- Joined
- Dec 14, 2006
- Messages
- 7,588
- Reaction score
- 468
- Location
- Western Europe
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Other
And yet, you openly insult people who don't agree with you. h'm
I don't! Or at least not purposefully. I do however try to insult people who try to insult me here and are generally obnoxious. I know I shouldn't, I should rather pity them.
No, what I believe is that the world has actually improved, measurably and significantly so. There is room for more improvement.
True in my opinion.
However, certain things (like deception) will never go away.
Not true in my opinion. You have a low view on human beings. What makes you think we cannot have a society where deception is obsolete? Not necessary that is.
Deception, corruption, lies etc are just behaviours which are a result of the society and civilisation they exist in.
So, that's a "no" on your having kids then.
True. And looking at how the world is, I don't know if I want any.
Parents constantly tell their kids not to lie. Success rate at eliminating lying? 0%. The will and ability to deceive is just a part of human nature, and you will not get people to behave the way you want them to behave if you don't understand human nature.
What if you removed all the possible reasons they would want to lie in the first place?
Why do they lie?
I am not an expert on human nature, but I have ideas about how it works.
1) Monkeys are quite intelligent.
I knew you would say that actually.
2) I'm saying that you cannot stop humans from lying. Nor have you suggested any plan to do so.
What is the root cause of lies? If you can answer that, then I can answer your question.
I don't believe human nature is the root cause of lies. Would a baby lie?
So they can be free, but only if they restrict their behavior per your personal preferences? That doesn't sound like "freedom" to me.
I wouldn't restrict them at all. That is why my question is, if I want children at all in todays society. Because you have to restrict them. A LOT.
I would want to guide them instead, try to influence them. If they did not want to listen. So be it. But raising kids in this way is not possible in todays society. We prevent our kids from doing what they want. For example. We say "be careful" if the child clims somewhere. We yell at them "don't do that" if they do something YOU think is risky. We do lots of things like that to restrict children, and as a result they get weak.
You're missing the point. I am not saying that there are definitive groups, in fact I stated that the criteria for group membership is flexible. I'm pointing out how human beings have an innate propensity to divide themselves up to "us and them." E.g. in the Robbers Cave experiment, a group of kids with highly similar backgrounds were divided into two groups. The counselors were able to quickly guide the kids into forming group identities, and pit the two groups against one another; they were equally successful at unifying the two groups. I.e. you can change the content of the groups, but you cannot wipe out the idea of "group membership" altogether.
This is almost certainly an evolutionary adaptation and a requirement for living in complex social groups. Chimpanzees, for example, also divide themselves up into troops, and within a troop they have complex subgroups -- e.g. they recognize families, they make alliances, they have a hierarchy based on competition, and so forth.
I didn't miss your point at all. I was actually thinking about exactly what you write now when i wrote my answer. I just dont agree we have to behave like monkeys if our society is so good that we do not have to. Why would we need to form groups if we had nothing to disagree about? Furthermore, a mature and open society would prevent those things from ever becoming relevant. It's another example of education actually. More so tolerance. Tolerance can come about from education, freedom and a good society.
And how does this happen again? Especially since in such a world, a handful of brutes can easily take control of those who are busy hugging puppies.
Not if we had a good system where the system is so good, that it prevents these things from ever becoming a problem. In today's society, we do not build a society to prevent bad thing, we just wait for them to happen and then act.
Its like climbing Mount Everest with no plan. The better the plan is, the greater the chance of success. No plan and disaster is inevitable.
You might want to add The Selfish Gene to your reading list, as Dawkins discusses the idea of evolutionary survival strategies, and how it's rare that one tactic will work universally.
I don't have enough information about this to respond either way. But I can imagine, the more we develop and progress, the more irrelevant that point becomes.
Yep.
There are about 6 billion people on the planet, who routinely divide themselves into groups and have genuine conflicts of interests. If you're going to say that it is easy to build a better world, then let's hear how it should be done.
ok, to generalise first. In a society where everyone have what they need, where everyone is completely free to live life as they want (within reasonable laws), where everyone is happy, there would be far more social harmony. Why would anyone need to divide themselves into groups in such a society?
Lets make that more extreme. In a parfect society, where everyone is completely happy and in total harmony. Why would anyone want to divide into opposing groups?
What is the reason people divide into groups now?
Of course I do. Granted, my power is shared with around 300 million of my fellow citizens. But I can vote, I can advocate, I can discuss, I can protest, I can bring lawsuits, I can organize. If I am sufficiently motivated, I can join the political class.
When did you ever vote on anything significant? When did you ever vote on your countries policies?
Who can join the political class? who can become president?
In Europe, anyone who wants any significant political influence needs to go through the party system. This means he can only gain influence there if he adopts the party policies, more or less. In most cases it takes a lifetime to even reach any important political role. In the US you need tons of money in addition.
You don't share any power with your fellow citisens. You have no power at all. You can only select one of two parties, thats just double as good as the Chinese you complain about, and from European perspective, those two parties are almost identical. So no matter which one you vote for, you pretty much get the same stuff anyways, the policies the politicians decide. George W. Bush is an example of that. Many people strongly disliked him and his policies. They thought they could get change if they voted Barrack Obama, but things continued the exact same direction, just even worse.
Congress has no power anymore, all power is being gathered in very few hands. So not even those who are suppose to represent you does. And if they could, they still don't care!
There are maybe a handful of people in congress thar actually care, and they have absolutely no influence in the end.
Your democratic system is dead! Our democratic system is dead. Democracy turns into tyrrany. Even if you had a democratic system that worked, you are still not free to roam outside the parameters of the "tyrranical system".
The problem is that you know nothing of my background, nothing about the political ideas I've been exposed to, and your only criteria is whether or not someone agrees with you.
That was exactly my point, when you started claiming things about me.
And yes, if you're going to say "you are a sheep," that implies that you are not -- and yet, there is (per your own stipulation) nothing different between you and I. So how did you become so enlightened?
I hope you are not. I am not. At best I am a black sheep.
What makes me different, personally, I can say, I analyse things as they come in, and instead of buying the conlusions of the people who feed me that information, I draw my own conclusions, based on ALL the evidence. Not just one piece, but everything. I never take any sides, which most people in the west do, which greatly hurts their open mindedness. I listen to anything without prejudice and make up my opinion later on. Actually, my type of personality has for habit to not believe anything unless it is a clear and obvious truth, and we are sceptical towards everything. We gather facts and only draw conclusions when facts are overwhelmingly clear and undoubtfully true.
That is why I am not a sheep, why I don't believe in this system.
The US is getting better about teaching kids the benefits of exercise and eating healthy, and there is a lot of discussion of it in the media. It's having a small effect.
Happy to hear that! Its desperately needed, not only in the US.
I tend to have the belief that at later stages of education, the US generally have better sports programs than we do in Europe.
No one really knows what causes obesity, thus it is not a simple process to figure out why it's happening, or how to stop it.
Ooh yes they do. Its quite obvious actually. Bad diet and lack of movement/exercise. That is the reason of obesity. Genes enhance that problem.
You have to adapt your eating habits and exercise to fit your genetic profile to optimise you health.