[Tainari88]

This is a point of view that goes against what many falsely believe that humans are aggressive, competitive dog-eat-dog, selfish horrors.

No, that is not who we can become. But each human, each community and each family and each culture and nation etc has to do the work. Transformation folks. Through cooperation, love and understanding. Healing and love. Got to get there.

https://www.humancondition.com/?utm_sou ... -interview

[Steve_American]

Well, I gave this a like. However, 3 main points I'd like to make.
1] I somehow was raised so that I didn't need to compete. So, I was shunned. I have always been an outsider. Also, it was the reason I could totally accept the message of the Limits to Growth, Club of Rome report of 1972 or 3. And so, I quit the rat race and lived as small as possible in the US.
2] It is a great tragedy that this message has come about 50 to 100 years too late. We have already put so much CO2 into the air that a 2 deg. C temp increase and then 3 deg. increase is unavoidable. We humans will likely be extinct before nature can remove the CO2 which will take over 10K years and likely over 100K years.
3] He didn't explain well why he chose to set the fall at over 2M ago. In my Anthropology learnings I have seen a few societies that had primitive cultures and so had not yet fallen, for examples the Inuit/Eskimo and the Bushmen of SW African desert areas.
. . He therefore, fails to explain why the loving instincts that he says had evolved by 2M ya were not evolved again to match the new survival situation over those 2M years.
. . OTOH, if he had set the fall as being with the end of the hunter/gatherer life style, he would not have to explain why it had not been evolved away in the short 5K to 8K years since that time, that is the new time for the fall.

Perhaps he explains it in his huge body of work in his several books.

.

[Tainari88]

Well, I gave this a like. However, 3 main points I'd like to make.
1] I somehow was raised so that I didn't need to compete. So, I was shunned. I have always been an outsider. Also, it was the reason I could totally accept the message of the Limits to Growth, Club of Rome report of 1972 or 3. And so, I quit the rat race and lived as small as possible in the US.
2] It is a great tragedy that this message has come about 50 to 100 years too late. We have already put so much CO2 into the air that a 2 deg. C temp increase and then 3 deg. increase is unavoidable. We humans will likely be extinct before nature can remove the CO2 which will take over 10K years and likely over 100K years.
3] He didn't explain well why he chose to set the fall at over 2M ago. In my Anthropology learnings I have seen a few societies that had primitive cultures and so had not yet fallen, for examples the Inuit/Eskimo and the Bushmen of SW African desert areas.
. . He therefore, fails to explain why the loving instincts that he says had evolved by 2M ya were not evolved again to match the new survival situation over those 2M years.
. . OTOH, if he had set the fall as being with the end of the hunter/gatherer life style, he would not have to explain why it had not been evolved away in the short 5K to 8K years since that time, that is the new time for the fall.

Perhaps he explains it in his huge body of work in his several books.

.

Very interesting questions. I have not ordered the books. But they are available for free according to the website. You can do audiobooks there.

I happen to think that we are evolving Steve. You see it in the patterns of social construction and adjustments over the centuries. I just saw a movie on Netflix with my little boy called [Harriet]. About the life of Harriet Tubman. She freed over 70 slaves from the underground railroad. She also led a batallion of Black Union soldiers. They liberated over 750 Black slaves from their bondage. She then went on to die of old age at age 91 years old in 1913. She was born a slave and fought against it. Her philosophy was give me freedom or give me death. Which meant one has to be committed body and soul to your own liberation. You either want something better or you do not want something better and can't commit to what is necessary for a paradigm shift.

In the movie? There was a black slave tracker who was African American. Born free but he would take money from the powerful whites and payment from them to get the runaway slaves back. He was a traitor for dollars and for being able to keep the system going because he was benefiting from it. The epitome of the ones who keep the system going because they benefit from it even when it is obvious that they being Black should cause them to identify with the runaway slaves.

