
What follows is a description of a possible intersection of our Culture and the Individual, especially when looking for a ‘monkey wrench’ so to speak (that gut feeling that something in our way of life is somewhat out of order).
(At least, this is how I see it… that is, an extremely simplified overview lol).
The amazing and infinite human mind…
Our minds are among the most powerful things in the known universe.
They are immensely deep and contain not only all of our memories, but the ‘memories’ of past humans, primates, mammals, down to protozoa stored in our DNA.
Our ordinary consciousness and computing intellect is only the tip of an iceberg unfathomably large.
You undoubtedly could add countless excellent examples of the incredible fruits of the human mind.
The equally amazing World Civilization…
Like individual organisms and creatures, Civilization was ever so slowly (but steadily) growing.
It was evolving along, mutating this way and that looking to be more successful, much like Darwin wrote about evolving species.
Then in its quest for life, Civilization (driven by the powerful human mind) discovered by trial-and-error (or fateful chance perhaps) a way to be extremely powerful… almost godlike.
Dominant over all! (And who wouldn’t want to be all powerful? Even to just ‘try it on for size’?)
Humans had reached a point where they could leverage the Earth itself, not to simply survive like other mammals and creatures do, but to dominate, conquer, and rule.
They could rule over the Earth, the animals, as well as over other people that wouldn’t go along with this powerful plan.
For much land, resources, and human effort would be needed to make this idea a reality.
The plan was deceptively simple, and apparently fool-proof.
Just do everything they had already been doing, but do it to the max!
Not just gardening or agriculture, but a totalitarian and unforgiving plowing under of the land, clearing the forests, and killing of ‘pests’ that nibbled our corn and ate our sheep.
The lives of the parasitic pests were of no importance compared to humans.
Turn absolutely all the Earth into humans. This land is our land, for it belongs to us.
Who else is going to claim it? Squirrels? Giraffes? Honeybees?
And so it went, and spread. From either one point or several of like mind, it spread.
Or rather, it conquered and assimilated the losers.
Now, there had been fighting and battles since… well since forever.
But this was uniquely different, because of the all-encompassing scope of the plan.
Maybe most of the participants didn’t fully understand the plan of Civilization and its effects.
But the pleasurable surge of power that was the reward for total domination didn’t need a college education to be experienced and enjoyed.
Now, it so happened for one reason or another that the people eventually started to believe that the Earth was very young.
This is not so hard to imagine since the Earth was quite a beautiful sight in those days.
She was young, vibrant, and beautiful… sexy even.
Our ancestors can be forgiven if they didn’t guess that the gorgeous Earth was in fact many billions of years old.
They didn’t know that humanity itself in its various forms was millions of years old.
They can be forgiven because ‘millions and billions’ are quite difficult to imagine, even for us educated moderns.
So call them ‘creationists’ or ‘the innocently forgetful’, but the result was that they believed humans to have been born into existence at roughly the same time as the Earth, which was relatively recently.
And those first humans were eager to get busy building a civilization, so they believed.
This was generally accepted until a few hundred years ago, a relatively short amount of time considering the eons of existence.
When evidence began coming in during the 1800s that the Earth and universe were inconceivably old, and that Humans are in some way related to apes, squirrels, and honey bees… well some editing had to be done to the official story of Civilization.
But though the beginning details were altered, the ending and the moral of the story stayed the same.
And so it spread and spread to the present day, where it is the dominant culture.
It is our culture… Civilization itself.
Anything and anyone else are just some leftovers from the past, soon to be assimilated.
Or destroyed.
The intersection of the Mind and Civilization
All of the preceding statements about Civilization are of course debatable, and could have been worded differently.
My statements are an imaginative general overall picture or story of a long, long period of time and vast space, that hopefully has at least some general accuracy.
As mentioned above and other posts, our Civilization is quite an ‘all or nothing’ affair.
It requires complete teamwork and dedication.
Or complete submission and obedience, critics may say.
Civilization requires its people be all be on the same page, all to be of like mind at the most basic level.
Much individuality and eccentricity is tolerated, as long as the person is helping the main goal
of Civilization, which is seen as the ultimate or divine goal of complete domination of the Earth.
As for the ‘divinity’ part of the goal, this eventually became optional, and an atheist viewpoint was no longer punished.
(This to me is a side note to the story, as I favor neither an atheist nor religious view regarding these matters, for what that may be worth).
So our Civilization imprints each of its members with the ‘gameplan’ or the ‘program’.
This programming starts almost right from birth, with the parents naturally and lovingly wanting their child to fit it to society and be successful and prosperous.
What loving and attentive parent would want anything else for their child?
For the child, the parent(s) sacrifice their own independence and often their freedom and pleasure.
This civilizational education continues with school.
But not before the entertainment media (comprised of movies, shows, videos, songs, news, and advertisements) gives its own ‘lesson’ to the child.
Of course, there are going to be inconsistencies in all these different sources, from the parents, the media and educational.
But most likely, the foundational message will be remarkably similar: “go along with the civilizational program, and you will be rewarded!”
Some objections…
Someone may object and say that ALL civilizations and cultures do exactly this same thing, that is, imprint its members with a ‘program’ of some type.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a civilization… it would be just a bunch of disparate people living in proximity to each other.
Yes, that’s true. It is a fair point. You get 10 extra credit points.
The important difference I would argue is that other cultures promoted individual thinking, especially if it helped the culture as a whole.
Other cultures were more passive in a way, saying ‘here’s the best our cultural knowledge, do what you think best”.
If the member of this hypothetical culture rejected the ‘program’ from the get-go, or learned it thoroughly yet did something very unexpected with it, that wasn’t such a big deal.
It was all rather open, evolving, and experimental in a way, because no culture had a definite goal in mind…
…Until our particular civilization, that is.
Our Civilization has the beginning, the middle, and the ending all mapped out for our convenience.
It has the teachings, the means of production and implementation, and the goal.
No innovation is necessary on a foundational level.
Everything is fixed, the coordinates are set.
One may invent and innovate things and ideas which go along with the overall flow.
But those who question it or impede its progress are denied rewards, ignored, or even punished.
This Civilizational program (after being installed in a person’s unconscious) is so comprehensive and complete that it inhibits creativity and the complete use of one’s mind.
Studies have demonstrated that a person will resist only so long doing something they consider wrong or useless, when given negative feedback like pain or disapproval.
We are not machines after all, though sometimes we desperately try to be.
Our Civilization wants to completely monopolize our minds and bodies.
If that means that a particular person will only use 3% of the brain, and 9% of the body, and only achieve 5% of possible happiness… well, so be it.
It’s all for the greater good. It you want to make an omelet, you have to break some legs.
Some good news maybe?
Our minds and our internal guidance system are not broken, they are just buried alive under the imposed program installed in our minds.
We have been hacked, in other words.
But though we should be very concerned, we need not despair.
We can stopped being further hacked and controlled.
Civilization is like a ancient king or queen being carried around by their servants.
They enjoy the ride, but if the servants all agree to disobey orders and go where they think best,
then the King becomes mere luggage.
We have the power… if we dare look for it.
Resistance isn’t futile. It’s inevitable.
A civilization closer to the one of our dreams is possible for all of us…
and exactly because of the efforts of all of us.
Thanks for your reply! Much appreciated. :smile:
Yes. My post is not history, not anthropology, not psychology, nor pure fiction either.
Maybe some combination of those or something… in an attempt to imagine what could have happened to drive our beloved civilization both to the highest of its triumphs (and there have been many, many, many) and the to depths of its nightmares (also very many).
Pure historical writing is rather neutral and dry, as it should be.
Pure history doesn’t look for meaning, thought processes, and possibilities, but that’s what the situation seems to require IMHO.
Much of the time span I was referring to occurred in early history, or prehistory even.
So an educated guess is all I have, not being a psychic time-traveler unfortunately lol.
Something else seems to me to be needed at this point, your guess is as good as anyone’s.
Quoting Vera Mont
If I personified Civilization too much, that may need some tweaking perhaps. Not sure…
But I’m certain about your reference to ‘brain-nodes’… they were there before and are still here.
We are the brain-nodes! What else could it be?
Although no one person can control it, our culture comes from trillions of choices from billions of people.
And any changes will come because of us.
Quoting Vera Mont
I’ve considered that perspective, and it seems like a dead-end to me, an invitation to surrender.
Never surrender! (I procrastinate enough in real life already :wink: )
Your statement may indeed more accurate, but there’s nothing to act on there, as far as I can see.
But correct me if I’m mistaken.
And I welcome further feedback and comments, of course. Thanks again. :flower:
Only, you've already said what the action needs to be: connect up all the nodes. We're half-way there with the interweb; stick Universeness' AI in the center, acting as a global thalamus or relay junction, and you've got a fully functioning species-brain. I should imagine, as we, individual humans, are mostly harmless, because we can suppress our destructive impulses, the body sapient will be able to halt its destructive members.
Interesting metaphor, thank you. :smile:
There’s some sort of group-mind mass psychology thing that happens in every culture or civilization, I imagine.
This is in itself neither good nor bad.
But the results can be good or bad for some or all the people in the group.
I need to study more about mass psychology, especially positive examples of it.
For negative examples, Nazi Germany is probably the classic example.
Sometimes I admire ants and bees for their seemingly high-functioning societies.
It's no accident that these are some of the longest-surviving species - ants go back 150+ million years, fundamentally unchanged, while constantly adapting to changed environments and conditions. Their organization works for creatures of their brain-size and requirements.
It wouldn't work for us in the same way, because of the big brain, but enhanced communication among the workers should certainly help us figure out what does work. Horizontal communication, not having the same big mouth at the top dictate what everyone should think.
Your analysis of human attempts at 'civilisation,' was fun to read, and its ok as a brief summary of the human notion of 'civilisation,' as described through your own musings and findings, based on your own personal life experiences, your own learning and the main viewpoints you have on the current status quo, considered locally, nationally, internationally and globally.
For me, at the end of the day, the most important sentence was your final one.
Quoting 0 thru 9
But firstly, I am unsure what you mean by:
Quoting 0 thru 9
Is this a reference to all humans alive today?
