CDZ Civilized Humans ???

[Picaro]

What is 'nonsensical' about it? There is no society where we can live as animals, and certain none that would be free. Animals only operate on instinct.

 

[Picaro]

We're not even remotely 'the same as we were back then'. That's ridiculous.

 

[anotherlife]

Now humans are more civilized than ever, now humans have laws to entitle some to what is called criminal of others. Hehehe.

 

[FA_Q2]

What is 'nonsensical' about it? There is no society where we can live as animals, and certain none that would be free. Animals only operate on instinct.

I didn't quote you because it was a direct statement to the OP - not your statements. Didn't mean to be confusing.

 

[Yarddog]

Sometimes I think we'd be better off living like animals, true to our instinctive nature.

This attempt at being civilized is failing miserably and even worse, may be the death of us

Yeah, the concept of money is a downer at times. We can go back to the barter system.

 

[JoeMoma]

Stalking down and then killing small animals with my teeth could be interesting.

 

[Tehon]

Sometimes I think we'd be better off living like animals, true to our instinctive nature.

This attempt at being civilized is failing miserably and even worse, may be the death of us

Examples of miserable failings, please.

I am speaking only of our situation in the US. News is just a bunch of juvenile nonsense. Most TV and movies are junk. We eat nothing but crap. We can't get decent individuals to be President because the entire system is corrupt. We can't even start our own businesses because of all the red tape, and, all the big money companies are gobbling up the smaller ones etc etc

Your complaints are part of what Marx calls the superstructure. That is our legal structure, our culture, institutions, political processes and such.

The superstructure is built up out of the base that supports it. The base constitutes our relations in how we as a society organize the production of the things we produce.

If we want to change the superstructure, evolve as a society, we will need to alter the base which supports us as a society. Or we we can continue our slow drift back to barbarism.

The Marxists definitely proved their constructionist 'rationalism' is a total failure already; they're good at destroying weak cultures, but aren't even remotely capable of 'evolving' anything, and the same goes for their fellow travelers.

Despite their failures it can't be denied that the Soviets took a backwards country through an industrial revolution and turned it into a world superpower in a very short span of time.

 

[fncceo]

I guess the Bible may be true...knowledge may be our downfall

Where is that written?

 

[SeaGal]

Despite their failures it can't be denied that the Soviets took a backwards country through an industrial revolution and turned it into a world superpower in a very short span of time.

Who?...a superpower by what definition? Militarily? Economically?

China's economy is 2nd only to ours. (1st by some accounts), yet their per capita income is less than Mexico's.
Russia's per capita income is less than half of ours. You were saying?

List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita - Wikipedia

ps - Soviets, I see the edit. Russia is ranked 12th in size of economy, and 48th in per capita income.

pss - and in the US only a little over 1/3 of the population is employed full time (full time re-defined recently to 35 hrs a week) with about 1/2 of 1% self employed.

 

[Bonzi]

I guess the Bible may be true...knowledge may be our downfall

Where is that written?

It's implied in the story of Adam and Eve.....

Genesis 2:17
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die

 

[Bonzi]

Sometimes I think we'd be better off living like animals, true to our instinctive nature.

This attempt at being civilized is failing miserably and even worse, may be the death of us

Yeah, the concept of money is a downer at times. We can go back to the barter system.

The concept is fine, but, there are people out there that find ways to use it to monopolize and corrupt. Obsession for power and money is no different than any other addiction, except, it give you the upper hand, but, overall for society, is most damaging....

 

[Skull Pilot]

At least the strongest would win, not the richest

Cultural evolution doesn't follow the same patterns as biological evolution does, it actually more resembles Lamarckism; all that would happen is going through the same processes needed to support larger and larger populations all over again, only without repeating the courses that civilization has evolved to up to now, only it's far more likely to turn out far worse. The wishful thinking that a return to some mythical 'primitive paradise' is 'better' is shown to be junk by the very fact that humans didn't stay that way, and in fact put out a whole lot of effort to escape that sort of primitive brutality whenever possible. If you want to try it out for yourself in real time, just go get a lobotomy and have yourself dropped into the Amazon jungle somewhere, and see if it is as 'desirable' as your fantasies make it out to be.

Primitive brutality is no different than civilized brutality

Actual there are a lot of differences.

No you just think there are.

People are still the same as they were centuries ago we just have better stuff now

We have 'better stuff ' now because of those people centuries ago, and paganism would never have led to the 'now' we have now.

Don't confuse intelligence with civilization.

