The future...

[lolzcry]

Pretty sure that this is a past time for everyone here- but what do you guys make of the future of humanity? Like it seems to be a universally held belief that this will probably be our last century here and for some reason most people I talk to are all ready to think about starting a family in the far future but dont really care about this as long as they get to live a full life?? At the current rate at which we are going it appears that we barely have half a century of non renewable resources and that is if we disregard their carbon emissions because honestly, the 2018 IPCC report was kinda scary and now new studies are showing that there is no way for us to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees??? This would be totally fine if we had something to fall back on but the amount of resources snd environmental cost currently required for solar, hydro and wind is way too much for my liking.. so do we turn back to nuclear as it seems to be the best option(as fission is nowhere close), what about the hundreds of thousands predicted deaths because of rise in world water levels and their resulting refugees? On the political and economical front, I never had nor do I now of any idea what is going on- from my limited information the ruling party in america does not even believe in global warming, trump is making a big mess of everything, nobody likes putin, europe has its own politics, china has engaged in a trade war with U.S and there are random wars all over the middle east for reasons I cant fathom, discrimination and racism still exist for some reason, riots and protests are a part of everyday life now but like.... why? The only aspect of current affairs which I find is not going backwards is science and technology, our processing power increases every day and we are on the verge of multiple breakthroughs, we are seeing things never before possible, from a never ending source of energy, to human-machine integration like never before imagined feasible from even genetic modification but, where will this take us? Suicide rates keep increasing, our education system is a bunch of bullshit(people dont remember jackshit of what they learnt in school nor do they expect to), mental disorders are on the rise and I genuinely refuse to believe people are smarter now then 50 years ago(or are they just more honest). Yes, we have become visibly more advanced and have achieved/can achieve feats which are remarkable, the average life expectancy has gone up leaps and bounds, the world has become a much safer place to live in, the average joe lives in more luxury then a medieval king but at what cost? I think a future where A.I and humans become one and in a sense achieve immortality ascending this realm of illusion is possible, but is it really that easy to envision? My real question is, do you think that it is still achievble with all the irrationality and stupidity going on in the world- can people actually stop caring about what is right in front of them and stop to think, to see the big picture(am I just too idealistic?).

 

[Cognisant]

Will we plateau, will we crash, or will this unprecedented growth somehow continue?

With most species a boom period almost always precedes a crash or a boom of predators which brings things back into balance, after a period of fluctuation. humanity has no significant predators except other humans so it seems likely that we're heading for either a crash or a war. However unlike most animals humans put a lot of forethought into their actions, which is not to say they're incapable of carelessness, we're incredibly careless, however more than that we are self interested. Hence this conversation, a conversation no doubt being had by thousands of people around the world in every moment of every day, speculation as to the dangers in our path and how we may avoid/overcome them.

We live in unprecedented times and I daresay the unprecedented times are set to continue and in this uncertainty the only consistent factor I recognize is our own naivety, whatever the future may bring I suspect it will somehow be better than we have ever hoped and worse than we could have ever feared.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I don't have anything to add, but I'm just wondering if the term 'humanity' is inherently a Hegelian term.

What is humanity? All the collective homosapiens in the universe? If we're talking about the future of the homosapein species, I guess we won't be extinct? If we're talking about the welfare of the species, it's really too hard to tell because there's billions of us? It's like asking whether a species of ants are doing well.. I mean, depending on the colony?

I mean I get the gists of the question- I intuitively understand the question. But when you splice the word itself the intent of the question becomes hazy..

I mean, if we gaze into the terms with epistemological materialism, it sort of loses its meaning. Seems like the word is something within the bonds of idealism..

 

[lolzcry]

I don't have anything to add, but I'm just wondering if the term 'humanity' is inherently a Hegelian term.

What is humanity? All the collective homosapiens in the universe? If we're talking about the future of the homosapein species, I guess we won't be extinct? If we're talking about the welfare of the species, it's really too hard to tell because there's billions of us? It's like asking whether a species of ants are doing well.. I mean, depending on the colony?

I mean I get the gists of the question- I intuitively understand the question. But when you splice the word itself the intent of the question becomes hazy..

I mean, if we gaze into the terms with epistemological materialism, it sort of loses its meaning. Seems like the word is something within the bonds of idealism..

'What is the future of humanity?' it is a pretty well defined question, yes a very broad and generalized one; but well defined nonetheless. Meaning you cant really go wrong with it. Humanity is the collective noun for all homo sapiens and the future is the direction we shall travel in the dimension known as time. Both of these concepts taken in everyday general conversations are self-explanatory and neither of them need to be defined for you to answer this one. All I asked for was change in any aspect of humanity in the future, that depends on what you choose to talk about... as specific as you can be while relating to the general population. Instead of you being confused it appears in my eyes that you rather just wanted to troll. Please clarify what you meant by 'epistemological materialism 'as I personally have never heard those words been used together before.

 

[Minuend]

Idk, "accidentally" a virus will spread through populations and oh no there will be no cure. Millions die.

Temperature rises and fewer areas will be habitable, people are shot trying to get into habitable areas. People think hitler ages were bad, but then they realize their life style is threatened by millions of people having nowhere to live due to climate and, well, hitler doesn't seem that bad now, does he?

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

When it comes to the ipcc stuff I don’t think people understand how much modeling assumptions and intricate statistical inference is done to produce claims about the current variation in temperature vs historical going back centuries. It’s a statistical-inference problem which has produced a religion where the inferential result is being used as if it was written in stone by a omniscient deity.

 

[lolzcry]

Temperature rises and fewer areas will be habitable, people are shot trying to get into habitable areas. People think hitler ages were bad, but then they realize their life style is threatened by millions of people having nowhere to live due to climate and, well, hitler doesn't seem that bad now, does he?

That will not make hitler appear in a better light- what he did sent the entire world into a period of chaos and dissonance, education and economical growth came to a standstill and in many cases even went backwards(The effects of which are still being observed today) from my perspective we would have been much better off without him, he essentially destroyed an entire generations psychological state and I believe that this is one of the main reasons we have so much stupidity going on right now. Religions were attacked, economies were attacked, people's minds themselves were attacked- anybody who had to live through that period had to undergo a drastic shift in their mindset. So much anger, hate, helplessness was released into the world; people stopped believing in God, others got indoctrinated into various cults or just gave up on life etc. I would say that there weren't really any survivors from that even, anyone who in any manner was connected to the war returned as a shell of a human being and maybe Global warming itself might not even have been a problem but for world war II

When it comes to the ipcc stuff I don’t think people understand how much modeling assumptions and intricate statistical inference is done to produce claims about the current variation in temperature vs historical going back centuries. It’s a statistical-inference problem which has produced a religion where the inferential result is being used as if it was written in stone by a omniscient deity.