The point is? Unless there is a commitment to change in a real sense? A catastrophe is sometimes the only way a system is scrapped. For slavery it was a conflict between the industrial revolution and the need for cheap wage labor and changing the paradigm of humans being sold like pigs or cattle or chattel property. They had to be paid. It did not mean that capitalism did not want to keep a lot of humans in bondage. It was replaced with debt and banks and lawyers defending those with money to pay them for a defense in front of a court of law. Law is always involved with economic systems.

But if there is climate change Steve? If we don't adapt to what it means? We will perish. That is true. And the only way out of scarce resources and our survival will be pooling the resources that are going to be left among the ones who do survive the onslaught. The capitalism bondage model will become obsolete and useless. It won't work. Because it is more chimp oriented than BONOBO. And the BONOBO is really closer to our own genes than the chimp genes are. And the Bonob is highly successful cooperating. And not being what the chimps are. Xenophobes and more of a hiarchy.

It is fascinating. We need to evolve out of obsolete systems. And challenge them. Too many people believe in systems that are not a true reflection of what we are in the higher consciousness levels that are US. The Homo Sapiens. Not the forms of aggression that they keep peddling as our only option for social organization and economic organization. Break the bad paradigm and replace it with a new one. We do that all the time Steve. We need to do it again. This time for our own good and our own survival as a species.

[Puffer Fish]

No, that is not who we can become. But each human, each community and each family and each culture and nation etc has to do the work. Transformation folks. Through cooperation, love and understanding. Healing and love. Got to get there.

How about we help people where they are, and work to transform societies in other parts of the world.

The lazy thing to do is thinking the problems can just be solved by letting large groups of people to move from one part of the world to another.

I don't really think that's going to be a solution to this world problem.
One has to ask whether it is even bringing any overall positive change. It seems to simply be shuffling things around.

Most countries in the world are not the nice places that White English speaking and Western European countries are. (Then there's also a few East Asian ethnicity countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and formerly Hong Kong. And then also a handful of small Muslim countries that are rich from oil, but even they have some big human rights issues)


Christian theology and perspective traditionally informs that human nature is inherently corrupt, not good.
Atheist Humanism seems to have tried to turn that around and assume that human nature is inherently good. But then it has some trouble explaining why attempts at Communist systems (Soviet Russia, North Korea, China) have resulted in so much evil and human rights abuses.

[Tainari88]

How about we help people where they are, and work to transform societies in other parts of the world.

The lazy thing to do is thinking the problems can just be solved by letting large groups of people to move from one part of the world to another.

I don't really think that's going to be a solution to this world problem.
One has to ask whether it is even bringing any overall positive change. It seems to simply be shuffling things around.

Most countries in the world are not the nice places that White English speaking and Western European countries are. (Then there's also a few East Asian ethnicity countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and formerly Hong Kong. And then also a handful of small Muslim countries that are rich from oil, but even they have some big human rights issues)

I have worked on migration and immigration patterns worldwide in the past. When I did some graduate research on urban anthropology. Most people migrate from their home nations due to consistent factors. War is one of them. The reason Russians and Ukrainian civvies are moving out in droves.

Unemployment. Famine. Drought. Crime. Corruption and lack of law and order. Violence. Drugs. Personal problems like gangs and threats. The reason many Central Americans like Hondurans and Salvadorans run for the border of the USA. Guatemalans ran for decades due to terrorism in the military machine there.

So? Shuffling around is not the answer I agree with you there. Plus, most people don't want to leave their families, communities, and loved ones behind. They do so under duress. Why is there duress?

Again, inequality, exploitation, and stripping of natural resources, are usually because of abuse by corporations or powerful economic and political interests. An example of a conflict that is going to be in contention is Chiapas, Mexico which shares a border with Guatemala. They got a lot of migration from Guatemala into Mexico. The native Chiapas residents don't like it because it puts pressure on a region dealing with a Coca-Cola monopoly on fresh drinking water, bathing water, and washing needs water. Look:

So the problem becomes who is going to have a priority interest with the money and the might that is necessary to control the water that is potable and usable?

