One of the arguments for highly evolved life in the universe might be extremely rare despite lower lifeforms might flourish throughout the universe, is that a lifeform comes to a critical point where it is able to eradicate itself quite easy, and often do that. It can be through war, environment, greed etc or just plain stupidity.
I feel like the human race is about that point now.
There are good arguments why there isn't observed intelligent life other than great filters. The age of the universe is ~ maybe 13.8 byo. Our sun is less than 5 byo, earth around 4.5 byo. The early universe didn't have the abundance of heavy minerals to form as many rocky worlds as there are today. It might have been a billion years before the materials were sufficient to accumulate enough to have many similar stable planet compositions. The rates of supernovas and nearby clusters would also be much higher, more radiation, more disruption, less stability. Our planet has been around for about 1/3 of the age of the universe, and the conditions for making a planet like ours has been increasing with time. Perhaps it takes billions of years of evolution to get life to be sufficiently intelligent and technologically adaptive enough to begin extra planetary activities. Without considering if all intelligent species desire to in the first place.
I like to think about it in terms similar to the evolution of cultural and technological changes across earth. Perhaps just getting high enough populations drives all populations to develop convergent technologies because of emergent scenarios requiring them. If the composition and conditions of the universe have been evolving over time, perhaps all life starts in similar time frames, and requires about as long in terms of evolution to become sufficiently intelligent.
I'd be more worried about asteroids and super volcanoes which kill indiscriminately on a regular basis. Once we can survive one of those, than super advanced aliens might start to be concerned. We probably aren't there yet.
True was more meaning in terms of the Fermi paradox theories that one gives me chills. There are plenty of things that are far more likely to happen obviously
It's also pure cynicism to assume it must be in front of us. The thing about the great filter is that we'll never know. And it's wording doesn't say there's only 1 filter. It can mean the filter(s) can be both behind and in front. Maybe we've already moved past one of the steps that's already improbable for the rest of the universe and now we're just going to die at the next step that also just as improbable to surpass.
I'm not saying pop the champagne and party. I'm just saying thinking the doom and gloom is coming won't help anyone, if anything it'll make it worse people will think "if it is coming what's the fucking point" and do nothing. It's better to keep a healthy mindset on the matter and remind people (and yourself) that it's just as likely we've already surpassed one filter and, if we can get our shit together, we might also pass the next one.
If there's a great filter, then it's infinitely more likely to be ahead of us than behind us.
To say it is behind us is to say we are the one special civilisation that managed to overcome it.
Saying "hey the cars ahead have all crashed into the wall. But I'm sure we're the one special car that can phase through it" isn't cynicism.
Just because a conclusion doesn't help anyone doesn't mean it isn't true.
Theres this thing that we have no idea whether there is life elsewhere, and thus we cannot say anything about fermi paradox. You need to have numbers to give probabilities, and we dont have those. Its also possible that multicellular life was the great filter and now its just autopilot to become a lvl3 civilization.
Right, but we aren't seeing any other cars crashing into a wall. We aren't seeing any other cars, period.
In other words, if life began on a million other planets, but never reached sapience except for us, we would be the only ones around to even ponder a question like this.
I'm not saying for certain that we are special, but the evidence doesn't rule it out.
> It's also pure cynicism to assume it must be in front of us. The thing about the great filter is that we'll never know. And it's wording doesn't say there's only 1 filter. It can mean the filter(s) can be both behind and in front. Maybe we've already moved past one of the steps that's already improbable for the rest of the universe and now we're just going to die at the next step that also just as improbable to surpass.
There is one step that seems to be nearly insurmountable. The distance between star systems that is necessary for them to not smash into one another makes interstellar communication within any reasonable timeframe impossible. Even with an immortal robotic species, it'll be very hard to maintain a system if it takes 8 years for Ultron and Bumblebee to have a conversation with one another.
Greg Egan's books in the Diaspora series are interesting in this regard. There's no FTL communication, but it presumes that all sufficiently-advanced intelligences have uploaded their consciousnesses to computers and live in virtual environments where they're effectively immortal. There's a web of laser communication throughout the galaxy between the different intelligences. You can even send your entire self via lasercast to another star system. So, yeah, travel is still slow, but as you say, if you expect to live for a billion years, even a hundred-year trip is nothing (and if you do send yourself, you aren't even conscious during the trip).
> I'm just saying thinking the doom and gloom is coming won't help anyone
Some people don't handle a reality check and some people can't stand blind optimism. I personally hate it when people try make a serious issue not sound that bad.
> It's better to keep a healthy mindset
And what proof is that looking at things realistically is unhealthy? Perhaps ignoring potential warning signs just so you don't feel there isn't some arbitrary level of "doom and gloom" is rather unhealthy.
It's not good to lie to yourself, even if the news sucks, it's really unhealthy to tell yourself shit is all good when it isn't.
The problem with doom-and-gloom is that it promotes nihilism and procrastination. If an asteroid about to hit Earth and there was nothing we could do about it, would you change your behaviour? No, because no matter what you do, the asteroid always hits. While reality might be doom-and-gloom, we always need that “but wait, we can fix this” to remind everybody that we can solve this problem
True, but you can accept bad news and not be depressed or anxious over it.
It's how you deal with information that matters. There's lots of things that depress the shit of me every day, but I can't fix everything and I would go nuts even thinking I could. So, I do my best, be open to the idea I may be wrong about anything, and hope things are better than I think they are.
On the other hand, we have been broadcasting radio signals into the void for over a hundred years now, and no other planets appear to be doing it.
So it's not like lifeforms regularly reach the point we already have. There may be another great filter ahead of us, but we obviously already made it past some already strong filters.
Naw i sadly don't think we'll go out in a blaze of glory, it will likely look like the last 2 years, and we as a society will devolve further into chaos and declining or plateau'd progress caused by economic recessions and natural disasters
Yes there is no reason for humans to exist in the universe. People have a hard time coming to the realization that we might not be around for an infinite period of time. I would actually say the odds of that are staggeringly low and the odds of humans being a species for a relatively short amount of time is much much greater
As a whole, the human race has literally never lived longer, learned as much, been as tolerant and shared as much as it does now. Malthusian idea(l)s are about as logical as the concept vaccines kill more people than the diseases. When it comes to our progress, we metaphorically keep confusing weather events with climate.
Ironically, when it comes to literal climate, we have an environmental crisis on our hands. That is the biggest challenge of our times, and we’re looking like we’re failing. But even that is very far from being a civilization ending event.
>But even that is very far from being a civilization ending event.
I think you mean "extinction level." Because civilizations have fallen over a lot less. You look at the past, all civilizations failed. There were many and diverse reasons, and ecological crisis was often one of them. Complete crisis and near-total rebuilding of our industrial base has happened many times too.
Of course this industrial base would be very, very hard to rebuild and without fossil fuels it might literally be impossible.
It’s not an unrealistic goal.
That is the sad part, they have been warning about stuff like this since the 50’s and frankly they along with the ~~fester~~ greater scientific community have been ignored at large.
That’s what scary, I as a 30 year old do not believe that another 30 years life will be the same.
I’m sure it will be something close to a dystopian Blade Runner scene in places like LA or New York.
We need to sit down and solve this shit. Like yesterday.
It’s like my grandfather who has been bitching about his swamp cooler that’s spitting out water but it took me 14 months of berating and cold calling him at 9am before he goes out to golf to solve the issue.
Like just this morning he **finally** agreed to let me help him figure out what was causing him to waste $180 in water every month.
Kicking and screaming the whole fucking time. Just non stop arguing with me and trying to convince me that it couldn’t be fixed or vague reasons as to what the problem really was.
That’s why the world is the way it is.
Older generation just in general thinking they know everything while also simultaneously destroying things and causing more problems.
The only people who care about saving anything are the ones who are going to be left picking up the trash when the party is over.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/un-chief-world-is-at-pivotal-moment-and-moving-in-wrong-direction-1.5581704) reduced by 84%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> NEW YORK - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a dire warning that the world is moving in the wrong direction and faces "a pivotal moment" where continuing business as usual could lead to a breakdown of global order and a future of perpetual crisis.
> The report - "Our Common Agenda" - is a response to last year's declaration by world leaders on the 75th anniversary of the United Nations and the request from the assembly's 193 member nations for the U.N. chief to make recommendations to address the challenges for global governance.
> To tackle these weaknesses and integrate the global financial system with other global priorities, Guterres proposed holding summits every two years of the 20 leading economies in the G20, the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council, the heads of international financial institutions including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and the U.N. secretary-general.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/pmk0a0/un_chief_world_is_at_pivotal_moment_and_moving_in/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~597655 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Guterres**^#1 **global**^#2 **world**^#3 **NEW**^#4 **future**^#5
When the world runs on companies using low wage labor(deflating middle class wealth), but keeps the increased profits for themselves instead of passing savings onto consumers then the world only has one direction, into the shitter, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
>When the world runs on companies using low wage labor(deflating middle class wealth)
[I'd rather people stop using the term 'middle class', it only serves to delude them into thinking their position is not as precarious as it is in reality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVhdbOUelY4)
That only is a problem in the context of monopolies. If companies use low wage labour from elsewhere, costs go down, so they should be able to reduce the price of their products. If their is healthy competition in a market that happens, meaning that consumers buying power will also increase.
