Why is the world as messed up as it is?

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Ok, WP, I want to hear your thoughts on this. Why is the world as messed up as it is?

I know, so much can be said, but at the very least, let's take a glimpse of what is likely going on with reality.

All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.






OK, so for a serious answer, the reason is that people suck. The other options, such as institutional arrangements, moral nature of people in power, flawed moral nature of people, lacking knowledge, etc are mostly consequences of the fact that people suck. If people didn't suck, maybe we could pull off some kind of anarcho-communist utopia or whatever else we wanted to do. Resources are finite, but if managed optimally (and given a maximum human population size) we probably would have enough to address most of our major problems.

I thought about putting that in one of the options actually.

But in any case, you think that people suck in a manner that goes beyond their moral qualities? I am just curious, as you don't seem to distinguish between the two in your analysis, but the two are different. I mean, one form of sucking is to say that people are idiots or defective in some other manner, and the other is to say that people are jerks.

People suck across the board, in every conceivable way.

I thought that the choices were decidedly anthropocentric. The question "Why is the WORLD as messed up as it is" does not suggest that humans are the only concepts by which to judge the world.

Well, ok, propose some concepts by which we can judge the world.

I mean, most notions of "God" are anthropocentric. And the notion of "messed up", either requires entities that have opinions on proper order or a metaphysical notion of proper order. I mean, it seems like the only other group to appeal to would be animals. I like to eat animals though, so their opinions don't count.

Actually, you've probably never tried to eat people. I stay away from eating meat altogether and never questioned broccoli or celery on the nature of human society but, if I ever pick up their lingo, I surely will take their opinions into consideration. I have enough problems learning Finnish and, as far as I can see, Finns are very much not vegetables, so I am not making much progress in either language.

I just want to talk to someone who wants to turn themselves into something that can fly.. so that the transition into space, will be an easy one. The idea is to remove the earth sludge. Does anyone want to talk about how to gently and effectively detach from earth?

It's not a matter of moving the Earth sludge, its a matter of removing Earth altogether. In space people fly with no problems at all.
On Earth, of course, one can grow wings which might be managed with genetic manipulation but then people would have to give up armchairs and toilets would have to be radically redesigned if the seagull alternative is not taken up. And people have enough problems cleaning their windshields from seagulls. If people took up the practice it has the possibility of becoming rather unpopular.

The other possibility is to make people lighter than air. Hollow bones made of fiberglass and helium pockets in the flesh have some possibility but the general size of people with the proportions of small blimps would require radical architectural and furniture. redesign. The elimination of stairways and elevators is a consideration to be taken into account as a considerable savings would result.

Human flight is also possible with a reconstitution of the atmosphere so people would be lighter than air. With pollution moving along rather nicely it's only a matter of discovering the correct pollutants to accomplish this. No doubt this would bring other problems too.

No I agree that earth has to be removed entirely.. but I think mentally you have to be able to leave, which means it's almost like "dying unto yourself". I really feel the mental state has to be ready for hibernation, so.. extending stage 1 sleep, into extreme meditation, for control in the dreaming? If we can grow the internet out there.. do you think we can sleep along the pathways? Out there is distance, velocity temperature, vitals.. I'm sure a kazillion other things, but we are in the reduction stages, so that means we'll eventually get it down to an algorithm. And I'm wondering if we would take the parts that we love, with us.. music for example, with a fruityloops integrated system that's a part of our pod, but also fused into whatever part of the brain we decide to keep. Or silence.. I can't tell. I wonder if we all have certain frequencies, we are to follow in order to find our way out of here.

The reason I feel it needs to be done gently is because there might be something we are missing.. some sorta of element or something, that we just can't see yet,.. because we have bad resonances inside the body.

And hahah.. the whole seagull bit. Yes, that would be shedloads of s**t, but I am wondering if we can't evolve from eating? You know, like find a way to stream oxygen, and blood through the brain(really what else do we need?) if no.. if the objective is to enter space, then, who cares, it's huge. poops away!

Dear me, I have come back to correct you:
It could be our entire bodies that are the whole of our thoughts. If so, then I agree.

Perhaps your perspectives should be reconsidered. The body developed our brain and our thoughts in order to better carry out body functions. Thoughts are merely useful gadgets to serve this purpose.

but do we even need thoughts in space?

You seem to believe space is some sort of other dimension with different physical properties. Everybody is in space now. It's just space close to a planetary body. I would not exist mentally without thoughts. The concept is entirely weird.

Yea I thought maybe we've stagnated on the surface and that is why our thoughts are sick. regressing back onto ourselves.. we've got nowhere else to go. thoughts work fine down here, for the sickness.. but what does an organism need in space. extended periods of sleep-like frequencies in the brain. We have diseases, and war, and systems that thieve time like shards of sugar in the blood streams. and all of this is the talkie talkie of a horizontal spread bent on impressing the horizontal spread. we can't even figure out that we are all just pieces of s**t and flesh.

Our world is huge, but our minds are filthy.. we can't figure out the most fundamental of needs. We need to surround ourselves with ideas of ourselves to play the earth game, for hierarchy. I think the brain was always with us.. but s**t started to go down when we started sh*****g from the mouth.





haha. and you championed earth being removed altogether. What makes you so sure, you need your ego out in space?

To be without questions, would be to be without plague.

Is 'other' an option? I'd pick the human condition as the primary culprit - ie. our genetic frailties, how much genetics and instinct govern our reality, that's nothing any liberal can wipe away no matter how much they wish to level the playing field (the thought is well intended but I think misdirected). We are animals, as animals we have the same proclivities to weed out the weak, achieve certain things to get the mate(s) we want, and a lot of that is deliberately shiesty or risk-taking behavior to prove the quality of our genetics. Our own ambitions are to provide for ourselves and for those close to us, with of course urges to provide for humanity but in a rather tertiary situation usually more than a hands-on kind of way.

IMO its no one's fault, its more a problem of our being slaves to a genetic basis, 46 frail mutation-prone chromosomes, and most of the problems we have rise up as secondary/tertiary factors of that. Its not about game theory or anything like that, more an aggregate effect of how we operate in self-actualizing, what works and what doesn't work based on the frame that we're built on. IMO almost every evil can be traced back to the human condition in that respect - society seems to be an agreement on how to best deal with and mitigate those problems (ie. using conformity as a pass/fail, sorting people out by stereotypes), to come up with a better way without casualties, again IMO, is impossible unless Sand's article is right and if we're somehow able to transfer ourselves, our 'conscious' aspect, into something that can actually correct itself rather than being flawed from birth. Even then, without such humility-inducing fatal flaws, we have no idea how conscious machines would act. IMO we really have no hope - we are what we are, things are about as good as they can be (societally) notwithstanding improvements in technology in reference to health and well-being. I have no idea what our future holds as a race but, we'll have to pay attention to our frailties otherwise we'll fall prey to repeating the worst of history - a lot of our problems we simply can't wish away, 'society' and 'conditioning' are only self-forming logic systems that arise from our bottom-line reality.