You seem to perceive a notion, of an already existent, significant commonality of cause and purpose, that exists today, amongst enough of the global human population of the Earth, to invoke the idea, that the foundations of a human global civilisation is already established or there is significant evidence that such is 'emerging'. Is that a true statement about what you are referring to, when the words 'Until our particular civilisation,' are connected with your last sentence, quoted above?
No, it’s not a reference to all humans alive today.
I worded that rather vaguely, which I’ll now try to correct below…
It was an elliptical sentence preceded by:
Quoting 0 thru 9
The previous paragraph had a general depiction of other cultures previous to the one particular culture which about roughly 10,000 years ago began its transformation into our present day Worldwide Civilization (which previously was called Western Civilization, but has expanded enough to warrant the name, I think).
I should have worded it “No culture seemed to have a definite purpose or goal …Until the emergence of our particular Civilization about 10,000 years ago. Our Civilization has the beginning, the middle, and the ending all mapped out for our convenience. It has the teachings, the means of production and implementation, and the goal.”
Hope that is worded at least a little more clearly. :smile:
Quoting universeness
No, that is a reference to the beginnings, rather than the current state of our civilization.
And such is not directly referencing a possibly emerging part of our civilization, as reflected by that hopeful last sentence.
I guess if I tried now (upon seeing your interesting question) to relate or connect the ‘beginning of our civilization’ and ‘a hopeful future goal’… I’d say that if our civilization could keep all (or most) of what it’s learned and built, while dropping the destructive, anthrocentric, and imperialist tendencies* that seem to be hard to ignore or live with anymore… then we might for the first time start to have a civilization that works for people, as well as it produces products.
* For lack of a better way to describe the problem
Basically, I’m starting with the common viewpoint that something is drastically wrong with our civilization, despite the countless wonders all around us that have been produced by it.
So I’m working backwards in time, trying to imagine how our civilization started,
and how things came to be this way, in a speculative and very general manner.
Does that help clear up the vague wording?
Quoting universeness
Thanks for reading and for your comments.
As you probably guessed, I’ve borrowed some of these ideas.
The arrangement and wording is mostly my own, because I find I understand ideas better when I organize and combine the particular concepts in different ways… put them in my own words.
That said, a significant percentage of these ideas originated from Daniel Quinn’s writings.
My post barely functions as a summary of his ideas, which may need many pages to fully lay out.
Quinn’s ideas benefited from his excellent writing style, which made the vague seem clear.
Charles Eisenstein is currently writing on similar topics, and adds many ideas which I’m still trying to digest.
The Tao Te Ching is (hopefully) in there in spirit.
Thanks again for your time and effort! :nerd:
I want to respond before I forget what I want to say. :lol: Representatives from around the world are gathering to discuss the possibility of a nuclear war and if we might end that threat permanently. In a completely different forum I am told history shows that wars are unavoidable. The proof is there have always been wars. Okay, when I read history I get the impression that age 40 used to be old age, and not many lived that long. That in a male's 40 years, war was expected and many males spent their lifetime preparing for war and engaging in war. How is this different from living with the fear of a nuclear war? To live a lifetime expecting to die young from disease, an accident, famine, or war may be good for preparing for a good death, but how about preparing for a good life?
Quoting 0 thru 9
I love that argument!
Quoting 0 thru 9
The cockroaches.
Quoting 0 thru 9
That is an interesting point, but the most successful would pass on their benefits and knowledge to their heirs and then follows the notion that these people are superior by birth, and then their status becomes a huge benefit. The idea that this superiority is about who has advantages and who does not is just beginning to enter our consciousness. This is potentially a point of consciousness transformation that is compatible with democracy.
Quoting 0 thru 9
How is this imprinting done? Warning, the laboring class and the professional class raise their children differently. The laboring class is focused on obeying while the professional class will focus more on leadership roles.
I don't think the difference between classes was that great when Abraham Lincoln left the family farm and moved to the city where he learned to be a lawyer, as the difference between classes today. At the end of WWII, the GI Bill gave the men who gave military service a huge advantage of a college education when that education almost guaranteed upward economic mobility and they were also given low-interest loans for homes. These benefits helped White Males more than women or people of color but it was a move in the direction of democracy and women and people of color are beginning to benefit from the principles of democracy, so we have increased the number of advantaged citizens but now the gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged is greater than it ever was.
Quoting 0 thru 9
For sure adversity can destroy the human spirit if that is all a growing child knows because then the growing child will be focused on avoiding pain rather than on improving his/her life. That means your next sentence is not true! Especially not females and people of color when reality marginalized them.
Quoting 0 thru 9
I am so sorry but I am out of time. Thank you for giving us so much to think about and to talk about.
“Same big mouth…” haha, yes definitely!
There’s too much absolute hierarchy, by which I mean ‘completely vertical’ (like scaling a sheer cliff) with little chance of promotion, glass ceilings everywhere, managers and executives who know nothing about the practicalities of the actual work the company does, workers who are virtual wage slaves.
And absolute hierarchies exist elsewhere in the stratification of society.
Westerners criticize the Indian caste system, yet… here we are with our own variety.
“Horizontal communication”… is lacking in most systems I can think of, and thus is sorely needed.
Ah-yup!
Upon further reflection, this metaphor doesn’t quite seem so hopeless a situation as when I first read it.
If the parasite is killed, the host will be free.
Maybe the ‘parasite’ is hidden deep in everyone’s brain releasing chemicals to ensure cooperation and passivity, thus discouraging action against the parasite, who act like a puppeteer to the host.
(I’ve probably stretched the metaphor to its breaking point :yum: )
Yeah... I was referring human civilization. There have been lots of plans and schemes and strategies and agendas, but always short term - a couple of decades, max. The overall tendency of all city-states have been to subsume their neighbours and become nation-states, and from there, empires, bigger and bigger empires, as transport and weapon technology advanced. I don't think anyone in the steering elite of Athens or Kashi or Zanzibar sat down and worked out a timetable of imperialism - it's just that the pressures of growing population and the prospect of increasing wealth tend to escalate aggressive trade to open intimidation and finally conquest.
Power goes to men's heads; it's addictive; as long as they're successful, they can't stop. And their people - the peasants and artisans whose sons are pressed into the armies, have little say in the matter. If the emperor is savvy, he actively promotes his adventuring as "the glory of Rome" or wherever and persuade the population that his success is their success; his power over another nation is their individual power over the men of that nation. People who are perfectly competent to design a barn or calculate the number of horseshoes they can make from a 10 lira load of iron turn their brains off and start waving flags. Women, too, when the fever spreads wide enough. The very people called upon to make the greatest sacrifices take pride in their nation, their empire (I'm sure there are still a few old Brits who indulge in that nostalgia), their mighty sovereign.
Now, it's done mostly with money, but the troops still troop dutifully off to foreign lands.
You seem to be presenting human civilisation from from two very different viewpoints.
Quoting 0 thru 9
There are no significant settlements of highly organised humans, that we have evidence for, that pre-date early settlements such as Jericho . There are earlier settlements, but an early city style human civilisation has a cut off population size, for it to be considered a 'civilisation.' Perhaps an estimate of at least 10,000 residents. The first recorded human civilisation is argued, but we are not talking about roving bands of aboriginal hunter gatherers, when we employ the term 'human civilisation.'
When do you think the notion of a global population of humans was first considered by living humans?
If we take a character like Alexander the butcher. He, it seems, wanted to 'conquer the world' and impose the Macedonian/Greek notion of what civilisation was and create a human world that lived the way dictated by Alex and his cronies. Of course, the entire world as we know it today was not accessible for Alex and his mob.
As you muse backwards in history, you seem to be offering a notion of a global human civilisation that did not exist. I do not think we can talk about human civilisation on a global scale, until effective communication between such can be demonstrated.
So, for me, that is at best, when something like radio was discovered. But, when we bring in the argument of 'effective communication,' we might need 'the internet' to be able to 'prove,' a time of the global reach of communication between any two humans alive anywhere on the planet.
So under the 'effective communication,' requirements, any notion of a global human civilisation is very recent indeed.
It is this notion of a 'global civilisation' of humans, that I am trying to 'pin down' in a more solid way than the far more disparate notion, (imo) your treatment of the issue has so far, presented.
Quoting 0 thru 9
I don't understand this. The early human city states had very definite purposes and goals imo.
These goals were all about keeping/protecting what they had built, the moral code/laws/culture of every day behaviours they had initiated and the notions of expansion they held.
They differed greatly in exactly what these acceptable every day behaviours were, and what hierarchical structure of authority would/should be imposed.
Allowing the establishment of divinely sanctioned leadership, was the first major mistake, early humans made imo. I think we would have created a better world if we had killed anyone, as soon as it was understood that they wanted to be King. I consider those who killed the vile Caesar, to have performed an act that favoured the rule of the people. I don't mean that I consider the Roman senate as socialist and it certainly was not secular or humanist but it was always better than rule by emperor.
That's how I've been calling it, too, when I say civilization was where the human race went drastically wrong. But, in fact, the previous, low-density cultures were not quite so haphazard as you depict them here. Many were settled in one place, or migrated back and forth between winter and summer residences, had a mixed economy of hunting, fishing and farming, had complex language and folklore, advanced handicrafts, knowledge of their environment and resources and extensive networks of commerce and social interaction, alliances and treaties, as well as border disputes, with other tribes.
Quoting universeness
I don't think he cared how anybody chose to live. What he set out to conquer were actually more sophisticated civilizations than the Macedonian backwater. I think he just wanted, first to outdo his old man and smash the ascendancy of Greece, then dominion and tribute. Lots of lovely loot during the conquest itself and lots more from vassal states thereafter. Plus his name all over everything - like other megalomaniacs we've known.
Before Rome, all the civilizations were stratified and specialized, with strict legal codes, tithing and citizens', subject people's and slaves' obligations, but if the scattered writings are anything to go by, the religious beliefs and family relations of vassal states were not regulated by the conqueror. Even the Roman policy was tolerant of other cultures until Constantine's conversion. I think, though I haven't researched it so can't be sure, that one-god, one church, everything else must be destroyed BS is the Christian influence.