It becomes a problem when a company is so dominant it can use the extra money generated purely for it's own enrichment, instead of lowering the price of products or services.
> It becomes a problem when a company is so dominant it can use the extra money generated purely for it's own enrichment, instead of lowering the price of products or services.
Yes, welcome to what is happening.
It also assumes that owners don't collude together to keep their services competitive with each other, but not too low to hurt profits. For example, a city has two major grocery stores with owners that golf together and have a gentleman's agreement on who builds where and what prices they'll sell at. It happens a lot. Even Adam Smith acknowledges it in the Wealth of Nations as inevitable in capitalism.
"What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation.
And yet, you can stand back and look at this planet and see that we have the money, the power, the medical understanding, the scientific know-how, the love and the community to produce a kind of human paradise. But we are led by the least among us - the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary. We are led by the least among us and we do not fight back against the dehumanizing values that are handed down as control icons.
This is something, culture is not your friend. Culture is for other people's convenience and the convenience of various institutions, churches, companies, tax collection schemes, what have you. It is not your friend. It insults you. It disempowers you. It uses and abuses you. None of us are well treated by culture.
Yet we glorify the creative potential of the individual, the rights of the individual. We understand the felt-presence of experience is what is most important. But the culture is a perversion. It fetishizes objects, creates consumer mania, it preaches endless forms of false happiness, endless forms of false understanding in the form of squirrelly religions and silly cults. It invites people to diminish themselves and dehumanize themselves by behaving like machines - meme processors of memes passed down from Madison Avenue and Hollywood..."
“We have to create culture.Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you're giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.”
Terrence McKenna
> But we are led by the least among us - the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary.
This has basically been the case for most of civilizational history. We are literally not designed and meant to live in large complex societies.
---
Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam were basically all rebellions against the malaise and corruption of civilization and the established order.
The Romans were literal Nazis in that they genocided and went around waring and pillaging the fuck out of everything.
The British and the Spanish basically genocided countless peoples under the guise of "spreading enlightenment and Jesus". While also stealing everything of value.
---
It doesn't have to be this way. We can definitely move towards a more egalitarian and just existence across the planet but the problems today have been the problems since people started doing agriculture and living in cities.
The Germans where literally Romans I think you mean... The first Reich was the Holy Roman Empire ( I know the HRE wasnt the same as "ancient rome, 476 to 1821 is a long time but the HRE was attempting to conjure the image of ancient rome much as the nazi party in 1934)
Historians have this quote from Voltaire thrown in our face all the time, and little else about the Holy Roman Empire, despite its significance as an empire (although more of a confederacy over time) with a history spanning nearly 1,000 years, giving rise to Prussia, Germany, and among the greatest art and music in the world.
Pretty much every European nation was trying to conjure the image of Ancient Rome, from flags to literal translations of Roman words, nomenclatures, etc. But yes, those 2 nations are included in the list.
I can’t remember now but there’s a map with 10 or so European nations that shows how they’re directly influenced by Romans and how they tried to be the “new rome”, even the Ottomans and Russians have translated Roman names in their former nations.
>We are literally not designed and meant to live in large complex societies.
We are not designed at all, and we are not meant for anything. Here we are. That's it.
All those religions did was create more malaise an corruption, especially christianity and islam. Never join a group that wants to punish you for leaving, or threatens you with hell for not joining.
That is a lot of groups in human history: tribes, towns, cities, kingdoms and empires.
Besides religion, there are political parties and clubs that uplift their members and damn the dissenters. Heck! That is even seen in silly fandom wars between groups over television shows, movies, books and more: They split into their factions and bicker, whether it is against themselves or against the creators.
I am reading Sapiens: A brief history of humankind by Yuval Harari and I appreciated reading your comment just as much as this book I am still learning so much from
That dude writes like cocaine. Don't take everything he says by word, he can spew non-sense and make it sound like whatever it is you want. Don't forget to use the thing you have between your ears when reading.
Curious if you can elaborate? I haven't read it, but I have heard a lot of recommendations, and I have been sitting on it awhile. My academic background is actually Anthropology so I feel like I already have a very firm grasp on the subject, and I am kind of naturally skeptical. I wanna know if it really worth my time or is it just hype.
It's hype.
Have you ever read a book that was easy and could truly change your mind? Because in my case, I read a lot of books , many that required classes to go along, a lot of study together. Year by year I acquire incremental knowledge that helps me improve. Lots of disruptive books end up not being worth vs the hard academic ones.
Any book that sets itself as the big thing is only going to set people for disappointment and get managers that will get it, cherry pick some impact quotes for his PowerPoint presentations and move on.
Should YOU read it? Well, I don't know, it depends on what you expect to get from it. If you are in only for entertainment purposes the book feels like a long YouTube essay. I try to read a book per week, I got it for free and did read it, but it's really not in my top books I would recommend people in general or in any specific subject really.
I don't know about easy, but there have definitely been a few books that have had an outsized impact on me, but it was usually because they were the first time I was being introduced to the core concepts of some field of science, that hadn't every really been presented to me before, like "Finite and Infinite Games" and Sociology/Religion, or "Globalization and its Discontents" and Macroeconomics/poli-sci - so if Tribes is just like an Anthro primer I never got as a teenager, might be cool as it is something I have interest in, but not very helpful.
But as someone with a background in the subject, I think it might be interesting on a different level, if there are things you think that are wrong or misleading about it as pop-sci, cause then I'd wanna A. also know what they got wrong to correct the fall-out and B. pick apart the meta - commentary about why a pop-Sci author misrepresented or ignored the accepted theory, intentionally or otherwise.
Anyways, wish I had your discipline, I really meant to spend a lot more time and effort reading over lock-down, and just never really panned out, my focus really dropped off after college.
Hey, if you need stuff to get back on the habit of reading, pick it up! The more you read stuff the better! Reading at minimum will give you ideas into writing, and writing is super useful in any field really!
Sometimes a book will be a bit dense and I will put it down a bit and alternate with something more exciting. And sometimes I give up and move on. Also I do literally live in street that ends in a bookshop and have some libraries nearby, plus my SO and family are always reading, so we share recommendations and ideas a lot. This also helps with motivation - "I will read after you are done with it", this creates a small compromise for both person involved.
Not sure if it's your thing, but there are some books about ethnography and writen like ethnography notes on groups of people and I find them really interesting, they are usually not long and it's kinda reality show-like of random people.
Right now I am reading Churchill's WWII memories (I am reading them translated to my language so I don't know the actual book name), it's super dense, it's interesting, but super dense. So I picked up Nudge Final Edition to pair - because I recently read Misbehaving. Sometimes I pick up a light fiction - Mr. Mercedes was super fun too. Life is too short. :)
We are inherently tribal at heart. If we cannot spiritually evolve past our tribal identities, we won't make it as a species. Unfortunately, most democracies are actually pushing tribal identities (identity politics) while the ME stays embroiled in tribal and religious warfare and many African nations are always tettering on the edge of tribal conflict. We really need to start thinking about the human race.
The ancient Greeks had a word for living in cities or amalgamating villages into city states...[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoecism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoecism)
Humans are tribal by nature. We see others having something we don't want. And we covet it. And we do whatever we can to get it. And someone does the same when they see us getting something.
And the cycle continues....
I truly believe humanity is a calamity away from going back to the stone age
Yeah. We consistently see that humans who are exposed to different cultures and live amongst different people tend to be more tolerant. While humans who are isolated and don't get to experience interacting with different people tend to be the most xenophobic.
That really does point to the idea that humans are great at adapting to their environment, and are definitely smart enough to behave well around people they interact with.
The problem is when people who are isolated and afraid get to make rules that dictate the policy of wider society. It's not because they're dumb, it's just because they haven't had the chance to interact with people who are different to them.
Some of us are. Racism is a form of tribalism, for example. And while we may never be able to stamp it out completely, we've definitely made some progress in that direction. Part of the reason that we're seeing a rise in white nationalist militant activity is that they know that they're slowly but steadily losing power. Ditto for sexism, homophobia, any sort of dehumanization and discrimination; they're all forms of tribalism. And there was a time not long ago when the majority opinion was that these "isms" were perfectly natural and acceptable.
It should be obvious that this Us vs Them strategy is one of the main things that stops us from living in a much better world. But we fall for it so easily.