People can't live with complete water shutoffs that last days or weeks. You are going to ask for a fight to the death if you do that. So these sweetheart deals with the corporations who want the poorest people to pay for the highest costs to drink water that they used to have access to for free? No, it is going to have to change.

The capitalism and privatize water has been tried before in other nations like Cochabamba Bolivia. That was a DISASTER. They lost. The corporations lost. You can't win it. Water is life. Poverty forces action. And if you are a greedy bastard company wanting to say that water that falls from the sky is private and that rainfall in a barrel in your house is a crime to have? Watch how the people react. VIOLENCE IN MASSES.

So it doesn't matter if you believe in all this capitalistic bullshit. Reality is another story.

BTW, the former president of Mexico Vicente Fox was the CEO of Coca-Cola Mexico. He was part of the reason Coca-Cola got such a lucrative water right deal in the state of Chiapas.

The politicians and the economic corporations all work together in the world to make sure they get the resources first. Is it sustainable over time when clean water, and fertile land and good food, and clean air and clean energy is the core of life? it is going to force a paradigm shift away from the GREED IS GOOD from Wall Street.

[Puffer Fish]

I have worked on migration and immigration patterns worldwide in the past. When I did some graduate research on urban anthropology. Most people migrate from their home nations due to consistent factors. War is one of them.

Most migration has nothing to do with war.
Even in cases when there is actually conflict, half the time the reason for the migration has more to do with economic factors than the conflict or worries about personal safety.

If it was really about war, then the migrants would be required to return back to their country after the war was over.

[Puffer Fish]

Unemployment. Famine. Drought. Crime. Corruption and lack of law and order. Violence. Drugs. Personal problems like gangs and threats.

The problem is people, not a place.
Aren't they just going to bring those same problems with them, if large amounts of migration happen from the Third World to the First World?

If this continues on long enough, isn't this ultimately going to make the First World destination country more like the Third World countries all those people were originally trying to flee?

[Unthinking Majority]

This is a point of view that goes against what many falsely believe that humans are aggressive, competitive dog-eat-dog, selfish horrors.

No, that is not who we can become. But each human, each community and each family and each culture and nation etc has to do the work. Transformation folks. Through cooperation, love and understanding. Healing and love. Got to get there.

https://www.humancondition.com/?utm_sou ... -interview

I don't agree with the premise of the video. It is naively idealistic. I think the human condition is one of both cooperation & love and also selfishness, competition etc.

When a person's security is threatened they become more self-interested. So some of it is the situation, or the structure. In the state of nature there is competition for limited resources. The international realm still exists in the state of nature, it is anarchic, and competitive, and there's no enforceable laws to make things more secure for everyone. Marxists have tried to solve this problem via worldwide communism. Liberals tried to solve this through international institutions like the UN. Both attempts have largely been failures unfortunately. But humans will keep tinkering and improving.

Of course there's also individual mindsets too. A rich person has security, but can be corrupted with greed. Or someone can be set off by anger, and become violent. A lot of people in the West are too materialistic and also very focused on their individual rights and have lost sight of the things that really matter. Western culture can be very selfish in some ways.

[Cartertonian]

Thank you for this, Tainari. I have downloaded the transcript.

For those who don't know, these days I teach mental health nursing in a UK university, after thirty-three years in clinical nursing of which the last quarter-century has been in mental health.

Jeremy Griffith's views largely accord with my own. Specifically, aside from biological psychosis (though it's still very relevant) every mental health complaint experienced by humans boils down to this inner conflict between our primeval instincts and our higher intelligence at some level.

I'm not religious, but one could argue that the story of Adam and Eve and the apple is an allegory for human animals gaining sentience. Thereafter, this internal battle between 'angels and demons' has been reflected throughout recorded history.

