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Posted
1 hour ago, Slacks said:

To just be good to each other? 

It seems so easy, but we just won't do it. 

Because we live in a world of scarcity. It's truly that simple.

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Posted

It's the story of humanity. Long after we are all gone people will still be doing the same horrific things to each other. History shows this to be true. Demented people are going to keep being born and the process of being horrible to others will start all over again with generations of people well down the road.

However, in your own life you have control over what is right in front of you. Be kind to those that you can and help those that need it. The rest of it is out of our hands. You do the best you can to leave your small corner of the world in a better place than when you showed up to it. 

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Posted
33 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Because back in the late 1980s two idiots failed their high school history exam. 

LOL - I am pretty sure the mistreatment of humans, by other humans, predates the 1980's; by several millenia. 
When I was young someone read me a book, it was an interesting read and told many stories from long, long ago; including this one story about people of a certain heritage who were enslaved because of who they were, then along came a new leader of the slaves and he was able to lead them out of slavery (but they are still hated by others in their region and by Nazi's)

Spoiler


How Did Moses Part the Red Sea? - WSJ

 

Posted
7 hours ago, Slacks said:

To just be good to each other? 

It seems so easy, but we just won't do it. 

Do your part as best you can.  I will too.  Don't vote for unkind people.

I know I'm going to sound like a cultist, but I've been using Sam Harris' Waking Up ap for the past few weeks, and while I can't say other people say I'm kinder, the ap is kind of amazing so far in terms of making me very aware in the seconds after when I've done something unkind, or the source of anger, etc. I don't know if anyone is noticing, but I feel like my attention is turning a bit toward others and how I can be good to them in small ways.

But this is a politics board, and the challenge of course, is whether this attempt to have an overall calmer and kinder approach to individuals is a help or hinderance in terms of one's political action.  

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Posted

Because Kings/Leaders/Oligarchs with it all have convinced those with less than them that others with even less are trying to take what little they have.

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Posted

To quote the great poet Marshall Mathers, "We ain't nothin' but mammals ..."  Sure, we're a bit smarter than most and have developed tools to make more resources available to the species. When it really comes down to it, though, for a good chunk of society, if they decide that someone else has something that they "need", they can be just as savage as any other mammal to get it, taking into account what they think they can get away.  That's why shit goes south so quickly in emergency situations - perception of "need" goes way up, perception of consequences goes way down , and people will do ridiculously shitty things.  That's one of the few situations when a belief in Sky Daddy can be useful to society - but even then, people will rationalize some awful behavior.   

Posted
2 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Because back in the late 1980s two idiots failed their high school history exam. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

LOL - I am pretty sure the mistreatment of humans, by other humans, predates the 1980's; by several millenia. 
When I was young someone read me a book, it was an interesting read and told many stories from long, long ago; including this one story about people of a certain heritage who were enslaved because of who they were, then along came a new leader of the slaves and he was able to lead them out of slavery (but they are still hated by others in their region and by Nazi's)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

How Did Moses Part the Red Sea? - WSJ

 

 

I wrote the initial post after a bit if biblical reflection. Those people of certain heritage, having gone through many things, referred to those not of their heritage as dogs. 

Whether the stories are true or not, the thoughts of people are in there. 

Posted
2 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Because Kings/Leaders/Oligarchs with it all have convinced those with less than them that others with even less are trying to take what little they have.

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Posted
8 hours ago, Vegas64 said:

Because we live in a world of scarcity. It's truly that simple.

The thing is, we don't, at least not in the modern world. We have the technology and ingenuity to feed and house every human being ten times over and everyone could live happy and confortably. There would still be super rich people and not so rich people but we could end poverty in a year or two if we all agreed to make it happen. We dont though . . . . 

5 hours ago, TexArcher said:

Because it isn't as profitable.

I thought these two posts were very appropriate.

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Posted
10 hours ago, Slacks said:

To just be good to each other? 

It seems so easy, but we just won't do it. 

So.....you're still black, right?  Then...you know why.

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Posted (edited)
12 hours ago, Slacks said:

To just be good to each other? 

It seems so easy, but we just won't do it. 

Because we’re rats continually opting for the dopamine hit of anger and resentment instead of doing the tougher work.

Because moneyed interests draw strength when we’re divided and not advocating for the 99%, so their effective propaganda networks foment discord.

Because Bob Stoops.
 