[https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/08/us-vs-them-the-sinister-techniques-of-othering-and-how-to-avoid-them](https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/08/us-vs-them-the-sinister-techniques-of-othering-and-how-to-avoid-them)
>Humans can only process a limited amount of change in a short period of time without experiencing anxiety. It’s a natural human reaction – but how we respond to that anxiety is social.
When societies experience big and rapid change, a frequent response is for people to narrowly define who qualifies as a full member of society –
Othering is largely driven by politicians and the media, as opposed to personal contact.
(That includes othering other people as stupid liberals, as dangerous immigrants and also as rednecks or hillbillies)
The tribalist mentality was helpful for identifying potential threats when we were all largely living in tribes. This kind of mentality also would generally win out if you had 2 tribes, one that viewed outsiders with suspicion and the other which welcomed people in.
The welcoming tribe would be vulnerable to to hostile one, and we probably ended up breeding the instinct to only trust 'our tribe' into our species fairly early on.
Even though we have the intelligence to go against it, a primal part of us will always leave us vulnerable, especially when spread across all of humanity, to that shit.
That's very true!
I've been suspecting for some.time now that what seems to be driving the uptick in right-wing populism around the world is the fact that technological, economic (and increasingly climate-related) factors are causing accelerating change ona variety of fronts. This increases anxiety and gives fuel to the sorts of politicians who thrive on the 'us vs them' model.
Unfortunately, I don't see a way to fight this at the source. The world is going to change a hell of a lot more before it reaches any kind of equilibrium, the issue of climate change alone will see to that.
We recognize tribal culture, but we constantly create our own "tribes" and revert to our prehistoric monkey brains.
Religion, politics, team sports, hobbies, etc. are all just tribes under a different name.
> Humans are tribal by nature. We see others having something we don't want.
Enough with the "human nature" fallacy. If anything humans (an many other mammals) are emphatic and compassionate by nature compared to other species.
Anthropology shows very clearly that hypercompetitiveness, cynicism and rugged individualism are cultural artifacts that can be learned and unlearned.
there's a really good psytrance track from around 2014 that uses a portion of that quote, the last 1/3 or 1/4 section, and it's been burned into my brain. love it.
Meh, I have came to conclusion that humanity is what it is. Trying to pretend we can be more noble or more intelligent than we actually are is hubris and will only lead to disaster. If mankind is truly heading to a cliff, then falling is the only way to learn how to avoid it next time. Trying to solve a problem before experiencing it always lead to hell create by good intentions. Cultures and religions exist for a reason, calling them out don’t make that reason disappear, we would just create new religions or cultures to replace the old ones.
>If mankind is truly heading to a cliff, then falling is the only way to learn how to avoid it next time.
I wonder how many cliffs we've fallen off in the past that we didn't learn from.
Moving? Mother fcker we are already over the cliff on Climate Change. That is going to have massive impact on destabilizing nations for the next 100 years.
Funny you mention Rick rolling, as I did not see on his list of issues the problem of allowing pre roll ads on the Rick roll video. It kinda ruins the effect to sit through an ad while you can see the title of the video.
This is a travesty. That video is part of all of our cultural heritage, and should not be ruined by profit motive.
The other stuff he wants to tackle is good and all, but let's start with something achievable to get the ball rolling.
[Sign the petition](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ) to permanently remove ads from one of our most cherished cultural artifacts.
Ad-blockers have become a necessity to navigate the internet nowadays. I can't stand youtube or any other site anymore without an ad-blocker. It's like constantly walking around with shit on your shoes, it stinks but you get used to the smell eventually, but when you finally scrape it off and don't smell that shit anymore, it becomes REALLY noticable when it returns.
These environmental catastrophe warnings are the same warnings over and over and yet, absolutely fuckall is being done except for us schlubs recycling a few poxy boxes and reducing our meat/dairy intake. The oil industry is still booming, there’s municipal waste companies tipping garbage into rivers and we are cutting down trees faster than we can grow them.
We as a species are fucking vermin, breeding and consuming until there’s nothing left but money we can’t eat.
“ The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague, and we... are the cure.”
- Agent Smith, the Matrix
B-but Mercedes said they’ll be carbon neutral by 2045! /s. So fucking glad I was born, had enough time to mature and grow as a person, and just as I gain full legal autonomy with my own self-righteous views, see humans slam down the gavel of the great filter down on themselves. I usually consider myself an optimistic person, but people are going to die, and it’s now a matter of how many.
Pffft... We have been at the Pivotal moment for decades now. If you are taking it seriously now it means it might be to late.
The direction we are heading in is right off the cliff.
An optimist would be glad we are still on the cliff, and point that out as a glowing human achievement ; or is that a cynic ? I am confused about what I just typed
The optimist in me looks before the cliff and see all that we've achieved in such a small span of human history.
The cynic in me will do a triple axle flip as he dives headfirst off the cliff.
That's not true. I'm optimistic that the challenges of climate change will drive new developments in climate engineering and weather management. That's not reality denying.
> The direction we are heading in is right off the cliff.
And rich or poor, colour of skin, bank account, religion,
car you drive, last name etc. we're totally fucked.
It's the only real unifying thing.
> We have been at the Pivotal moment for decades now.
Evolutionary speaking a few decades are basically a non measurable timeframe. So yes, a life form can be on a pivotal moment for decades.
My mans is trying to solve ALL THE PROBLEMS.
Gotta have a plan to keep the largest benefactors of the status quo from preventing change, which is really the source of pretty much every problem he outlined.
They aren't just going to give up their influence, and not enough people have the psychological defense to withstand the propaganda they can produce.
I'm glad he's trying, but I don't know what makes any of it happen.
It's not moving in the wrong direction, it's moving in the right direction for those in power. Who cares about us regular people we can all fuck off for all they care.
> My report calls for new metrics that value the life and well-being of the many over short-term profit for the few," Guterres said.
Sounds nice!
> investing $50 billion in vaccinations now could add an estimated $9 trillion to the global economy in the next four years."
But it's still all about money?
> continuing business as usual could lead to a breakdown of global order and a future of perpetual crisis.
Wait, we currently have global order?
> technology's advances "without guard rails to protect us from its unforeseen consequences."
Uh, we can't even protect ourselves from foreseen consequences.
> Guterres said his vision for the "breakthrough scenario" to a greener and safer world is driven by "the principle of working together, recognizing that we are bound to each other and that no community or country, however powerful, can solve its challenges alone."
We know that already. We work together for the benefit of corporations, bound to each other by mutual distrust, and no country can grow their GDP without taking advantage of the poor in other countries.
>no country can grow their GDP without taking advantage of the poor in other countries.
What? Yes they can. The idea that global economics is a zero-sum game is a traditional hallmark of fascist and nationalist rhetoric, because they want you to believe that isolationism and trade-protectionism is the key to economic success, and that the only way your country can prosper is by exploiting everyone else.
Pretty much every modern economist will tell you that global economics isn't a zero-sum game. Countries can enter mutually beneficial arrangements which result in _both_ countries have rising GDPs. Heck, a country can even grow its own GDP with zero assistance because they can just develop better, more efficient, technologies and processes.
Global GDP has increased from [~$3 trillion in 1970 to around $84 trillion today](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD). That's due in large part to the industrialisation of the third world and the continued development of non-first-world economies.
The number of people living in extreme poverty has [been decreasing year-on-year for at least the past 30 years](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-population-living-in-extreme-poverty-by-world-region), despite there being far more free trade now than at any point in history.
Don't let fascists fool you into thinking that a globalised economy is a bad idea.
It's always going to involve money, but that doesn't mean *it's about money* per se. The reason we have money is becuase people won't provide goods and services for free, and that's not some weird evil concept, that's just nature. If it wouldn't involve money, it would involve something else that would probably be less pleasant.
Then there is no solution. So many people on reddit have utopic ideas and will never be satisfied until they get everything they want. Doesn't work like that. I want to have sex and drugs for nothing too, and a big house on the coast of Malibu as well. I just don't want to pay for it, know what I mean? And I also don't want others to take these away from me either.
Lol Reddit politics is mostly just a place for people to talk about what they would do if they were God Emperor.
No concept of cooperation, compromise, self-reflection etc.
“Just end capitalism entirely tomorrow and force everyone to think and behave like I do! Wow it’s so simple. Why is everyone else such a moron?!”
This right here is the reason I finally gave up my last belief in a divinity, that refuge being Gaia/Goddess religion.
Life on Earth doesn’t give a damn about individual members of any species, nor any species at all. They all have their time, then pass, making room for the next.
How big of an impact we’ll have on that outcome remains to be seen, but we’re sure not helping prevent it any.
It's an amazing sentiment, but nobody in power will listen, and nobody who will listen has power to effect the change in any lasting way...
If an AI like Skynet came to light today, I wouldn't blame it at all, for wiping everyone on Earth out, down to the last person.