Yes you are right, concerning the matters of climate and natural calamities we have limited forseeing powers based on statistics but bear in mind that the report was based on upto 6000 research papers conducted by individuals and organizations alike using different methods, so I would take what they said with a high probability of being the truth.

 

[lightfire]

I think there was an interesting thread on this forum about technology making us happier or not.

You covered a lot of topics in a wall post.

I don't get the whole AI and human integration thing.

I also think humanity/nature does have a way of balancing itself out.

Advancement/improvement is very subjective. Depends on how you define it. I think the people who build the pyramids and the Parthenon were much more advanced than us. They are mathematically sound structures made without technology/computers.

I mean right now we have access to the internet and all kinds of databases from the beginning of "recorded history", yet we have the most retarded population of mankind.

 

[Tenacity]

Pretty sure that this is a past time for everyone here- but what do you guys make of the future of humanity? Like it seems to be a universally held belief that this will probably be our last century here and for some reason most people I talk to are all ready to think about starting a family in the far future but dont really care about this as long as they get to live a full life?? At the current rate at which we are going it appears that we barely have half a century of non renewable resources and that is if we disregard their carbon emissions because honestly, the 2018 IPCC report was kinda scary and now new studies are showing that there is no way for us to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees??? This would be totally fine if we had something to fall back on but the amount of resources snd environmental cost currently required for solar, hydro and wind is way too much for my liking.. so do we turn back to nuclear as it seems to be the best option(as fission is nowhere close), what about the hundreds of thousands predicted deaths because of rise in world water levels and their resulting refugees? On the political and economical front, I never had nor do I now of any idea what is going on- from my limited information the ruling party in america does not even believe in global warming, trump is making a big mess of everything, nobody likes putin, europe has its own politics, china has engaged in a trade war with U.S and there are random wars all over the middle east for reasons I cant fathom, discrimination and racism still exist for some reason, riots and protests are a part of everyday life now but like.... why? The only aspect of current affairs which I find is not going backwards is science and technology, our processing power increases every day and we are on the verge of multiple breakthroughs, we are seeing things never before possible, from a never ending source of energy, to human-machine integration like never before imagined feasible from even genetic modification but, where will this take us? Suicide rates keep increasing, our education system is a bunch of bullshit(people dont remember jackshit of what they learnt in school nor do they expect to), mental disorders are on the rise and I genuinely refuse to believe people are smarter now then 50 years ago(or are they just more honest). Yes, we have become visibly more advanced and have achieved/can achieve feats which are remarkable, the average life expectancy has gone up leaps and bounds, the world has become a much safer place to live in, the average joe lives in more luxury then a medieval king but at what cost? I think a future where A.I and humans become one and in a sense achieve immortality ascending this realm of illusion is possible, but is it really that easy to envision? My real question is, do you think that it is still achievble with all the irrationality and stupidity going on in the world- can people actually stop caring about what is right in front of them and stop to think, to see the big picture(am I just too idealistic?).

Some of us will re-colonize on Mars.

 

[lolzcry]

Advancement/improvement is very subjective. Depends on how you define it. I think the people who build the pyramids and the Parthenon were much more advanced than us. They are mathematically sound structures made without technology/computers.

Sure, they were mathematically sound but compare those structures to something like the Burj Khalifa or even the Eiffel tower and the difference is quite apparent, I am pretty sure that a person with an engineering degree with experience in architecture given a labour force of thousands and lots of raw materials would be able to construct similar structures today without computers and any technology.

I mean right now we have access to the internet and all kinds of databases from the beginning of "recorded history", yet we have the most retarded population of mankind.

If you look at history, none of the stupid shit being done right now is really exclusive to this time frame, yes for some reason people are still retarted beyond belief; but atleast we are not worse off in that department

I don't get the whole AI and human integration thing.

Well, the limits of our species are more obvious with every breakthrough we make in any field- basically all information handling is done by computers and to analyse the advanced data found in theoretical research is just beyond any human ability, the same is true for physical work... basically at some point there wont be much our species will need to do to ensure our survival, so at this point we either go extinct, Live like disabled jackasses just eating and sleeping(we might not even need to do that) or we literally join up with computers to take our thought proccesses to the next level for an evolutionary breakthrough.

 

[lolzcry]

Some of us will re-colonize on Mars

Hmmm..... what do you mean 're-colonize' mars? as far as I know, we have no verifiable proof of any previous lifeform's existence there but, my real question is- will we really get to that point? I guess I'll have to read u on this.

 

[Tenacity]

Some of us will re-colonize on Mars

Hmmm..... what do you mean 're-colonize' mars? as far as I know, we have no verifiable proof of any previous lifeform's existence there but, my real question is- will we really get to that point? I guess I'll have to read u on this.

Oh, I meant some of us will colonize Mars.

Added the "re" since we technically colonized Earth, and would be re-colonizing elsewhere, but I guess thats a given. Arguably we didn't "colonize Earth", we inhabited it, but that too is up for debate. Not really that much of a significant point of conversation.

I believe in Mars colonization likely because the only things I believe in these days are the impossible. Things that have been done before are not meant to be done again in the same fashion. We believe so much in past proofs and we overemphasize the importance of an extremely subjective "history" or "data" to decide how much faith we have in concepts like Mars colonization. Is it not the best chance of solving the problem of global overpopulation that is putting strain on our limited non-artificial resources?

The question is a matter of "when", not whether it will be done or not.

Frankly, I'm personally nothing but a cheerleader when it comes to that effort. At least, at this stage of my life. I haven't "peaked" yet lol. So who knows.

But if you've seen the impact of sci-fi on reality and actualization, you can see how humanity's existentialism will manifest itself economically and socially. I hate that I'm saying this, by the way. But I'm open to hearing your thoughts.

Unless we're all in a simulation, then, seriously, whatever.

 

[Black Rose]

Titanium on the moon can be used to build ships to go to mars. The moon is much easier to launch ships from than earth. And ion propulsion is the most efficient for long trips.

 

[lolzcry]

I believe in Mars colonization likely because the only things I believe in these days are the impossible. Things that have been done before are not meant to be done again in the same fashion. We believe so much in past proofs and we overemphasize the importance of an extremely subjective "history" or "data" to decide how much faith we have in concepts like Mars colonization. Is it not the best chance of solving the problem of global overpopulation that is putting strain on our limited non-artificial resources?

The question is a matter of "when", not whether it will be done or not.

