Travels with Rick Steves was one of the few programs I listened to on NPR. This past show featured an island chain off the coast of India where one of the last indigenous people live, completely unspoiled and unstudied by science. Any outsiders trying to make contact are driven away by spears or bow and if too persistent killed. Their technology is stone age and the length of their society likely dates that far back. Some of the other islands in the chain have similar inhabitants but have been intruded upon by western civilization. And now they are becoming a tourist attraction for westerners to see and experience the naked savages on the island. Rick Steves excitedly grabbed hold of this and started promoting it. That's the last time I'll listen to his show.
The point is that there have been societies which have lasted for thousands of years living with nature in harmony and happily. The !Kung and the builders of Stonehenge as well as indigenous Americans. It makes it difficult to say if humans are a rogue species. It may be that homo sapiens branched off into 2 separate species, one warlike and the other not. Or a result of interbreeding with neanderthals. I've always viewed war as nature's way of maintaining a population within the limits of the natural resources available, as a last resort I should add. Famine and desease are two other methods both of which have been overcome: a major contributing factor for overpopulation today.
Compounding the difficulty of answering the question is the definition of intelligence. Intelligence is not clearly or adequately defined even within our species. Other species intelligence are completely undefined and unknown. Cetaceans clearly have a language which is incomprehensible to humans. Yet orcas and dolphins can learn to understand our language at least well enough to do tricks for us. Dogs,pigs and cats fall into the same category amongst other species. And it's a certainty that intelligence varies within species the same as humans. Cetaceans and primates have clearly defined social structure which we only understand in a limited way. We are searching for ETs and yet can't communicate with other species on our own planet.
H.s.s fault may be arrogance in belief that we are superior because of our technology. The same technology that is destroying the planet. This is not intelligent. Arrogance coupled with stupidity.
For some reason I never quite made the connection between religion and the media of today as a means of control and propaganda. Religion uses threats of hell whereas today trinkets are used as coercion. Both give acceptable results. Humans excel at ignoring contradictory beliefs.
If (when) the present system collapses, there will be very few people capable of surviving. Our present system is one of which humans are dependent on for life, not just comfort and convenience. The ones who think they are independent from society are in for a rude awakening. Civilized society has become completely removed from the natural environment and lives in an illusion of comfort and security by technology. Nature was the binding force of a reality which held society and humans together. Now that binding reality has been broken, society and civilization are fractured and falling apart. The anxiety of the masses being reported are the direct result of the technology that is keeping us "safe". Technology should be viewed as a mental illness on society. It's an addiction like opium. A dependence which makes us feel good for a while but is ultimately destructive.
Maybe if science could accept the fact that free will and deterministic behavior can exist simultaneously in human behavior they'd have their answer. Human behavior is not Newtonian physics. Newtonian physics is not human behavior. Humans have the free will to make choices and the choices determine the outcome of their actions. Presently the choices we as a society are making (and have made) are very deterministic in the outcome, and they are the wrong choices.
"For these reasons, the paradoxes these fields face are more than mere intellectual or theoretical puzzles. They signal the larger unreconciled perspectives of the knower and the known, mind and nature, subjectivity and objectivity, whose fracture menaces our project of civilization altogether. Our present-day technologies, which drive us ever closer to existential threats, concretize this split by treating everything — including, paradoxically, awareness and knowing themselves — as an objectifiable, informational quantity or resource. It’s precisely this split — the divorce between knower and known and the suppression of the knower in favor of the known — that constitutes our meaning crisis. The climate emergency, which arises from our treating nature as just a resource for our use, is the most pronounced and catastrophic manifestation of our crisis."
"Cognitive neuroscience drives the point home by indicating that we cannot fully fathom consciousness without experiencing it from within."
"Each of these fields ultimately runs aground on its own paradoxes of inner versus outer, and observer versus observed, that collectively turn on the conundrum of how to understand awareness and subjectivity in a Universe that was supposed to be fully describable in objective scientific terms without reference to the mind. The striking paradox is that science tells us both that we’re peripheral in the cosmic scheme of things and that we’re central to the reality we uncover. Unless we understand how this paradox arises and what it means, we’ll never be able to understand science as a human activity, and we’ll keep defaulting to a view of nature as something to gain mastery over."
----------
Crime is when thieves take your things or food etc.; war is the same actions taken by large groups. People regard the "Ten Commandments" as that which originated sin while in reality it was the very basis of civilization. You cannot have both a working social structure and abrogate those basic rules (except about "God").