These 'low population' early hunter gatherer communities you cite, did not have reproductive directives that prevented their group growing significantly in population size. The land they occupied could become no longer tenable for their needs, for many reasons, from climate change to those stated increases in their population, A point is reached where they needed more than the land they were on provided. You see this demonstrated regularly in the animal kingdom. Massive herds of bison need to move to new territory to survive.
The problem is that the territory you want to move to may already be occupied. So, cooperation or war?
In early human groups, this happened regardless of having to also deal with nefarious characters such as Alexander the butcher. Humans when faced with problems, especially existential ones, try to find a better solution. Hence such inventions as agriculture and farming etc and 'cities' and 'civilisations.'
What are you suggesting could have been done, to prevent the nasty sides of human 'civilisation,' happening? How could we maintain small bands of nomadic tribes, who were all able to feed, water, clothe and provide secure warm shelter for everyone in each group, without encroaching on each others territory or resources? For me, I think the only way we could have played things differently is more cooperation and less bloody war, and better control over the nefarious amongst us, especially those who would be a king, a messiah or an aristo. I cannot see how not progressing from disparate groups of nomadic hunter gatherers into the first 'civilisations' or city states, would have produced a better human race than we have today. You would need to offer more details on how you think it could have worked, based on the environmental pressures and growing population and natural disasters, these early groups of humans faced.
Quoting Vera Mont
Hah! Let's set the scene:
Being a tutor to the young Alexander favoured Aristotle greatly. The post was a high honor, and he would be able to continue his research with the powerful kings’ support and resources. Most importantly, he would be in a perfect position to shape the mind of a future ruler. As payment for his services, Philip ordered Aristotle’s home city of Stagira, which he had captured years earlier, to be rebuilt. Philip had arranged for Aristotle to teach Alexander in a remote village called Mieza, inside the Temple of the Nymphs. Before Alexander left for Mieza, Philip advised him not to imitate his faults and, above all, to work hard. Alexander responded to this by criticizing his father about his children by various women. Alexander was probably not concerned about morality but the inevitable rivalries for his father’s throne. Alexander’s desire for power must have started burning at an early age.
Later, we have such as:
Aristotle may have had his strongest influence on his student in the fields of politics and morality. Aristotle had written two books on both subjects, and his ideas must have fueled Alexander’s decisions later in life. The teacher not only urged the student to conquer eastern lands, but he also conveyed to Alexander that slavery was part of the natural order of things and that all non-Greeks were barbarians.
Via the horrible morality standards of Aristotle, Alex became a fascist, who believed that all other civilisations were inferior and barbaric in comparison to Greek civilisation. He was being well primed to become the despot butcher he became, and yes, he probably did want to become a more successful butcher that his butcher father.
Quoting Vera Mont
I agree that many Kings/gangsters and their mob, do not care how they opiate the masses they control.
In days gone by, religion was one of the most powerful tools they had to make the masses comply, the flavour of religion did not matter. Refusing the masses education was another method and preventing them from having any significant control over the means of production, distribution and exchange and the ownership of land, was another main method used.
Quoting Vera Mont
I think this goal existed long before we invented gods to justify such. This is straight from our experiences of the rules of surviving in the wilds. Be the best predator in existence and destroy all competitors. The competitive capitalist is it's direct inheritor. That's our greatest shame, imo, that so many of us, have so far, been unable to stop acting like we are still in the wilds, living under raw Darwinian rules.
It's not the concept of human civilisation that's wrong, it's that fact that our attempts to form a human community that is totally civilised has so far, in all the historical and current examples we have, failed.
But we are still here, and there are 8 billion of us and we are not extinct yet, so we can do better as long as time still ticks for us.
Quoting universeness
:lol: That is very true. I was traumatized by a couple of them. My mother attempted to get me out of a class where I clashed with the teacher and the school said students are expected to learn how to get along with their teachers. Fine, I refused to do any assignments and had to repeat the class during summer school. I am sure everyone has such a story and so it is being a human. What really hurt was my time volunteering in a school and witnessing a couple of boys treated very badly! That led to one of them getting the extra help he needed, but nothing was done about the other boy and I was dismissed and lost my position in the organization that sponsored volunteers.
Oh dear, I thought of another terrible story involving my granddaughter and today I would take that one to court. I am sure many low-income people are less likely to pursue the legal means they have. And on to that granddaughter's son, my great-grandson, his life is being ruined as he struggles to do online classes with no help other than what an online teacher can give him. This is back to my point. Computers can be a useful tool but they can not replace a teacher.
Quoting universeness
That is all about culture and never in the history of humanity have we been able to do so much for so many people. Never in the history of humanity have so many people lived so long and this is a game changer! Human consciousness at age 70 is totally different from what it is in our younger years. The need for universal medicine greatly increases but we need to work on the understanding that medical care is for everyone because it is very likely everyone will live long enough to need it. The service jobs have greatly increased with older people needing help. I think it is a hard shift from an Industrial economy to a service economy increasing numbers of long-lived people are pushing that shift and I am not sure if that can work.
We have great wealth but not the experience of living with it. We need to increase our understanding of economics to make good decisions about economics. Is supporting the war Industry better for than economy than say truly affordable housing with services for older people and excellent child care for all children?
It means all children are nurtured and live in security so that they grow up to be confident and excited about what they can do in life because of their developed interests and talents. That was the goal of public education before education for technology completely dominated education decisions. We added to that goal housing assistance but then failed to adequately fund that housing. We added food assistance and free lunches in schools and I think we are doing a fair job of this. Oregon scores high on medical care but our medical system may be breaking down because the for prophet system has some serious problems and I think we could do a thread on just this.
And my love, I must run and am late--- I am breaking down as too much is demanded of me. I hope you all carry on and know I don't mean to ignore any of this great community we are developing. :heart:
I didn't cite early hunter-gatherers. I specifically referred to mixed economy cultures. They certainly had some reproductive regulation, but nature mostly prevented overpopulation; one severe winter could take a third of the tribe.
Quoting universeness
There was no evidence of this in North Amerca when the white settlers began to "tame" all that vast empty wilderness in which the native peoples were spread quite thinly.
There was occasional expansion of territory and clashes between neighbouring tribes, but for the most part, nobody 'provided' anybody with land; the people moved about freely from summer to winter settlements or seasonal hunting grounds.
Quoting universeness
Yes, that experiment was very successfully tried by several societies, resulting in the big, unhappy, unhealthy, oppressive, self-congratulatory and aggressive nation-states.
Quoting universeness
Nothing, obviously. It happened.
Next time? If there are human survivors, with the lessons learned from the past and the technology we preserve from the present.
(this post might be relevant to our conversations)
Quoting Athena
Thanks very much for your comments! :smile:
I think that our culture (being a culture, as well as being a civilization, as well as being/becoming a global civilization) shares with smaller societies the the drive to spread its ideas and memes among its members, and even to spread its beliefs beyond its borders.
This informational imprinting on a child starts right after birth.
As noted above, the ever-present and ever-growing media presence is a powerful teacher, perhaps equal to (or surpassing) parental and family ‘teaching’.
These, combined with the eventual more formal education, instill in the child a general picture of the world and what goals are considered most important.
Whatever ’level’ or ‘class’ one may happen to identify with doesn’t alter the overall story that the child is told.
I think the word ‘story’ or ‘mythology’ is appropriate here, even if the culture in question were to be scientifically sophisticated and advanced (as ours is), and absolutely without any religious beliefs (as ours is not).
For me, any teaching about meaning, purpose, destiny, etc is in the realm of story, myth, and shared wisdom.
I use these terms neutrally and without any negative connotations (ie myth = untrue).
Quoting Athena
I’d say that my sentence was accurate, but incomplete.
A more complete wording might be “go along with the civilizational program, and you will be rewarded. Some people are rewarded more than others. And the reward of some is simply to be allowed to exist in substandard conditions”.
Quoting Athena
The meek shall inherit the earth. Or make that the ‘hard to eradicate’ will survive, waiting for their moment in the spotlight. Oh wait… cockroaches don’t like the light… :chin:
Quoting Vera Mont
Thanks for your reply!
This makes me think of George Carlin’s comedy routine about ‘stuff’.
[hide] [b]George Carlin on Stuff transcript.
Actually this is just a place for my stuff, ya know? That’s all, a little place for my stuff. That’s all I want, that’s all you need in life, is a little place for your stuff, ya know? I can see it on your table, everybody’s got a little place for their stuff. This is my stuff, that’s your stuff, that’ll be his stuff over there. That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time.
A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you’re taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody’s got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn’t want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you’re saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That’s what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get…more stuff!
Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore. Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else’s house, you never quite feel a hundred percent at home? You know why? No room for your stuff. Somebody else’s stuff is all over the place! And if you stay overnight, unexpectedly, they give you a little bedroom to sleep in. Bedroom they haven’t used in about eleven years. Someone died in it, eleven years ago. And they haven’t moved any of his stuff! Right next to the bed there’s usually a dresser or a bureau of some kind, and there’s NO ROOM for your stuff on it. Somebody else’s shit is on the dresser.
Have you noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff? God! And you say, “Get that shit offa there and let me put my stuff down!”
Sometimes you leave your house to go on vacation. And you gotta take some of your stuff with you. Gotta take about two big suitcases full of stuff, when you go on vacation. You gotta take a smaller version of your house. It’s the second version of your stuff. And you’re gonna fly all the way to Honolulu. Gonna go across the continent, across half an ocean to Honolulu. You get down to the hotel room in Honolulu and you open up your suitcase and you put away all your stuff. “Here’s a place here, put a little bit of stuff there, put some stuff here, put some stuff–you put your stuff there, I’ll put some stuff–here’s another place for stuff, look at this, I’ll put some stuff here…” And even though you’re far away from home, you start to get used to it, you start to feel okay, because after all, you do have some of your stuff with you. That’s when your friend calls up from Maui, and says, “Hey, why don’tchya come over to Maui for the weekend and spend a couple of nights over here.”