I understand where you are coming from and I feel the same, but realistically speaking this entire endeavour has far too many problems for it to be considered the best chance we as a species have of surviving-
Even in the best case scenario of us having developed a functioning martian base, the margin for error just appears to be a bit too much. I mean just consider a thousand or even a hundred people living in such a situation, normal everyday life is harsh enough for the middle-class on their psyche now imagine combining this with not being able to go out, always knowing something might go wrong- not having access to the sea or the sun and completely isolated from us people on earth. To even get them internet would be an immense issue of extraodinary propotion- I dont think the average person will be capable of living a healthy life in such an environment(and this is the best case scenario) of couse, people can adapt and if we get through the initial phases- we might be able to manage it. The reason I did not mention this is simply because the chances of a productive and sustainable success are just way too slim compared to just dealing with the issues here on earth. You might just say that reaching the moon was considered impossible, but look how much time, effort and money it took to send one person on the moon. Now compare it to space exploration today, yes we might have gotten more cost efficent with better technology but honestly the progress is far too slow. If you consider us actually colonizing mars, then you are not speaking in decades but at the minimum of a century till living on mars can be considered comparable to life here on earth, this coupled with the fact that space exploration is seen as a waste of ginormous resources by many and the current shenanigans going on around us, I dont think its that probable for there to be continued efforts when only a small minority is actually inclined towards a settlement on mars, yes there is a bit of hype on this but in the end it all matters on if the multinational companies of the world and the governments fund these activities and that is totally dependent on current affairs. It all depends on the success of the first attempt at a colony in the next decade. I am hopeful but at the same time aware of all that could go wrong.

 

[Tenacity]

I believe in Mars colonization likely because the only things I believe in these days are the impossible. Things that have been done before are not meant to be done again in the same fashion. We believe so much in past proofs and we overemphasize the importance of an extremely subjective "history" or "data" to decide how much faith we have in concepts like Mars colonization. Is it not the best chance of solving the problem of global overpopulation that is putting strain on our limited non-artificial resources?

The question is a matter of "when", not whether it will be done or not.

I understand where you are coming from and I feel the same, but realistically speaking this entire endeavour has far too many problems for it to be considered the best chance we as a species have of surviving-
Even in the best case scenario of us having developed a functioning martian base, the margin for error just appears to be a bit too much. I mean just consider a thousand or even a hundred people living in such a situation, normal everyday life is harsh enough for the middle-class on their psyche now imagine combining this with not being able to go out, always knowing something might go wrong- not having access to the sea or the sun and completely isolated from us people on earth. To even get them internet would be an immense issue of extraodinary propotion- I dont think the average person will be capable of living a healthy life in such an environment(and this is the best case scenario) of couse, people can adapt and if we get through the initial phases- we might be able to manage it. The reason I did not mention this is simply because the chances of a productive and sustainable success are just way too slim compared to just dealing with the issues here on earth. You might just say that reaching the moon was considered impossible, but look how much time, effort and money it took to send one person on the moon. Now compare it to space exploration today, yes we might have gotten more cost efficent with better technology but honestly the progress is far too slow. If you consider us actually colonizing mars, then you are not speaking in decades but at the minimum of a century till living on mars can be considered comparable to life here on earth, this coupled with the fact that space exploration is seen as a waste of ginormous resources by many and the current shenanigans going on around us, I dont think its that probable for there to be continued efforts when only a small minority is actually inclined towards a settlement on mars, yes there is a bit of hype on this but in the end it all matters on if the multinational companies of the world and the governments fund these activities and that is totally dependent on current affairs. It all depends on the success of the first attempt at a colony in the next decade. I am hopeful but at the same time aware of all that could go wrong.

We're going to find a way to enable Moore's Law in space. The first group to colonize won't have lavish expectations of the same advancements in civilization we have on Earth.

It -will- go wrong. It has to go wrong and fail multiple times before it goes "right". But it'll happen.

Also, Trump is spending billions to build this whole wall thing as we speak. I mean, you have to admire the whole sticking-to-what-he-said-he-would-do thing, but investment in becoming a more interplanetary civilization, i.e. the -only- way to advance ourselves as a civilization, seems like a much more worthwhile investment in comparison, haha.

We have to fight for things beyond what we can see.

 

[lolzcry]

We're going to find a way to enable Moore's Law in space

What does that have to do with this? otherwise I agree with you... hopefully some genius will take the initiative to assasinate him(why has'nt it already happened?)

Titanium on the moon can be used to build ships to go to mars. The moon is much easier to launch ships from than earth. And ion propulsion is the most efficient for long trips.

Yep, NASA is all set to complete a moon bas in 2024. Lets see where that takes us. What do you guys think about the advancements being made in nuclear fission? Anybody fancy a ride in a fission powered spacecraft all over the universe?

 

[lolzcry]

And I just kept saying fission instead of fusion this entire thread

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

These days here in Norway there is some sort of virus or something that goes around killing dogs and nobody know what it is. Now that sort of thing is a real threat - it happens to dogs today; maybe to humans tomorrow. I see microbes as a much bigger existential threat to humanity than a hypothesized increase in mean surface temperature of 0.0075 degrees per year (that’s 1.5/200; approx change per year since industrial revolution). The only problem of course is that it’s harder to politicize and religionize - you cant rile up crowds and indoctrinate 7-year old kids in the issues of microbes. There’s no moral dimension to it, no moral-superiority hooks to latch on to.

 

[kora]

I don't have anything to add, but I'm just wondering if the term 'humanity' is inherently a Hegelian term.

I know I'm going to seem harsh but I genuinely quite like you and I really do mean well,

Firts of all I can see that you have a vague meaning behind what you're saying in your whole post, but it's an idea that could have been expressed clearly. Humanity conventionally designates the "species" we belong to and you're intuiting or saying that you don't know what a species is and whether we have a clear definition of one. And it's true that this is an interesting topic, so you do indeed have a good idea there. Now for the harsh part.

No it isn't an "inherently Hegelian term." It's a word used by lots of people and would have a clear enough referent whether Hegel existed or not. Please do not hide behind philosophically themed pedantry to seem profound, it offends me greatly. Most people have not read Hegel because he's unbearable to read, so if you're gonna mobilize concepts that you genuinely think you have understood, put them in your own words. People don't know what you mean when you say we should "gaze at something with "epistemological materialism" or what "the world is in the bounds of idealism" means either. I now have a masters in philosophy and I know what epistemology is, and I know what materialism is, but I don't see how you can gaze at something with "epistemological materialism." If you keep talking like this you will not be interesting to people unless you become very good at the art of being obscure to seem profound, and then you will basically just be a kind of guru, and in the worst cases you will end up confusing yourself as well.

