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Hello, I don't usually read or post in D&D so please pardon my naïveté. Also I'm not a native english speaker so please forgive if I make it hard to understand some sentences, I try my best. I'm a mixed race european in my early 30s. Not rich yet grew up in average comfort, studied with jesuits and I guess I'm agnostic thanks to them, 99% white acquaintances growing up. I've also been depressed all my life as far as I can remember (no meds), mostly because of my super racist, dysfunctional, hosed up family. At least we had tons of books, so I grew up reading a lot more than my peers (is that a douchey word?). This resulted in me growing up as an insufferable know-it-all with lovely opinions, sort of like an imitation Lovecraft: I spent the better part of the last 10 years of my life trying to claw my way out of a warped adolescent mindset, with the help of a wonderfully normal girlfriend. Around the time I turned 30 I tried going to a therapist who focuses on relationships (family, couples) and he gave me his latest book, which greatly helped me and allowed me to pinpoint many of the issues in what has been my development as a human being. In addition to that, I'd also turned vegetarian a couple of years before turning 30, after a life time of lovely excuses. Around the same time, I think I can identify among others a chain of specific books that, together with the political climate and my own self-development, managed to turn constant self-loathing and misanthropy into a feeling that I can only describe as at times wanting to love individuals while despising humanity as a whole, or the exact opposite. These are the books, in reading order as best as I can recall: Gombrich - A little history of the world Dick - The man in the high castle Sartre - Nausea Spiegelman - Maus Miller - Tropic of Cancer+Capricorn Jung - Man and his symbols; Memories, dreams, reflections; various essays on dream analysis, unconscious archetypes and synchronicity More recently, having always heard about him but never having actually read anything of his, I bought Chomsky's How the world works and On anarchism, but I still have to read them. I was intrigued by his quote: “You have two choices, you can say, "I'm a pessimist, nothing's going to work, I'm giving up, I'll help ensure the worst can happen". Or, you can grasp onto the opportunities that do exist, the rays of hope that exist and say, "Well, maybe we can make it a better world". It's not much of a choice.” This whole preamble was to say that what all these books have shown and taught me in one way or another is that technically there is always hope, even for the shittiest human being, to disassemble and to reconstruct his own self in a way that benefits him and everyone else, through humility, education and self-reflection. Why then does human history seem to contradict this possibility at every step with an endless stream of terrifying inhumanity at all levels, from individual to the collective? The first and easiest answer that comes to mind personally is that organized religions have wormed their way so deeply in the history of man that what is theoretically the core of human experience (childhood, adolescence, individuation and actualization of the self, maturity) is lost in a web of rules, requirements, dogmas, prohibitions, excuses and deflections that prevent mankind's growth out of its infancy. Is it realistic to desire and expect a positive social and cultural evolution in the next few centuries? Is it stupid to think that a complete overhaul of all our educational systems is the best way to set it in motion? Is it possible to light the spark of basic decency in every human being just by teaching the right things? I think I've reached a point where I can't actually hate another human being, no matter how vile or ignorant his or her views, because I am aware that all that is needed to change those views is humility, education and self-reflection. And yet it sounds so loving stupid because how are you actually going to consistently and reliably lead as many people as possible to the point of choosing that over being willfully ignorant, selfish pricks? It took me 30 years of depression to get to that point, sometimes it seems so far-fetched to think that it might be possible to skip all that. Sorry if this reads like an inarticulate rant, these are all thoughts that have been bugging me for a while and I felt like I needed to share them in order to get external feedback. Thanks for taking the time to read. e: I forgot, if you'd like to suggest some books to read please do so necroid fucked around with this message at 11:26 on Jul 6, 2018 |
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Jul 6, 2018 11:23
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 04:52 |
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Thanks for all the insightful replies, much appreciated. I will take some time tomorrow to contribute, right now I gotta sleep because Im mashed.
