The nature of human nature

[Lily]

You make some great points, the majority that I agree with.

As to the worst species, you may even be right. But one argument that I heard from Yuval Horari in his talk made a lot of sense to me.

Humans are hard-wired by our biological evolution to worry about the tribe across the river, region, and in modern times border or ocean in the event that it is a threat to our survival. He was speaking about why we don't do more about climate change...well, there's the people over there ----> that may be an immediate threat.

And until we get past that *sigh* we muddle through as best we can hoping that we don't blow ourselves to smithereens first...

 

[Blandscape]

 

[Lily]

There is no acceptable level of violence that can be part and parcel of creating a democracy. Violence as a means to an ends is the absolute worst part of humanity. I agree with you 1000%. How can we be "anti-war" and pro violence? It is a huge contradiction.

It is where I departed from my leftist father after I grew up. He absolutely supported the use of violence to achieve a means. After all, "they" used violence (which they most certainly did/do) to maintain power.

Reason, education, and as Paolo Freire of Brazil wrote: praxis. I believe it is one tool in the tool box to move our societies forward.

"Praxis (Action/Reflection)​

It is not enough for people to come together in dialogue in order to gain knowledge of their social reality. They must act together upon their environment in order critically to reflect upon their reality and so transform it through further action and critical reflection."

And this may be the most revolutionary idea of all. Using reason and dialogue to act together. We are mere babes in the cradle when it comes to human social evolution.


eta: The most successful social movements that have achieved progress have been peaceful, even when confronted with violence. We have seen this in India and we've seen different iterations of it in the US.

In the US, we have to thank black Americans for the progress. They have shed blood to move us forward, along with their allies. The most violent war in America only offered limited success. Black folks weren't really "free" when they were freed. It took the legislative process and the courts that moved us forward as a nation toward a "more perfect union".

And the way we treat our black brethren is a shame upon us.

 

[Garraty_47]

But one argument that I heard from Yuval Horari in his talk made a lot of sense to me.

Humans are hard-wired by our biological evolution to worry about the tribe across the river, region, and in modern times border or ocean in the event that it is a threat to our survival. He was speaking about why we don't do more about climate change...well, there's the people over there ----> that may be an immediate threat.

That's rubbish.
It's an excuse and a distraction.
It's *blaming* the actions of warmongering corporatists on "biological evolution" as if that makes it true. It's flagrant propaganda and cultural conditioning. Don't you dare question the empire or its motives lest you be labeled a foreign agent, an enemy appeaser. You better cheer on the bloodshed and the suffering and the destruction doled out to the rest of the world by the 'Murican (and their lapdog allies) military machine and the wars by other means (sanctions that only ever really target civilian populations, coups and instability fomented by the CIA and other shadow agencies, forced austerity that cripples a nation's ability to evolve or even improve, etc.) or you'll be ruined, impoverished, perhaps thrown into a deep dark hole or even murdered.

Blaming that shit on "biological evolution" is a sleight-of-hand trick to get you looking in one direction while the worst people on the planet do the worst shit imaginable to everyone else with impunity.

Don't fall for it.

And until we get past that *sigh* we muddle through as best we can hoping that we don't blow ourselves to smithereens first...

Or... as Blandy said recently: I'm just spitballin' here... we can stand up and say "Enough".

We can stop glorifying rats.

We can stop submitting to being ruled by fucking monsters.

We can stop hoping that maybe, somehow, *this* election will magically have the good outcome that we hoped for last time. And the time before that. And the time before that. Going back as far as you care to name them.

The brief window when incrementalism *might* have worked was a long, long time ago.

This isn't that.
Either we stop playing "don't just do something, stand there!" or simply bend the knee and let the oligarchs turn an entire planet into a toxic wasteland full of death and misery for their own comfort and amusement.

I don't know about you but my knees aren't particularly flexible.

 

[Lily]

That's rubbish.
It's an excuse and a distraction.
It's *blaming* the actions of warmongering corporatists on "biological evolution" as if that makes it true. It's flagrant propaganda and cultural conditioning. Don't you dare question the empire or its motives lest you be labeled a foreign agent, an enemy appeaser. You better cheer on the bloodshed and the suffering and the destruction doled out to the rest of the world by the 'Murican (and their lapdog allies) military machine and the wars by other means (sanctions that only ever really target civilian populations, coups and instability fomented by the CIA and other shadow agencies, forced austerity that cripples a nation's ability to evolve or even improve, etc.) or you'll be ruined, impoverished, perhaps thrown into a deep dark hole or even murdered.

Blaming that shit on "biological evolution" is a sleight-of-hand trick to get you looking in one direction while the worst people on the planet do the worst shit imaginable to everyone else with impunity.

Don't fall for it.



Or... as Blandy said recently: I'm just spitballin' here... we can stand up and say "Enough".

We can stop glorifying rats.

We can stop submitting to being ruled by fucking monsters.

We can stop hoping that maybe, somehow, *this* election will magically have the good outcome that we hoped for last time. And the time before that. And the time before that. Going back as far as you care to name them.

The brief window when incrementalism *might* have worked was a long, long time ago.

This isn't that.
Either we stop playing "don't just do something, stand there!" or simply bend the knee and let the oligarchs turn an entire planet into a toxic wasteland full of death and misery for their own comfort and amusement.

I don't know about you but my knees aren't particularly flexible.

You need consensus first. We can't even get people to accept, as flawed as the system was, that the last election was valid.

I don't see any standing up for anything together, when I see what I see, including the stupid and egregious things I see out of Democrats.


eta: And we don't get consensus because god damn that person over there doesn't deserve what I have...
America in a nutshell.