Furthermore, one could argue that God did not want Eve to eat the apple because he/she/it/whatever knew that a human with such sentience could subordinate their higher 'human' intelligence to the satiation of their animal instincts. Any forensic psychologist will tell you that serial offenders are usually of 'above average' intelligence - precisely because they ae using their acquired human 'smarts' to help them get what their instincts are telling them they want.

And bearing in mind this is a politics forum, in my view as a centrist the 'hard' left and 'hard' right both are using their 'smarts' to advance ideas that are actually rooted in their primitive, animal instincts.

[Tainari88]

I don't agree with the premise of the video. It is naively idealistic. I think the human condition is one of both cooperation & love and also selfishness, competition etc.

When a person's security is threatened they become more self-interested. So some of it is the situation, or the structure. In the state of nature there is competition for limited resources. The international realm still exists in the state of nature, it is anarchic, and competitive, and there's no enforceable laws to make things more secure for everyone. Marxists have tried to solve this problem via worldwide communism. Liberals tried to solve this through international institutions like the UN. Both attempts have largely been failures unfortunately. But humans will keep tinkering and improving.

Of course there's also individual mindsets too. A rich person has security, but can be corrupted with greed. Or someone can be set off by anger, and become violent. A lot of people in the West are too materialistic and also very focused on their individual rights and have lost sight of the things that really matter. Western culture can be very selfish in some ways.

UM, if one thinks about paradigm shifts throughout human history? It is about adaptation to what the current socioeconomic conditions are about in a particular society and within a specific historical framework. You could choose a nation in history and it is about what is going on in that moment in time. Humans are fantastic adapters UM. They have lived successfully in very cold climates like Alaska, the North Pole, the Siberian tundra and steppes, the African grasslands, the Saharan deserts, the Mediterranean areas, the North Sea with the UK, the Australian outbacks and the tropics of Queensland, the jungles and mountains and altiplanos of South America and Patagonia, the islands of the Caribbean, the tiny spots of land in the South Pacific, the huge mass of Asia, etc. All were colonized by human beings. They adapt. We adapt. For what purpose? To live and survive.

But the idea of capitalism has to require the belief that humanity is slated for primeval selfish brutality and egotism, sucking up all resources, incapable of altruism, sharing or cooperation for mutual benefit. That trade is the source of all wealth and only a few civilizations and nations have decent governments worthy of trust and investment. That there are inferior races, inferior cultures, inferior circumstances. So that the ultimate paradigm in life is CAPITALISM only.

Unfettered capitalism already has been tried. It was an unmitigated disaster and the reason why the roaring 1920s screeched to a halt and the reason why socialist policies had to be implemented. Because the banks were sucking up entire savings of depositors' wealth and labor. It seems like a distant past. But it is not. Beirut has a banking system that is acting like the 1920s. And people are raving mad at the banks. They are in cahoots with the political class that is corrupt to the core in Lebanon.

Unfettered capitalism is problematic. Many people can agree that this is the case.

So how does one keep aspects of different economic systems from the past that had good aspects and reintegrate them with a system that is more advanced and humane and cooperative? Life-affirming and good?

We start at the beginning. Can human societies cooperate respectfully for mutual benefit? Yes. Have countries in the past been able to cooperate for mutual benefit? Yes. Can you scale it? Yes, you can. Is it a big and difficult task? Yes. Is it necessary to be able to tap into our cooperative genes? Yes.

Chimps in Africa share much of our DNA. 98%. But out of all primates the one that shares the most DNA with human beings? Are BONOBOS. And they are cooperative primates. They excel at that. Why deny we are capable of cooperation if the primates with the most similar adaptational abilities, linguistic and intrinsic characteristics are the cooperation primates. Not the chimps?

if you examine human beings DNA you will find the human brain going through all the stages of development. Evolutionary stages. Reptilian, and mammalian and every possible vertebrate..cycling through. So what does this mean? That we went through the systems that are innate hardwired through that DNA chain. The chain goes through the BONOBO too...the cooperation primate. And it is one percent over that one. What can it mean? It means that nurturing and loving and stability and sharing and being all in one group helping each member...is a possibility and a very likely possibility of our option for social structure.