 

[kora]

Pretty sure that this is a past time for everyone here- but what do you guys make of the future of humanity? Like it seems to be a universally held belief that this will probably be our last century here and for some reason most people I talk to are all ready to think about starting a family in the far future but dont really care about this as long as they get to live a full life?? At the current rate at which we are going it appears that we barely have half a century of non renewable resources and that is if we disregard their carbon emissions because honestly, the 2018 IPCC report was kinda scary and now new studies are showing that there is no way for us to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees??? This would be totally fine if we had something to fall back on but the amount of resources snd environmental cost currently required for solar, hydro and wind is way too much for my liking.. so do we turn back to nuclear as it seems to be the best option(as fission is nowhere close), what about the hundreds of thousands predicted deaths because of rise in world water levels and their resulting refugees? On the political and economical front, I never had nor do I now of any idea what is going on- from my limited information the ruling party in america does not even believe in global warming, trump is making a big mess of everything, nobody likes putin, europe has its own politics, china has engaged in a trade war with U.S and there are random wars all over the middle east for reasons I cant fathom, discrimination and racism still exist for some reason, riots and protests are a part of everyday life now but like.... why? The only aspect of current affairs which I find is not going backwards is science and technology, our processing power increases every day and we are on the verge of multiple breakthroughs, we are seeing things never before possible, from a never ending source of energy, to human-machine integration like never before imagined feasible from even genetic modification but, where will this take us? Suicide rates keep increasing, our education system is a bunch of bullshit(people dont remember jackshit of what they learnt in school nor do they expect to), mental disorders are on the rise and I genuinely refuse to believe people are smarter now then 50 years ago(or are they just more honest). Yes, we have become visibly more advanced and have achieved/can achieve feats which are remarkable, the average life expectancy has gone up leaps and bounds, the world has become a much safer place to live in, the average joe lives in more luxury then a medieval king but at what cost? I think a future where A.I and humans become one and in a sense achieve immortality ascending this realm of illusion is possible, but is it really that easy to envision? My real question is, do you think that it is still achievble with all the irrationality and stupidity going on in the world- can people actually stop caring about what is right in front of them and stop to think, to see the big picture(am I just too idealistic?).

OP your post is very interesting and jam packed with lots of ideas, but it is pessimistic and by this I mean that it is perhaps not always entirely justified in this pessimism. I agree for example that most education systems are problematic in lots of ways, but I think that for example just the fact that most people know how to read is an incredible improvement. The main problem now is that they don't necessarily know how to discriminate between justified true belief (knowledge) and "fake-nooz", dogma and/or propaganda. Now that information is freely available it is vital that schools focus on teaching people how to discriminate and sort this information effectively in order to not be manipulated and to navigate the hectic world they are born in. 5000 news channels and people still don't know what the hell is going on sometimes. This, I agree, is a scandalous failing. I think some of education does focus on fostering critical thinking but not nearly enough. I also think that the increase in the standard of living that you have pointed out makes people more intelligent on the whole. I do agree that we are in deep trouble and that the climate crisis is invariably going to create sufferring, perhaps on a scale rarely seen before, and the degree to which we are unable to remedy the problem quickly and effectively will be proportional to the ammount of suffering. I think for example that at this stage, we are definitely going to have a climate migrant crisis. I do however also think we will be clever enough to survive as a species. I can't see a scenario where everyone dies, basically even if the population decreases because of war or famine or both etc (this of course is not optimism either...) The dime is up in the air, I cannot predict how things will go, I can only point out that some elements are in my opinion hopeful, in response to the elements that you have pointed out that are hopeless, and complete the picture you have painted.

 

[lolzcry]

These days here in Norway there is some sort of virus or something that goes around killing dogs and nobody know what it is. Now that sort of thing is a real threat - it happens to dogs today; maybe to humans tomorrow. I see microbes as a much bigger existential threat to humanity than a hypothesized increase in mean surface temperature of 0.0075 degrees per year (that’s 1.5/200; approx change per year since industrial revolution). The only problem of course is that it’s harder to politicize and religionize - you cant rile up crowds and indoctrinate 7-year old kids in the issues of microbes. There’s no moral dimension to it, no moral-superiority hooks to latch on to.

And people still think that vaccinations are an epidemic in and of itself or don't finish their antibiotic course...like its a serious problem. But, I think medical advancements would be able to keep up, unless there are other problems they have to deal with like- global warming, Btw it is exponential and not linear(though it is slowing down) so your rate of increase is inaccurate since that rate itself increase year upon year, mostly because of LDC's around the world's also this will be basically free breeding space for microbes and bacteria, just imagine a few thousand slums popping up all over the place, entire cties going under water. And you get the point. (it exaggerates all other problems)

I don't have anything to add, but I'm just wondering if the term 'humanity' is inherently a Hegelian term.

I know I'm going to seem harsh but I genuinely quite like you and I really do mean well,

First of all I can see that you have a vague meaning behind what you're saying in your whole post, but it's an idea that could have been expressed clearly. Humanity conventionally designates the "species" we belong to and you're intuiting or saying that you don't know what a species is and whether we have a clear definition of one. And it's true that this is an interesting topic, so you do indeed have a good idea there. Now for the harsh part.

No it isn't an "inherently Hegelian term." It's a word used by lots of people and would have a clear enough referent whether Hegel existed or not. Please do not hide behind philosophically themed pedantry to seem profound, it offends me greatly. Most people have not read Hegel because he's unbearable to read, so if you're gonna mobilize concepts that you genuinely think you have understood, put them in your own words. People don't know what you mean when you say we should "gaze at something with "epistemological materialism" or what "the world is in the bounds of idealism" means either. I now have a masters in philosophy and I know what epistemology is, and I know what materialism is, but I don't see how you can gaze at something with "epistemological materialism." If you keep talking like this you will not be interesting to people unless you become very good at the art of being obscure to seem profound, and then you will basically just be a kind of guru, and in the worst cases you will end up confusing yourself as well.