Edited by Degenerate Gardner
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Posted
18 minutes ago, Degenerate Gardner said:

Because we’re rats continually opting for the dopamine hit of anger and resentment instead of doing the tougher work.

Because moneyed interests draw strength when we’re divided and not advocating for the 99%, so their effective propaganda networks foment discord.

Because Bob Stoops.
 

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Posted
11 hours ago, Vegas64 said:

Because we live in a world of scarcity. It's truly that simple.

Only because fuckfaces like Elon have 400,000,000 all to themselves 

Just now, berlinerbaer said:

Only because fuckfaces like Elon have 400,000,000 all to themselves 

Jesus, I forgot 3 zeros

Posted (edited)

A passage from Blood Meridian has always stuck with me when I wonder this:

“A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”

Part of the epigraph from the beginning of the novel:

Clark, who led last year’s expedition to the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, and UC Berkeley colleague Tim D. White, also said that a re-examination of a 300,000-year-old fossil skull found in the same region earlier shows evidence of having been scalped.
     –The Yuma Daily Sun

Edited by Damor
muledick
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Posted

I don't know. Maybe a lack of empathy. Our rugged individualism is incongruous with collective good. So we are pitted against one another for resources, jobs, and opportunities. This time period is eerily reminiscent of the 1920s when another wave of anti-immigrant history was parrotted by people looking to sew hatred and division. Only that time it was the Irish and uppity blacks daring to escape the oppression of Jim Crow only to find the North's version of it. 

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Posted
7 minutes ago, mdmost said:

I don't know. Maybe a lack of empathy. Our rugged individualism is incongruous with collective good. So we are pitted against one another for resources, jobs, and opportunities. This time period is eerily reminiscent of the 1920s when another wave of anti-immigrant history was parrotted by people looking to sew hatred and division. Only that time it was the Irish and uppity blacks daring to escape the oppression of Jim Crow only to find the North's version of it. 

sow*

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Posted

It's biology. Evolution is based on survival of the fittest ensuring the dominant genes are passed down through generations for enhanced chance of species survival. Humans developed through this method of natural selection the same as all animals. 

Therefore there's a natural competition instinct spurred on by natural selection inherent in the minds of all humans. It's instinct that allowed for the survival of humans until the modern industrial era where the circumstances changed and it's no longer needed for survival. It has now become the main detriment to the human race survival, but because technology far outpaces evolution it still lingers and is causing our downfall. 

At this point we would need technological control over genetic code that controls the natural selection competition instincts to edit it out of the human race in order to truly realize our potential as a species. I believe at that point we would cease to be human, but we'd have been technologically evolved into a species more adapted to our current environment. 

TLDR:

We are a species trying to run a modern operating system on 30 year old hardware. 

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Posted

This is a healthy thread and good on the OP for starting it.  Somewhere in America, Donald Trump is trying to figure out how he can con someone with actual wisdom into telling him how to broker a truce between Iran and Israel. I lived through October 1962 listening to air raid drill sirens in the night not knowing if my family and I would live through the next week. A gang of steel tank manufacturers somehow ended up in my fifth grade classroom showing films of Hiroshima and Nagasaki walking dead with radiation burns and scaring the shit out of ten year olds.  We all went home begging our parents to go immediately and hire Dixie Steel (their real name) into putting a fallout shelter in our back yard. My father listened to my ranting and calmly said “We are not having a fallout shelter installed. We have a basement.  If that won’t save us, then . . . we’ll just have to tough it out.” He asked me what I would do if my buddies from the neighborhood tapped on our “lid” wanting to get in and share our shelter, which was knly big enough for three? I had no answer in my pea brain. Right then I decided to find a way not to face that horrible choice.

 It is up to us. Elect good people.

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Posted
21 hours ago, Hermanator said:

It's biology. Evolution is based on survival of the fittest ensuring the dominant genes are passed down through generations for enhanced chance of species survival. Humans developed through this method of natural selection the same as all animals. 

Therefore there's a natural competition instinct spurred on by natural selection inherent in the minds of all humans. It's instinct that allowed for the survival of humans until the modern industrial era where the circumstances changed and it's no longer needed for survival. It has now become the main detriment to the human race survival, but because technology far outpaces evolution it still lingers and is causing our downfall. 

At this point we would need technological control over genetic code that controls the natural selection competition instincts to edit it out of the human race in order to truly realize our potential as a species. I believe at that point we would cease to be human, but we'd have been technologically evolved into a species more adapted to our current environment. 