We can choose that structure and it will adapt to the new paradigm.

The slave paradigm was discarded because our species needs freedom and because the economics of it was no longer relevant for the development of industrializing the world. Now comes technology and the information age. Causing the upset that Jeremy Griffith mentions in the interview. How do you bring calm after the storm?

We need to survive the challenge of rapidly changing conditions. We can perish in a pyre of hatred, competition, greed, and violence. Nuclear winters, and scarcity competitive lack of humane political structures like fascism and bombing each other to see who is the world dictator? Or we can start sharing everything with love and understanding that our most close primate relatives have proven is the key to a better human society.

What Jeremy Griffith mentions is true. What is shaking up the human condition? The alienation, the anxiety and so on is not going to make us free of what is wrong with the world. The only way out of that is to scrap the paradigm that is telling us selfishness is the only possible option for our species. And as such profit and being afraid of losing our share of a fictitious pie of economic dominance is the only way forward.

It is not. It never has been. Humans are creative and adaptable. That is a fact. Got to be creative and adapt to a new world of reaffirming life and not killing it off to feed the few and the egotistical who want us to believe that is all human beings are capable of. No, we are capable of great things. And it is not about selfish shit only. It never has been.

[Tainari88]

Part of human altruism is based on our biology.

The Yawning is very interesting. What do you think?

[Tainari88]

The problem is people, not a place.
Aren't they just going to bring those same problems with them, if large amounts of migration happen from the Third World to the First World?

If this continues on long enough, isn't this ultimately going to make the First World destination country more like the Third World countries all those people were originally trying to flee?

Being human is interacting in human society. None of us live in isolation from birth to death. And we are our brother and sister's keepers.

People help shape us and educate us, they can also do us harm, or they can bring us protection.

Attitude is everything Puffer Fish. We either think of our fellow humans and their societies as equally as human as we are. Making bad choices or living with lies or truths that also apply to us as well.

Thinking that humans are a problem though? You would have to include yourself. Are you a problem that should not be dealt with by another person living another life that is more privileged than yours? Or is it all fiction and a lie and both of you are worthy of work, consideration, and respect? Love and understanding?

We have to define ourselves by what goes on in our conscious and subconscious minds too as well, Puffer Fish.

People are not fools with others. Most people get to know what a person is about by living with them and interacting with them long enough.

And we define ourselves by a lifetime of choices.

Make yours count. And give the other humans the ability to make their count as well. In mutual benefit and mutual cooperation.

We can interact for violence and so on....or we can interact for love. It is going to be our decision. Now and in the future.

[Unthinking Majority]

But the idea of capitalism has to require the belief that humanity is slated for primeval selfish brutality and egotism, sucking up all resources, incapable of altruism, sharing or cooperation for mutual benefit. That trade is the source of all wealth and only a few civilizations and nations have decent governments worthy of trust and investment. That there are inferior races, inferior cultures, inferior circumstances. So that the ultimate paradigm in life is CAPITALISM only.
....
So how does one keep aspects of different economic systems from the past that had good aspects and reintegrate them with a system that is more advanced and humane and cooperative? Life-affirming and good?

We start at the beginning. Can human societies cooperate respectfully for mutual benefit? Yes. Have countries in the past been able to cooperate for mutual benefit? Yes. Can you scale it? Yes, you can. Is it a big and difficult task? Yes. Is it necessary to be able to tap into our cooperative genes? Yes.
...
Chimps in Africa share much of our DNA. 98%. But out of all primates the one that shares the most DNA with human beings? Are BONOBOS. And they are cooperative primates. They excel at that. Why deny we are capable of cooperation if the primates with the most similar adaptational abilities, linguistic and intrinsic characteristics are the cooperation primates. Not the chimps?