Did ya read my mind? Sure seems like it(You basically somehow managed to say what I wanted to put into words), well atleast I am not an idiot for asking what he meant by 'epistemological materialism'.Thanks

OP your post is very interesting and jam packed with lots of ideas, but it is pessimistic and by this I mean that it is perhaps not always entirely justified in this pessimism. I agree for example that most education systems are problematic in lots of ways, but I think that for example just the fact that most people know how to read is an incredible improvement. The main problem now is that they don't necessarily know how to discriminate between justified true belief (knowledge) and "fake-nooz", dogma and/or propaganda. Now that information is freely available it is vital that schools focus on teaching people how to discriminate and sort this information effectively in order to not be manipulated and to navigate the hectic world they are born in. 5000 news channels and people still don't know what the hell is going on sometimes. This, I agree, is a scandalous failing. I think some of education does focus on fostering critical thinking but not nearly enough. I also think that the increase in the standard of living that you have pointed out makes people more intelligent on the whole. I do agree that we are in deep trouble and that the climate crisis is invariably going to create sufferring, perhaps on a scale rarely seen before, and the degree to which we are unable to remedy the problem quickly and effectively will be proportional to the ammount of suffering. I think for example that at this stage, we are definitely going to have a climate migrant crisis. I do however also think we will be clever enough to survive as a species. I can't see a scenario where everyone dies, basically even if the population decreases because of war or famine or both etc (this of course is not optimism either...) The dime is up in the air, I cannot predict how things will go, I can only point out that some elements are in my opinion hopeful, in response to the elements that you have pointed out that are hopeless, and complete the picture you have painted.

I like to think of myself as a 'realistic visionary'(Dumb title, I know) I get how it might have been pessimistic but I never really meant it to be so; I am pretty confident in the survivability of our species but I just cant bring myself to agree with the amount we might have to pay right now ,because based on my past experience- we as a type 0.73 civilization have'nt really proved much efficent in dealing with such issues(whether local, national or worldwide) and I just wanted to know what other people would have to say on such, since as far as I know, the progress we have made so far is simply just a bit too little to avert the brunt of the various crisis I see lying on our current path(I do know that we are far better of than in the past)
#morepessimism

 

[kora]

You shouldn't hold it against onestep because they are certainly capable of being clear and interesting, people sometimes get sucked into philosophical jargon and I think using it this way can be almost involuntary sometimes when you get really enthusiastic about it. First year philosophy students do it quite a lot when they're introduced to lots of new concepts that they think put into words lots of their intuitions they have. They quickly get shut down when they're marked in dissertations. Unfortunately some outliers never stop doing it and find a lot of success doing it, Derrida and Lacan are some good examples. Hegel I can't really place because on the one hand I can sometimes extrapolate some decent ideas amidst the mysticism and constant wanking off to the number 3 but on the whole he's very unclear and it might be on purpose so meh.

GOD I SOUND PATRONIZING OHGOD THE CRINGE.

@Serac has a vested interest in downplaying climate change to preserve his ANCAP preferences This is because he has correctly identified that the crisis necessitates some form of industry regulation of course, it's just that his values are screwed

Anyway, I have hope in technology that will be able to actively reverse climate change damage done so far, things that can extract greenhouse gases from the air for example. You mentioned that are most obvious progress was technology and I kind of agree and I think it will save us.

However, we are going to need legislation that forces corporations to comply with global health standards. The example of the ozone layer/aerosol crisis is a good example of laws going through and tackling a global environmental problem effectively (the ozone layer has been building up again since 2016 reports tell us), so there is precedent of things going well. I think the fact that everyone is aware of the environmental crisis is also a hopeful aspect, despite a lot of disinformation. In America two years ago I turned on Fox News and saw the most jaw dropping climate change denial propaganda, I think this is slowly becoming more and more unacceptable as they keep getting publicly humiliated and clubbed over the head with scientific consensus. In europe recently all the left wing parties tanked because there were too many of them all proposing slight variations of similar things, and the green party did unexpectedly very well, which means that people are actually starting to prioritize it as a political issue which has repercussions everywhere, it then forces all the other parties to take a position on it and address it politically.

We're just going to have to do our best.

 

[kora]

*oops by european elections I meant the french european elections.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

"ANCAP" – that's cool, I didn't know about it. Looks pretty awesome to me.

I actually decided to read the "MBH98" and "MBH99" papers – arguably the papers that started the whole climate-change.. uh.. "interest". Available here:

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/mbh98.pdf

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/research/ONLINE-PREPRINTS/Millennium/mbh99.pdf

In page 6 in the 98 paper you can see that they basically analyze the rise in temperature relative to historic ones in terms of 3 potential factors: CO2, solar irradiance and some volcano-dust stuff. It's quite obvious that all of those 3 potentially explain the rise in temperature, but based on some dubious methodology with rolling regression estimates they arrived at the conclusion that CO2 was the most important explanatory factor the last century. As someone who works with this exact type of timeseries analysis on a daily basis I would say this type of analyses is kinda garbage, but I guess you would just have to take my word for it.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

Here's what these mofos write about their parameter choice in the regression:

A window width of 200 yr was chosen to ensure that any given window contains enough samples to provide good signal-to-noise ratios in correlation estimates

which is quite comical – how would you know in advance that this is the window length that gives you "good signal-to-noise ratios"? You obviously can't, so I bet my ass they tried different lengths and picked the one that resulted in only CO2 and not the solar irradiance and volcanos as significant regressors.

 

[lolzcry]

This just in- while I was writing about this, I forgot about one major point of information. What do you guys think about kurzweil's(Google's director of engineering) predictions? For those who dont know- he predicted the use of wireless technology and internet(at a time when neither were in much use) and a computer beating the world chess champion in the 2000's. This was in the 80's and his predictions have an accuracy of 86% his current predictions include(following moore's law) that our computers(the ones the average person can buy and not super computers) will have human level intelligence by 2029, nanobots will cure most diseases by 2030 and at 2045 we'll arrive at the 'singularity' as he termed it, which translates to a time where nothing is predictable forming a black hole of information since at the rate we are going we would have achieved AGI(artificial general intelligence) which would be self-learning and totally incomprehensible by us mere mortals. Best/scary part is, all of this is supposed to happen in our lifetimes. Here's a link-
https://now.northropgrumman.com/ray-kurzweil-predictions-persist-turns-70/

 

[Black Rose]

The key to A.I. is the stable generation of representational memory. Representations are useful for perception and internally creating them is imagination. If that can be solved it will be able to make new ideas well efficiently retaining older cognitive material.

 

[Cognisant]

My personal outlook is:
Mass driver -> Lunar Shipyard -> Colonize Mercury

Rocket technology is about as advanced as its going to get unless someone figures out how to make metallic hydrogen economically and considering nobody has yet managed to make any of it yet, that's just not going to happen.

Space elevators are a great concept but any serious investigation quickly reveals that the math just doesn't add up, even if we manage to make carbon nanotube cables strong enough to carry their own weight they also need to be taut enough to resist potentially cyclonic weather and strong enough to carry a worthwhile load, that's just not going to happen. It's probably possible to make one but if it takes a few days to get a ton and a half of cargo into orbit that's only economical in comparison to rockets and the bottleneck is throughput not efficiency, we only care about efficiency as it pertains to an economical throughput.

