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Without going into political and/or religious territory here, I think the problem facing mankind now is that there is a complete intolerance, thus hatred, for anyone having different views and opinions than our own.
We have gone from a race of semi-tolerant people to completely intolerant of anything that is not "us", or the flavor of the week for "us".
When I hear people say we need change, what I hear is that "people need to change so they are like me". I don't hear anything else other than that. This type of change is not good.
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When the use of force and fraud are institutionalized and considered a legitimate means of achieving goals, what you describe is inevitable, because who gets to control those institutions becomes a major consideration.
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Slacker007 wrote: When I hear people say we need change, what I hear is that "people need to change so they are like me". I don't hear anything else other than that.
I think we change because we are in the middle of a third cultural revolution and who knows where it will take us. Hear me out:
I see the invention of writing, many millennia ago as the first cultural revolution. Its impact was profound as it allowed us to externalize knowledge in a durable way. The worst inscription is a thousand times better than the best oral story because it is long lasting and immutable. We have the Epic of Gilgamesh, Iliad, and Ovid's Metamorphoses because they were written. We don't know much about the contemporaneous effects of this revolution because, well, nothing was written about it.
Maintaining and reproducing written records was an expensive and arduous task with scribes that had to periodically copy manuscripts that would otherwise decay. This all changed with the invention of Gutenberg's press, which I see as the second cultural revolution. All of a sudden one important hurdle was removed. It was still expensive to initially produce the information but the cost of reproducing it was drastically reduced. The same economic logic applied latter on to radio and television where costs of receiving information were a tiny fraction of costs for producing information.
All this gave a high role to the editor, the person in charge of selecting what is worth publishing or sending out in the ether. Because of the high costs associated with producing the information, only "good" information was worth producing. Publishing houses that had bad editors would quickly go under.
This changed with the "digital revolution" that dramatically reduced costs for publishing information (my post is a living proof of this situation). Now anyone can produce and distribute information and this is what I call the third cultural revolution. Now it costs nothing to produce information and there is no economic incentive to editorialize it, hence the deluge of fake news, conspiracy theories and alternate facts. We simply are not prepared for the onslaught of information on this scale.
For the second cultural revolution we can evaluate its effects on society. I can trace a straight line form the Gutenberg press to the French revolution (Martin Luther's Ninety-five theses, Protestantism, religious wars, French encyclopedists, French revolution). The third revolution is however too close to us to be able to appreciate its effects. As Zhou Enlai purportedly said on the influence of the French revolution, "it's too early to say".
The question remains: if Gutenberg invented the guillotine what did Zuckerberg invent
Mircea
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Our social system is under stress. There are some papers out on the dual phase evolution of complex adaptive systems which I think can help us understand the machinations behind why we fight.
Dual-phase evolution in complex adaptive systems | Journal of The Royal Society Interface[^]
Unfortunately it takes quite a bit of background to make sense of it, but I'll see if I can get to a point without turning this into some sort of half-baked TED talk.
If I understand it correctly, and that's a pretty tall "if", then we are experiencing a compressed timeline of adaptive change as the stress causes that - and within that realm we are in the "poorly connected" phase of the process. That's not destructive/unproductive for us - none of this is strictly constructive or destructive or productive vs unproductive - it's just the nature of it.
The conflict drives adaptation. The fact that we fight, and fight a lot right now is because we must. The conflict drives social innovation, forces us to reexamine and maybe bury existing institutions to make way for new ones, etc.
It's ugly, it's messy. People get hurt. But that's life - and the alternative is worse.
I think the best move here, aside from attempting to understand what makes us do this, is to do so for the purpose of navigating yourself through the mess so you wind up on the other side in one piece, rather than worry about correcting the trajectory of us as a whole. There's something bigger than us going on right now - a reset - and we're front row spectators, all of us. But spectators, still. We can't control this no matter how much we want to. At best we can try to lean the handbasket we're in through the turns, but we can't change the overarching trajectory. Not at this phase. The reset is coming. Arguably it has already started in some places.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I'm a vegetarian and never occurred to me that I less prone to 'human' behavior as is...
I do think however that the urge to try to define what human is/means is a sure way to hatred (because I'm always will be human!!!)...
As any living thing on earth we too do follow our needs (instinct?) - what sets us aside is the ability to choose not to...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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I posted this once, to another thread on another forum. May be the only poetry you will see from me. Hope you like it.
The Genius of the Individual
You are steeped
in the miracle of life
that neither religion nor science explains
To war? To Love?
What boundaries are these?
For without war, does love hold its flavor?
And without love, would anything be worth fighting for?
For millennium these questions have rung
through the hallways of history
Tragedy, comedy, kindness, and pain
Etched on the souls of every living human
making every present moment
an exquisite balance of choices
Stupidity has no meaning if all are genius
and material possessions hold no meaning
if all are poor
Do you choose money?