Oh, no! Now what do I pack? Right, you’ve gotta pack an even SMALLER version of your stuff. The third version of your house. Just enough stuff to take to Maui for a coupla days. You get over to Maui–I mean you’re really getting extended now, when you think about it. You got stuff ALL the way back on the mainland, you got stuff on another island, you got stuff on this island. I mean, supply lines are getting longer and harder to maintain. You get over to your friend’s house on Maui and he gives you a little place to sleep, a little bed right next to his windowsill or something. You put some of your stuff up there. You put your stuff up there. You got your Visine, you got your nail clippers, and you put everything up. It takes about an hour and a half, but after a while you finally feel okay, say, “All right, I got my nail clippers, I must be okay.” That’s when your friend says, “Aaaaay, I think tonight we’ll go over the other side of the island, visit a pal of mine and maybe stay over.”
Aww, no. NOW what do you pack? Right–you gotta pack an even SMALLER version of your stuff. The fourth version of your house. Only the stuff you know you’re gonna need. Money, keys, comb, wallet, lighter, hanky, pen, smokes, rubber and change. Well, only the stuff you HOPE you’re gonna need.
All material written and owned by George Carlin. [/b][/hide]
We all have stuff. We all need stuff. We all make stuff…
Heck, we ARE stuff… at least our bodies are.
(Our thoughts and ideas aren’t stuff exactly, though our opinions may be stuffy).
But seriously though… :grin:
We obviously need things and material goods.
A well-made product or tool is a thing of wonder and beauty.
Even if indigenous people sometimes found colonial ‘visitors’ to be odd or
oppressive, they almost always appreciated a metal axe or a glass bottle.
Things they didn’t make themselves and maybe never had seen before, but were
undoubtedly ’good stuff’.
In any society’s growth, I’d imagine that at least two factors are critical for long term existence.
One aspect is social: the overall balance and equilibrium of the culture and people.
The other aspect is physical: the overall balance and equilibrium of the culture with the natural environment and its overall physical structure.
If the first aspect is unbalanced, there’s disorganization and strife.
It either falls apart through neglect or is ripped apart by fighting and battles for control.
If the second aspect is unbalanced, the society runs out of physical necessities, toxifies the area, or both.
As you noted, many civilizations have used slavery to quicken its growth and expansion.
This would seem like it makes the civilization unbalanced in BOTH the aspects mentioned above.
Concerning societal imbalance, a revolt by those enslaved is almost an eventual certainty.
Concerning environmental and structural issues, if the masses are revolting there is going to be a stoppage in growth and a disruption in even ordinary maintenance.
If all those enslaved escaped, they would have to be replaced by others if the civilization were to continue.
And if those ‘others’ happened to be the ordinary citizens themselves, the rulers probably wouldn’t object.
So slavery is not only morally wrong, disgusting, dehumanizing… it’s inherently unstable and unsustainable on multiple levels.
As if the moral reasons weren’t persuasive enough to avoid it.
But the the temptation of quick growth and the power to dominate others and the environment are seductive, even if there’s a curse or terrible price to eventually pay.
Like steroid use on a civilizational level, a deal with the devil or Rumplestiltskin that seemed like a good idea at the time, but…
Just one of many examples of how our Civilization (as great as its achievements have been) is unstable on both a societal level and a physical structural level.
(Which most people would probably agree with, though the causes and solutions offered would be different).
Quoting universeness
Good question… thanks. :up:
How about using words for groups people, in an increasing scale:
Cultures (small to medium sized)…
Civilization (large with cities, division of labor etc)…
Global Civilization (the whole ball of wax).
The notion of a Global Civilization could be somewhat arguable, since someone may see
parts of it that that are in complete opposition to each other.
What i was trying to describe was our Civilization, looked at two points in time.
Looking at it now, I call it ‘Civilization’.
Looked at when it was just beginning thousands of years ago, I call it ‘culture’.
Quoting 0 thru 9
Quoting universeness
Early human states had purposes? Yes, of course!
I meant this is a comparison to the Civilization that became the one we live in now.
The distinguishing characteristic of our Civilization according to my view that that
it promotes and chooses expansion of population, land, and means of production
over nearly every other possible characteristic, not the least of which are
stability or sustainability).
Yes!! [vintage reference]Romper Room may teach the little tykes about responsibility and good citizenship, but it's immediately followed by Tom and Jerry or Buggs Bunny. [/vintage reference] So the children internalize, before they have the remotest chance of being able to analyze it, that we have to pretend civility while preying on others and doing them down; that ultimately, all conflict must be resolved with fists or guns. We have to be charitable, but only tough guys get any respect. Plus the prettiest/richest girl, who will thenceforward meekly do his bidding.
Quoting 0 thru 9
:clap: :clap: :clap:
That's an idea I have been largely unable to convey. One of the perversions of 20th century American English (I've been making an informal study of this phenomenon for decades now) has been to equate mythology (the story of a people's origin, identity and relationships) with specific small-scale lies; i.e. to cheapen mythology, in the same way that art is debased by printing copies of famous paintings on neckties and coffee mugs. That is part of the homogenization of cultures to which you referred earlier (becoming one global civilization) - by the simplest, easiest method: bring everything down to a mass-produced commodity.
Quoting 0 thru 9
So, you have seen The Gods Must Be Crazy
Some good lessons there!
Quoting 0 thru 9
The logical end-game of imperialism.
Quoting 0 thru 9
Day-to-day, year-to-year purposes. Fortify the walls. Deepen the irrigation canals. Raid Nubia for more slaves to build a road. Open a new trading route to the Occident.
That's not the same as an overarching long-term plan. 5th century Gaul didn't plot its way to 21st century EU any more than evolution had Mighty Man in Mind when it preserved the more efficient mosquito or longer-tailed lyre bird. Civilizations are no more intelligent or aware than is nature.
:hearts: Wow, thanks for the response and the agreement!
(Getting both is a nice experience, because of its rarity lol).
When I was younger and hearing of the discipline of philosophy for the first time, I thought it was about the actual ideas that directly affected our culture as a whole… laid out in an intelligible way.
It may be that way in some manner, but I was naively looking for some ‘owners manual’ for our civilization, or for life itself.
Upon maturity, it is easy to see it was asking for a lot, maybe asking for easy answers.
I imagine that maybe some power brokers wouldn’t want to show their cards.
It might reflect badly on them, or give their opponents / victims an advantage.
Or maybe the concept to too difficult to pin down?
Or maybe it is just a ‘work in progress’?
What is our philosophical modus operendi? (Or PMO, for short).
I guess I was unaware of Structuralism at the time and Big History was not yet ‘a thing’. :nerd:
To your credit, you didn't fall back on religion as so many do. That's the main draw of religion: absolute certainty; simple answers to hard questions like "How should we live?" "What are right and wrong?" "What do owe one another and our society?" "What is the purpose of life?"
Contrary to what many atheists like to repeat, religion was not the answer to "How did the world begin?" or "What causes thunder?" - those questions either do no arise of their own accord, or are dealt-with in myth, legend and folklore - no gods required. Gods were invented to hand down commandments and to favour us with supernatural power if we please them. That is: they command us and we manipulate them.
Thence comes also the divine right of kings and infallibility of popes and evangelists, and of political dogma and the rise of dictators. They give us rules, solidarity, certainty and purpose - "something greater than myself" to belong to. (For me, clan, tribe and biota are bigger enough.)
Quoting 0 thru 9
Make that all power-brokers and all of the above. Having an edge, an advantage is all. What to do with the advantage is to be decided, one win at a time.
Quoting 0 thru 9
Thanks, I'll look into that my next month or so of lunches by the stove.
:clap: :100: Amen, sista!
"Lots of horrible shit in this world gets done for something larger than ourselves." ~Sandor Clegane
With all the references, like it's some kind of cultural icon, I almost wish I had seen that show. Unfortunately, ever since the travesty of Merlin, the trailer of every new midievaly, magicky tv series breaks me out in hives.
Best joke of the gods: they make us special, choosing us and placing us at the tippy-top of [their] creation... and then plop a naked emperor down on our heads. The Klingons did one intelligent thing: killing their gods - not that it seems to have profited them any.
I
I had a hard time wrapping my mind around "memes". That is a complete abstract. They can not exist without the humans infected by them. I could not grasp a firm boundary for the word. However, I totally get the importance of the "story". We have shared stories and private ones. Joseph Campbell said mythology is very important and when we do not have a shared mythology we will make up our own, using the people in our lives and the characters for our private mythology.
In the past, that media presence would have been the clan's storyteller. Different cultural stories of creation fascinate me. It seems to me those civilizations that have creation stories that begin with a conflict of the gods were more apt to develop technology. Those with a creator or Earth Mother and no conflict between the gods seem less apt to develop technology.
There were tribes that raised their young to be aggressive warriors. Like Sparta, this begins the day a child is born. There were tribes that focused on compassion the opposite of the warrior mentality. I claim the change in education, in 1958 has led to the violence we are seeing today and a very serious cultural clash. A cultural clash results from people holding different stories.
https://openpediatricmedicinejournal.com/contents/volumes/V8/TOPEDJ-8-1/TOPEDJ-8-1.pdf
Public education is the most important factor in defending democracy because only when the principles of democracy are learned do they become functional memes.
Last night I watched a very interesting Public Broadcasting show about how technology changed our culture. With your help in understanding memes, I now get where that technology can function as a meme. The development of different forms of energy has been a major culture changer.
Wars are also extremely important to cultural change.
Not done with the reply but I am out of time.
I wish I had more time!! I just read about preparing the young to be warriors for my post above and immediately I see a failure to see life from a different point of view when one assumes he has the right to conquer the world. That seems to come with our cultural heritage and was made worse with religion and entering wars believing that is God's will.
Yep, The good the bad and the ugly, all claim to be working in accordance with the will of their chosen god or gods. :roll: From good folks like Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, to bad influencers like shamen, witch doctors, druids, popes, priests, imams and rabbis. all the way to ugly horrors like Hitler and Jack the ripper.
:up: It seems like something went askew with civilization at some early juncture.
It probably was inevitable that humans started clumping together in larger and larger cities.
How can we do that sustainably and not have to be selling out future generations, “robbing Peter to pay Paul”?
There were so very many benefits from having so many creative people in close proximity in these early cities.
The evidence is all around us. So much knowledge started or was refined there.