If we're really serious about industrializing space we're going to need a means of getting stuff into space at a low price and in great quantities and the only remotely feasible way of doing that is a mass driver. (space fountains are just half-assed mass drivers used to make space elevators slightly less nonviable)

Spoiler

The main problem with a mass driver is getting the end of the track above most of the atmosphere because because things entering atmosphere at orbital velocities tend not to do very well. My solution to this is instead of firing proverbial bullets out of your space gun you instead have an endless train whose angular momentum counteracts gravity for both itself and the track by virtue of having a velocity significantly higher than orbital velocity, basically a one way space fountain (also called a launch loop).

Spoiler

The tricky part isn't making a track that can hold a vacuum (15psi isn't that big of an engineering challenge) it's loading the train fast enough to keep the track in the air, but it can be done, you basically have a lot of tracks converge into one so you only need to load each car at a reasonable pace.

Actually come to think of it a hyper-sonic train probably wouldn't need a vacuum tunnel to the upper atmosphere, the first few hundred cars will probably get vaporized as the train hits the atmosphere (at multiple times orbital speed) but as that happens each car will get further and further until the train has essentially made it's own vacuum tunnel through the atmosphere by sheer fuck-you momentum. Between the very supersonic train and the atmosphere around it there's going to be a boundary layer of air molecules that encountered the train and were knocked away at a much higher velocity which have a knock-on effect on the molecules around them.

 

[Polaris]

Over 25 million birds are illegally killed every year in the Mediterranean; 2.6 million birds are killed just in Lebanon alone, 40% of insects around the world are critically endangered and people are obsessing and squabbling over petty politics, AI and climate change...

I have zero hopes for "humanity".

 

[Minuend]

Well, yeah. Technology might be more of a savior than expected, but shit seems pretty bleak. I think there's gonna be some virus/ bacteria spread to kill off a large percent of the world population, probably let loose by intent. Rich and powerful people don't want to share, yo.

There's still a lot of people who think climate change is a stupid issue nobody should care about. My parents don't believe in humans influencing the climate. And that doesn't really seem that uncommon a perspective.

People don't want to cooperate, they want to grab what they can for themselves. which means politicians make decisions based on what benefits them. Globally that makes a shitty mess. Sure, in some places you have to placate people to get what you want and it might be beneficial to your people in some cases, but in a lot of other cases you just shit on your people to get what you want.

 

[Daddy]

Can't we just space engineer giant sunglasses for the Earth? We could block and funnel light around the Earth and have the same perfect climates all year around everywhere.

 

[Cognisant]

Launch costs are still too high but it's a great idea.

There's also the political issue of whoever implements this essentially having full control over Earth's climate and weather.

 

[lolzcry]

The key to A.I. is the stable generation of representational memory. Representations are useful for perception and internally creating them is imagination. If that can be solved it will be able to make new ideas well efficiently retaining older cognitive material.

I dont exactly understand what you mean, are you implying that A.I would need to have imagination to come up with viable solutions for such complex and abstract problems? I am not really well acquainted with how A.I function, but what I have come up with goes as thus- with further advancements in technology and computing we are able to develop an A.I which is self-learning i.e it can scan and process variables and data to form a model of the world(which I dont think would require much imagination as it all comes down to causality which is not that tough a concept), and then looking at past statistics and history would be able to simulate the possible realities we want and see which events would lead to such. Correct me if I am wrong, but it appears the only things we are as such lacking, is just the raw processing power required and the ability to go on the net and collect information(yes, you might say that to peice together the data would require imagination and 'common sense' as people call it, but I am fairly confident all correlations would have already been made on the net and there would be no need for anything else)

Well, yeah. Technology might be more of a savior than expected, but shit seems pretty bleak. I think there's gonna be some virus/ bacteria spread to kill off a large percent of the world population, probably let loose by intent. Rich and powerful people don't want to share, yo.

There's still a lot of people who think climate change is a stupid issue nobody should care about. My parents don't believe in humans influencing the climate. And that doesn't really seem that uncommon a perspective.

People don't want to cooperate, they want to grab what they can for themselves. which means politicians make decisions based on what benefits them. Globally that makes a shitty mess. Sure, in some places you have to placate people to get what you want and it might be beneficial to your people in some cases, but in a lot of other cases you just shit on your people to get what you want.

Wow, that's some maze runner scenario you have going on there, but you also have have to remember that even if the rich don't want to share, they will have to in case they want to survive. Poverty in any part of the world has an effect on the entirety of the world if we are looking from a purely economical standpoint meaning that the more well off people are anywhere the better it will be for the rich folk; not the opposite. We are selfish but I really dont think that the governments of the world will cosider wiping some part of the population as a genuine solution, it will just lead to more conflict and need of extra resources in getting that economy up and running again meaning it will only happen in all out war in which case we are screwed. This is simply because to harvest those extra resources gained, a lot of man labour is required (farming, mining etc) which is generally done by the poor folk and if everybody in that region dies.. there will be problems. There are many other problems which I wont go into here, but you get the main idea- I have enough faith in people's desire for self-preservation and competence(not individuals but societies of the rich and powerful and governments) to know that they will only do something when they are certain of its benefits.

Over 25 million birds are illegally killed every year in the Mediterranean; 2.6 million birds are killed just in Lebanon alone, 40% of insects around the world are critically endangered and people are obsessing and squabbling over petty politics, AI and climate change...

I have zero hopes for "humanity".

You mean you dont have hope in you perceived version of humanity. What you stated is true, but it is has also been correct for all of human history. Besides as you said 'petty politics' and 'climate change' are the main problems for loss in our flora and fauna, so what I dont understand is how you expect to work on those problems without looking at what caused them? That is a totally illogical and hypocritical argument.

Can't we just space engineer giant sunglasses for the Earth? We could block and funnel light around the Earth and have the same perfect climates all year around everywhere.

Launch costs are still too high but it's a great idea.

There's also the political issue of whoever implements this essentially having full control over Earth's climate and weather.

It's possible? please send a link so I can check it out.

 

[lolzcry]

Honestly, all of the problems mentioned in this thread seem to be pretty solvable if only the ratio of idiots to resonable people in our leaders and their followers just wasnt so high.

 

[ZenRaiden]

There are nations that dont plan their economy even 5 years ahead. Thats the economy thats supposed to feed them. Now how do you expect these sort of people to figure out how to survive problems that exist in the future.

Maybe people just need to figure out whos responsability is to solve these issues.

