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techstepgenr8tion
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15 Apr 2014, 1:59 pm

I wanted to bring the question up because my mind's stuck in this rut today.

I got to thinking about the impasses we have as a global culture toward creating a better society. To me two of the things that really make it incredibly difficult for people to be more clement toward each other are genetics and procreative rights as well as resource supply and food. Anyone whose been bullied significantly for instance as a kid and really got to examine what it's about likely came away with the understanding that what's beneath pettiness, bullying, and destructive antipathy of one person toward another is a referendum on another person's right to live or their 'genetic worthiness' to be breathing. Similarly our culture seems to allow bullying because as our culture elevates vanity it makes people incredibly gene-conscious and thus we have a way of beating into the dust those who we believe would pollute the gene pool or make the genetic stock worse off. Unfortunately this doesn't appear to be a problem that's solved by financial equality - rather the need for arbitrary creating games and difficulties to hold people down for being 'less than' would even get nastier and more elaborate in compensation for increased environmental ease. While we've come to the possibility of quite literally altering our DNA and that may become a reality in the next couple decades here we have something far less of a blessing and more likely a curse in that anything that psychopathy can take over and make in it's image it will and it will generally surpass all other comers because it's willing to hit below the waist when others out of better nature won't. It's part of why science is turning into something more of a golem bent on destruction of humanity rather than a set of tools we can use to make the world a better place. In that sense it doesn't look like the answer to our aspirations, it looks like the big red button on the nukes that would tell us time is up and lead us to the closing credits scene of Dr. Strangelove.

The other problem of course in these circumstances is that headcount in the world can continually accelerate if left unchecked, IMHO Malthusian thought is probably a great deal of why we still have hunger in the world - ie. the elites get to strip-mine impovrished countries, bankrupt them with huge IMF loans, and keep them utterly poor which on one hand benefits them financially and also solves the population problem by making these countries too poor to adequately survive in.

I left out economic inequality and religious/political zealotry because in my mind you can erase both of those and not only do the first two remain but one finds that the genetic problem/survival of the fittest/natural Darwinism were a large part of what disfigured both economy and faith (religious or secular) to begin with.


The thing I really wonder about - is this the best possible world given our parameters and tendencies? I ask that question with this in mind, I don't think atheism or theism really change the answer to this too substantially because even assuming a God by observation we'd be looking at a creator whose apparently left things exactly as they have for their own reasons and as the eras of the Mongol hordes and Hitler/Stalin/Mao have shown that deity has impeccable self control and at a minimum refuses superhuman involvement.

What grieves me in general is that it really seems like, if we're to consider human progress, the cards are stacked against us steeply by the realities of our very makeup as well as the nature of how group dynamics generally play out. Even if we're not alone in our subjective spheres it seems like we are utterly alone when it comes to the sphere of shared reality - ie. alone with weather that we can control individually about as easily as trying to change the direction of the wind with a paper fan.

I know, it's both the $64 billion dollar question for the future of humanity and the question everyone whose willing to acknowledge it sees and wishes they had an answer to. I'm just curious on what people on here might be thinking.



GGPViper
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15 Apr 2014, 2:49 pm

Garrett Hardin wrote:
The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.

Cyberdyne Systems Model 101/T-800 wrote:
It is in your nature to destroy yourselves.

The Nameless One wrote:
What can change the nature of a man?

Dr. Merkwürdigliebe wrote:
Mein Führer! I can walk!



khaoz
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16 Apr 2014, 1:47 am

You have to be careful tossing that term "society" around so casually. What you are talking about is a form of social engineering. There is a segment of our society for which the term "social" is like shoving a giant stick of kryptonite in their face. It is viewed as an expletive in some corners of the alley. The only way to improve society is at the barrel of a bullet launcher. Mao introduced the world to that little bit of wisdom more than fifty years ago.


<<<<<khaoz attempts sarcasm>>>>>^^^^^^^^^^



LoveNotHate
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16 Apr 2014, 3:39 am

Human augmentation
----------------------------
["Cyberdyne Systems Model 101/T-800"] ---> ("The Six Million Dollar Man") "We can make him better than he was before - better, stronger, faster"

Human enlightenment
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[Morte "Torment"] "I've done all I could to help you find your way each time, Chief" --- > Teddy Gammel, "Momento" ("So I helped you start looking again...") --> Leonard Shelby, "Momento" ("Will I lie to myself to be happy?") ---> Plato‘s allegory of the cave ("truth is shadows on the cave wall" ---> Plato‘s allegory of the cave ("human enlightenment over ignorance")

Human will to be better
--------------------------
["Dr. Merkwürdigliebe"] ("Mein Führer! I can walk!") --> ["Dr. Hannibal Lecter"] "You still wake up sometimes, don't you; wake up in the dark - and hear the screaming of the lambs? You think if you save her you can make them stop?" ----> Christianity ("absolution of the past") ---> Christianity ("humans can strive to be better")

Humans inherently good
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Rousseau "The Social Contract" (Man is naturally good, and anything that is not natural has corrupted us from this natural state).