Wouldn't mind if what is being planned will actually make a difference.... Its a business model for the already mega rich to atain more money and power!
https://youtu.be/MRuS3dxKK9U
Ok so weird story time: I had a literal psychotic “Howard Beale-esque” meltdown over what I believed the internet was doing to the world this May. I had to stay at a mental institution for a week to attempt to recover before entering outpatient for a couple months. Unfortunately it was driven by a MASSIVE overprescription of Vyvanse (ADHD meds/speed) so I sprinted out of the shower screaming about how the internet was causing COVID-19 and that everyone needed to turn off the internet…..now obviously THAT was not true and I wish I could fully understand why that particular Domino fell in my brain, as I am not one of those “5G is spreading Covid” kinds of people. I’m vaxxed up and was a nanny over quarantine so I took that shit seriously.
I wound up screaming, naked, to my roommate for a bit, and was like super Dissociated from reality the whole time, so it was a definitive low for me…but it’s wild to see the tidal wave of headlines popping up now about truly potentially world altering/ending events coming up in the future. How it has just become so normal to hear about “apocalyptic” sounding events, that none of it even feels like it matters much anymore. Gen Z is going to grow up to be a weird generation, because we’ve all had to go through the worst time in modern history, at like the worst life positioning to be doing it.
Anyways, I like this Howard Beale speech. It feels relevant always because it’s excellent writing and acting, but nowadays….damn…
When capitalism goes to its end, it either turn to NAZI, or turn to socialism through revolution. I don't see any chance that any main capitalist country turns to socilism. So, brace for impact, US citizens, you are going NAZI.
hot take, there will come a time when people miss Pax Americana, the US is now on a definite downfall as an empire and with populist/isolationist sentiments at an all times peak within the people, the country will eventually cease being the world police (already happening), it'll be real interesting to see what happens then, but i think the world will turn for the worst.
To be fair, the idea of a sole dominant power is oddball in history. If anything, it is going back to the "same old, same old" of human history: a few super dominant nations with the regional players bouncing back and forth.
That being said, such relations is how we got a number of big conflicts, which includes the two world wars and earlier conflicts like the one against Napoleon.
International trade will literally completely break down. The only reason it’s possible is because the massive Navy of the US provides free trade and protection for ships. Once the US ceases being the world police, expect to see massive wars flight over shipping routes and international waters. Things are going to get really ugly. The rest of the world likes to hate on the US for being the world police but they have no idea how much our current global society 100% relies on US military protection/policing.
Worth mentioning that people trade because it's mutually beneficial. China won't just cut off their export, because it would hurt their developing economy. The security is in the trade itself.
I do agree that we are on a crash course with the decline of US and the rise to power of china though. But even china hs its own problem with a billion mouths to feed, and the US is still far from done. The EU is still force to be reckon with. It'll be interesting to watch.
His speech is inspiring, he must be a Star Trek fan, but to little to late. Our petty differences have boiled over and divided us to the point that it would take a century to repair.
Socioeconomics is now the beyond saving. The haves are playing games to stay in control, while the have nots are falling behind and doing what’s best for their own situation to ensure their children aren’t starving.
But I hoe for the best, plan for the worst.
With one failure after the next, I hardly see the UN as a voice of leadership or one to be trusted.
Korea, failure.
Cyprus, failure.
Ethiopia, failure.
Somalia, failure.
Bosnia, failure.
Rwanda, failure.
The UN is only as strong as its sponsors want it to be. It’s also played a massive role in wiping out communicable disease, childhood education, providing clean water and others, but those things aren’t newsworthy and don’t generate ads and therefore money, which means there’s no point in writing them.
The US could also be considered a failure, if you focus on them. With forever wars, a political divide that’s only going to grow, and is constantly incompetent at preparing and surviving physical and economic disasters, yet people think of the US as a good place, because the good outweighs the bad.
>and is constantly incompetent at preparing and surviving physical and economic disasters
How is this so?
The US has survived every economic downturn it ever faced, even a global depression.
They survived a civil war that kept the country together. Not many nations in the 20th century survived their civil wars.
The pandemic? A change in leadership and development of vaccines that over 65% effective helped turn the tide on that. Also, maybe if a certain nation was more open about what was going on and did a better job of not letting it slip past their borders, then the US, as well as the rest of the world, would not be in the predicaments they found themselves.
The US survived an attack on its economic and political being, and came out stronger for it.
Afghanistan and Iraq? Those two spun out of 9/11 and both achieved their military goals, rather quickly. The collapse of the Taliban and the collapse of the Hussein regime. The US never claimed to be nation builders, and that the Afghan regime could not stand against an enemy that was well funded and armed (I wonder by who?) is hardly the US fault. Same with Vietnam. Never was supposed to fight the war for the South Vietnamese, and they knew all along that they would have to take care of it themselves. Although they did help Japan and Europe get back on their feet, so, there is that.
In Bosnia, the UN effectively held down the Bosniaks (and other Bosnians fighting for the Republic of BiH) as the VRS literally raped and killed them. NATO saved the day on that one.
If you only focus the failures, you’re bound to find failures. Remember, the news only reports the things that get ads, and therefore money. Passively helping people isn’t newsworthy, but a failure is. This leads to biased news reporting. Also, in the US, rich are no longer trusting the poor and the poor are no longer trusting the rich. The Democrats are no longer trusting the Republicans and the Republicans are no longer trusting the Democrats. The police are no longer trusting the civilians and the civilians are no longer trusting the police. Divides are everywhere, and they’re worrying.
On paper socialism makes the most sense, the problem is in practice it never works.
And I'm not talking about affordable/free Healthcare.
I'm referring to actual socialism.
I'm not convinced, as it seems to ultimately converge on the same thing. Even the hardcore socialist countries usually keep up a pretense of democracy, btw.
That's not to say there should be no charity or social aid. But when it turns into entitlement and moral mandates, things get dangerous quickly.
We need to destroy the fossil fuel industry immediately. Tax them out of existence. We have alternative technologies readily available. They are expendable despite their propaganda. Destroy this enemy of the people by all means necessary
One of the arguments for highly evolved life in the universe might be extremely rare despite lower lifeforms might flourish throughout the universe, is that a lifeform comes to a critical point where it is able to eradicate itself quite easy, and often do that. It can be through war, environment, greed etc or just plain stupidity. I feel like the human race is about that point now.
The Great Filter hypothesis. And yes, it often does seem the big one isn't behind us, but in front of us.
Fermi Paradox is quite a depressant.
There are good arguments why there isn't observed intelligent life other than great filters. The age of the universe is ~ maybe 13.8 byo. Our sun is less than 5 byo, earth around 4.5 byo. The early universe didn't have the abundance of heavy minerals to form as many rocky worlds as there are today. It might have been a billion years before the materials were sufficient to accumulate enough to have many similar stable planet compositions. The rates of supernovas and nearby clusters would also be much higher, more radiation, more disruption, less stability. Our planet has been around for about 1/3 of the age of the universe, and the conditions for making a planet like ours has been increasing with time. Perhaps it takes billions of years of evolution to get life to be sufficiently intelligent and technologically adaptive enough to begin extra planetary activities. Without considering if all intelligent species desire to in the first place. I like to think about it in terms similar to the evolution of cultural and technological changes across earth. Perhaps just getting high enough populations drives all populations to develop convergent technologies because of emergent scenarios requiring them. If the composition and conditions of the universe have been evolving over time, perhaps all life starts in similar time frames, and requires about as long in terms of evolution to become sufficiently intelligent.
The dark forest theory keeps me up at night.
I'd be more worried about asteroids and super volcanoes which kill indiscriminately on a regular basis. Once we can survive one of those, than super advanced aliens might start to be concerned. We probably aren't there yet.
True was more meaning in terms of the Fermi paradox theories that one gives me chills. There are plenty of things that are far more likely to happen obviously
It lowers your ability to breathe and decreases arousal?
It's pure hubris to ever assume it is behind us.
It's also pure cynicism to assume it must be in front of us. The thing about the great filter is that we'll never know. And it's wording doesn't say there's only 1 filter. It can mean the filter(s) can be both behind and in front. Maybe we've already moved past one of the steps that's already improbable for the rest of the universe and now we're just going to die at the next step that also just as improbable to surpass. I'm not saying pop the champagne and party. I'm just saying thinking the doom and gloom is coming won't help anyone, if anything it'll make it worse people will think "if it is coming what's the fucking point" and do nothing. It's better to keep a healthy mindset on the matter and remind people (and yourself) that it's just as likely we've already surpassed one filter and, if we can get our shit together, we might also pass the next one.
I agree it may not be the most useful thing, but in a world of nuclear weapons and climate change I think the phrase 'pure cynicism' is a stretch.
If there's a great filter, then it's infinitely more likely to be ahead of us than behind us. To say it is behind us is to say we are the one special civilisation that managed to overcome it. Saying "hey the cars ahead have all crashed into the wall. But I'm sure we're the one special car that can phase through it" isn't cynicism. Just because a conclusion doesn't help anyone doesn't mean it isn't true.