Yes, some isolated societies work with their natural environment, but I have seen examples of "rescued" uncontacted people sitting in a house in USA watching TV; they adapt to corrupt civilization instantly. The myth of Indigenous peoples somehow being fastidious in their honour of nature is just that, a myth; they, like anyone else, are corruptible. Yes, the "warring tribes of Europe" have historically always been at each other's throats, but if you look you can see the same human nature in Asian civilizations as well. Overall, humanity has been at constant war against Nature (see above quotes) placing us above it at all times (esp in airplanes!) using Nature as our source for ingredients to built our anti-life cities. But Nature always wins and has perhaps programmed in our demise through our own cleverness.
As of this moment in time, a few know what actions should be taken to save the planet. They are completely obvious but only to a few. It may however be too late. Population being one reason and the massive disruption of the changes needed in society the other. Regardless of those the wrong choices are being implemented currently which are going to hasten the fall.
My bewilderment is that why haven't more people "in the know" so to speak spoken out? Is the control of media and the population that great by the government? Are those in the scientific community that afraid of loosing their paycheck and reputation for speaking out? That's a question I'd like answers to. No one is going to listen to you or me as you well know. And frankly I don't need to read another book. It's all been written before.
I've been a techi all my life. But I also saw decades ago where it was taking us. Over the years I've become more and more disillusioned with science. Science can only describe what we can measure and as with dark energy and matter we can't measure everything. There's far more we don't know than what we know.
Air travel is one of my beefs like you. Particle physics another. Chasing a Greek concept of the atom from 2000 years ago. Maybe they should abandon that idea? Go to Mars? Why? Better fusion weapons? Are we serious? And an all electric society ? Insanity rules.
My belief is that humans are a failed experiment of whatever life ultimately is. One of the 99 percent which have gone extinct like the dinos. The dinos didn't however do it to themselves.
Intelligence as it is measured only measures problem solving. It doesn't measure empathy or compassion. Nor does it measure foresight. All of which are needed now more than puzzle solving.
The only thing I'm certain of now is it's hard to solve the collapse of society in a few paragraphs.
And this just came in to further proof of how much trouble we're in.
NYPD Claims Bike Chain Sold By Columbia's Public Safety Department Is Proof 'Professionals' Are Behind Campus Protests
That chain could moor a 100ft vessel in a hurricane. No exaggeration. It would certainly keep a bicycle safe if you could find a lock big enough to fit and not throw your back out lifting it. And these police are armed to the hilt? Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime would have trouble swinging it. This is terrifying. Drooling vicious idiots in charge of New York with guns.
Thank you for your thoughts! Yes, there are wrong choices being made continuously, as if “Normal” will go on forever. Some people do try to peak out, such as Dr. James Hansen (see https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/ )
And he has been in a lot of trouble many times for that. Most people keep their heads down, take their pay check and go home. And what we know and can’t know, as per Rumsfeld’s “known unknowns and unknown unknowns,” so does P = NP? In his book _The Age of Anger - A History of the Present_, Pankaj Mishra charts the path of the development of “western” philosophy in fine detail, all leading up to its logical (?) conclusion, in such morons as Modi in India? And the likely outcome for society, civil war of all-against-all, especially when the beer-bellies figure out that their pickup truck is obsolete. Then you see how pointless “democracy” is; when, instead of being able to vote whatever they wish from the treasury, people find the treasury is bankrupt in sovereign default. Meanwhile, fools stand in the social space which should contain real government while business and lobbyists call the shots. Every government has fully demonstrated that it is not only incompetent to handle public funds, their actions represent fraud on a grand scale. We are held in these bonds by too many chains to count and the bus has driven off the cliff long ago. So all you can do is complain as loudly as possible. People can’t actually think; they have too many filters in the way. And even if they could see through all that, the next day is back to paying the bills, due to economic slavery.
I have to wonder if Jesus was the biggest spinmeister for the rulersthat the world has ever produced. It's required for you to live in poverty and keep your mouth shut in order to gain your heavenly rewards. Don't worry about starving, God will provide (go graze on the weeds). Don't forget to turn the other cheek when you get pummeled. Be meek and subservient. Don't even think about becoming rich and comfortable, you'll never get into heaven. The infinitely kind loving God will place you in Hell to suffer for eternity. Or course it's not merely an idle threat since he drowned everyone except Noah and family and promises to do it again by fire because drowning everyone didn't work out so well.
