is Humanity hopeless? (with Humans ignorance & stupidity)

[Greta]

The atheists theme song, at least religious people try to do something, all the atheists do is sit around saying OHM, and singing kumbaya. As if that is going to help all those who need real help.

Atheists don't even know what it means, they just think it sounds nice. kumbaya means "Come by me Lord", It's a call to God.

Is this one-dimensional straw person an example of how theistic engagement with reality? It would seem so for the type of theist that proselytises on philosophy forums.

[duszek]

Not doing any harm is something.

Spreading a peaceful mood (vibrations, waves, etc.) is more than something.

What´s wrong with that ?

It´s not cumbaya that you have to sing, you can just imagine you are a Tibetan monk and make low sounds and listen for the over-tones implied.

If you are relaxed and peaceful good ideas can occur to you.

A nice face of a stranger in the street can help.

[Greta]

Every human being can improve humans knowledge only a little, most of what we know is from other humans, but being more conected is a danger too... I think I started a thread about seeing everybody all the time some time ago, and I'm sure that it will happen. So, will those who don't fit the norm survive against the idiotic majority? will seeing more things make people enough aware of reality and accept truth, or will it be more info than they want to accept and mean destruction of what they find ugly? History is full of crap and a few good people (I don't like the word people XD it's a very common mistake to beginers in English to say "persons").

It's partly chance. Some genius children will live in circumstances that will never allow their brilliance to be expressed. At other times, dull people of weak or poor character can find themselves in positions with great responsibility through being in the right place at the right time. Still, there's so many people that lost geniuses can be replaced to some extent; some will be noticeable and noticed.

I must recognice that eliminating all what is genetically human in a fast move is very difficult, a small percentage can regenerate the specie... it is related, of course, with the idiotic majority, with the current igonrance...but not too much... how to say it in English... In Spanish I would say "depende de lo que somos, no de cómo estamos", in my poor English the best translation I can imagine is "it doesn't matter how ignorant we are, not what we have inside us, but how intelligent we are, or what can or can't be inside us".

As you'd said earlier, it's hard to judge humanity as a whole because there is such variety.

I had once expected an ever increasing advancement of humanity, even allowing for backward steps, but I don't think it's that simple. Rather, while a minority advances, the majority are becoming increasingly drone-like, with ever dumbed down education, entertainment and news standards, less independence and self sufficiency, needing only to know which buttons to press in triggering increasingly less understood mechanisms. If societies were organisms, you'd say they are encephalating - growing a separate brain and head to control the rest of the "nervous system", who are increasingly only needed to be akin to dumb terminals or, as George Carlin put it:

"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying ­ lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else."

"But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

"You know what they want? Obedient workers ­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

In truth, the institutions do want some people capable of critical thinking, but not those who are only required as "human resources". Hence the push for privatised education, so the wealthy can continue to advance with ever better standards while the bulk become ever less intellectually active, creative and resourceful.

[TSBU]

It's partly chance. Some genius children will live in circumstances that will never allow their brilliance to be expressed. At other times, dull people of weak or poor character can find themselves in positions with great responsibility through being in the right place at the right time. Still, there's so many people that lost geniuses can be replaced to some extent; some will be noticeable and noticed.

Nothing depends on chance. Other thing is that I can't controll it, or predict it. We probably don't see the same as genius, Oppenhaimer built very complicated things. I put what you call character in intelligence too.

I had once expected an ever increasing advancement of humanity, even allowing for backward steps, but I don't think it's that simple.

Even what we understand by advancement is very diferent. It's not very difficult to find people who want to live in the woods. Of course, once you've given the atomic bomb, the knowledge won't be erased if you want too, techonologically, we will always improve, cause going backwards is very difficult.