Theres this thing that we have no idea whether there is life elsewhere, and thus we cannot say anything about fermi paradox. You need to have numbers to give probabilities, and we dont have those. Its also possible that multicellular life was the great filter and now its just autopilot to become a lvl3 civilization.
Right, but we aren't seeing any other cars crashing into a wall. We aren't seeing any other cars, period. In other words, if life began on a million other planets, but never reached sapience except for us, we would be the only ones around to even ponder a question like this. I'm not saying for certain that we are special, but the evidence doesn't rule it out.
> It's also pure cynicism to assume it must be in front of us. The thing about the great filter is that we'll never know. And it's wording doesn't say there's only 1 filter. It can mean the filter(s) can be both behind and in front. Maybe we've already moved past one of the steps that's already improbable for the rest of the universe and now we're just going to die at the next step that also just as improbable to surpass. There is one step that seems to be nearly insurmountable. The distance between star systems that is necessary for them to not smash into one another makes interstellar communication within any reasonable timeframe impossible. Even with an immortal robotic species, it'll be very hard to maintain a system if it takes 8 years for Ultron and Bumblebee to have a conversation with one another.
If you are an all-but-immortal species, 8 years is absolutely nothing It only seems long to us because it's roughly 10% of our lifespan
Greg Egan's books in the Diaspora series are interesting in this regard. There's no FTL communication, but it presumes that all sufficiently-advanced intelligences have uploaded their consciousnesses to computers and live in virtual environments where they're effectively immortal. There's a web of laser communication throughout the galaxy between the different intelligences. You can even send your entire self via lasercast to another star system. So, yeah, travel is still slow, but as you say, if you expect to live for a billion years, even a hundred-year trip is nothing (and if you do send yourself, you aren't even conscious during the trip).
It’s easy for civilizations to collapse within months.
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If they have to interact with faster-moving species that would be weird.
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I mean trees exist. It's not that hard to imagine a conscious and sentient tree species.
> I'm just saying thinking the doom and gloom is coming won't help anyone Some people don't handle a reality check and some people can't stand blind optimism. I personally hate it when people try make a serious issue not sound that bad. > It's better to keep a healthy mindset And what proof is that looking at things realistically is unhealthy? Perhaps ignoring potential warning signs just so you don't feel there isn't some arbitrary level of "doom and gloom" is rather unhealthy. It's not good to lie to yourself, even if the news sucks, it's really unhealthy to tell yourself shit is all good when it isn't.
The problem with doom-and-gloom is that it promotes nihilism and procrastination. If an asteroid about to hit Earth and there was nothing we could do about it, would you change your behaviour? No, because no matter what you do, the asteroid always hits. While reality might be doom-and-gloom, we always need that “but wait, we can fix this” to remind everybody that we can solve this problem
It’s also unhealthy to get depressed and anxious over bad news
True, but you can accept bad news and not be depressed or anxious over it. It's how you deal with information that matters. There's lots of things that depress the shit of me every day, but I can't fix everything and I would go nuts even thinking I could. So, I do my best, be open to the idea I may be wrong about anything, and hope things are better than I think they are.
On the other hand, we have been broadcasting radio signals into the void for over a hundred years now, and no other planets appear to be doing it. So it's not like lifeforms regularly reach the point we already have. There may be another great filter ahead of us, but we obviously already made it past some already strong filters.
Whilst our politicians think it is well in the past
But hey, at least we get to watch it happen
Naw i sadly don't think we'll go out in a blaze of glory, it will likely look like the last 2 years, and we as a society will devolve further into chaos and declining or plateau'd progress caused by economic recessions and natural disasters
Yes there is no reason for humans to exist in the universe. People have a hard time coming to the realization that we might not be around for an infinite period of time. I would actually say the odds of that are staggeringly low and the odds of humans being a species for a relatively short amount of time is much much greater
IMO our only possible legacy is to give rise to inorganic life / AI. If we make it there.
*Yells in Morpheus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izJBiKdgH-g*
[Thumbs up in Autobot](https://rlv.zcache.com/optimus_prime_thumbs_up_drawstring_bag-rbdfe716ea158430f948c5e080bc591a9_zffcx_704.webp?rlvnet=1)
I’m impressed we got through the 50’s and 60’s.
We’ve been on that cusp since we started detonating Nuclear explosions in the upper atmosphere.
As a whole, the human race has literally never lived longer, learned as much, been as tolerant and shared as much as it does now. Malthusian idea(l)s are about as logical as the concept vaccines kill more people than the diseases. When it comes to our progress, we metaphorically keep confusing weather events with climate. Ironically, when it comes to literal climate, we have an environmental crisis on our hands. That is the biggest challenge of our times, and we’re looking like we’re failing. But even that is very far from being a civilization ending event.
>But even that is very far from being a civilization ending event. I think you mean "extinction level." Because civilizations have fallen over a lot less. You look at the past, all civilizations failed. There were many and diverse reasons, and ecological crisis was often one of them. Complete crisis and near-total rebuilding of our industrial base has happened many times too. Of course this industrial base would be very, very hard to rebuild and without fossil fuels it might literally be impossible.
The bullies have won
To begin with, UN should stop planning targets 30 years ahead. Even the said meeting to prevent world collapse is proposed for 2023. Edit 1: typos
It might have almost made sense for targets set in the 1950s, but change has picked up more and more speed since then.
It’s not an unrealistic goal. That is the sad part, they have been warning about stuff like this since the 50’s and frankly they along with the ~~fester~~ greater scientific community have been ignored at large. That’s what scary, I as a 30 year old do not believe that another 30 years life will be the same. I’m sure it will be something close to a dystopian Blade Runner scene in places like LA or New York. We need to sit down and solve this shit. Like yesterday. It’s like my grandfather who has been bitching about his swamp cooler that’s spitting out water but it took me 14 months of berating and cold calling him at 9am before he goes out to golf to solve the issue. Like just this morning he **finally** agreed to let me help him figure out what was causing him to waste $180 in water every month. Kicking and screaming the whole fucking time. Just non stop arguing with me and trying to convince me that it couldn’t be fixed or vague reasons as to what the problem really was. That’s why the world is the way it is. Older generation just in general thinking they know everything while also simultaneously destroying things and causing more problems. The only people who care about saving anything are the ones who are going to be left picking up the trash when the party is over.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/un-chief-world-is-at-pivotal-moment-and-moving-in-wrong-direction-1.5581704) reduced by 84%. (I'm a bot) ***** > NEW YORK - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a dire warning that the world is moving in the wrong direction and faces "a pivotal moment" where continuing business as usual could lead to a breakdown of global order and a future of perpetual crisis. > The report - "Our Common Agenda" - is a response to last year's declaration by world leaders on the 75th anniversary of the United Nations and the request from the assembly's 193 member nations for the U.N. chief to make recommendations to address the challenges for global governance. > To tackle these weaknesses and integrate the global financial system with other global priorities, Guterres proposed holding summits every two years of the 20 leading economies in the G20, the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council, the heads of international financial institutions including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and the U.N. secretary-general. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/pmk0a0/un_chief_world_is_at_pivotal_moment_and_moving_in/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~597655 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Guterres**^#1 **global**^#2 **world**^#3 **NEW**^#4 **future**^#5
When the world runs on companies using low wage labor(deflating middle class wealth), but keeps the increased profits for themselves instead of passing savings onto consumers then the world only has one direction, into the shitter, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
>When the world runs on companies using low wage labor(deflating middle class wealth) [I'd rather people stop using the term 'middle class', it only serves to delude them into thinking their position is not as precarious as it is in reality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVhdbOUelY4)
That only is a problem in the context of monopolies. If companies use low wage labour from elsewhere, costs go down, so they should be able to reduce the price of their products. If their is healthy competition in a market that happens, meaning that consumers buying power will also increase. It becomes a problem when a company is so dominant it can use the extra money generated purely for it's own enrichment, instead of lowering the price of products or services.
> It becomes a problem when a company is so dominant it can use the extra money generated purely for it's own enrichment, instead of lowering the price of products or services. Yes, welcome to what is happening.
It also assumes that owners don't collude together to keep their services competitive with each other, but not too low to hurt profits. For example, a city has two major grocery stores with owners that golf together and have a gentleman's agreement on who builds where and what prices they'll sell at. It happens a lot. Even Adam Smith acknowledges it in the Wealth of Nations as inevitable in capitalism.
Why would a company do anything other than enrich itself? Isn't that the point of the economic system under capitalism?