Of course, all this started in the garden of Eden with Satan who God had created and went astray and tempted eve with an apple which has caused perpetual strife on earth. Apparently God isn't very good at diplomacy since he didn't have a conversation with Satan before hand. And for some reason Satan is perfectly happy in the Hell that God provided for him. And Satan is going to get the majority of people since according to Jesus "Few will be chosen". Then of course if you like,cheat,steal murder, just ask for forgiveness from Jesus and you're all set for the next round. Just be sure to do it before you expire.
I guess this is why I got thrown out of vacation bible school when I was 5. "It's all a mystery my son." I'll say. "We'll start today's Bible study with ' Don't ask questions '"
It seems like his whole underlying message was to support the rich and subjugate the masses. The televangelists like Pat Robertson used all this to their advantage and became filthy rich off the poor. Pat wasn't too worried about the rewards in heaven apparently.
My conclusion to all this is people in general are naive, gullible and not very intelligent. Religion and politics feed off one another and are one and the same. The more order we try to bring about, the more chaos results.
Thanks for giving me something to think about. Looking forward to your next post.
I do not support any religion, I was just mentioning Ten Commandments as the simplest set of rules that allow civilization to exist. The real Jesus, the philosopher from Nazareth, was a continuous thorn in the side of the Roman hierarchy and so met with the typical Roman fate for such dissidence. As for humans in general, alas, the naivety! “All we, like sheep, have gone astray.” Is there truly free will? Looking at society in general, it is not a noticeable attribute. Chaos is order distributed over time; “order” is merely an instantaneous point in a cascading flow.
I am hoping to get a new post done soon. I don't write to a schedule, or whatever pops into mind; I would not bore you with that. There are many little themes which need tying together.
I never thought you did support religion. Sorry if you took it that way. I was simply pointing out the hypocrisy and contradiction in Christianity. No one even knows for certain if Jesus actually existed. A but odd in my opinion. One would think there would be overwhelming evidence.
I'm finding writing posts difficult because things are happening (bad things) so fast I start one and it becomes obsolete because of what happened that day.
We're being led by psycopathic warmongers who are being willingly followed by idiots.
I'd give you my opinion on what's in store for us but won't post as a comment.
Hi Kathleen, finally got a chance to read the article you shared, thank you. I found it interesting and worthy of pondering, but perhaps I had no choice but to feel this way, lol. No doubt genetics and conditioning determine much of our behavior, but occasionally there seem to be dramatic exceptions, for instance those who were hardened KKK disciples renouncing those beliefs. Sapolsky's ideas are certainly worth consideration, if difficult to prove or disprove. I'm all for the study of human behavior, truly that is key to our future. Can our intellect overcome our primitive animal?
Many good points here. We have a profound behavioral issue, and the problem of overpopulation spoken of when I was in grade school is never discussed. Overconsumption to avoid boredom is indeed another key problem which I chalk up to a failure of education to create intellectual curiosity, and our increasingly fragmented societies which no longer revolve around community.
Scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don't have free will. by Corinne Purtill, Los Angeles Times.
Stanford University neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, his new book "Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will," says: We've got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn't there."
So if we want to break out of those chains, it is going to take huge effort. But life depends on it!
I'm not agreeing with the "no free will" concept, but there is some unseen binder which keeps people enclosed in their little life and prevents seeing the world as it is. In another line of reasoning, perhaps Prof. Sapolsky has noticed his own limitations, that being the constraints of the male thought process which gets us into war after war. Again, there must be ways to break out of these thought traps.
All I'm going to say about the Israel situation is that retaliation was neither required, nor necessary nor beneficial. It's another typical male-brain stunt by a certain silver-back conservative. Unfortunately, you cannot airlift anything unless you drop it from planes, there is no landing places.
Kathleen, let me summarize the main problems in a few words and their solutions: Globalization and Centralization. We need to go from that to: Localization and Decentralization.
Exactly on point! Totally agree Kathleen!! There must be limits to this "progress", because the only progress we are making is ruining the planet. That's not called progress, it's called "destruction".
Travels with Rick Steves was one of the few programs I listened to on NPR. This past show featured an island chain off the coast of India where one of the last indigenous people live, completely unspoiled and unstudied by science. Any outsiders trying to make contact are driven away by spears or bow and if too persistent killed. Their technology is stone age and the length of their society likely dates that far back. Some of the other islands in the chain have similar inhabitants but have been intruded upon by western civilization. And now they are becoming a tourist attraction for westerners to see and experience the naked savages on the island. Rick Steves excitedly grabbed hold of this and started promoting it. That's the last time I'll listen to his show.