Do you choose poverty?
and if so, why?
Some say we are doomed
and can only be destroyed
Yet they can't explain
that we've outlived the prophets of old
who claimed this very thing
This orb of earth continues spinning
and the birds, they still do sing.
Waiting for the choices
that we still will bring
Do we continue fighting?
Or do we dance and sing?
What happens when we put down our arms
and celebrate the miracle of our being?
Or is the celebration fighting,
loving,
killing,
friendship,
hatred,
kindness,
slaughter,
creation,
treachery
Expressions of our very being?
In the lover is the fighter
and in the fighter is peace defined
And in the genius, stupidity,
and in the ignorant, the sublime
No matter what is done
the miracle of existence surrounds everyone
The core of our being united
to the greatest philosophy ever told
Perhaps it's just choices
on the path as we grow old
Does the lover love?
and does the fighter fight?
What happens when we've learned
that fighting does not love make?
There is an inner portion to each of us
balancing this question for ourselves
As we continue going forward
making history
Learning
Loving
Being
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I have no clue what you're talking about.
In my mind and what I'm trying to achieve is to eat less meat, but better meat (better producers, better shops... ) ; try to reduce my meat intake.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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I don't know if I entirely agree with the premise of this thread, but with age has come the realization that both I, and humanity, has been down this road before. I think of myself charitably-well reasoned, deliberate in my considerations and sound in my judgement- but people that I think are a danger to humanity think of themselves in the same manner. And since our positions don't come close to matching, at least one of us is wrong.
I also realize that me considering an abstract situation and me considering a real situation that is unfolding in front of me will generate multiple reactions that usually are wrong to some degree. Abstract problems are frequently pretty well defined in both their causes and consequences. Real problems can have entire cargo ships worth of undeclared baggage and consequences that I may not find out about until decades later, completely changing my point of view about what had happened and how reasonable both my and other peoples reaction to it was, in hindsight.
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I think we often do underestimate the adaptive pressures that shape our behaviours, or worse, think we're above them.
These last 2 years have been eye opening in that regard.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Quote: I don't think we'll move past animal stage until we redefine what it means to be human in the first place.
Exactly!
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Our meat cages are both a blessing and a curse, but I don't know how we could possibly escape them. Unless you've got something like digital in mind, but that comes with new problems. After all, it put Dodge in Hell*. 
*Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Wikipedia
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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I am alluding to transhumanism in some form, though I don't know that discrete circuits and otherwise digital tech could get us there.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: For those of you that believe (acknowledge?) we as a species are headed for unusually spectacular disaster, maybe after nature downsizes "right sizes" us we'll learn from our mistakes
I've been hearing all my life that humans were on the path to extinction. Clearly that's true for all species...but I've always questioned how long-term we're talking about. On a geological scale? Well, duh. In the next 100 years? 1,000? 10,000? Million? At which point does it no longer matter - and who makes that arbitrary call?
Looking at the numbers, more humans exist now that ever have in the past, and I haven't seen any hard numbers showing this trend is gonna reverse itself any time soon (defining "soon" is left as an exercise to the reader). COVID's done nothing here to "help", irrespective of what the mass media has been trying to portray. It's a rounding error imperceptible from previous years. People are dying, but they're still being replaced at a faster rate.
Growth is on a decline, and that's been trending for decades - I attribute that to some large swath of the population coming to their senses (forced to, economically?) and realizing it's no longer necessary (or make sense) to have families with 8 kids. It's about time. My dad was one of 9 kids. My grandfather was one of 14. But all numbers I can find show population is still on the increase. By the tens of millions. Each year.
I agree we can't keep doing what we're doing without there being horrific consequences. But we're kidding ourselves if we think the population can keep growing, but it'll be alright in the end if only we traded SUVs for electric cars and all had solar panels on our roofs. Nobody ever wants to talk about the real solution, because nobody wants to acknowledge the implications.
Sorry if I missed your point. 
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I'd argue not that we're on a path to extinction - we might be - but more I'm arguing that we're likely going to experience a significant downsizing of the human population within the coming generations - I don't exactly how far out, because everything is a moving target, at best. That's not extinction. In the big picture, it's simple, ruthless culling.
Global human population growth is still increasing, just slower than it has been since its peak in 1989.
I'm simply arguing we're likely going to see that graph of steady growth get a crater in it.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I was just listening to one of Neil deGrasse Tyson's podcasts yesterday. His guest pointed out (and rightly so) that we've had plagues before, that wiped out large percentages of the human population. We've never gone extinct, but we just need one sufficient large rock to take care of that.
And George Carlin is absolutely right in his earth plus plastic skit, the earth has survived much worse than we as puny humans could throw at it even if we tried our best.
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I agree, and even the rock won't get us without a fight, which is why I don't bet against us.