Rather, while a minority advances, the majority are becoming increasingly drone-like, with ever dumbed down education, entertainment and news standards, less independence and self sufficiency, needing only to know which buttons to press in triggering increasingly less understood mechanisms. If societies were organisms, you'd say they are encephalating - growing a separate brain and head to control the rest of the "nervous system", who are increasingly only needed to be akin to dumb terminals or, as George Carlin put it:

I don't think so, people are becoming more drone like, but their "power to do what they want" is growing too, techonologically and in the sense that nobody can stop them.
The separation between sheeps and goats is not a problem, as long as the separation is clear, but it isn't. More comunication will mean more weigh responsability in those who should be aware of drones, more danger. People can easily "learn" (be programed) by more intelligent people, but they never like to asume that position, they can imitate a behaviour or say an idea but they don't say that they got it from other person for example. What about a world where everybody can see who is an idiot? I mean... people vote for idiots to be their "leaders", imagine all that leaders in their "real life", things like that... do students respect their teachers more or less than before? When a person gives something great to humanity, what idiots do (and what that "genious" do sometimes gladly) is puting them out of humanity, he is "a genius" not "like you and me", as far from a human as a star in the sky from Earth. Put controllers at their level (and they need controll, they need teachers, everybody needs teachers) and they'll probably kill them (as they have done many times). They desperately fight to get everyone at the same level than them.

"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying ­ lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else."

But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

That's absurd. That's the conspiration people wants, as they want to believe in god to think that someone is worried about them. Well, they have choice (not with politics, that's true, that's a lie to gain controll over them XD). No human being can controll the rest, people are doing what they want and they will always do it, but they are idiots. It's like saying that millions of slaves can't get freedom because the rich guy. Are you fucking kidding me? He is one! Well this is the same, how many people have millions of dollars? If you believe lies, you are stupid, but that doesn't change the fact that you can do what you want. Nothing is really very controlled, just a little and escalating, there is no big brother, there is... real world, parents controlling their children, being controlled by other people, etc, everybody is in "the game" and the result is this glorious mess that people have decided to create. Are you always honest? Would you like to live in a world without privacy? then there you have my answer, that's all what happens.

"You know what they want? Obedient workers ­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

Even if I were trying to feel smart or "superior" by doing it, theoretically that guy, I, and... nearly everybody in the end, is trying to build up intelligent critical thinkers. Yep, there are people who want the rest to be ignorant stupids, but... well, there are both things, and, after a life trying, I can say that... hell, people are what they are, that's how they borned, and maybe their first years, that depends mostly in their parents. What are they is the important question, and I'm not able to answer it, they are not equal anyway.

In truth, the institutions do want some people capable of critical thinking, but not those who are only required as "human resources". Hence the push for privatised education, so the wealthy can continue to advance with ever better standards while the bulk become ever less intellectually active, creative and resourceful.

[TSBU]

Not doing any harm is something.

No.

Spreading a peaceful mood (vibrations, waves, etc.) is more than something.

This can nearly make me angry.

What´s wrong with that ?

The same that is wrong with doc post.

It´s not cumbaya that you have to sing, you can just imagine you are a Tibetan monk and make low sounds and listen for the over-tones implied.

I imagine that bold monk(ey) doing noises in a battlefield in Camboya and people buying that noises.

If you are relaxed and peaceful good ideas can occur to you.

If you aren't, they can occur too.

A nice face of a stranger in the street can help.

And so does a bullet in the head, ifyou have enough imagination. But your face generally doesn't feed those who have hunger, doesn't protect those who are in danger, etc.

[thedoc]

Is this one-dimensional straw person an example of how theistic engagement with reality? It would seem so for the type of theist that proselytises on philosophy forums.

It's called a "Straw Man" argument, your PC comments are meaningless till you use the correct terminology.

[Greta]

Is this one-dimensional straw person an example of how theistic engagement with reality? It would seem so for the type of theist that proselytises on philosophy forums.

It's called a "Straw Man" argument, your PC comments are meaningless till you use the correct terminology.

Why are you rejecting a term that is widely accepted in modern philosophical parlance?

BTW, it is not "PC" to use language that acknowledges the existence of one's own gender. That's just defence of one's own turf. If you are going to argue over terminology, you need to be correct yourself.

[thedoc]

Is this one-dimensional straw person an example of how theistic engagement with reality? It would seem so for the type of theist that proselytises on philosophy forums.

It's called a "Straw Man" argument, your PC comments are meaningless till you use the correct terminology.

Why are you rejecting a term that is widely accepted in modern philosophical parlance?