The point is that there have been societies which have lasted for thousands of years living with nature in harmony and happily. The !Kung and the builders of Stonehenge as well as indigenous Americans. It makes it difficult to say if humans are a rogue species. It may be that homo sapiens branched off into 2 separate species, one warlike and the other not. Or a result of interbreeding with neanderthals. I've always viewed war as nature's way of maintaining a population within the limits of the natural resources available, as a last resort I should add. Famine and desease are two other methods both of which have been overcome: a major contributing factor for overpopulation today.
Compounding the difficulty of answering the question is the definition of intelligence. Intelligence is not clearly or adequately defined even within our species. Other species intelligence are completely undefined and unknown. Cetaceans clearly have a language which is incomprehensible to humans. Yet orcas and dolphins can learn to understand our language at least well enough to do tricks for us. Dogs,pigs and cats fall into the same category amongst other species. And it's a certainty that intelligence varies within species the same as humans. Cetaceans and primates have clearly defined social structure which we only understand in a limited way. We are searching for ETs and yet can't communicate with other species on our own planet.
H.s.s fault may be arrogance in belief that we are superior because of our technology. The same technology that is destroying the planet. This is not intelligent. Arrogance coupled with stupidity.
For some reason I never quite made the connection between religion and the media of today as a means of control and propaganda. Religion uses threats of hell whereas today trinkets are used as coercion. Both give acceptable results. Humans excel at ignoring contradictory beliefs.
If (when) the present system collapses, there will be very few people capable of surviving. Our present system is one of which humans are dependent on for life, not just comfort and convenience. The ones who think they are independent from society are in for a rude awakening. Civilized society has become completely removed from the natural environment and lives in an illusion of comfort and security by technology. Nature was the binding force of a reality which held society and humans together. Now that binding reality has been broken, society and civilization are fractured and falling apart. The anxiety of the masses being reported are the direct result of the technology that is keeping us "safe". Technology should be viewed as a mental illness on society. It's an addiction like opium. A dependence which makes us feel good for a while but is ultimately destructive.
Maybe if science could accept the fact that free will and deterministic behavior can exist simultaneously in human behavior they'd have their answer. Human behavior is not Newtonian physics. Newtonian physics is not human behavior. Humans have the free will to make choices and the choices determine the outcome of their actions. Presently the choices we as a society are making (and have made) are very deterministic in the outcome, and they are the wrong choices.
A lot if this question of behaviour and intelligence and consciousness is the topic of a new book, The Blind Spot:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262048804/the-blind-spot/
reviewed at:
https://bigthink.com/13-8/why-science-must-contend-with-human-experience/
some quotes:
"For these reasons, the paradoxes these fields face are more than mere intellectual or theoretical puzzles. They signal the larger unreconciled perspectives of the knower and the known, mind and nature, subjectivity and objectivity, whose fracture menaces our project of civilization altogether. Our present-day technologies, which drive us ever closer to existential threats, concretize this split by treating everything — including, paradoxically, awareness and knowing themselves — as an objectifiable, informational quantity or resource. It’s precisely this split — the divorce between knower and known and the suppression of the knower in favor of the known — that constitutes our meaning crisis. The climate emergency, which arises from our treating nature as just a resource for our use, is the most pronounced and catastrophic manifestation of our crisis."
"Cognitive neuroscience drives the point home by indicating that we cannot fully fathom consciousness without experiencing it from within."
"Each of these fields ultimately runs aground on its own paradoxes of inner versus outer, and observer versus observed, that collectively turn on the conundrum of how to understand awareness and subjectivity in a Universe that was supposed to be fully describable in objective scientific terms without reference to the mind. The striking paradox is that science tells us both that we’re peripheral in the cosmic scheme of things and that we’re central to the reality we uncover. Unless we understand how this paradox arises and what it means, we’ll never be able to understand science as a human activity, and we’ll keep defaulting to a view of nature as something to gain mastery over."
----------
Crime is when thieves take your things or food etc.; war is the same actions taken by large groups. People regard the "Ten Commandments" as that which originated sin while in reality it was the very basis of civilization. You cannot have both a working social structure and abrogate those basic rules (except about "God").