Capitalism literally works on the idea that a group of 10 or 100 or 1000 private individuals can come together peacefully and voluntarily and cooperate on a project together to create something for mutual benefit, and then take what they create and find another party that is willing to peacefully exchange their money for that good/service for mutual benefit of both parties so that both are better off than before the transaction.

Capitalism can also create greed, selfishness, exploitation, and violence. So if we take that greed, selfishness, exploitation, and violence and add it to the cooperation, ingenuity, and industriousness well voila you have a system that reflects much of the human condition. Which I imagine is why it is so productive and robust.

So what's missing? I don't know, love? Not to say that a better system can be discovered that incorporates more love and generosity. We shall see I guess.

[Tainari88]

Capitalism literally works on the idea that a group of 10 or 100 or 1000 private individuals can come together peacefully and voluntarily and cooperate on a project together to create something for mutual benefit, and then take what they create and find another party that is willing to peacefully exchange their money for that good/service for mutual benefit of both parties so that both are better off than before the transaction.

Capitalism can also create greed, selfishness, exploitation, and violence. So if we take that greed, selfishness, exploitation, and violence and add it to the cooperation, ingenuity, and industriousness well voila you have a system that reflects much of the human condition. Which I imagine is why it is so productive and robust.

So what's missing? I don't know, love? Not to say that a better system can be discovered that incorporates more love and generosity. We shall see I guess.

Well, that is your version of what you think capitalism does. Not mine and not what capitalism actually states it does.

It is much simpler. And simple is better in every way.

Capitalism is this:

Definition of capitalism
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.

That is the first problem. The private decision is the leading core when it is practiced in a democratic governance framework.

Yes, you have inclusion. I won't even get into why the USA does not allow popular votes to determine who leads in a democratic representative democracy or makes up different types of citizenships in order to bypass constitutional requirements. Which is a big problem and is imbalanced. But setting aside that problem? The issue is about why are private decisions important in capitalism. What if you open up the decision-making process to the public? You get democratized economic results. Everyone that works at an enterprise gets a voice and vote. And the salaries, benefits, and support are all predicated on a concept that is not about ranking, hierarchy, or power positions of who is management and who has the right to take home pay based on position and profit motive rights. It becomes what the group in its entirety is negotiating with outside the organization in order to benefit the entire organization as a whole. It eliminates the few with exaggerated rights versus the many with too few benefits and too few rights.

One gets also to what is considered enough. Are there limits to what is enough in terms of pay, of workloads, of expectations, rights and responsibilities? Part of the problem with capitalism in my opinion is the idea of unlimited wealth, unlimited resources, unlimited ability to grow and expand and extract and profit. It does require an investment in a lot of growth, expansion of market shares, more and more and more. Without analyzing if the growth is sustainable or not. If the resources are being managed with care and forethought and with a long term ability to replenish itself or not. And the case of unfettered capitalism? It is the source of environmental degradation, global world poverty, imbalances between classes of people, military spending, the arms race, the CO2 poisoning of the atmosphere, the droughts, the storms and the very real possibility of mass extinction events coming our way.

Small and sustainable business models are a totally different paradigm of trade and it has nothing to do with corporate monopolies. At the same time there are advantages to chain businesses because they are consistent in delivery and give a reliable form of service. But do the owners and corporate shareholders have to be the ones benefitting from a position of passive investment and who are not the workers? Why does that have to be the rule?

Do you see what I mean UM about the inability of people to see the forest for the trees? Look for something that is workable for the MAJORITY of people laboring. Not for a tiny group of fewer than 2700 people in a world with 8 billion humans.