This knowledge can (and must) be updated and applied to the ‘fly in the ointment’ which are the hidden imbalances in civilization that are now not so hidden.
The best of Civilizational knowledge joined with the core of Indigenous knowledge might be the general direction to proceed.
The Earth seems to be in autoimmune disease mode… is it sending us a message?
Can we discover a way to go along with the ways of nature AND have continue to have large cities?
If we don’t adjust, the Earth just might act as if we are a virus. :mask: :monkey:
Thanks! I started to read it earlier this year. Didn’t finish it then, but now I’m tempted to try again, maybe with an audiobook version from the library.
I had this reaction from the first part of the book, in another thread
The first thing that went wrong was commercial agriculture. That is, previously, people had cultivated some crops alongside their hunting, fishing, trading and gathering activities. They grew enough food for the tribe, plus a little extra to preserve for winter.
Once urbanization and social stratification came into effect, the peasant class had to produce a huge amount of surplus, to feed the urban population of non-producers. Increasingly, too, the people who worked the land did not own the land. And so, very quickly (over a short period as prehistoric time is reckoned), the urban people were alienated from the land and the rural people became the enemies of nature. That's the day humanity lost its innocence, fell from grace, or however you word it: the parable of Eden.
Quoting 0 thru 9
Yes, that's about the size of it. I'm not sure enough of an effort is being made to preserve tribal wisdom, but there are many books and videos on living in and with nature, most of them safely archived for an unforeseen future.
Quoting 0 thru 9
Probably not so large as New York and Tokyo. But the early and very idea-fertile city states only had populations of 10-30,000. That size is sustainable, I think, especially if the construction is designed properly, along the lines of the Venus Project, Earthship neighbourhoods or co-housing units, that incorporate independent home workshops, educational facilities and urban farming. I think it's important to be within walking distance of all one's basic necessities and social interactions.
I haven't finished it either. There is a lot of material to digest. I have it on my kindle and read a section between lighter fare, novels and proofreading. (That's done now, thank whomever! But I'm vaguely contemplating a new project.)
Daniel Quinn take on the parable of Eden is different than any others I’ve heard…
[hide][/hide]
Here’s a summary and analysis of that chapter.
The same sentiment is echoed in the story of Cain and Abel: the conflict between settled farmers and nomadic herders. The early Hebrews were nomadic herders, but all the great nations around them were fortified cities surrounded by agricultural lands where they and their herds were unwelcome. At that point, they felt marginalized, perhaps persecuted. The god that would eventually choose them demanded sacrifices of animal blood and burned fat, but that wasn't documented until much later... oddly enough after they had taken Jericho and its fertile farmlands.
Thanks for your reply. :up:
Yes, ‘memes’ are a deep and interesting topic, and I understand them as little as their physical counterpart ‘genes’ lol.
Using the word ‘stories’ is fine by me… has a traditional ring to it!
Joseph Campbell understood myths from the inside and out, he warned against taking myths literally, while missing the deeper symbolic and universal meanings and implications.
I believe he would have been a critic of the fundamentalist movements happening.
Cambell joked that “mythology is other peoples’ religion”.
The problem isn’t someone’s particular spiritual or religious belief so much as the psychological stability of the person, and their empathy and the ability to see outside of their own ‘bubble’ (as the link you provided refers to).
We are surrounded by organizations trying to become a political and economic giants by turning its followers into weapons and forcing its preferences and traditions upon everyone.
‘Pick a side, and fight like hell against the evil enemies’ seems to be the common ‘meme’.
Which leads to dehumanizing everyone and falling prey to propaganda, conformism, and mind control.
Quoting Athena
Why was 1958 so pivotal?
Thanks for your input. :up:
I would agree that capitalism (as a general worldview) at its core is destructive in reaching its aims.
The Earth is its raw material, and the Market is its battleground.
I would quibble with the subtle possible implications of your statement about “in the wilds, living under raw Darwinian rules”.
As far as I can tell, war and conquest are human inventions.
I don’t see human war as a purely natural thing, like a wolf eating a snake who ate a mouse who ate the grain growing in the field…
Animals are not at war with each other; each has a role to play.
They exist in a balance, with the grazers and the predators and the scavengers forming a system with the land and seas.
Nature is bloody, but no more bloody than a person eating a steak.
If we really and truly followed the natural way of the animals there would be less catastrophic problems, even with us living in cities.
Humans are the only animal who wants the whole world.
Our intelligence and unique abilities (joined with some ignorance) got us into this predicament.
Will we use our boundless intelligence and inventiveness for a solution now?
But we are stuck with civilization and its ups and downs, like it or not.
We are trying to live in it and fix it, which may feel like trying to repair a car while driving it!
Do animal groups not war with each other to gain control over an area of land/resources?
Have you ever watched a program about how insect colonies war with each other? Ants and termites for example?
The word ‘war’ is of course loaded with connotations, mostly negative.
So personally I would not use that term for animals, but ‘territorial fighting’ seems accurate.
Even when animals spread their territory, they are kept in check by the overall system.
Billions of years of animals eating each other, but the planet was fine… thriving in fact.
The evolving continued, and continues still. :flower:
I think the point I was making was about the remarkable balance of nature, including humans.
That is until fairly recently, in the grand scheme of time.
In the past few thousand years, humans have become clever enough to leverage the situation,
to attempt to turn the whole world into humans, and into our food and possessions.
This may sound reasonable and profitable on paper; in reality it is disaster.
Are we smart enough to learn from less intelligent animals, to know our place in the grand scheme?
Human exceptionalism is unscientific, technically we are mammals. :smile:
Chimpanzees are the only animals I know that fight their own species for resources. Predatory ants attacking a termite colony does not constitute a war: they're hunting for food, not fighting over contested territory. Some kinds of food can defend themselves better than other kinds of food.
Quoting 0 thru 9
I wholly agree with this. The sane species get what they need - if they can - and then rest or play. They migrate when they need to, arrive at summer or winter feeding ground, and stay there. Man, I think, is the only animal (besides a few of our pets) that can't quite grasp the concept of "enough".
Ah yes… the bottle falling from the sky. Wonderful movie!
Unfortunately, it seems like the versions on YouTube are all the mediocre sequels.
If you can find a link to the original movie, please share. Maybe the library has it.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes! We must use every means to be more efficient with our use of materials.
I’d love to install some solar panels and reuse the rain water from my home… it’s on the list
but lower than I’d like.
I was thinking about cars, and how they get so incredibly hot in the summer.
Car companies really have to up their game… how about solar panels on the top of the vehicle?
That would provide shade and power for some fans to cool a parked cars.
Add more fans and vents etc to keep the temperature below boiling! :sweat:
Thanks! :smile:
If people are worked until they are mentally and physically exhausted, they will have little energy
to do much more than stumble home after going to the store to buy some edible products (that may or may not actually contain nutritional value) and get lottery tickets and dream of what could be… or maybe the way it should’ve been all along.
Quoting Vera Mont
:monkey: Oh noes! Not our closest relatives! (I have a second cousin who’s a chimp). How about the
peaceful and sexy bonobos? :hearts:
All animals fight their own species over food, territory etc. A lion pride will war with another lion pride trying to enter their territory, or steal their kills. same with wolf packs to groups of meerkats. They will also fight, even to the death, over such as exclusive access to females etc, just like early humans and even some modern ones.
Quoting Vera Mont
Wrong!
Ants and termites fight because they combat for resources like shelter and nutrition. These deadly enemies can attack the opponent’s larvae and queen to get rid of territorial competition. Moreover, ants eat termites and obtain nutrients from protein-rich meat. A predator-prey relationship exists between ants and termites that leads to the death of any one of them. Furthermore, fire ants, black ants, and Argentine ants quickly kill the termites.
Here's another example: Why do wasps kill bees?
Wasps are predatorial insects and need food for themselves and their young.
Wasps use honey bee colonies as hosts for their larva.
Wasps are after the honey or protein (the brood).
Quoting Vera Mont
So do I, but for different reasons. Humans are the only species we know of, that can create more purpose/meaning/significance for planet Earth, beyond that of acting as a mere container for lifeforms, that imo, don't do much and especially, don't do much, or any, science. The dinos had between 165 and 177 million years of existence on the Earth. What did they achieve? They also had no chance at all of preventing their own extinction. I would suggest we have more chance of preventing our own extinction, compared to any other species that has ever existed on this planet, so far.
I'm still waiting for my solar-powered car. The one I want
. There are quite a few in development, and the airplane works pretty well, though neither, I think will serve so many people over such distances as we are wont to travel now. Me, I hate speed. I hate having to drive on the highway. But country living means we do have the solar array for our house, and a wood-burning stove and room to grow some vegetables.
Quoting universeness
Okay, if you want to call every form of conflict "war". My definition of war is less comprehensive.
We can ask an independent source. Chat GPT?
Do animals war with each other?
ChatGPT:
Yes, some animals engage in behaviors that could be described as a form of warfare or intergroup conflict. These conflicts often arise from competition for resources, territory, or mates. Here are a few examples:
Ants: Ant colonies sometimes engage in territorial warfare with neighboring colonies. They may engage in aggressive behaviors, such as raids on rival colonies, to protect their territory and resources. Some ant species are even known to enslave members of other ant species.
Lions: Male lions may engage in territorial conflicts with rival males to establish or defend their territory and access to a pride of females. These conflicts can be quite fierce and sometimes result in injuries or fatalities.
Chimpanzees: Chimpanzees, our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, engage in aggressive behaviors, including territorial disputes and intergroup conflicts. These conflicts can involve physical violence, such as attacks on rival chimpanzee groups.
Elephants: Male elephants, known as bulls, may engage in aggressive encounters with each other, especially during mating seasons when competition for access to females is high. These conflicts can result in injuries or even death.
Birds: Some bird species engage in territorial disputes, with males defending their breeding territories from intruders. These disputes can involve vocalizations, displays, and physical confrontations.
Insects: Various insect species engage in aggressive interactions, including battles between rival males for access to mates, territory, or resources. Examples include male stag beetles competing for mating sites or male butterflies fighting over territory.