Yes, some isolated societies work with their natural environment, but I have seen examples of "rescued" uncontacted people sitting in a house in USA watching TV; they adapt to corrupt civilization instantly. The myth of Indigenous peoples somehow being fastidious in their honour of nature is just that, a myth; they, like anyone else, are corruptible. Yes, the "warring tribes of Europe" have historically always been at each other's throats, but if you look you can see the same human nature in Asian civilizations as well. Overall, humanity has been at constant war against Nature (see above quotes) placing us above it at all times (esp in airplanes!) using Nature as our source for ingredients to built our anti-life cities. But Nature always wins and has perhaps programmed in our demise through our own cleverness.
I agree with it all completely.
As of this moment in time, a few know what actions should be taken to save the planet. They are completely obvious but only to a few. It may however be too late. Population being one reason and the massive disruption of the changes needed in society the other. Regardless of those the wrong choices are being implemented currently which are going to hasten the fall.
My bewilderment is that why haven't more people "in the know" so to speak spoken out? Is the control of media and the population that great by the government? Are those in the scientific community that afraid of loosing their paycheck and reputation for speaking out? That's a question I'd like answers to. No one is going to listen to you or me as you well know. And frankly I don't need to read another book. It's all been written before.
I've been a techi all my life. But I also saw decades ago where it was taking us. Over the years I've become more and more disillusioned with science. Science can only describe what we can measure and as with dark energy and matter we can't measure everything. There's far more we don't know than what we know.
Air travel is one of my beefs like you. Particle physics another. Chasing a Greek concept of the atom from 2000 years ago. Maybe they should abandon that idea? Go to Mars? Why? Better fusion weapons? Are we serious? And an all electric society ? Insanity rules.
My belief is that humans are a failed experiment of whatever life ultimately is. One of the 99 percent which have gone extinct like the dinos. The dinos didn't however do it to themselves.
Intelligence as it is measured only measures problem solving. It doesn't measure empathy or compassion. Nor does it measure foresight. All of which are needed now more than puzzle solving.
The only thing I'm certain of now is it's hard to solve the collapse of society in a few paragraphs.
And this just came in to further proof of how much trouble we're in.
NYPD Claims Bike Chain Sold By Columbia's Public Safety Department Is Proof 'Professionals' Are Behind Campus Protests
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nypd-claims-bike-chain-sold-183500102.html
That chain could moor a 100ft vessel in a hurricane. No exaggeration. It would certainly keep a bicycle safe if you could find a lock big enough to fit and not throw your back out lifting it. And these police are armed to the hilt? Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime would have trouble swinging it. This is terrifying. Drooling vicious idiots in charge of New York with guns.
Thank you for your thoughts! Yes, there are wrong choices being made continuously, as if “Normal” will go on forever. Some people do try to peak out, such as Dr. James Hansen (see https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/ )
And he has been in a lot of trouble many times for that. Most people keep their heads down, take their pay check and go home. And what we know and can’t know, as per Rumsfeld’s “known unknowns and unknown unknowns,” so does P = NP? In his book _The Age of Anger - A History of the Present_, Pankaj Mishra charts the path of the development of “western” philosophy in fine detail, all leading up to its logical (?) conclusion, in such morons as Modi in India? And the likely outcome for society, civil war of all-against-all, especially when the beer-bellies figure out that their pickup truck is obsolete. Then you see how pointless “democracy” is; when, instead of being able to vote whatever they wish from the treasury, people find the treasury is bankrupt in sovereign default. Meanwhile, fools stand in the social space which should contain real government while business and lobbyists call the shots. Every government has fully demonstrated that it is not only incompetent to handle public funds, their actions represent fraud on a grand scale. We are held in these bonds by too many chains to count and the bus has driven off the cliff long ago. So all you can do is complain as loudly as possible. People can’t actually think; they have too many filters in the way. And even if they could see through all that, the next day is back to paying the bills, due to economic slavery.
I have to wonder if Jesus was the biggest spinmeister for the rulersthat the world has ever produced. It's required for you to live in poverty and keep your mouth shut in order to gain your heavenly rewards. Don't worry about starving, God will provide (go graze on the weeds). Don't forget to turn the other cheek when you get pummeled. Be meek and subservient. Don't even think about becoming rich and comfortable, you'll never get into heaven. The infinitely kind loving God will place you in Hell to suffer for eternity. Or course it's not merely an idle threat since he drowned everyone except Noah and family and promises to do it again by fire because drowning everyone didn't work out so well.