 

[Garraty_47]

 

[Admin.]

You make some great points, the majority that I agree with.

As to the worst species, you may even be right. But one argument that I heard from Yuval Horari in his talk made a lot of sense to me.

Humans are hard-wired by our biological evolution to worry about the tribe across the river, region, and in modern times border or ocean in the event that it is a threat to our survival. He was speaking about why we don't do more about climate change...well, there's the people over there ----> that may be an immediate threat.

And until we get past that *sigh* we muddle through as best we can hoping that we don't blow ourselves to smithereens first...

I've lost count of the times I'd say something about us moving away from Coal would be better for the environment, and get the same tired old response "But those guys over there burn lots of Coal, and they're bad people!"

 

[X]

That's rubbish.
It's an excuse and a distraction.
It's *blaming* the actions of warmongering corporatists on "biological evolution" as if that makes it true. It's flagrant propaganda and cultural conditioning. Don't you dare question the empire or its motives lest you be labeled a foreign agent, an enemy appeaser. You better cheer on the bloodshed and the suffering and the destruction doled out to the rest of the world by the 'Murican (and their lapdog allies) military machine and the wars by other means (sanctions that only ever really target civilian populations, coups and instability fomented by the CIA and other shadow agencies, forced austerity that cripples a nation's ability to evolve or even improve, etc.) or you'll be ruined, impoverished, perhaps thrown into a deep dark hole or even murdered.

Blaming that shit on "biological evolution" is a sleight-of-hand trick to get you looking in one direction while the worst people on the planet do the worst shit imaginable to everyone else with impunity.

Don't fall for it.



Or... as Blandy said recently: I'm just spitballin' here... we can stand up and say "Enough".

We can stop glorifying rats.

We can stop submitting to being ruled by fucking monsters.

We can stop hoping that maybe, somehow, *this* election will magically have the good outcome that we hoped for last time. And the time before that. And the time before that. Going back as far as you care to name them.

The brief window when incrementalism *might* have worked was a long, long time ago.

This isn't that.
Either we stop playing "don't just do something, stand there!" or simply bend the knee and let the oligarchs turn an entire planet into a toxic wasteland full of death and misery for their own comfort and amusement.

I don't know about you but my knees aren't particularly flexible.

It's all about the $$
want less, no demand rich would wither and the creative minds could flourish ...
we are all kings these days work hard and feel we deserve it LOL a phone that does this an that OH MY !! yet know nothing of the intricacies of the human eyeball .
it's all going to fuuuuck I tells yeah and yes even in a handbasket if you like things neat an tidy like
cheers !

 

[Garraty_47]

 

[Garraty_47]

You need consensus first. We can't even get people to accept, as flawed as the system was, that the last election was valid.

I, personally, don't ask a bunch of shaved apes what I should think.

If one asks I'll *tell* them what I think, but the last person I want input from is a random asshole who thinks he's "winning" because he's following the path popular culture trained him to believe was a superior strategy. Some jackass marinated in propaganda and groupthink is not my idea of an "intellectual ally".

People like that are at best a hindrance.
Rolling fucking roadblocks on the path to an enlightened civilization.

The only consensus I need is with others who see the world as it is, not as it's being sold to us by the corporate media.

I don't see any standing up for anything together, when I see what I see, including the stupid and egregious things I see out of Democrats.


eta: And we don't get consensus because god damn that person over there doesn't deserve what I have...
America in a nutshell.

The duopoly is a control mechanism.
It must be transcended or destroyed.
I'd prefer transcended but that would require a whole lot of human evolution in an extremely short amount of time; frankly I have serious doubts that's even possible.

 

[Lily]

I, personally, don't ask a bunch of shaved apes what I should think.

If one asks I'll *tell* them what I think, but the last person I want input from is a random asshole who thinks he's "winning" because he's following the path popular culture trained him to believe was a superior strategy. Some jackass marinated in propaganda and groupthink is not my idea of an "intellectual ally".

People like that are at best a hindrance.
Rolling fucking roadblocks on the path to an enlightened civilization.

The only consensus I need is with others who see the world as it is, not as it's being sold to us by the corporate media.



The duopoly is a control mechanism.
It must be transcended or destroyed.
I'd prefer transcended but that would require a whole lot of human evolution in an extremely short amount of time; frankly I have serious doubts that's even possible.

The problem is that there are easily hundreds of millions of shaved monkeys.

 

[Omnipotent]

The greatest of good luck getting men to stop being violent...

as for the two brown-eyed butt plugs using vacoroo everytime they want to spam their bandwidth burps through threads... get knotted with a rusty chainsaw.

 

[Blandscape]

 

[Blandscape]

 

[Lily]

I have heard the vocaroos in their entirety; it's gratifying to listen to individuals that use their brain matter to discuss important topics. I agree with points that both of you have raised. I also disagree with points here and there. But they're not as important as the common ground I find with both of you.

As to one thing I have to say to @Garraty_47 it is about Trump. Trump is stupid, vain, egotistical and narcissistic. He's a clown, that is all true. However, what makes him one of the most dangerous individuals to ever sit in the WH is the vey fact that he is an empty vessel. It can be, and was filled by anyone that stroked his ego, such as Stephen Miller, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, and Peter Navarro (*spits in contempt) among others. At the end of the day, he chose the most vile...absolutely decided "Yeah, I'm going with these guys, they're my people". Those were clear choices he made to find the most unethical, vile, and yes, loony motherfuckers out there.

That is what makes him the most dangerous man in politics at the moment.