Avoiding extinction events for humans has to do with rethinking why the system is structured for a world with other human conditions that are not about unlimited resources being used and abused without caps, limits, or forethought for the smallest group of extremely powerful individuals. It does not work UM. Because it has led to this crisis.

And remember that crisis in Mandarin Chinese? It is both danger and opportunity. The danger part has to do with a big and huge crash that causes mass suffering. And an opportunity to TRANSFORM what no longer works into something that does work.

The Chinese are doing state capitalism. What is that?

an economic system in which private capitalism is modified by a varying degree of government ownership and control

It has made Chinese economic growth enormous. It will hit a roadblock. And that is a lack of rights of ordinary workers within that framework. Democratizing it all and all of the wealth being managed directly by all of the workers. The Communist party is supposed to be giving the complete power to all the workers. And respecting worker rights. Communism is supposed to be shrinking government because of the satisfaction of the workers and them being able to rule themselves without a central authority. Instead they got very elitist billionaires. The PRC government answers to that have been to knock down tens or dozens of them at a time via government authority.

They should not be authoritarians, exclusive options in China. But they are. In the USA though no one government can go and literally defrock a billionaire and force it with government power to dissolve and desist and decease. The corporations run the government and are their servants. The model is not good. The Chinese model is defective as well. State capitalism is not communist and it is an uneasy marriage between private capitalism and public authorities. But the government has the upper whip hand in the PRC model of it. The USA is the corporate and the bankers and the law uphold the billionaire class and fuck the working people and popular votes. That spells fascism UM. It does.


The private stuff has to go. That is certain. In both systems. And they need to open up the power structure for both systems. And it better be highly democratic and highly human rights oriented, and highly respectful of the living standards and needs of the MAJORITY and not the minority of elites. That has to be the future. Otherwise you will get the lack of restraint shown towards the natural world and the poisons that are happening all the time.

The Bonobos are being pressured because the Chinese are acquiring the creatures and paying for them with their prosperity and elitist tastes. They are pursuing state capitalism without the true mission of what the entire political philosophy is about. Reducing the need for government because the vast majority of people's needs are met and they are free and without a need to have additional authority in their lives from the government.

Freedom. Work. Responsibility and it is and should be predicated on respecting life-affirming nature. Plant life, animal life, precious minerals, precious building materials, and water, air, and land that is life-sustaining.

One thing we are truly having to accept in the future that is heading our way soon? LIMITS. To our wants and our desires for growth and profiteering and profit centered philosophies. Profit is not sacred. What is sacred is our relationship to nature and to living within natural law. The pandemic sure could teach that. Respect what nature is capable of doing. We don't rule the planet. The planet rules us. Make nature and human needs of society for a dignified life all the center of policy in political life. Not some idea of unlimited control and unlimited greed.

If we can get there? We got a fighting chance for surviving the long centuries to come when the planet is going to be busy making sure the accelerated climate adjustments don't make it impossible to adapt with sufficient speed. The only thing working in our favor is our amazing history of cooperation and of adaptation. And our ability to help each other. You know that old cliche saying, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

Human beings are going to have to do that. But love and understanding and respect and mutual cooperation are the concepts that we need to tap in our biological programming. The Selfish greedy beast part needs to be caged. That is the truth.

[Puffer Fish]

Are any of you familiar with the "Paradox of Poverty"? It basically says that the more dire poverty there exists in a society, the less people care about the poor.

The Paradox of Poverty
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=177378

Intuitively it seems to be almost somewhat of a paradox, but if you look at Third World countries it holds true.

[Tainari88]

Are any of you familiar with the "Paradox of Poverty"? It basically says that the more dire poverty there exists in a society, the less people care about the poor.

The Paradox of Poverty
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=177378

Intuitively it seems to be almost somewhat of a paradox, but if you look at Third World countries it holds true.

You should study what goes on in very poor neighborhoods in the poorest vs rich cities in the world. Like Mumbai, Manila, and many others. If you don't deal with the poor? You lose power. You lose period.