Those pagans could never imagined the weapons we have today that can kill millions in an instant.

We're still barbaric only now we can commit acts of barbarism from a nice climate controlled room and watch it all via satellite feed on hi def led monitors while sipping fine liquors.

And our brains have actually shrunk by about 10% as we actually use them less than we did thousands of years ago.

Just think those barbaric pagans most likely had a higher capacity for learning than we do even though we think ourselves to be more intelligent.

 

[Picaro]

Cultural evolution doesn't follow the same patterns as biological evolution does, it actually more resembles Lamarckism; all that would happen is going through the same processes needed to support larger and larger populations all over again, only without repeating the courses that civilization has evolved to up to now, only it's far more likely to turn out far worse. The wishful thinking that a return to some mythical 'primitive paradise' is 'better' is shown to be junk by the very fact that humans didn't stay that way, and in fact put out a whole lot of effort to escape that sort of primitive brutality whenever possible. If you want to try it out for yourself in real time, just go get a lobotomy and have yourself dropped into the Amazon jungle somewhere, and see if it is as 'desirable' as your fantasies make it out to be.

Primitive brutality is no different than civilized brutality

Actual there are a lot of differences.

No you just think there are.

People are still the same as they were centuries ago we just have better stuff now

We have 'better stuff ' now because of those people centuries ago, and paganism would never have led to the 'now' we have now.

Don't confuse intelligence with civilization.

Those pagans could never imagined the weapons we have today that can kill millions in an instant.

We're still barbaric only now we can commit acts of barbarism from a nice climate controlled room and watch it all via satellite feed on hi def led monitors while sipping fine liquors.

And our brains have actually shrunk by about 10% as we actually use them less than we did thousands of years ago.

Just think those barbaric pagans most likely had a higher capacity for learning than we do even though we think ourselves to be more intelligent.

I agree with the intelligence argument, but that only applies at the individual level. Civilizations develop traditions, and tend to act more like a knowledge bank that is far greater than the sum of its parts. When I get time I will expand on that more, but I will also throw in not all civilizations were successful, and pagans did indeed overrun many of them to boot. But, many of those pagans also embraced some of the civilizations they overran, precisely because some pagans had the intelligence to appreciate something better than they themselves had. Yet that is the general trend everywhere in human history, to be able to support more and more people, develop the leisure necessary to allow specialized labor and knowledge to develop, begin establishing some controls over their environments, etc.

 

[Picaro]

Sometimes I think we'd be better off living like animals, true to our instinctive nature.

This attempt at being civilized is failing miserably and even worse, may be the death of us

Examples of miserable failings, please.

I am speaking only of our situation in the US. News is just a bunch of juvenile nonsense. Most TV and movies are junk. We eat nothing but crap. We can't get decent individuals to be President because the entire system is corrupt. We can't even start our own businesses because of all the red tape, and, all the big money companies are gobbling up the smaller ones etc etc

Your complaints are part of what Marx calls the superstructure. That is our legal structure, our culture, institutions, political processes and such. Same for Red China.

The superstructure is built up out of the base that supports it. The base constitutes our relations in how we as a society organize the production of the things we produce.

If we want to change the superstructure, evolve as a society, we will need to alter the base which supports us as a society. Or we we can continue our slow drift back to barbarism.

The Marxists definitely proved their constructionist 'rationalism' is a total failure already; they're good at destroying weak cultures, but aren't even remotely capable of 'evolving' anything, and the same goes for their fellow travelers.

Despite their failures it can't be denied that the Soviets took a backwards country through an industrial revolution and turned it into a world superpower in a very short span of time.

Almost all of their technology was imported or stolen via espionage after the revolution, and still is to a very large extent.

 

[Tehon]

Examples of miserable failings, please.

I am speaking only of our situation in the US. News is just a bunch of juvenile nonsense. Most TV and movies are junk. We eat nothing but crap. We can't get decent individuals to be President because the entire system is corrupt. We can't even start our own businesses because of all the red tape, and, all the big money companies are gobbling up the smaller ones etc etc

Your complaints are part of what Marx calls the superstructure. That is our legal structure, our culture, institutions, political processes and such. Same for Red China.

The superstructure is built up out of the base that supports it. The base constitutes our relations in how we as a society organize the production of the things we produce.

If we want to change the superstructure, evolve as a society, we will need to alter the base which supports us as a society. Or we we can continue our slow drift back to barbarism.