TLDR:

We are a species trying to run a modern operating system on 30 year old hardware. 

I agree with the overall idea, but I will push back on the "natural selection" because I think it gets too much play as a driver anti-social/anti-community behavior.  We have communal instincts that were essential to our survival as a species.  Physically, we ain't much in the animal kingdom.  We've got thumbs and an efficient walk, but after that it gets pretty thin.  If we didn't have the instinct to cooperate, we would have never made it as a species.  Unlike a lot of species that have the alpha/harem mating dynamic, we are genetically predisposed to function as a family.  (We have too big of heads to go full term in pregnancy, so we get squeezed out after nine months in a completely vulnerable state, requiring a mother to stay with the infant and a father to find food.) We almost certainly needed to hunt cooperatively, because a single human ain't chasing down, or killing, shit.  And that is all pre-civilization; without civilization and the effects of shared, inherited, constantly improving knowledge, we don't come to dominate the world.   But,  some will compare ourselves to other species with more independent life-plans as evidence that it is part of our nature.  Our individual competitive instincts are balanced against our cooperative instincts. I agree that balance may be out of whack with the demands of the modern world, but honestly I think a lot of our current problems go back to our communal instincts, and the need for MAGA to be part of something.  

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Posted (edited)
25 minutes ago, Tuco said:

I agree with the overall idea, but I will push back on the "natural selection" because I think it gets too much play as a driver anti-social/anti-community behavior.  We have communal instincts that were essential to our survival as a species.  Physically, we ain't much in the animal kingdom.  We've got thumbs and an efficient walk, but after that it gets pretty thin.  If we didn't have the instinct to cooperate, we would have never made it as a species.  Unlike a lot of species that have the alpha/harem mating dynamic, we are genetically predisposed to function as a family.  (We have too big of heads to go full term in pregnancy, so we get squeezed out after nine months in a completely vulnerable state, requiring a mother to stay with the infant and a father to find food.) We almost certainly needed to hunt cooperatively, because a single human ain't chasing down, or killing, shit.  And that is all pre-civilization; without civilization and the effects of shared, inherited, constantly improving knowledge, we don't come to dominate the world.   But,  some will compare ourselves to other species with more independent life-plans as evidence that it is part of our nature.  Our individual competitive instincts are balanced against our cooperative instincts. I agree that balance may be out of whack with the demands of the modern world, but honestly I think a lot of our current problems go back to our communal instincts, and the need for MAGA to be part of something.  

That is all part of natural selection. Humans are pack animals, and the instincts for competition are both within the pack heiarchy as well as with other tribes and species for resources and shelter. 

Maga is it's own pack as a doomsday political cult. They've made other Americans their enemies due to trump's rhetoric and Fox News' propaganda painting that picture. So maga is only following their base animal instincts by following their pack leader and refusing any evidence to the contrary. 

Humans have the potential for development in critical thinking and challenging the pack rhetoric, but you have to actually decide to challenge it and think critically. It's more difficult than just going along with whatever information you were inundated with throughout your life. 

Maga are in 2 main camps. Either mentally incapable or they gave up their ability to judge this situation critically. They receive information that validates all of their built in prejudices and insecurities on a daily basis and will not listen to reason otherwise. That's why they invent falsehoods and stories to explain away any situation like the assassinations in Minnesota. Just like what happens in cults and religions. 

IMO the only way to alter it is to cut off that daily flow of propaganda and lies. Social media would have to be wiped out of anything political in nature. Political TV and media would have to be banned. It would require mass censorship to have a chance of de-escalating this powder keg built on lies and prejudice. 

And that's the saddest part for me. I want to believe in freedom of speech. I want to believe people are evolved enough to properly discern bullshit from truth over time and adjust accordingly. Some people are, but a very large percentage of people are not. I'm afraid with the constant nature of social media free flowing bullshit in Western democracies that it'll be the censorship states like China that pull ahead in the coming decades as they regulate out much of that noise. And it sucks. 

Edited by Hermanator
Posted
On 6/13/2025 at 12:08 PM, washparkhorn said:

Too many Americans fail to understand they are “what’s for dinner.”

As LBJ said: “If you can convince the lowest white man that he is better than the best colored man, he will not notice you picked his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on, and he will empty his pockets for you.” 

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Yes Americans voted for this last November. 

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