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Jul 7, 2018 00:09
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Japex posted:Some things that may appear to be good are actually harmful. I believe the lifestyle popularized in the West is not sustainable long-term especially not with an ever growing population. You also need to take into account moral relativism. Your idea of good is somebody else's idea of bad. wait what
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Jul 7, 2018 01:41
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Liquid Communism posted:Take a deep breath, and remind yourself of one solid truth: you can't save the world. What you can do is live the best life you can, by whatever values you honor, and do what you're able to make the lives of those around you better in whatever small way you're capable of. Yes I guess it all boils down to this in the end. It still is very frustrating to witness willful ignorance and pettiness and I wish there was an easy way to engage people, to get them to examine their thoughts and actions without sounding like a stupid hippie. Owlofcreamcheese posted:Yeah, the world sucks and it's a fight to keep progress happening instead of it being an automatic thing but it's mostly getting better over time, not worse. Numbers like these always put things back into perspective. Still, some of the things graphed can't be considered positives on their own, like the 48% growth in internet users. It's clearly a massive improvement compared to not having access to it, but I feel that it necessarily entails a huge cultural adjustment in order to handle something so unprecedented that's potentially very harmful and problematic. For me the issue with saying that things are now better than they were is that maybe the next step should be a collective push to upgrade our standards in order to actively build the foundations of a nicer future, instead of maintaining the status quo because these improved conditions of living make it more of a comfortable nest? Change is uncomfortable but now more than ever we have all the means to put in motion some pretty radical changes, like for example phasing out factory farming and drastically cutting down meat consumption. Or re-evaluate the role and importance of religion in all cultures, not only in the West. OwlFancier posted:It takes some major myopia to look at the emergence of really serious recent problems and say "yes but we're getting better at them so they're not killing as many people as when we first caused them." I agree Japex posted:Some things that may appear to be good are actually harmful. I believe the lifestyle popularized in the West is not sustainable long-term especially not with an ever growing population. You also need to take into account moral relativism. Your idea of good is somebody else's idea of bad. I know I sound stupid like a stupid nerd whenever I say this but I truly believe that a global cultural and societal homogenization is more than necessary for the future of mankind. What I mean is a positive homogenization rooted in and aware of national and cultural differences, but an homogenization nonetheless. It might be too much to ask of most people though, at least as long as blind pride in one's origins and culture will keep being nurtured and passed on as instinct.
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Jul 7, 2018 09:50
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TheNakedFantastic posted:birth rate collapses This is one issue that always confuses me and I would like some more information on it: isn't moderate depopulation at this point in time a good thing? Or at least a stricter management of births?
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Jul 13, 2018 07:29
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Cicero posted:Really it's a problem for the retiree:worker ratio, but maybe robots will save us. Isn't this the same as saying that we can't reduce our population because we have an obligation towards people alive right now that outweighs our obligations towards future people? Isn't this a self-sustaining loop of unsustainability? Also yes, probably increasing automation is going to make it a more pressing issue in the coming years.
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Jul 13, 2018 08:06
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 04:52 |
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LeoMarr posted:Overpopulation is bullshit and a honeypot. Can you elaborate? I am aware that the biggest issue regarding perceived overpopulation is the distribution of wealth and food, together with the confusing distribution of super-high density areas. Wouldn't it be better though if sustainable policies targeting food production and environment conservation went hand in hand with a more prudent management of current and future births? OwlFancier posted:If we had fewer people the climate would be much easier to manage, and voluntarily not having children is an excellent way to contribute to that. From what I've read the current trend in Europe is that of lower birth rates, which is mostly offset by the influx of non-EU citizens. What's the trend in the US? Also yes, the problem with this kind of talk is that there's always someone who interprets it as a cue to list all the people they'd gladly kill if they were in charge. Joke's on them because we're all going to die sooner or later. Sometimes I feel like a sperg because I honestly don't mind talking about this stuff objectively, since I feel like the value of individual lives (including my own) pales in comparison to that of the whole. This obviously doesn't mean that I want half of the world's population to kill themselves, it means I'd love to see the effects of more people evaluating the future impact of far-reaching choices like having kids before they take those choices.
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Jul 13, 2018 23:55
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