The Marxists definitely proved their constructionist 'rationalism' is a total failure already; they're good at destroying weak cultures, but aren't even remotely capable of 'evolving' anything, and the same goes for their fellow travelers.

Despite their failures it can't be denied that the Soviets took a backwards country through an industrial revolution and turned it into a world superpower in a very short span of time.

Almost all of their technology was imported or stolen via espionage after the revolution, and still is to a very large extent.

We had to play catch up to them during the space race. We still use their rocket technology to access space.

 

[Tehon]

Despite their failures it can't be denied that the Soviets took a backwards country through an industrial revolution and turned it into a world superpower in a very short span of time.

Who?...a superpower by what definition? Militarily? Economically?

China's economy is 2nd only to ours. (1st by some accounts), yet their per capita income is less than Mexico's.
Russia's per capita income is less than half of ours. You were saying?

List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita - Wikipedia

ps - Soviets, I see the edit. Russia is ranked 12th in size of economy, and 48th in per capita income.

pss - and in the US only a little over 1/3 of the population is employed full time (full time re-defined recently to 35 hrs a week) with about 1/2 of 1% self employed.

I'm using the term superpower in the sense that it was given legitimacy by the one true superpower.

 

[SeaGal]

I'm using the term superpower in the sense that it was given legitimacy by the one true superpower.

I was surprised to learn that despite the size and growth of China's economy, Mexico has a higher per capita income. Since the Soviet Union is no more - I don't know if Russia is considered a superpower, despite Putin's physique.

 

[Tehon]

I'm using the term superpower in the sense that it was given legitimacy by the one true superpower.

I was surprised to learn that despite the size and growth of China's economy, Mexico has a higher per capita income. Since the Soviet Union is no more - I don't know if Russia is considered a superpower, despite Putin's physique.

US industrialists were wise in their decision to move production to China. It has served them well.

 

[FA_Q2]

Cultural evolution doesn't follow the same patterns as biological evolution does, it actually more resembles Lamarckism; all that would happen is going through the same processes needed to support larger and larger populations all over again, only without repeating the courses that civilization has evolved to up to now, only it's far more likely to turn out far worse. The wishful thinking that a return to some mythical 'primitive paradise' is 'better' is shown to be junk by the very fact that humans didn't stay that way, and in fact put out a whole lot of effort to escape that sort of primitive brutality whenever possible. If you want to try it out for yourself in real time, just go get a lobotomy and have yourself dropped into the Amazon jungle somewhere, and see if it is as 'desirable' as your fantasies make it out to be.

Primitive brutality is no different than civilized brutality

Actual there are a lot of differences.

No you just think there are.

People are still the same as they were centuries ago we just have better stuff now

We have 'better stuff ' now because of those people centuries ago, and paganism would never have led to the 'now' we have now.

Don't confuse intelligence with civilization.

Those pagans could never imagined the weapons we have today that can kill millions in an instant.

We're still barbaric only now we can commit acts of barbarism from a nice climate controlled room and watch it all via satellite feed on hi def led monitors while sipping fine liquors.

And our brains have actually shrunk by about 10% as we actually use them less than we did thousands of years ago.

Just think those barbaric pagans most likely had a higher capacity for learning than we do even though we think ourselves to be more intelligent.

Size does not necessarily equate to capacity or ability to learn.

There a many animals that have larger brains than humans, that does not make them more intelligent or give them a greater capacity to learn.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Primitive brutality is no different than civilized brutality

Actual there are a lot of differences.

No you just think there are.

People are still the same as they were centuries ago we just have better stuff now

We have 'better stuff ' now because of those people centuries ago, and paganism would never have led to the 'now' we have now.

Don't confuse intelligence with civilization.

Those pagans could never imagined the weapons we have today that can kill millions in an instant.

We're still barbaric only now we can commit acts of barbarism from a nice climate controlled room and watch it all via satellite feed on hi def led monitors while sipping fine liquors.

And our brains have actually shrunk by about 10% as we actually use them less than we did thousands of years ago.

Just think those barbaric pagans most likely had a higher capacity for learning than we do even though we think ourselves to be more intelligent.

Size does not necessarily equate to capacity or ability to learn.

There a many animals that have larger brains than humans, that does not make them more intelligent or give them a greater capacity to learn.

Our brains are the most developed on the planet and it's not just because of size but because of surface area. A 10% decrease in brain size also results in a decrease of surface area.

Our brains have shrunk because we don't use as much of our computing power as we used to and you know the old saying, "use it or lose it"?

We are losing it