It's important to note that while these behaviors may resemble warfare or conflict, they are typically instinctual responses to competition for survival and reproductive success. They are not driven by the same complex motivations and strategies as human warfare. Additionally, not all animal species engage in such behaviors, and the level of aggression and conflict varies widely among different species.
Any conflict is war if you want to call it war. I prefer Webster:
They existed (flourished profusely) for "between 165 and 177 million years"! That's quite an achievement compared to h. sapiens (quasi-eusocial self-destructive mass-murderers) which have only existed for around 200 thousand years and already are knowingly on the brink of a number of self-inflicted extinctions. :mask:
165 and 177 million years of existence. We are unlikely to make 1 million.
Quoting universeness
Against a meteor strike, I very much doubt even the cleverest humans have an adequate defence, however the movies like to mess around with the idea of long-range nuclear missiles.
Quoting universeness
Against us, no other species has a chance. Against us, neither have we.
I missed your post and duplicated it all [s]unwitting[/s] witlessly.
Quoting Vera Mont
:fire:
I guess, great minds ... :smirk:
Looks like a cool car! Hope they become more common, at least solar panels in other vehicles.
Quoting Vera Mont
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to have to make an emergency landing because it’s nighttime and this is a solar airplane. We apologize for any inconvenience!” :cool:
Did you see the videos? https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=solar+plane+video+#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:07024ebe,vid:i_QUPJZMAb4,st:0
My tv and computer work at night, too.
I'm a huge fan of solar energy. In bad weather, of which we've had lots and expect considerably more - there are many power outages in the boonies. We don't notice, unless we go to the the other wing of the house and try to turn on a light. We still need Hydro backup, since we only have 8 batteries. Our electricity use last month cost $13; the delivery charge, taxes and surcharges were an additional $50. Highway (literally) robbery, but it's still way less than other people are paying.
The Earth has existed for over 4 billion years, the universe, for almost 14 billion, do you consider these facts to be achievements in themselves as well? Mere existence and survival is not enough imo.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting 180 Proof
Use this to give yourselves hope:
[i]It is unlikely that Earth would be hit by a very large asteroid capable of harming all life on the planet because:
1. As the universe expands, stars and space rocks move farther apart, reducing the chance of a collision with Earth.
2. Asteroids and comets that can cause global damage are extremely rare, impacting Earth once every 100,000 to 500,000 years.
3. The probability of such an event is very low, around 0.1% per year.[/i]
and
[i]Yes, it is possible to stop an asteroid from hitting Earth and causing destruction. There are several methods that can be used to deflect an asteroid’s trajectory. These include:
Gravity Tractor: A spacecraft can be used to hover near the asteroid and use its gravitational pull to slowly change the asteroid’s trajectory.
Kinetic Impactor: A spacecraft can be sent to collide with the asteroid at high speed, changing its trajectory.
(The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission successfully changed the trajectory of the asteroid Dimorphos when the NASA spacecraft intentionally slammed into the space rock on September 26, 2022. The DART mission was a full-scale demonstration of deflection technology and the world’s first conducted on behalf of planetary defense. The asteroid was not a threat to Earth)
Nuclear Detonation: A nuclear explosion can be used to deflect the asteroid’s trajectory.
Laser Ablation: A high-powered laser can be used to vaporize a small portion of the asteroid, creating a jet that will push the asteroid off course.
NASA and other space agencies are actively researching and developing these methods to protect Earth from potential asteroid impacts. However, detecting and tracking asteroids is also important in order to have enough time to prepare for a potential impact. The Planetary Society has launched a campaign called “Planetary Defense” which aims to raise awareness about the threat of asteroids and comets and promote research into planetary defense strategies.[/i]
Perhaps you both have been taking the words of Fraser from dads army, too much to heart:
Sweet deal! :ok:
I’d love to get some solar energy going on here, even though we’re not in the sunbelt… yet. :yikes:
(like most belts, it seems to be expanding).
Did you gloss over the bit where
Quoting 180 Proof
They throve and sustained their ecosystem, then were killed by an unpreventable cosmic event. This overachieving H. sapiens, in a mere 200,000 years has trashed its environment, destroyed much of its fauna and flora and put itself in an existential crisis?
Quoting universeness
Well, why did the dinosaurs not make use of those technologies? They deserved to die!
Now, you just need to invent a deflector shield for human insanity.
Quoting 0 thru 9
We're in Ontario, Canada. Five-month winter, rainy spring and fall It's raining now, and all week, so we need to conserve energy (no laundry; kitchen appliances only in the off-hours) and charge the batteries off hydro overnight. Also, get a kill-a-watt and lots of power cords with a switch to minimize your energy drain.
Did you not read my response? you must have, as you quoted the end of the sentence I posted!
Quoting universeness
The species 'homo' is actually closer to 3 million years old and we are directly descended from that line.
Even that early group achieved more than the dinos. Their use of base tools and fire are two valid examples.
You will get no argument from me about our bad record of the stewardship of the flora and fauna of this planet, but the example of the dinos, demonstrates that without scientific progress/advancement, A dominant species will likely go extinct anyway, via natural happenstance.
Quoting Vera Mont
What??? Is that some attempt at humour that I am missing?
Quoting Vera Mont
What??? Is that some attempt at humour that I am missing?
Quoting Vera Mont
It already exists, it's called human sanity, reason and enlightenment. Many of us employ it every day. You do to ..... well, mostly. Now, that's humour!
Yes, I got that piece of irrelevancy, but didn't comment on it. I chose only to compare the success of two organic species.
Quoting universeness
Homo is the genus, and it descended directly from a line of apes, monkeys and lemurs, which descended from a direct line... etc, etc. I specified H. sapiens. If it's any consolation, some estimates of its presence stretch to 300,000 years.
Tool use is considerably older and more widespread than humans generally acknowledge. So, you're down to the use of fire for 2.7 of those trifling 3 million years. All the spectacular advancements that are killing everything now were made in the blink of a few thousand years. If you consider rushing to self-immolation an achievement, I allowed for it - while disagreeing with the basic tenet that technology is the only valid measure of a species' success.
Quoting universeness
:lol:
I know, that's why I tried to correct you. Do you not agree that such as homo erectus, achieved more than the dinos?
Quoting Vera Mont
Not all scientific advances are technological. Would you call personal advances in personal enlightenment or at least your personal width and breadth of knowledge, a technological advancement?
After > 150 million years of existence, the dinos were no more enlightened at their end than they were at their beginning. Without progressive knowledge, our species would still be living in caves, worshiping the big lights in the sky and fearing all the noises coming from outside the caves at night.
I wonder if Jesus would still have turned up at some point? Immaculately/magically conceived in a cave somewhere in the Levant. Would homo sapiens who decided to reject scientific/ technological progression and had remained in their small, disparate, tribal, nomadic communities, living in caves, teepees, or perhaps even mud huts, have more or less need of theism, in your opinion. Is the fact that theism is under pressure today, almost everywhere, due to the scientific progress we have made?
What do you suggest the long-term goals of these disparate, groups of humans would/could/should be? You do suggest that these disparate groups would be better than a single globally united species, yes?
I am unsure whether or not you advocate for a political, economic, social global unity of culturally disparate and physically separated 'tribal' sized or 'nation' sized groups or you advocate for disparate but cooperative (rather than warring) groups of human settlements who have no sense of a global identity or sense of 'human race,' as of greater importance than their own 'tribal' or 'national' cultural identity.
Do you think, being a 'Virginian,' should be more important than being an American,' for example?
You mixed up genus and species. But that's okay, because, no, I don't agree that any of the hominids 'achieved' anything more remarkable than species that reached environmental equilibrium and thus assured themselves of a long, stable existence. Aspiring to much and burning out fast doesn't count as an achievement in my book. Especially if it involves an increased portion of the human population forced to live miserable lives.
Quoting universeness
No. I'm unconvinced that science has, in a cost/harm - gain/benefit balance has been a net gain. I don't think my personal enlightenment is different in value from that of an octopus or crow, and I would certainly not acquire it at the price of all that suffering. I know things they don't and they know things I don't. I have learned what I need to live my life. That's a happenstance, not a virtue.
Quoting universeness
How is that different from an apartment in Miami?
Quoting universeness
Compare the religiosity of primitive Native Americans to advanced European - then, or now.
Quoting universeness
By 'almost everywhere', I assume you mean northern Europe.
No, that is not a fact; that is wishful thinking that the trend of the first half of the 20th century would continue uninterrupted. That is not the case.
[/url]Quoting universeness
I would advocate now the same arrangement I advocated all along: discreet, peacefully coexisting tribal units, with a global police force that they all support. We can't co-operate without being aware that we're the same species, but I would quite emphatically prefer we were less anthropocentric in our world-view.
But I won't be around to advocate anything, as it can't happen until long after the collapse of this civilization.
Quoting universeness
They don't care what I think: to many if not most Virginians, that is already a fact. The Trumpites and fellow traveller contingents are hell-bent on dismantling the federal government and tearing up constitution.
So I typed species instead of genus :scream: :roll: :
Homo erectus and Homo sapiens are not the same species. They are two different species of the Homo genus that existed at different times in history. Homo erectus is an extinct species[b]of human that lived between 1.9 million and 70,000 years ago 1. On the other hand, Homo sapiens is the only surviving species of the genus Homo and is the only extant member of the subtribe Hominina. It is believed that Homo sapiens [b]evolved from[/b] Homo erectus in Africa around 300,000 years ago[/b]
Quoting universeness
The words I have emboldened and underlined made my points very clear.
Quoting Vera Mont
Again, let's try Chat GPT as an arbiter:
My question was: Did homo erectus achieve more than the dinosaurs?
Chat GPT's reply:
Homo erectus, an extinct species of hominin that lived approximately 1.9 million to 143,000 years ago, achieved much more than dinosaurs in terms of technological advancements, social organization, and cultural development. It's important to note that Homo erectus and dinosaurs existed at very different times in Earth's history, with dinosaurs going extinct around 65 million years ago.
Here are some key achievements of Homo erectus:
Tool Use and Manufacture: Homo erectus is credited with being one of the earliest hominin species to consistently use and create tools. They crafted tools from stone and other materials, which helped them hunt, butcher, and process food, as well as shape their environment.