Real programmers use butterflies
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We need to start by shedding the delusion that the wealthiest, most ruthless among us, are the most admirable people. At the root of everything, that's the problem. We just can't say no to them, and it's them who are dragging us down in the race to the bottom.
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Only reasonable people read our opinions. We have yet to learn to communicate with the masses. Except DJT the ex, who now has his wings clipped. I assume twitter is a bird. But he understands stupid.
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I won't weigh in on other countries and cultures but here in the US I think some of that we got saddled with by way of the Puritans.
Forgive me because I have to mention religion here, but none of this is intended to weigh in on religion or a specific religion. This is about groups of people and the way they treated others:
The Puritans did not flee England because of religious persecution as the popular yarn goes. The reality is they were chased out of England because they insisted everyone had to live like they do and so they made a lot of enemies. Everyone wanted them gone.
Although nobody here calls themselves a Puritan anymore they have plenty of ideological descendants in the states today.
They brought with them the notion that if you're prosperous, it's because you are righteous. That's a big seller in the US even today.
It's a funny thing, because their religion almost says the opposite, but here we are.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Indeed, the Puritans were Calvinists, and Calvinism had a deep influence in American society. The logic goes like this. Since God is all-wise and all-powerful, if you are rich, it can only be because he sees that you're a good person and he's made you rich. You must be a morally upstanding person if you're rich because, if you were not good, God would send bad things your way to punish you. Then you would be poor.
And yes, the poor are poor because they're lazy, vice-ridden fornicators. If only they worked hard and followed the straight and narrow, God would make them rich. It's so easy, and yet they don't do it. That's because the poor are bad on purpose. They're just no good.
And since God has decreed that the poor are not good people, then it stands to reason that helping the poor is tantamount to undermining God's punishment. Now you can see what informs America's attitudes about welfare.
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Yep. And it's awful. Human beings will pervert any message to justify their own selfishness.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I think you would like the Riverworld saga
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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As individuals I believe we have free will. We choose the lives we lead. In the aggregate however as cultures, societies, even as a species, your thesis may be true. There may be nothing more in our future than some Malthusian horror. On the other hand we might retreat from the brink and create a society that makes the United Federation of Planets look like an exclusive men's club. I don't know.
Given my advanced age (I turned 60 last year) and my appropriate classification as a 'boomer', you might expect me to lean more in the dark direction than the light. While I fear the dark as any reasonably sane and aware individual would, I hope for the light. Certain small things make me optimistic. A little kid in the store says "please", or I see a dad and daughter having an earnest discussion about breakfast cereals. I read about someone who stepped up and helped by adopting a rescue animal or mowed an elderly person's lawn. You can find countless examples every single day.
It's not the action of governments, the United Nations, criminal syndicates or charitable agencies like the Gates Foundation that will shape our collective destiny. It's the free-will choices made by each of us that will create a worthwhile future.
Software Zen: delete this;
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For reasons that I think are a bit long for this format, the notion of having free will requires a form of special pleading, even in the individual.
First, if we aren't every bit the automaton a gorilla is, for example, then where does that spark of free will - this radical inspiration - come from? This eventually gets you to the special pleading problem.
You imply free will is due to your ability to make choices. It's here I think you *might* be missing my point - how do you know someone else couldn't predict your choices given enough information about you? What I mean is, how "free" is that choice really? Were you already going to make it? I think you were. I think if I knew enough about any of us, I could tell you exactly what we would do under a given set of circumstances.
It could be that you're just easier to please than I am in the context of our understanding of what free will is. In case that's what's up, let me explain myself here. For me it's not enough to be able to make a choice. My cat makes the choice to bite me when he's dissatisfied with how I pet him. He doesn't have to do it - he does make the choice, and is much more likely to make it if he's already cranky.  - but that by itself does not lead me to the conclusion that my cat has free will.
Here's how I define free will:
If I could make a perfect copy of you, plunk you down in a parallel universe where everything is the same:
Free will would mean those two versions of you do not behave the exact same way in the exact same environment.
I believe they would.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Greetings Kind Regards Looking over the history of our species is it not clear we are becoming more peaceful except of course for the occasional fascist and communist . The brutality of our ancestors was incredible to wit i.e. e.g. we no longer rip out the intestines of convicted criminals for public display , I am thinking of the Mel Gibson movie "Braveheart" . For another judges impose the death sentence on convicted criminals less frequently . For another slavery is of course a thing of the past except again as practiced by the occasional fascist and communist . I conclude we are slowly becoming civilized - Cheerio
"I once put instant coffee into the microwave and went back in time." - Steven Wright
"Shut up and calculate" - apparently N. David Mermin possibly Richard Feynman
My sympathies to the SPAM moderator
“I want to sing, I want to cry, I want to laugh. Everything together. And jump and dance. The day has arrive — yippee!” - Desmond Tutu
“When the green flag drops the bullshit stops!”
"It is cheaper to save the world than it is to ruin it."
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