 

[lolzcry]

There are nations that dont plan their economy even 5 years ahead. Thats the economy thats supposed to feed them. Now how do you expect these sort of people to figure out how to survive problems that exist in the future.

Maybe people just need to figure out whos responsability is to solve these issues.

And therein lies the problem. Most people are inherently better at been critics and followers rather then doers or leaders that is why we are in such a mess, but random revolutions and riots keep hapening all over the world. For the answer to your question- nope I dont expect these sort of people to figure out the current problems, most of which to my mind have very questionable reasons for existing in the first place which resulted in me starting this thread.

Honestly, all of the problems mentioned in this thread seem to be pretty solvable if only the ratio of idiots to resonable people in our leaders and their followers just wasnt so high.

 

[Polaris]

You mean you dont have hope in you perceived version of humanity. What you stated is true, but it is has also been correct for all of human history. Besides as you said 'petty politics' and 'climate change' are the main problems for loss in our flora and fauna, so what I dont understand is how you expect to work on those problems without looking at what caused them? That is a totally illogical and hypocritical argument.

I don't think I have explained well enough. What I am saying is that the politics are getting in the way of problems that are very acute, such as rapid loss of species. Many people are not even aware of the declining bird populations because of dominance of climate change squabbles in the media. The news of bird massacres are not something that mainstream media for the most part consider "interesting news". Media is business minded as well as politically motivated and therefore not interested in educating people. I suspect many executive powers even want people to remain ignorant - more power to them.

They will argue that people want to indulge in political drama over climate change rather than learning the factual ramifications of the combinations of climate change, extreme resource exhaustion and the rapid decline of species which are not just a result of climate change, but also a result of poor education, poverty and a disregard for any other lifeforms other than human. People are killing migratory bird species to sell as food. These birds come from all over northern Europe, so it is affecting ecology in Europe as well - not just the Mediterranean.

We are forgetting that places such as Sweden, who claim to have climate change high on the agenda, nevertheless carry on with deforestation practices that are basically wiping out old world forests which are extremely important for nesting and habitat of all kinds of animals, compared to the almost sterile plantations that "sustainably" replace them. So all the talk about improving climate change is ridiculous if they at the same time engage in forestry practices that practically wipe out habitat, and can thus never be restored to a state where biodiversity can thrive again. Extinction is irreversible, and we'll instead be left with potential plague-like proliferation of opportunistic species which, due to their potential for destruction of forest resources will require even more cost-intensive methods to control. We have set ourselves up for a Sisyphosean task of endless remediation efforts of the resources we already exploited, while the species we took for granted will probably not be around for coming generations. The removal of top-predators have already set off a host of ecological cascading effects, but because most of us have become so removed from nature, we aren't even aware.

Believe me, with my background in ecology, geology, and palaeontology/palaeoecology, I have well and truly been convinced that human accelerated climate change is real - if I am able to create a micro-climate in my own backyard, independent of the larger climate surrounding it - imagine the effects large-scale human deforestation, farming practices and resource depletion are having.

You don't need to be a climate scientist to understand that humans are having an enormous impact on climate if we are able to create artificial climates just by planting a few trees and select plants in a small corner of our backyard.

My anger towards humanity is a product of seeing this complete disregard for the bigger picture.

I would have liked to expand on this further but I am on my phone on a train somewhere.

But in short, we can make changes by just being aware of the extremely acute situation we are in by starting in our own backyard - but instead we are being peppered with obscuring political battles that leaves everything in the abstract - people are thus feeling too powerless to make changes.

If everyone realised that we could easily encourage insects, bees, and
butterflies to the garden, simply by educating ourselves about what plants and flowers to use, we could already make significant changes to the ecological dynamics on a local scale. More insects means more birds, more birds and insects means better pollination, better pollination means we can be more self sustained with fruits and vegetables, rather than relying entirely upon monopolising supermarkets that play a huge part in encouraging destructive mass-scale factory farming, etc, etc. I could go on and on, this is but a small example of the huge impacts that are the result of many people doing absolutely nothing.

The sloutions are there, but politicians are not interested in educating people - they are interested in amassing votes.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Kind of reminds me I was flying over Europe on a plane and we were flying low enough to see different cities. Anyhow there were almost no forests to be seen. Just villages, cities, roads and fields. Few patches here and there, but mostly just humans. I mean rewind that time and it was all nature. I have no doupt we changed things and had impact on nature. No one can deny that.

 

[lolzcry]

I don't think I have explained well enough. What I am saying is that the politics are getting in the way of problems that are very acute, such as rapid loss of species. Many people are not even aware of the declining bird populations because of dominance of climate change squabbles in the media. The news of bird massacres are not something that mainstream media for the most part consider "interesting news". Media is business minded as well as politically motivated and therefore not interested in educating people. I suspect many executive powers even want people to remain ignorant - more power to them.

They will argue that people want to indulge in political drama over climate change rather than learning the factual ramifications of the combinations of climate change, extreme resource exhaustion and the rapid decline of species which are not just a result of climate change, but also a result of poor education, poverty and a disregard for any other lifeforms other than human. People are killing migratory bird species to sell as food. These birds come from all over northern Europe, so it is affecting ecology in Europe as well - not just the Mediterranean.

We are forgetting that places such as Sweden, who claim to have climate change high on the agenda, nevertheless carry on with deforestation practices that are basically wiping out old world forests which are extremely important for nesting and habitat of all kinds of animals, compared to the almost sterile plantations that "sustainably" replace them. So all the talk about improving climate change is ridiculous if they at the same time engage in forestry practices that practically wipe out habitat, and can thus never be restored to a state where biodiversity can thrive again.

Believe me, with my background in ecology, geology, and palaeontology/palaeoecology, I have well and truly been convinced that human accelerated climate change is real - if I am able to create a micro-climate in my own backyard, independent of the larger climate surrounding it - imagine the large-scale effects human deforestation, farming practices and resource depletion are having.

You don't need to be a climate scientist to understand that humans are having an enormous impact on climate if we are able to create artificial climates just by planting a few trees and select plants in a small corner of our backyard.

My anger towards humanity is a product of seeing this complete disregard for the bigger picture.

I would have liked to expand on this further but I am on my phone on a train somewhere.

But in short, we can make changes by just being aware of the extremely acute situation we are in by starting in our own backyard - but instead we are being peppered with obscuring political battles that leaves everything very abstract - people are thus feeling very powerless to make changes.

If everyone realised that we could easily encourage insects, bees, and
butterflies to the garden, simply by educating ourselves about what plants and flowers to use, we could already make significant changes to the ecological dynamics on a local scale. More insects means more birds, more birds and insects means better pollination, better pollination means we can be more self sustained with fruits and vegetables, rather than relying entirely upon monopolising supermarkets that play a huge part in encouraging destructive factory farming, etc, etc. I could go on and on.

