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Post by bancroft on Oct 16, 2022 21:01:19 GMT
It is human nature to a degree, we all seem to want to do better than our parents or at least match them.
Some of the most ambitious in their bid to achieve greatness ignore the rules of common decency.
I believe eventually we all destroy each other probably in this cycle of humanity either nuclear or extreme weather and rapid tectonic changes.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2022 6:00:34 GMT
Okay, back to some more uncomfortable political issues, in our time and right now, and as the US is the primum mobile for much of modern western civilization's achievements and failures, Tucker Carlson (video below) has decided to place this in perspective against the madness of liberal extremism that is prevalent in the US and other poodle nations in the west right now. Watch this because it's not fake news, it's real. Everyone in what was once considered to be a "democratic" nation is at risk from the once creeping and now galloping craziness of woke fascism. If it isn't stopped, it will create havoc. It will cause wars and it might create the opportunity for nuclear conflict. And it is rapidly eroding the energy source success of modern life. Because those promoting this idiotic agenda are not able to comprehend conflict nor are they able to understand that if humans engage in nuclear war there will be nothing left and no one will be able to live anywhere for thousands of years as the entire planet goes into nuclear winter and we all starve and freeze and die of diseases, in particular cancer. The idiot antics of this once lunatic fringe that has made itself mainstream through social media, the mainstream media and corrupt politicians is upon us. Never mind fighting prefabricated wars with far flung places that have nothing to do with you, try attending to the utterly perilous crap that is heading your way through a lack of attention to the reality of what mad can do if it silences what sanity can prevent.
When I was an incandescent much younger activist years ago, I used the phrase, "words have wings" - because they do. Tucker Carlson mentions this human capability in the video and states the value of freedom of speech in curtailing fascism. This relates directly to the future of politics because if populations of ordinary citizens lose their right to have an opinion and state it then there can be no prospect of democracy. If you like democracy, you automatically want freedom of speech. Freedom to think what you like, freedom to criticise the powers that be. If they want your vote (and they do) then you need to have full rights to your opinions on the state of the world and your country. Otherwise you live in a fascist state almost certainly held together in obedience by the police and, if things get heated, by the military. I know what this is like. You won't like it. It's not nice and you can't do much about it except get yourself killed if you open your mouth about it.
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Post by wapentake on Oct 19, 2022 12:44:32 GMT
Heroes were mentioned earlier and now woke(not a term I care for really) though to be sure once heroes now become villains judged on the here and now rather than the context of the time lived in.
Politics and religion should be entirely divorced,that is not to say aspects of religion can and do have a positive effect on humanity.
Where it falls apart can be seen in the Middle East present day and the not too distant past in the west and very evident now in the lunacy of the USA,it’s quite likely the human race will destroy themselves by one way or another later rather than sooner I hope.
Whether it be religion ideology or combination of both they are misused by a minority to control and rule the majority.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2022 13:03:26 GMT
No elites can control those who can think for themselves. The trouble with majorities of obedient mind serfs is they act and think without question and they are willing to reject and even kill anyone who threatens the status quo.
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Post by petenz on Oct 19, 2022 13:21:54 GMT
On the subject of ideologies and their potential for negative impact on society, it has been said that, if God doesn't exist then humankind would have needed to invent him (and indeed did, so many will claim).
It seems evident that, with the decline of organised religion, there has been a corresponding increase in the rise of alternatives such as Conspiracy Theories. It appears the old adage that, once you cease to believe in God it's not that you no longer believe in something but rather that you begin to believe anything, holds true.
As nature abhors a vacuum, once you take organised religion out of the mix (and it is in decline), then something will take its place and, just as religion has been exploited for gain by the Church and more recently the Tele evangelists, so Conspiracy Theorists are being exploited by the likes of Alex Jones.
I'm afraid we are prisoners of our own atavistic need to believe in a Supreme Power, of whatever stripe. The real culprits are those who use these belief systems, whether spiritual or temporal (or even Alien), for control and/or profit.