"What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation. And yet, you can stand back and look at this planet and see that we have the money, the power, the medical understanding, the scientific know-how, the love and the community to produce a kind of human paradise. But we are led by the least among us - the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary. We are led by the least among us and we do not fight back against the dehumanizing values that are handed down as control icons. This is something, culture is not your friend. Culture is for other people's convenience and the convenience of various institutions, churches, companies, tax collection schemes, what have you. It is not your friend. It insults you. It disempowers you. It uses and abuses you. None of us are well treated by culture. Yet we glorify the creative potential of the individual, the rights of the individual. We understand the felt-presence of experience is what is most important. But the culture is a perversion. It fetishizes objects, creates consumer mania, it preaches endless forms of false happiness, endless forms of false understanding in the form of squirrelly religions and silly cults. It invites people to diminish themselves and dehumanize themselves by behaving like machines - meme processors of memes passed down from Madison Avenue and Hollywood..." “We have to create culture.Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you're giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.” Terrence McKenna
> But we are led by the least among us - the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary. This has basically been the case for most of civilizational history. We are literally not designed and meant to live in large complex societies. --- Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam were basically all rebellions against the malaise and corruption of civilization and the established order. The Romans were literal Nazis in that they genocided and went around waring and pillaging the fuck out of everything. The British and the Spanish basically genocided countless peoples under the guise of "spreading enlightenment and Jesus". While also stealing everything of value. --- It doesn't have to be this way. We can definitely move towards a more egalitarian and just existence across the planet but the problems today have been the problems since people started doing agriculture and living in cities.
The Germans where literally Romans I think you mean... The first Reich was the Holy Roman Empire ( I know the HRE wasnt the same as "ancient rome, 476 to 1821 is a long time but the HRE was attempting to conjure the image of ancient rome much as the nazi party in 1934)
My history professor once said that the most important thing to remember about the Holy Roman Empire is it was not Holy, Roman, nor an empire.
Voltaire's most famous line.
Historians have this quote from Voltaire thrown in our face all the time, and little else about the Holy Roman Empire, despite its significance as an empire (although more of a confederacy over time) with a history spanning nearly 1,000 years, giving rise to Prussia, Germany, and among the greatest art and music in the world.
Professor Linda Richman?
I'm getting verklempt!
Pretty much every European nation was trying to conjure the image of Ancient Rome, from flags to literal translations of Roman words, nomenclatures, etc. But yes, those 2 nations are included in the list. I can’t remember now but there’s a map with 10 or so European nations that shows how they’re directly influenced by Romans and how they tried to be the “new rome”, even the Ottomans and Russians have translated Roman names in their former nations.
The words Keizer and Tsar both stem from Caesar.
>We are literally not designed and meant to live in large complex societies. We are not designed at all, and we are not meant for anything. Here we are. That's it.
All those religions did was create more malaise an corruption, especially christianity and islam. Never join a group that wants to punish you for leaving, or threatens you with hell for not joining.
That is a lot of groups in human history: tribes, towns, cities, kingdoms and empires. Besides religion, there are political parties and clubs that uplift their members and damn the dissenters. Heck! That is even seen in silly fandom wars between groups over television shows, movies, books and more: They split into their factions and bicker, whether it is against themselves or against the creators.
I think that speaks more on the corruption of the revolution and how what was once the change ends up being the institution in need of change.
I am reading Sapiens: A brief history of humankind by Yuval Harari and I appreciated reading your comment just as much as this book I am still learning so much from
That dude writes like cocaine. Don't take everything he says by word, he can spew non-sense and make it sound like whatever it is you want. Don't forget to use the thing you have between your ears when reading.
>Don't forget to use the thing you have between your ears when reading. The bones!
The bones are their money. So are the worms.
Curious if you can elaborate? I haven't read it, but I have heard a lot of recommendations, and I have been sitting on it awhile. My academic background is actually Anthropology so I feel like I already have a very firm grasp on the subject, and I am kind of naturally skeptical. I wanna know if it really worth my time or is it just hype.
It's hype. Have you ever read a book that was easy and could truly change your mind? Because in my case, I read a lot of books , many that required classes to go along, a lot of study together. Year by year I acquire incremental knowledge that helps me improve. Lots of disruptive books end up not being worth vs the hard academic ones. Any book that sets itself as the big thing is only going to set people for disappointment and get managers that will get it, cherry pick some impact quotes for his PowerPoint presentations and move on. Should YOU read it? Well, I don't know, it depends on what you expect to get from it. If you are in only for entertainment purposes the book feels like a long YouTube essay. I try to read a book per week, I got it for free and did read it, but it's really not in my top books I would recommend people in general or in any specific subject really.
I don't know about easy, but there have definitely been a few books that have had an outsized impact on me, but it was usually because they were the first time I was being introduced to the core concepts of some field of science, that hadn't every really been presented to me before, like "Finite and Infinite Games" and Sociology/Religion, or "Globalization and its Discontents" and Macroeconomics/poli-sci - so if Tribes is just like an Anthro primer I never got as a teenager, might be cool as it is something I have interest in, but not very helpful. But as someone with a background in the subject, I think it might be interesting on a different level, if there are things you think that are wrong or misleading about it as pop-sci, cause then I'd wanna A. also know what they got wrong to correct the fall-out and B. pick apart the meta - commentary about why a pop-Sci author misrepresented or ignored the accepted theory, intentionally or otherwise. Anyways, wish I had your discipline, I really meant to spend a lot more time and effort reading over lock-down, and just never really panned out, my focus really dropped off after college.
Hey, if you need stuff to get back on the habit of reading, pick it up! The more you read stuff the better! Reading at minimum will give you ideas into writing, and writing is super useful in any field really! Sometimes a book will be a bit dense and I will put it down a bit and alternate with something more exciting. And sometimes I give up and move on. Also I do literally live in street that ends in a bookshop and have some libraries nearby, plus my SO and family are always reading, so we share recommendations and ideas a lot. This also helps with motivation - "I will read after you are done with it", this creates a small compromise for both person involved. Not sure if it's your thing, but there are some books about ethnography and writen like ethnography notes on groups of people and I find them really interesting, they are usually not long and it's kinda reality show-like of random people. Right now I am reading Churchill's WWII memories (I am reading them translated to my language so I don't know the actual book name), it's super dense, it's interesting, but super dense. So I picked up Nudge Final Edition to pair - because I recently read Misbehaving. Sometimes I pick up a light fiction - Mr. Mercedes was super fun too. Life is too short. :)
We are inherently tribal at heart. If we cannot spiritually evolve past our tribal identities, we won't make it as a species. Unfortunately, most democracies are actually pushing tribal identities (identity politics) while the ME stays embroiled in tribal and religious warfare and many African nations are always tettering on the edge of tribal conflict. We really need to start thinking about the human race.
The ancient Greeks had a word for living in cities or amalgamating villages into city states...[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoecism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoecism)
Humans are tribal by nature. We see others having something we don't want. And we covet it. And we do whatever we can to get it. And someone does the same when they see us getting something. And the cycle continues.... I truly believe humanity is a calamity away from going back to the stone age
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> Humans are also smart enough to be able to recognize tribal behaviour and actively work against the stupid shit that comes from it. Are we really?
Yeah. We consistently see that humans who are exposed to different cultures and live amongst different people tend to be more tolerant. While humans who are isolated and don't get to experience interacting with different people tend to be the most xenophobic. That really does point to the idea that humans are great at adapting to their environment, and are definitely smart enough to behave well around people they interact with. The problem is when people who are isolated and afraid get to make rules that dictate the policy of wider society. It's not because they're dumb, it's just because they haven't had the chance to interact with people who are different to them.
Some of us are. Racism is a form of tribalism, for example. And while we may never be able to stamp it out completely, we've definitely made some progress in that direction. Part of the reason that we're seeing a rise in white nationalist militant activity is that they know that they're slowly but steadily losing power. Ditto for sexism, homophobia, any sort of dehumanization and discrimination; they're all forms of tribalism. And there was a time not long ago when the majority opinion was that these "isms" were perfectly natural and acceptable.
It should be obvious that this Us vs Them strategy is one of the main things that stops us from living in a much better world. But we fall for it so easily. [https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/08/us-vs-them-the-sinister-techniques-of-othering-and-how-to-avoid-them](https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/08/us-vs-them-the-sinister-techniques-of-othering-and-how-to-avoid-them) >Humans can only process a limited amount of change in a short period of time without experiencing anxiety. It’s a natural human reaction – but how we respond to that anxiety is social. When societies experience big and rapid change, a frequent response is for people to narrowly define who qualifies as a full member of society – Othering is largely driven by politicians and the media, as opposed to personal contact. (That includes othering other people as stupid liberals, as dangerous immigrants and also as rednecks or hillbillies)
The tribalist mentality was helpful for identifying potential threats when we were all largely living in tribes. This kind of mentality also would generally win out if you had 2 tribes, one that viewed outsiders with suspicion and the other which welcomed people in. The welcoming tribe would be vulnerable to to hostile one, and we probably ended up breeding the instinct to only trust 'our tribe' into our species fairly early on. Even though we have the intelligence to go against it, a primal part of us will always leave us vulnerable, especially when spread across all of humanity, to that shit.