BTW, it is not "PC" to use language that acknowledges the existence of one's own gender. That's just defence of one's own turf. If you are going to argue over terminology, you need to be correct yourself.

I'm not rejecting the proper philosophical terminology, I reject your politically correct corruption of the term.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... =straw+man

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... raw+person

If you look up "straw person" you are given the "straw man" as an example, the term is not "widely accepted" except to the feminists lunatic fringe.

[Greta]

It's called a "Straw Man" argument, your PC comments are meaningless till you use the correct terminology.

Why are you rejecting a term that is widely accepted in modern philosophical parlance?

BTW, it is not "PC" to use language that acknowledges the existence of one's own gender. That's just defence of one's own turf. If you are going to argue over terminology, you need to be correct yourself.

I'm not rejecting the proper philosophical terminology, I reject your politically correct corruption of the term.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... =straw+man

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... raw+person

If you look up "straw person" you are given the "straw man" as an example, the term is not "widely accepted" except to the feminists lunatic fringe.

Your use of "lunatic fringe" is emotionally-driven, and thus reckless, inappropriate and simply wrong. You are apparently at odds with all the academic institutions that use the term "straw person". The lexicon is evolving and whether you approve or not does not matter.

All you are telling me is that you prefer the traditional term. Thank you for your opinion. I have my own opinion, as mentioned above.

[Conde Lucanor]

The atheists theme song, at least religious people try to do something...

No, they didn't. They just came up with the illusion of someone else up in the sky doing something.

[thedoc]

The atheists theme song, at least religious people try to do something...

No, they didn't. They just came up with the illusion of someone else up in the sky doing something.

Then you must know different religious people and atheists than I do.

[thedoc]

All you are telling me is that you prefer the traditional term. Thank you for your opinion. I have my own opinion, as mentioned above.

Yes, I prefer the correct term, (or traditional as you say) and "Straw Person" is just as emotionally charged, as well as being a stupid expression along with all the other PC nonsense.

[thedoc]

If you look up "straw person" you are given the "straw man" as an example, the term is not "widely accepted" except to the feminists lunatic fringe.

Your use of "lunatic fringe" is emotionally-driven, and thus reckless, inappropriate and simply wrong. You are apparently at odds with all the academic institutions that use the term "straw person". The lexicon is evolving and whether you approve or not does not matter.

I notice that you do not deny the "Feminist" label.

Any "Academic Institution" that uses the PC nonsense is caving to lunatic fringe political pressure and doesn't deserve the respect they demand.

[Conde Lucanor]

The atheists theme song, at least religious people try to do something...

No, they didn't. They just came up with the illusion of someone else up in the sky doing something.

Then you must know different religious people and atheists than I do.

The ones I know belong to Judaism, Islamism and Christianism. I'm not sure about the illusions of the other ones you may know.

[Greta]

If you look up "straw person" you are given the "straw man" as an example, the term is not "widely accepted" except to the feminists lunatic fringe.

Your use of "lunatic fringe" is emotionally-driven, and thus reckless, inappropriate and simply wrong. You are apparently at odds with all the academic institutions that use the term "straw person". The lexicon is evolving and whether you approve or not does not matter.

I notice that you do not deny the "Feminist" label.

Any "Academic Institution" that uses the PC nonsense is caving to lunatic fringe political pressure and doesn't deserve the respect they demand.

I'm not concerned with labels. Another member recently called me a twat. Don't care any more. I just think language evolves and it reflects the fact that men are no longer the only major movers in society, that women are more equal players. I embrace this change, even if it seems that our rights are currently on a backwards slide. Why shouldn't language reflect changes in society?

I don't know why you are being so pushy and grumpy over something that seems trivial. Its not as though I'm running around castigating people for the use of "straw man". I believe in "live and let live". Do you? Or have I caught you on a bad day? The term has never been important to me and I'm sure I've occasionally said "straw man" unthinkingly over the years.

Interestingly, now that you have challenged me on "straw person" I feel a sense of resolve about using the term that was not there before. I doubt that I will unthinkingly use the gendered term "straw man" again as there will now always be a conscious element attached to the term for me. That's how the brain works - whatever we focus on is amplified in our minds.