Control of Fire: There is evidence to suggest that Homo erectus was able to control and use fire. This ability not only provided warmth and protection but also allowed for cooking, which made food more digestible and nutrient-rich.
Long-Distance Travel: Homo erectus is thought to have been the first hominin species to expand beyond Africa. They migrated to other parts of the world, including Asia and Europe, demonstrating an ability to adapt to diverse environments and climates.
Social Structures: Homo erectus likely lived in social groups, which may have facilitated cooperation, communication, and the sharing of knowledge and resources. This social structure could have contributed to their success as a species.
Cultural Developments: While evidence of artistic expression is limited, Homo erectus left behind more sophisticated tools and artifacts than any previous hominin species. This suggests a degree of cultural development and the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next.
In contrast, dinosaurs were a diverse group of reptiles that lived for millions of years, but they did not exhibit the same level of cultural and technological achievements as Homo erectus. Dinosaurs are known primarily for their diversity in body size, shape, and ecological niches. They were part of Earth's history for a much longer period than Homo erectus but did not develop the kinds of complex societies and technological advancements that characterized human evolution.
So, in terms of achievements and impact on their environment, Homo erectus achieved more than dinosaurs by developing a range of technological, social, and cultural adaptations that allowed them to thrive and spread across the world.
You corrected my accurate term with an inaccurate one, and attributed the age of the genus to the species. Tacking on an extinct related species that might have used fire still won't bring the longevity of the Homos anywhere close to that of dinosaurs, which are extinct, but their reptilian descendants are still around, still managing their affairs better than we are.
Quoting universeness
Or we could try my sock-puppet as an arbiter. Too bad I don't have one. But it really makes no impression on me that you have like-minded allies: I'll just have to disagree with them, too, even the robots.
This being the operative phrase: Quoting universeness
this being the down-side:
Quoting universeness
The chatty pre-trained performer shares your value system - I don't.
Really??? Can a crow or an octopus demonstrate its ability to create meaning in the way you can? can either write a book like you can/have? Can they memorialise like you can? I find your quote above compassionate but very inaccurate. But, as you say, that's ok.
Quoting Vera Mont
You live in a cave, teepee or mud hut for a year and I will live in a nice apartment in Miami.
Then we can compare notes and experiences. :up:
Quoting Vera Mont
Both seem quite bad to me!
Quoting Vera Mont
Yeah, I think we will do much better than this and much quicker than you suggest, but thanks for making your position on this clear.
Quoting Vera Mont
No, as it would not be independent, you would have autocratic control over such.
Quoting Vera Mont
I was not going for an ad populum argument, Chat GPT is an expert knowledge databased system, not an emotive human. Although, I am not suggesting that an emotive human is inferior.
designed, built and programmed by techies.
Quoting universeness
Why would it need to? They're not required to live my life - and it's just as well I don't have to attempt living theirs.
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
So, no progress, then?
:up:
:up: :up:
:up: :up: :up:
Like most tools you probably find very useful to employ, every day of your life. But your year in a cave, could give you new opportunity to experience, first hand, the way of the Luddite.
Quoting Vera Mont
I thought I already told you! To do more from gen to gen than just exist and survive.
Humans can progress in ways that no other species in history has demonstrated. Our solar system currently contains nothing more than meaningless objects that function much the same or with even less significance than the dinos did. Humans have the potential to change that, and bring fantastic new purpose, to this currently lifeless domain. But you suggest that the Octopus and the Crow have no such goals, so we should be more like them and stay in our caves, teepees or mud huts for fear that our Miami apartments may fall on our heads. :yikes: I say no, no, no, no, no chicken licken/little!
Quoting Vera Mont
I think you already know this one quite well and need no examples to support my position. No, no progress at all in the theism of indigenous American tribes or modern religions. This 'no progress' status quo is another reason why theism is so pernicious and why we should never restrict ourselves to disparate, cultural, shallow existences. I am all for respecting and allowing folks to practice and live within what they covet as traditional and cultural imperatives, as long as their freedom to do so, does not compromise the freedom of anyone else and does not impact anyone's human rights to food, water, shelter, bodily autonomy, economic parity, etc, etc. For me, your status as an Earthling will always be far more important than your status as an American, a Scot, a Russian, a Ukrainian, a Palestinian or an Israeli.
Quoting 180 Proof
Come join we optimists, we miss you and Vera, we need you both with us!
The solar system will remain insignificant, if we optimists are too small in number and too low in volume to be heard above the din of despair.
Meaningless objects? Dinosaurs and the solar system just a bunch of insignificant junk?
Your enthusiasm for human potential is admirable, but throwing absolute statements like this seems like cheerleading one would find in a school textbook from the 1950s: “Better living through chemistry! Soon we will be able to grow an acre of wheat in a petri dish!”
This is half the story at best, and it fails to mention that the textbooks were provided by Dow Chemical. :nerd:
The more modern techno-futurist at least gives lip service to human-made problems.
You may be engaging in a polemic and are taking an extreme position for argument sake maybe, but I need some more evidence.
Please don’t equate skepticism with hopelessness.
Humans do have the potential and have done much with our amazing brains!
But the first order of business seems to me to be sustainability, so tech with that in mind is of importance (such as the solar power @Vera Mont was discussing and has purchased).
How about floating cities for when the oceans flood the world’s coastal zones?
Better yet… can we use our minds to devise a way to stop the flooding?
Sadly, it may be too late but we don’t know that for sure and every rational solution must be considered.
But the powerful human minds, brilliant science, astounding technology are currently under the heel of authoritarian power that will not let anything exist which threatens its hegemony.
This is daunting and depressing, but it is the status quo that I’m generally observing.
To me, little real progress will be made under the dictatorship of the dollar.
(I hope I’m wrong about this, and would love to be convinced otherwise).
Quoting universeness
This is another sweeping statement.
The many many different indigenous peoples who lived in what is now called the Americas were definitely NOT a monolith, not a single entity following the same playbook.
Some tribes were simpler in their possessions, if that is what worked for them.
If you want cities and civilization, how about the Mayans? The Hohokam built an irrigation system that they abandoned, but was later used by settlers.
As a general rule, members of the tribes had a knowledge of flora, fauna, and environment that modern scientists would rightly envy.
Scientists today are working with tribes in the Amazon trying to catalog (and perhaps preserve) the immense number of plant species there before they are wiped out.
Quoting universeness
I tend to agree with this point, how it is emphasizing the long history of humanity.
Even if they weren’t ‘sapiens’. :monkey:
Thanks for your input and time! :smile:
Why? If you don't survive, you sure can't thrive, evolve or progress.
Quoting universeness
Progress means to move in a designated direction. Choose the wrong direction and progress leads to a horrific demise. I think our forebears choose the wrong direction.
Quoting universeness
What god made it for your exclusive use?
Quoting universeness
Their own. Yours. What for?
Quoting universeness
I didn't say we should be more like them. I said:
Quoting Vera Mont I feel it is unnecessary for you to keep 'interpreting' my statements for me , as I usually know what I mean when I type them. *
Quoting universeness
You do understand that many animals (not crows or octopi) live in caves, fissures and burrows, while others construct elaborated homes and colonies. Humans learned construction from birds, insects, apes and the rodents
And all other construction, including the ones that keep falling on heads when the wind blows, when our lovely fellow hominids lob bombs or whole airplanes at them, when the earth shakes, when a river floods, when fracking creates a sinkhole under them, evolved from those early, safe and durable structures - because some of us keep wanting bigger, instead of more sensible.
Quoting universeness
Suit yourself. As you are among the privileged who have choices. I don't believe any pre-Columbian American ever was.
Quoting universeness
I have more respect for individuals than to assign you a status.
Quoting universeness
I'm fine with the solar system being insignificant. I'm not despairing; I'm describing what I witness, articulating what I believe and expressing what I think. Quietly.
*or at least on the second or third edit. Occupational hazard, that.
Excellent example! And it serves as an antidote to anthropocentric thinking. :up:
Sometimes (probably 10 times per day) we (myself included) need a little reminder that humans are not the emperors of the universe, and that pretending to be is dangerous hubris.
Science has given us much, but like spoiled children we cover our ears to the parts we don’t like.
It’s been proven that the Earth is not the center of the cosmos, that humans slowly evolved from simpler and slimier lifeforms, and that the world at its base is not constructed of indivisible solid
Lego-like atoms.
But the subtle lesson that we humans are part of a team which consists of everything and everyone we see around us (and much that is invisible) is about as appetizing as broccoli is to a child who has candy.
There are lots of excellent proposed arrangements for survivors - but no way any of them will work for the number of people in the world today. We already have over 6 million people in refugee camps, more an route, 150 million, and rising, homeless, as well as an uncountable number living hand-to-mouth in precarious conditions. That's simply unsustainable. And we haven't begun to account for the destruction of this pandemic of violence sweeping over the world.
Quoting 0 thru 9
Not at this point. It would help to shut down the fossil fuel use and trans-ocean shipping. Unfortunately, we have no intelligent organization to move all those people out of the danger zone or relocate them in a safer place - assuming there are any safe places outside the billionnares' compounds.
Much could still be done to mitigate the inevitable damage - if the responsible agencies were given the resources and the power.
Quoting 0 thru 9
It's not a very long history compared to dinosaurs. And anyway, doesn't consider the lifestyle of humans before European colonization worthy of notice, except with scorn. That makes the history of scientific progress very short indeed.
Yes, I only mentioned this as an example of technology that’s at least trying to deal with climate change. (Another example was solar power, which seems to be more feasible at this point).
This particular one is rather pretentious and upper class on second glance: a new and improved Titanic .
The designers behind it are going for the big bucks, ‘upscale clientele’.
More dictatorship of the dollar…
Quoting Vera Mont
Exactly. That’s about all we can do.
Quoting Vera Mont
We may be walking in their very large footsteps.
We have a choice, but time and physics stop for no one.
I did not use the term junk, but you are welcome to offer your opinion on what, say Mercury or Mars is for? Do you think humans could give such objects more 'purpose' and/or meaning than they seem to have at present or do you think that some presence or current existent in the universe has a prior claim or a cunning plan for such that we are just not currently aware of?