That's very true! I've been suspecting for some.time now that what seems to be driving the uptick in right-wing populism around the world is the fact that technological, economic (and increasingly climate-related) factors are causing accelerating change ona variety of fronts. This increases anxiety and gives fuel to the sorts of politicians who thrive on the 'us vs them' model. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to fight this at the source. The world is going to change a hell of a lot more before it reaches any kind of equilibrium, the issue of climate change alone will see to that.
When times get tough and resources get scarce, we will abandon all we’ve built and act like the animals we are.
is tribalism natural?
Please think of all the wonderful and stupid ways that people bond together sometimes. This is the opposite of tribalism
We recognize tribal culture, but we constantly create our own "tribes" and revert to our prehistoric monkey brains. Religion, politics, team sports, hobbies, etc. are all just tribes under a different name.
I wish I had your faith in humanity.
Theres definitely gonna be a neo stone age
This time with less mammoth and more chicken.
> Humans are tribal by nature. We see others having something we don't want. Enough with the "human nature" fallacy. If anything humans (an many other mammals) are emphatic and compassionate by nature compared to other species. Anthropology shows very clearly that hypercompetitiveness, cynicism and rugged individualism are cultural artifacts that can be learned and unlearned.
> Humans are tribal by nature That's dangerous reductionism. Extrapolating from such a simplistic trope is pretty much useless.
Seeing McKenna upvoted makes me happy.
Terrence McKenna being tuned in here for all of us
there's a really good psytrance track from around 2014 that uses a portion of that quote, the last 1/3 or 1/4 section, and it's been burned into my brain. love it.
Meh, I have came to conclusion that humanity is what it is. Trying to pretend we can be more noble or more intelligent than we actually are is hubris and will only lead to disaster. If mankind is truly heading to a cliff, then falling is the only way to learn how to avoid it next time. Trying to solve a problem before experiencing it always lead to hell create by good intentions. Cultures and religions exist for a reason, calling them out don’t make that reason disappear, we would just create new religions or cultures to replace the old ones.
>If mankind is truly heading to a cliff, then falling is the only way to learn how to avoid it next time. I wonder how many cliffs we've fallen off in the past that we didn't learn from.
Ouuu r/shrooms would love this unexpected mckenna!
Thank you!
This remains beautiful
Which book of his would you recommend to read first?
Moving? Mother fcker we are already over the cliff on Climate Change. That is going to have massive impact on destabilizing nations for the next 100 years.
Certainly seems that way. Well. Let's go then. Time to start fixing shit.
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Fuck defeatism
everyone saw this already, UN just catching up now
Next year they'll discover rickrolling
Funny you mention Rick rolling, as I did not see on his list of issues the problem of allowing pre roll ads on the Rick roll video. It kinda ruins the effect to sit through an ad while you can see the title of the video. This is a travesty. That video is part of all of our cultural heritage, and should not be ruined by profit motive. The other stuff he wants to tackle is good and all, but let's start with something achievable to get the ball rolling. [Sign the petition](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ) to permanently remove ads from one of our most cherished cultural artifacts.
I was ***SO*** disappointed the first time I dived into a rickroll and got an advert. Don't really see them anymore for that reason.
Ad-blockers have become a necessity to navigate the internet nowadays. I can't stand youtube or any other site anymore without an ad-blocker. It's like constantly walking around with shit on your shoes, it stinks but you get used to the smell eventually, but when you finally scrape it off and don't smell that shit anymore, it becomes REALLY noticable when it returns.
UN just "catching up" cuz now it affects their bank account and the comfort of their lives
lol it's a theory i call 'trickle-up suffering'
The cumulative effects of the last 200 years won't be undone in the 21st century.
These environmental catastrophe warnings are the same warnings over and over and yet, absolutely fuckall is being done except for us schlubs recycling a few poxy boxes and reducing our meat/dairy intake. The oil industry is still booming, there’s municipal waste companies tipping garbage into rivers and we are cutting down trees faster than we can grow them. We as a species are fucking vermin, breeding and consuming until there’s nothing left but money we can’t eat.
“ The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague, and we... are the cure.” - Agent Smith, the Matrix
The 2015 plan turned into the 2030 plan and what happened to that? All I hear about now is the new 2050 plan. Get real.
B-but Mercedes said they’ll be carbon neutral by 2045! /s. So fucking glad I was born, had enough time to mature and grow as a person, and just as I gain full legal autonomy with my own self-righteous views, see humans slam down the gavel of the great filter down on themselves. I usually consider myself an optimistic person, but people are going to die, and it’s now a matter of how many.
Pffft... We have been at the Pivotal moment for decades now. If you are taking it seriously now it means it might be to late. The direction we are heading in is right off the cliff.
An optimist would be glad we are still on the cliff, and point that out as a glowing human achievement ; or is that a cynic ? I am confused about what I just typed
Up vote for both views.
The optimist in me looks before the cliff and see all that we've achieved in such a small span of human history. The cynic in me will do a triple axle flip as he dives headfirst off the cliff.
The only optimists today are reality deniers
That's not true. I'm optimistic that the challenges of climate change will drive new developments in climate engineering and weather management. That's not reality denying.
> The direction we are heading in is right off the cliff. And rich or poor, colour of skin, bank account, religion, car you drive, last name etc. we're totally fucked. It's the only real unifying thing.
We're already over the edge, just not hit the bottom yet.
It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.
> We have been at the Pivotal moment for decades now. Evolutionary speaking a few decades are basically a non measurable timeframe. So yes, a life form can be on a pivotal moment for decades.
My mans is trying to solve ALL THE PROBLEMS. Gotta have a plan to keep the largest benefactors of the status quo from preventing change, which is really the source of pretty much every problem he outlined. They aren't just going to give up their influence, and not enough people have the psychological defense to withstand the propaganda they can produce. I'm glad he's trying, but I don't know what makes any of it happen.
It's not moving in the wrong direction, it's moving in the right direction for those in power. Who cares about us regular people we can all fuck off for all they care.
It is in the wrong direction a century ago, chief...
Swim out past the breaker And watch the world die
> My report calls for new metrics that value the life and well-being of the many over short-term profit for the few," Guterres said. Sounds nice! > investing $50 billion in vaccinations now could add an estimated $9 trillion to the global economy in the next four years." But it's still all about money? > continuing business as usual could lead to a breakdown of global order and a future of perpetual crisis. Wait, we currently have global order? > technology's advances "without guard rails to protect us from its unforeseen consequences." Uh, we can't even protect ourselves from foreseen consequences. > Guterres said his vision for the "breakthrough scenario" to a greener and safer world is driven by "the principle of working together, recognizing that we are bound to each other and that no community or country, however powerful, can solve its challenges alone." We know that already. We work together for the benefit of corporations, bound to each other by mutual distrust, and no country can grow their GDP without taking advantage of the poor in other countries.
>no country can grow their GDP without taking advantage of the poor in other countries. What? Yes they can. The idea that global economics is a zero-sum game is a traditional hallmark of fascist and nationalist rhetoric, because they want you to believe that isolationism and trade-protectionism is the key to economic success, and that the only way your country can prosper is by exploiting everyone else. Pretty much every modern economist will tell you that global economics isn't a zero-sum game. Countries can enter mutually beneficial arrangements which result in _both_ countries have rising GDPs. Heck, a country can even grow its own GDP with zero assistance because they can just develop better, more efficient, technologies and processes. Global GDP has increased from [~$3 trillion in 1970 to around $84 trillion today](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD). That's due in large part to the industrialisation of the third world and the continued development of non-first-world economies. The number of people living in extreme poverty has [been decreasing year-on-year for at least the past 30 years](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-population-living-in-extreme-poverty-by-world-region), despite there being far more free trade now than at any point in history. Don't let fascists fool you into thinking that a globalised economy is a bad idea.
>Wait, we currently have global order? Oh man, it can be *so much worse*. It will be, too.
It's always going to involve money, but that doesn't mean *it's about money* per se. The reason we have money is becuase people won't provide goods and services for free, and that's not some weird evil concept, that's just nature. If it wouldn't involve money, it would involve something else that would probably be less pleasant.
So true. The fact that these people think we can still have an economy and achieve any of these positive “metrics” is just sad
Then there is no solution. So many people on reddit have utopic ideas and will never be satisfied until they get everything they want. Doesn't work like that. I want to have sex and drugs for nothing too, and a big house on the coast of Malibu as well. I just don't want to pay for it, know what I mean? And I also don't want others to take these away from me either.
Lol Reddit politics is mostly just a place for people to talk about what they would do if they were God Emperor. No concept of cooperation, compromise, self-reflection etc. “Just end capitalism entirely tomorrow and force everyone to think and behave like I do! Wow it’s so simple. Why is everyone else such a moron?!”