The sloutions are there, but politicians are not interested in educating people - they are interested in amassing votes.

Yep, people's motivations are messed up- its a fact. Thats why politics is so incomprehensible to me, but I am sure that many people who do know what kind of an effect they personally can have on the environment and.. dont care. Because for the vast majority (those who are educated about this) creating a mini-ecosystem in their backyard just simply requires too much time and effort, they have 'better' things to do which ultimately leads to the downward spiral the likes of which are observable everywhere around us. People like knowledge to the extent it is useful to them and thus dont want to go through the process of authenticating it and don't like to be proven wrong hence turning pompous and ignorant(barring a minority which is inevitably suppressed) this is in turn leads them to focusing only on the issues they think are significant; the issue being that instead of objectively looking at big picture people tend to grab information as haphhazardly as possible and form a model on that one which they wont allow to be refuted, the main problem is just that- our mentality, which is the source of all our problems which in turn further prevent us from working on the real issue creating a catch 22 situation which is quite tough to break out from since it involves the tool we use to break out from any situation- our mind.

 

[lolzcry]

To conclude, I understand where you are coming from and why you have no hope in humanity but this is how evolution works- the adaptations which end up being crutches are eventually lost as they are no longer needed and this is still prevalent today. The mentality of people IS changing, albeit slowly; I would say is heading towards a better direction than a worse one. People are beginning to take notice and are becoming more future oriented, yes the primary motive is still money and power, but there is change and I am not ready to give up hope.

 

[Polaris]

I think we need to exercise some caution when talking about evolution in such a flippant manner. As a palaeontologist I understand perfectly well that this is part of evolution - however, and as I hope most people would probably be aware - evolution doesn't have a direction. I think humans too often fall back on nonchalantly dismissing destructive forces as 'evolution', forgetting we as humans are in fact able to take evolution into any direction we may wish through sheer will, innovation and agency.

Not only are we blessed/cursed (take your pick) with higher intelligence - but also with the unique trait of humanitarianism that extends beyond our own species - we are able to abstract future scenarios which means we are able to control output through planning and making adaptations in ways that do not have to compromise resources to the point where it becomes critical to humanity and all other organisms as a whole.

It is just too easy to sit in the armchair and passively let everything become "subject to evolution" instead of thinking about creative solutions that will benefit both humans and the health of the planet in the long term - without being completely destructive. At current rates, the economic, environmental and societal destruction is going to cost us far more than the cost of more careful planning and precautions for the future - but most human powers are in it for the short-term win, so it won't happen unless there's a complete paradigm shift - and this is where things like transhumanism becomes an interesting factor. Are we really going to "improve" in ways that are actually an improvement? Isn't everyone's idea of improvement a little bit different?

We haven't actually defined what is meant by improvement, so this is where the transhumanist movement needs to clearly state their goals. Just focusing blindly at improving intelligence and physiology is not going to automatically provide solutions. Intelligence doesn't work in a vacuum - we know that intelligence can be creative in both constructive and destructive ways.

In my view, improvement is not where we've reached a point of resource destruction so critical that we will have to come up with Elon Musk scenarios to save the human race. That is a reparative and not a preventative solution. I used to work as a dental hygienist - and time and time again I saw the patient going into extensive and expensive dental reconstructive work, when we could have used more simple preventative solutions. I ended up becoming so frustrated with the greedy and unethical attitudes of the dental profession that I quit.

Intelligent solutions are those which effectively work with optimising what we have at hand - a perfectly suitable planet for our continued existence - not destroying it and locating to an inhospitable planet - an effort which would be so cost and resource intensive only a select few humans would benefit. Yes, it is a solution, but it isn't a very practical or particularly intelligent one, seeing what we have to work with already.

I think transhumanism is an interesting concept - but I think there is a lot of naivety surrounding it's philosophical underpinnings.

I've actually written a separate piece on transhumanism - I should post it in the other thread...

 

[Cognisant]

The problem with humanity's utilization of resources is that whenever we get better at it we make more humans, we can't stop land clearing and agriculture and coal mining while we're always making more mouths to feed.

One person using a combustion engine isn't harmful to the environment, its when you have billions of people using combustion engines that CO2 emissions become a problem and as our numbers increase more problems will arise simply because of the sheer number of people doing them.

So the goal of saving humanity necessitates the very anti-human outcome of halting the growth of the human species, I don't see that happening.

 

[Minuend]

Honestly, all of the problems mentioned in this thread seem to be pretty solvable if only the ratio of idiots to resonable people in our leaders and their followers just wasnt so high.

More like if people's interests were different. You can be pretty intelligent and reasonable, and still put your own needs and wants above anything else. You can understand exactly how your actions is bad for most people, and still do it because you don't give a shit, but prioritize your own well being. In a cynical society where each is to their own, you're probably more likely to produce intelligent people who value their own well being over that of the well being of the country or other people. Most societies don't really grow empathetic, ideological individuals.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I don't have anything to add, but I'm just wondering if the term 'humanity' is inherently a Hegelian term.

I know I'm going to seem harsh but I genuinely quite like you and I really do mean well,

Firts of all I can see that you have a vague meaning behind what you're saying in your whole post, but it's an idea that could have been expressed clearly. Humanity conventionally designates the "species" we belong to and you're intuiting or saying that you don't know what a species is and whether we have a clear definition of one. And it's true that this is an interesting topic, so you do indeed have a good idea there. Now for the harsh part.

No it isn't an "inherently Hegelian term." It's a word used by lots of people and would have a clear enough referent whether Hegel existed or not. Please do not hide behind philosophically themed pedantry to seem profound, it offends me greatly. Most people have not read Hegel because he's unbearable to read, so if you're gonna mobilize concepts that you genuinely think you have understood, put them in your own words. People don't know what you mean when you say we should "gaze at something with "epistemological materialism" or what "the world is in the bounds of idealism" means either. I now have a masters in philosophy and I know what epistemology is, and I know what materialism is, but I don't see how you can gaze at something with "epistemological materialism." If you keep talking like this you will not be interesting to people unless you become very good at the art of being obscure to seem profound, and then you will basically just be a kind of guru, and in the worst cases you will end up confusing yourself as well.

Oh, I mean Hegelian in regards to his Absolute Spirit notion. "Humanity" seems more like a word that is charged with energy, something that's going forward with a goal, like his Absolute. I was just musing that it's more abstract rather than something that's physical, that is, the species.