Of course, all this started in the garden of Eden with Satan who God had created and went astray and tempted eve with an apple which has caused perpetual strife on earth. Apparently God isn't very good at diplomacy since he didn't have a conversation with Satan before hand. And for some reason Satan is perfectly happy in the Hell that God provided for him. And Satan is going to get the majority of people since according to Jesus "Few will be chosen". Then of course if you like,cheat,steal murder, just ask for forgiveness from Jesus and you're all set for the next round. Just be sure to do it before you expire.
I guess this is why I got thrown out of vacation bible school when I was 5. "It's all a mystery my son." I'll say. "We'll start today's Bible study with ' Don't ask questions '"
It seems like his whole underlying message was to support the rich and subjugate the masses. The televangelists like Pat Robertson used all this to their advantage and became filthy rich off the poor. Pat wasn't too worried about the rewards in heaven apparently.
My conclusion to all this is people in general are naive, gullible and not very intelligent. Religion and politics feed off one another and are one and the same. The more order we try to bring about, the more chaos results.
Thanks for giving me something to think about. Looking forward to your next post.
I do not support any religion, I was just mentioning Ten Commandments as the simplest set of rules that allow civilization to exist. The real Jesus, the philosopher from Nazareth, was a continuous thorn in the side of the Roman hierarchy and so met with the typical Roman fate for such dissidence. As for humans in general, alas, the naivety! “All we, like sheep, have gone astray.” Is there truly free will? Looking at society in general, it is not a noticeable attribute. Chaos is order distributed over time; “order” is merely an instantaneous point in a cascading flow.
I am hoping to get a new post done soon. I don't write to a schedule, or whatever pops into mind; I would not bore you with that. There are many little themes which need tying together.
I never thought you did support religion. Sorry if you took it that way. I was simply pointing out the hypocrisy and contradiction in Christianity. No one even knows for certain if Jesus actually existed. A but odd in my opinion. One would think there would be overwhelming evidence.
I'm finding writing posts difficult because things are happening (bad things) so fast I start one and it becomes obsolete because of what happened that day.
We're being led by psycopathic warmongers who are being willingly followed by idiots.
I'd give you my opinion on what's in store for us but won't post as a comment.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
Peace to you and yours.
Hi Kathleen, finally got a chance to read the article you shared, thank you. I found it interesting and worthy of pondering, but perhaps I had no choice but to feel this way, lol. No doubt genetics and conditioning determine much of our behavior, but occasionally there seem to be dramatic exceptions, for instance those who were hardened KKK disciples renouncing those beliefs. Sapolsky's ideas are certainly worth consideration, if difficult to prove or disprove. I'm all for the study of human behavior, truly that is key to our future. Can our intellect overcome our primitive animal?
Many good points here. We have a profound behavioral issue, and the problem of overpopulation spoken of when I was in grade school is never discussed. Overconsumption to avoid boredom is indeed another key problem which I chalk up to a failure of education to create intellectual curiosity, and our increasingly fragmented societies which no longer revolve around community.
Thank you, Geoffrey! Maybe the problem is that we have no capacity to make the needed changes. Check this article: https://phys.org/news/2023-10-scientist-decades-dont-free.html
Scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don't have free will. by Corinne Purtill, Los Angeles Times.
Stanford University neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, his new book "Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will," says: We've got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn't there."
So if we want to break out of those chains, it is going to take huge effort. But life depends on it!
I'm not agreeing with the "no free will" concept, but there is some unseen binder which keeps people enclosed in their little life and prevents seeing the world as it is. In another line of reasoning, perhaps Prof. Sapolsky has noticed his own limitations, that being the constraints of the male thought process which gets us into war after war. Again, there must be ways to break out of these thought traps.
All I'm going to say about the Israel situation is that retaliation was neither required, nor necessary nor beneficial. It's another typical male-brain stunt by a certain silver-back conservative. Unfortunately, you cannot airlift anything unless you drop it from planes, there is no landing places.
Kathleen, let me summarize the main problems in a few words and their solutions: Globalization and Centralization. We need to go from that to: Localization and Decentralization.
Exactly on point! Totally agree Kathleen!! There must be limits to this "progress", because the only progress we are making is ruining the planet. That's not called progress, it's called "destruction".
Thank you, Marsha, excellent point!
With society's "Progress", we could build wonderful cities on Mars, like the ones here on Earth, "undimmed by human tears".