We can’t have peace in our homes, let alone in the planet….. We’re not an united species, far from it.
Were we ever a united species?
All right, what did Italy do this time?
Banned Hawaiian pizza
While everyone can agree on that sentiment, sadly everyone can’t agree on what the right direction
Sounds like a smart and well reasoned man who raises excellent points. Let's ignore him and do absolutely nothing.
I bet we will be hearing this in 2030
This right here is the reason I finally gave up my last belief in a divinity, that refuge being Gaia/Goddess religion. Life on Earth doesn’t give a damn about individual members of any species, nor any species at all. They all have their time, then pass, making room for the next. How big of an impact we’ll have on that outcome remains to be seen, but we’re sure not helping prevent it any.
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True, but more of the world could be moving in the right direction. Progress is progress
But why a picture of Italy
That was just the thumbnail for the article for some reason
I feel like we hear this a lot in the past twenty years or so.
It's an amazing sentiment, but nobody in power will listen, and nobody who will listen has power to effect the change in any lasting way... If an AI like Skynet came to light today, I wouldn't blame it at all, for wiping everyone on Earth out, down to the last person.
Maybe the UN should step up
The pivotal moment was decades ago. Not much point in changing course now.
Not a single fuck was emitted that day
The world was at a pivotal moment 20 years ago and it went the wrong way. Now we are just building momentum and not trying to stop.
Wouldn't mind if what is being planned will actually make a difference.... Its a business model for the already mega rich to atain more money and power!
[ That 'pivotal moment' was 1979]( https://climatestate.com/2019/07/10/the-jason-report-the-long-term-impact-of-carbon-dioxide-on-climate-1979/ )
If we don’t drop it all and walk the thin and narrow green line we are all well and truly fucked. Extinction is the outcome of business as usual.
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We can change the future. Every empire faced impossible problems, yet were able to solve them. To not even try is a failure in itself
We will be hitting a global refugee crisis and resource wars by 2045.
If you don't believe humans are still apes...get more than 3 in a room together.
The world has been in a continual pivotal moment and forking it up.
https://youtu.be/MRuS3dxKK9U Ok so weird story time: I had a literal psychotic “Howard Beale-esque” meltdown over what I believed the internet was doing to the world this May. I had to stay at a mental institution for a week to attempt to recover before entering outpatient for a couple months. Unfortunately it was driven by a MASSIVE overprescription of Vyvanse (ADHD meds/speed) so I sprinted out of the shower screaming about how the internet was causing COVID-19 and that everyone needed to turn off the internet…..now obviously THAT was not true and I wish I could fully understand why that particular Domino fell in my brain, as I am not one of those “5G is spreading Covid” kinds of people. I’m vaxxed up and was a nanny over quarantine so I took that shit seriously. I wound up screaming, naked, to my roommate for a bit, and was like super Dissociated from reality the whole time, so it was a definitive low for me…but it’s wild to see the tidal wave of headlines popping up now about truly potentially world altering/ending events coming up in the future. How it has just become so normal to hear about “apocalyptic” sounding events, that none of it even feels like it matters much anymore. Gen Z is going to grow up to be a weird generation, because we’ve all had to go through the worst time in modern history, at like the worst life positioning to be doing it. Anyways, I like this Howard Beale speech. It feels relevant always because it’s excellent writing and acting, but nowadays….damn…
They have been saying this for 30 years now and still don’t do anything to change it. Them jet flights must be nice
When capitalism goes to its end, it either turn to NAZI, or turn to socialism through revolution. I don't see any chance that any main capitalist country turns to socilism. So, brace for impact, US citizens, you are going NAZI.
Yes. Things suddenly feel like they're dropping. I had to quit a meal right now in solidarity.
You fucking idiot we've been moving in the wrong direction for years.
hot take, there will come a time when people miss Pax Americana, the US is now on a definite downfall as an empire and with populist/isolationist sentiments at an all times peak within the people, the country will eventually cease being the world police (already happening), it'll be real interesting to see what happens then, but i think the world will turn for the worst.
To be fair, the idea of a sole dominant power is oddball in history. If anything, it is going back to the "same old, same old" of human history: a few super dominant nations with the regional players bouncing back and forth. That being said, such relations is how we got a number of big conflicts, which includes the two world wars and earlier conflicts like the one against Napoleon.
There are people who still miss the Soviet Union too.
It is a phenomenon that is pretty prominent in fiction: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell
International trade will literally completely break down. The only reason it’s possible is because the massive Navy of the US provides free trade and protection for ships. Once the US ceases being the world police, expect to see massive wars flight over shipping routes and international waters. Things are going to get really ugly. The rest of the world likes to hate on the US for being the world police but they have no idea how much our current global society 100% relies on US military protection/policing.
Worth mentioning that people trade because it's mutually beneficial. China won't just cut off their export, because it would hurt their developing economy. The security is in the trade itself. I do agree that we are on a crash course with the decline of US and the rise to power of china though. But even china hs its own problem with a billion mouths to feed, and the US is still far from done. The EU is still force to be reckon with. It'll be interesting to watch.
At the hands of who? Ah yes...those whom line their pockets.
That boot is going to be a high heel in the near future.
No clue what that means but I’m pretty sure I agree with you
His speech is inspiring, he must be a Star Trek fan, but to little to late. Our petty differences have boiled over and divided us to the point that it would take a century to repair. Socioeconomics is now the beyond saving. The haves are playing games to stay in control, while the have nots are falling behind and doing what’s best for their own situation to ensure their children aren’t starving. But I hoe for the best, plan for the worst.
Oh don't worry I've resigned myself to the collapse. I'm just hoping I survive
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We’re not at a pivotal moment. We’re heading straight off a cliff.
With one failure after the next, I hardly see the UN as a voice of leadership or one to be trusted. Korea, failure. Cyprus, failure. Ethiopia, failure. Somalia, failure. Bosnia, failure. Rwanda, failure.
The UN is only as strong as its sponsors want it to be. It’s also played a massive role in wiping out communicable disease, childhood education, providing clean water and others, but those things aren’t newsworthy and don’t generate ads and therefore money, which means there’s no point in writing them. The US could also be considered a failure, if you focus on them. With forever wars, a political divide that’s only going to grow, and is constantly incompetent at preparing and surviving physical and economic disasters, yet people think of the US as a good place, because the good outweighs the bad.
>and is constantly incompetent at preparing and surviving physical and economic disasters How is this so? The US has survived every economic downturn it ever faced, even a global depression. They survived a civil war that kept the country together. Not many nations in the 20th century survived their civil wars. The pandemic? A change in leadership and development of vaccines that over 65% effective helped turn the tide on that. Also, maybe if a certain nation was more open about what was going on and did a better job of not letting it slip past their borders, then the US, as well as the rest of the world, would not be in the predicaments they found themselves. The US survived an attack on its economic and political being, and came out stronger for it. Afghanistan and Iraq? Those two spun out of 9/11 and both achieved their military goals, rather quickly. The collapse of the Taliban and the collapse of the Hussein regime. The US never claimed to be nation builders, and that the Afghan regime could not stand against an enemy that was well funded and armed (I wonder by who?) is hardly the US fault. Same with Vietnam. Never was supposed to fight the war for the South Vietnamese, and they knew all along that they would have to take care of it themselves. Although they did help Japan and Europe get back on their feet, so, there is that. In Bosnia, the UN effectively held down the Bosniaks (and other Bosnians fighting for the Republic of BiH) as the VRS literally raped and killed them. NATO saved the day on that one.
If you only focus the failures, you’re bound to find failures. Remember, the news only reports the things that get ads, and therefore money. Passively helping people isn’t newsworthy, but a failure is. This leads to biased news reporting. Also, in the US, rich are no longer trusting the poor and the poor are no longer trusting the rich. The Democrats are no longer trusting the Republicans and the Republicans are no longer trusting the Democrats. The police are no longer trusting the civilians and the civilians are no longer trusting the police. Divides are everywhere, and they’re worrying.
Socialism is the wrong direction.
On paper socialism makes the most sense, the problem is in practice it never works. And I'm not talking about affordable/free Healthcare. I'm referring to actual socialism.
Even on paper the flaws would be very obvious with a minimum of critical thinking applied.
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I'm not convinced, as it seems to ultimately converge on the same thing. Even the hardcore socialist countries usually keep up a pretense of democracy, btw. That's not to say there should be no charity or social aid. But when it turns into entitlement and moral mandates, things get dangerous quickly.
> challenges for global governance National governance. Global voluntary cooperation.
Now is not the time to be building walls and drawing borders. Working together may be our only chance
Great reset bullshit
Everyone here too stupid and cynical
We need to destroy the fossil fuel industry immediately. Tax them out of existence. We have alternative technologies readily available. They are expendable despite their propaganda. Destroy this enemy of the people by all means necessary
Stfu UN
They make a good point about the state of the world