Totally concur with everything you've stated there.
And such a critical message that the Establishment doesn't want people to hear.
We seem to be living in a moment (or perhaps a lifetime) of 'Political Won't'
Personally, I'm done with waiting for 'them' to wake up as I have the feeling that carries as much likelihood of the Sun rising in the West.
Soooo .... I've been working on a somewhat sensible (which others may think "radical") attack plan for this coming election to create the political WILL and would love to have your thoughts and perhaps collaboration on.
If you're open to peaceful revolution I'd love love love to hear from you.
Totally agree with all this. This has been going on for decades and decades, just getting worse and worse. I hold a teensy glimmer of hope that it does seem that more people are blinking through the sleepy dust of their numbed minds and noticing things are getting a bit tricky at the moment but ‘Our Leaders’ are like a many headed hydra and every time you cut one Tory head off, two more seem to pop up in its place!
What motivates them to continue such wanton destruction? Greed? Ego? Short term visions that they can get what they need and the next hydra head can deal with the consequences?
I just don’t know? It doesn’t make any sense to me...
It's mind-bending stuff to try and untangle. I wonder if you could boil this predicament all the way back to our form of intelligence being a maladaptation, and if not, then agriculture being a maladaptive meme. A bit like a eating your dead rellies in Madagascar. Been lots of those throughout evolutionary history and we might be one of the more notable examples.
I also wonder about self-awareness and intelligence in any species that can adapt its environment to suit it's needs rather than the more traditional biological practice of adaptation towards environmental parameters. History has never required us to be altruistic at the global scale or conscious of our resource base so long as certain practices are adhered to. But again, history is replete with examples of failed cultures and communities where environmental parameters outmanoeuvred the humans. I keep looking for patterns that can inform about us today but perhaps that’s too close to self-analysis with all its pitfalls.
I think lots on the near universal earth worship or solar worship that preceded the rise of monotheisms as far as we know. Were those pagan belief systems informed by observable feedback loops of resource exploitation that became broken when we fully embraced agriculture? And critically, did agriculture introduce a selective advantage for greed and selfishness which might have been a minor trait in earlier times, more commonly selected against than fore? Is it naïve to think that even through rose tinted glasses, that ecocentric paganism didn’t also accommodate the greedy nihilistic psychopath? Surely, they didn’t just pop up out of nowhere 5,000yrs ago? As for how any of this can be interpreted in context of contemporary political ideology, I struggle. I don't see a whole heap of difference between left and right in context of my world view. Sure, the right is more committed to exploitation to maintain power and advantage in the hands that currently hold it but much of the left seems to ignore how most of our social and economic systems still require that there be selective acknowledgement at best, of externalities. So, is it as simple as those identifying with conservatism are greedy? Some of them might simply be confused by a distorted world view. My mum once voted for Margaret Thatcher, yet she embodies empathy (my mum, not Maggie).
I do wonder whether it's entirely possible that there's some kind of behavioural Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium whereby rampant selfishness in a post-ag human society is an advantageous trait some of the time, whilst altruism is an advantage at others. This seems congruent with the motivations that drive people to become politicians, policemen etc. Some genuinely want to make a positive difference, some want to bully and use the power gained to improve their personal material and social prospects. Both behaviours possibly do not fit well together in the psychological wiring and therefore genes that influence our cognitive logic mean that within human populations, both characteristics exist but it’s a bimodal distribution if you were to test individuals. This conflicts a bit with this (Fehr, E. and Fischbacher, U., 2003. The nature of human altruism. Nature, 425(6960), pp.785-791.) which is well worth a read. But natural selection has much diminished influence on how our genes are replicated now so how would we expect that to play out? Certainly, we now live in a society where blatant greed and selfishness can be celebrated in certain circles, and isn't a matter for shame or embarrassment, at least for the majority which could perhaps be explained by Fehr and Fischbacher.
If any of this is vaguely true, then I’m no closer to understanding how we counter its effects but I find great positivityand encouragement in watching you try. If forced, I'd have to say I suspect some militant tribalism is about to come into play as there are absolutely no signs that observable evidence is having any impact. But that senario brings us back to what is it that will fill the philosophical void left by any major societal upheaval and how do we stop the same forces from once again rising to the top ?
Andy, this is your best yet (IMHO).