Quoting 0 thru 9
No, just offering my own rationale. I am a fan of skepticism but not surrender monkey pessimism.
Quoting 0 thru 9
As long as you vote against and/or speak out against and/or protest against and/or actively campaign against those who perpetrate the circumstance you quote above. Then this highlights that you are at least doing what you can to help change the status quo for the better.
Quoting 0 thru 9
So give me examples of any theism from any group, past or present that you consider progressive. Please don't cite those who merely use a term such as 'progressive christian.' Identify what you consider a fundamental shift in doctrine that helped improve the human condition of all humans on this planet. For me, allowing such as female bishops or the popes recent comment that he 'might' allow some gay weddings to be performed by a priest, is not much progress in > 2000 years of religion. The variety of theism you suggest exists today or in the past within indigenous tribes is part of the problem, not part of the solution, imo. Part of the reason why I am an atheist is that I agree with Hitchens. "Religion is pernicious."
Quoting 0 thru 9
Perhaps you have misunderstood me, somewhere in my exchanges here. Where did I suggest that science or tech or knowledge from any indigenous people was in some way inferior or not worth investigating?
I know. It's not a bad idea. There are other examples that appear more homey Check out the solar panels! And some are quite attractive. A low-tech option for Luddites, and one with a personal modern touch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El6AU3riRI8 (I don't know whether the link will work)
Guess which is my favourite.
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
That sounds very much as if adobe villages showed no 'progress' since a crow's nest and collapsible tipis were no improvement on the first octopus carrying a coconut shell to hide under, while a concrete high-rise were vastly superior to all of them.
Quoting universeness
Equally? How familiar are you with Native American theology?
Sure, so you agree then that we need to do all of the above, yes?
Quoting Vera Mont
So, you and I both advocate for 'changes for the better,' we are simply debating the form and focus that those changes need to take. So far so good!
Quoting Vera Mont
No god has contacted me, protesting the idea, how about you?
Quoting Vera Mont
For such as this:
We embarked on our cosmic voyage with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew with undiminished wonder: What are the stars? Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. - Carl Sagan.
Quoting Vera Mont
I have no choice but to interpret your meaning if I find it unclear or ambiguous. I am sure you will continue to clarify your position, If you think I am misinterpreting you. I will do the same.
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting Vera Mont
If you suggest that your personal level of enlightenment has no more value than that demonstrated by an octopus or a crow, then yes, I do find that to be a very low bar. I see an enormous range of enlightenment;ightenment between different humans. I see no such range from crow to crow or octopus to octopus. I am not an expert in observing the individual 'enlightenment' demonstrations between individual crows etc, and I am willing to be corrected by experts in that particular field, if you have any source of such. I have 59 years of experience of observing the differences in demonstrated enlightenment levels between human and imo, they have far more value than that demonstrated by the crows and octopi I have personally watched or observed via TV docs. If you disagree then that's ok. I assume you remain open to discussing your position?
Quoting Vera Mont
Are woodrat homes, impervious to such as is underlined in your quote, or a myriad of other happenings?
I think our main disagreement here is that you think we could learn so much more than we have demonstrated we understand about how certain fauna and some indigenous tribes of humans can live more in harmony with our planets ecological balance. I do not dispute that, but I disagree that the general direction and desire for human progress, is destructive and malevolent. Only the nefarious amongst us, those who worship personal profit or religious prophets, cause such imbalances, imo.
Now it's you who are misinterpreted me. Quote where I suggested this. I do not scorn such, but I do think we have progressed since then, in most areas but not all. We have not progressed in our relationship with primal fear and the notion of competition and religion to the extent we could have, if we had rejected such notions as 'elites' and 'gods,' far earlier in our history.
The first is essential. The second is desirable and possible. The third is provisional: depends on which way "progress" leads us.
Quoting universeness
So, if it can't fight back, it's yours to plunder by definition.
Quoting universeness
It's neither, as a rule. But if it is, clarification seems to me more appropriate than translation into a language I don't wish to speak.
Quoting universeness
I didn't suggest it: I stated it quite distinctly. I learned what is necessary to know in my life, as other creatures also learn what is necessary to know in their lives. I do not acknowledge a "bar" or any standard of relative valuation, let alone your authority to set such a bar for anyone other than yourself.
Quoting universeness
Of values, what for? Both yours and mine are pretty solid; they won't change via argument.
Quoting universeness
Not sure what a woodcut home is. Most human shelters currently are constructed of some combination of concrete, steel, lumber and brick. We could compare earthquake and flood casualties casualties in various structures. I don't know what the tally would be, but I know what I would prefer to be inside when a disaster struck - which happens and will happen with increasing frequency and severity - and it's not a highrise.
Quoting universeness
Then you need to take a better look around.
Not at all. An adobe village is better than cave dwelling or living in a tent. A high rise with full access to services such as light, heat, water and good waste disposal systems are better than an adobe village, a crows nest or living under coconut shells. Aesthetically? A high rise? Meh!
I could be persuaded that building human communities that looked more like Hobbiton or Rivendell, would be nice and more ecologically balanced, but only if such could accommodate a population such as Tokyo or New Delhi. I do also like the city layout suggested by the Venus project.
Only what I choose to google or get from proud.native.americans on threads, when I ask them.
That can't happen. Only the well-off will be saved; the slums will be washed or burned away.
No, Venus cities can't absorb New Delhi, either. The proposed floating ones including that bizarre skyscraper, still look like prisons.
The planets are here doing their thing, and will be doing it until the sun explodes. :sparkle:
If someone wants to gaze at them, or write a symphony for them, that’s fine.
What do you think their meaning or purpose is?
Quoting universeness
I am not an apologist for Religion in general, especially its many corruptions and crimes.
The Native American view of the spiritual realm is different enough from Civilizational Religion that using the word ‘theism’ strikes me as overly simplistic and perhaps dismissive.
Their way was more pantheistic and animist.
Quoting universeness
Hitchens, the patron saint of modern atheists. His evangelical zeal has converted many. :snicker:
Quoting universeness
Apologies if I misunderstood! Glad to hear that then. :up:
No fight needed, nor 'plundering' suggested. I choose not to anthropomorphise the planets in the solar system but I do want to give them new purpose and significance, in ways that allow our species to move beyond this little pale blue dot. Unless there are really good rational reasons why humans should not do this. So far I have not heard any compelling reasons against.
Quoting Vera Mont
did not notice that my autocorrect system had changed woodrat to woodcut. I have edited the sentence since I noticed the error.
Quoting Vera Mont
I often do, I assume you do to. I further assume that doing so from now, until the first human settlement on the moon and then mars, will not change your opinion. Yes, I do know neither of us will be around when that happens, but, it will happen!
I asked you first, but ok, I'll bite. When Hilary was asked why he climbed Everest, he said "because it's there." I think we are the only species we know of that can create meaning and purpose, to the level we demonstrate. I do not see any evidence that any kind of meaning or purpose exists, until life exists in the universe.
So unless there is a source of serious objection, outside of the human race, we can assign/create meaning and purpose for the planets in the solar system. Any objections?
Quoting 0 thru 9
Mere varieties of the same basic concept imo.
Quoting 0 thru 9
No, atheism has no saints or evahellicals, just skeptical thinkers. Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Matt Dillahunty, Jimmy Snow, Dave Warnock, Forrest Valkai, Shannon Q, Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier and many many more. Some also use more flowery handles such as Gutsick Gibbon, Evewasframed, Paulogia etc. Mr Hitchens was a great addition to such folks, imo.
Quoting 0 thru 9
I am glad you brought it up, as such clarifications are very important to me.
Yes, I understand this. Impose your meaning, your purpose on everything.
Quoting universeness
Only because you don't want to. The arguments have been made, though this one does not even touch on the pragmatic issues: what it costs, where the funding and resources come from, what is cut to make them available, who directs the project(s), who participates, who benefits, how much of space is likely to be weaponized as a result ... None of those arguments are compelling to someone who keeps saying "We just have to make the right choices." or words to that effect. Humanity's record of choice-making does not bide fair for such an undertaking at the present time. Maybe in 300 years.
Quoting universeness
Maybe. If the Russians and Americans and Chinese leaders and statesmen don't blow us up in the next couple of weeks, and the climate doesn't burn/wash/sweep us away in the next couple of decades.
Whose "despair"? Those who are most frightened of "despair" cling to happy-ever-after daydreams in denial of ubiquitous evidence to the contrary (e.g. fossils, natural selection, entropy). 'Prepare (oneself) for the worst, strive for the best and roll with whatever comes' takes courage, mate (e.g. the courage to overcome – outgrow – self-flattering, faith-based anthropocentrisms whether religious or utopian).
I'm "optimistic", so to speak, that our species – only intelligent enough to create problems which we can solve only by increasing suffering – is on the verge of 'saving itself from itself' either by bringing about AGI—>ASI or our own premature extinction (or both). I'm looking forward to 'encountering' the butterfly artilects which might come after us caterpillar h. sapiens. After all, universeness, fires only ever "become" smoke & ashes, though errant sparks can also light other fires (e.g. the Sun > biomorphs (intellects) > infomorphs ...)
:sparkle:
""The thing's hollow -- it goes on forever -- and -- oh my God! -- it's full of stars!"" ~Dave Bowman encounters the Monolith, 2001: A Space Odyssey
I for one, am overjoyed by that timeframe. I would happily accept a zero or even three zeros added to the end of your number. Such time scales are insignificant in the cosmic calendar.
We have found a negotiated settlement Vera! I am very willing indeed to wait your 300 years. I am glad to read that you have some confidence that our species will get our priorities and behaviours ready to start moving off planet within the next 300 years.
Quoting universeness
Carl reckoned we have lingered here long enough but I think he would have also accepted your call for 'an extra 300 years,' needed. If it gained the majority vote. I think we should start now and with the current moves being made towards space exploration and development, I think we have already started, but your 300 years suspension may well be required, depending on whether or not the wars and threats we are currently experiencing can be contained and survived.
I think more and more people are sick of the shit, that causes such wars as Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Gaza.
UB40 said it best: The quickest way to end the war is drop your guns and walk away.