BTW, I am not a churchgoer nor am I advocating organised religion but simply pointing out what I see as a natural trait in humankind and one that, I believe, will forever be with us.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2022 14:00:23 GMT
I agree with this. I am also not sure there is anything that can be done about it. I suspect that humans feel insecure, understandably, especially when we now look out into a cosmic spectacle filled with chaotic violence and uninhabitable hostile worlds, plus vast distance and enormous magnitude. Being smug about oneself and one's life can crumble in view of this. I wonder if humans can or will evolve into beings that are able to move into the next phase after belief systems or if they will, as you mention, just keep renewing them or inventing new ones.
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Post by Bentley on Oct 19, 2022 14:37:46 GMT
Evolution is not necessarily becoming more sophisticated or intelligent. In fact I don’t see any indication that this might happen.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2022 3:18:18 GMT
Me neither, or it happened and is more or less finished happening. The scary bit is things can always go backwards and downwards.
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Post by Orac on Oct 20, 2022 8:26:24 GMT
Me neither, or it happened and is more or less finished happening. The scary bit is things can always go backwards and downwards. Nature goes where the reproductive advantage is. If there is a reproductive advantage to high intelligence, then you will see more of it, if there is a reproductive advantage to being less intelligent, then you will get more of that. At the moment we can see western populations, with an average IQ ~ 100, committing aggregate suicide. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2022 8:49:46 GMT
Unfortunately, yes. Why are they doing this? How could indoctrination cause someone to do something like this? Self hate? Induced guilt? Broken family structures? Failures in the education system that are considered to be successes in establishment circles? And why are people not smart enough to question this? Why do they run scared of the establishment? I get asked this in rhetorical enquiry often. I find the phenomenon pretty weird. Explaining it is difficult as those who may have answers to this conundrum will be set upon by packs of mad bots. Happening to J.K. Rowling and others at the moment. Once loved, now loathed simply because she isn't completely toeing the line.  ?? |
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Post by Toreador on Oct 21, 2022 6:47:13 GMT
Unfortunately, yes. Why are they doing this? How could indoctrination cause someone to do something like this? Self hate? Induced guilt? Broken family structures? Failures in the education system that are considered to be successes in establishment circles? And why are people not smart enough to question this? Why do they run scared of the establishment?I get asked this in rhetorical enquiry often. I find the phenomenon pretty weird. Explaining it is difficult as those who may have answers to this conundrum will be set upon by packs of mad bots. Happening to J.K. Rowling and others at the moment. Once loved, now loathed simply because she isn't completely toeing the line. ?? Because they're brainwashed not to, because it's the easy way out or because they don't find enough like-minded people to give support. |
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Post by Orac on Oct 21, 2022 9:08:06 GMT
Indoctrination can be quite subtle - if you tell children that every problem they might encounter can only be resolved by authority, they will tend to take that subtle message to heart and are quite likely to expect a totalitarian society when they are adults.
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Post by Cartertonian on Oct 21, 2022 9:30:07 GMT
Indoctrination can be quite subtle - if you tell children that every problem they might encounter can only be resolved by authority, they will tend to take that subtle message to heart and are quite likely to expect a totalitarian society when they are adults. A very fair point although as you intimate, not universal. I was brought up by strict, disciplinarian parents. My father was a senior police officer and my mother was an ex-police officer. The net result is someone who is passionately anti-authoritarian.  |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2022 9:33:54 GMT
To be against authority is to miss the value of experience that often resides in any authority. If the authority is fascistic and controlling, then chuck it out or don't listen to it. (You may find this difficult in societies where you get arrested and tortured if you do, though). It's not the wisdom that can be beneficial in authority, it is what any authority is asking you to blindly do or think.
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Post by Orac on Oct 21, 2022 9:50:59 GMT
Yes, Vanna. It's quite complicated
Here is a notion that has been in my mind for while, but has condensed into words
Every time we appeal for the help of authority, we give authority implicit permission. An obvious example is, if we appeal to authority to deal with your house being burgled, we give implicit permission for others to do the same, if they are burgled by ourselves. That example is pretty un-controversial with no downside, but how about if we use authority to make a person talk to us in a particular way, or pretend to like us?
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