Totally concur with everything you've stated there.
And such a critical message that the Establishment doesn't want people to hear.
We seem to be living in a moment (or perhaps a lifetime) of 'Political Won't'
Personally, I'm done with waiting for 'them' to wake up as I have the feeling that carries as much likelihood of the Sun rising in the West.
Soooo .... I've been working on a somewhat sensible (which others may think "radical") attack plan for this coming election to create the political WILL and would love to have your thoughts and perhaps collaboration on.
If you're open to peaceful revolution I'd love love love to hear from you.
Mike Finlayson 021 0285 4625 mcfinn7@gmail.com
Totally agree with all this. This has been going on for decades and decades, just getting worse and worse. I hold a teensy glimmer of hope that it does seem that more people are blinking through the sleepy dust of their numbed minds and noticing things are getting a bit tricky at the moment but ‘Our Leaders’ are like a many headed hydra and every time you cut one Tory head off, two more seem to pop up in its place!
What motivates them to continue such wanton destruction? Greed? Ego? Short term visions that they can get what they need and the next hydra head can deal with the consequences?
I just don’t know? It doesn’t make any sense to me...
It's mind-bending stuff to try and untangle. I wonder if you could boil this predicament all the way back to our form of intelligence being a maladaptation, and if not, then agriculture being a maladaptive meme. A bit like a eating your dead rellies in Madagascar. Been lots of those throughout evolutionary history and we might be one of the more notable examples.
I also wonder about self-awareness and intelligence in any species that can adapt its environment to suit it's needs rather than the more traditional biological practice of adaptation towards environmental parameters. History has never required us to be altruistic at the global scale or conscious of our resource base so long as certain practices are adhered to. But again, history is replete with examples of failed cultures and communities where environmental parameters outmanoeuvred the humans. I keep looking for patterns that can inform about us today but perhaps that’s too close to self-analysis with all its pitfalls.
I think lots on the near universal earth worship or solar worship that preceded the rise of monotheisms as far as we know. Were those pagan belief systems informed by observable feedback loops of resource exploitation that became broken when we fully embraced agriculture? And critically, did agriculture introduce a selective advantage for greed and selfishness which might have been a minor trait in earlier times, more commonly selected against than fore? Is it naïve to think that even through rose tinted glasses, that ecocentric paganism didn’t also accommodate the greedy nihilistic psychopath? Surely, they didn’t just pop up out of nowhere 5,000yrs ago? As for how any of this can be interpreted in context of contemporary political ideology, I struggle. I don't see a whole heap of difference between left and right in context of my world view. Sure, the right is more committed to exploitation to maintain power and advantage in the hands that currently hold it but much of the left seems to ignore how most of our social and economic systems still require that there be selective acknowledgement at best, of externalities. So, is it as simple as those identifying with conservatism are greedy? Some of them might simply be confused by a distorted world view. My mum once voted for Margaret Thatcher, yet she embodies empathy (my mum, not Maggie).
I do wonder whether it's entirely possible that there's some kind of behavioural Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium whereby rampant selfishness in a post-ag human society is an advantageous trait some of the time, whilst altruism is an advantage at others. This seems congruent with the motivations that drive people to become politicians, policemen etc. Some genuinely want to make a positive difference, some want to bully and use the power gained to improve their personal material and social prospects. Both behaviours possibly do not fit well together in the psychological wiring and therefore genes that influence our cognitive logic mean that within human populations, both characteristics exist but it’s a bimodal distribution if you were to test individuals. This conflicts a bit with this (Fehr, E. and Fischbacher, U., 2003. The nature of human altruism. Nature, 425(6960), pp.785-791.) which is well worth a read. But natural selection has much diminished influence on how our genes are replicated now so how would we expect that to play out? Certainly, we now live in a society where blatant greed and selfishness can be celebrated in certain circles, and isn't a matter for shame or embarrassment, at least for the majority which could perhaps be explained by Fehr and Fischbacher.
If any of this is vaguely true, then I’m no closer to understanding how we counter its effects but I find great positivityand encouragement in watching you try. If forced, I'd have to say I suspect some militant tribalism is about to come into play as there are absolutely no signs that observable evidence is having any impact. But that senario brings us back to what is it that will fill the philosophical void left by any major societal upheaval and how do we stop the same forces from once again rising to the top ?