Depressed with the Current State of Humanity

I walked downstairs today to see a glimpse of the animosity going on in Darfur. Genocide at it's best, the refugees are so paranoid they're hacking helpers to death, claiming they're government spies. It's just a tragedy over there, and it hasn't stopped. It's like Rwanda all over again and no one cares unless the are resources to save. God forbid we save people.

But it's just depressing how we've lived this long and still as a larger society we're inflicting the same torture on each other.

Seriously what the fuck.

Well you know what? Humans aren't perfect. Don't ever expect humanity to get any better. Rather expect it to get worse, don't think of it to be a big surprise that genocide is happening, murder, rape, racism, all the good stuff that are just merely the marshmellows on the Lucky Charm cereal. You think people will get any better? That is too idealistic, there are more Hitlers to come in the future....heck we have several right now. Why do you expect humanity to be better? There will NEVER be such a thing as world peace (actually I dread world peace as well)

Aside from discussing the current international logjam that is going on with Darfur and why nothing is being done (to point you in one direction, there are resources involved actually, Sudan is an emerging oil producer. The UN is trying to vote to take action, but one nation in particular is not being cooperative because it has interests in Sudan it wants to protect without outside interference [clue: it's not the USA]).

Other than that. Shit does happen. Humanity can, has, and will fall from its civil state into a sort of base, survivalist nature that is inherently self-serving and very destructive if left unchecked.

We haven't all transcended that hurdle. I something wonder if we actually improved much in terms of our behavior since the establishment of civilization.

I've lost faith in taking large sweeping actions to enforce change. It is better I believe to work your influence around smaller groups and more interpersonal exchanges, so that this action may spread to wider and wider networks. Using Darfur as an example, there are several grass-roots campaigns trying to bring public attention to the problem and hopefully bring about enough force to bring out the attention of governments. How successful they'll be we're not sure.

Coming off of that, I might probably possess one of the most naive worldviews in GFF.

Originally Posted by valiant

Well you know what? Humans aren't perfect. Don't ever expect humanity to get any better. Rather expect it to get worse, don't think of it to be a big surprise that genocide is happening, murder, rape, racism, all the good stuff that are just merely the marshmellows on the Lucky Charm cereal. You think people will get any better? That is too idealistic, there are more Hitlers to come in the future....heck we have several right now. Why do you expect humanity to be better? There will NEVER be such a thing as world peace (actually I dread world peace as well)

People can get better, people were better actually. If you look at civilizations predating 5000 BC there were no recorded instances of large scale social problems like war, crime, slavery. You could attribute that to whatever you want (size, enough resources to go around, etc) but the fact is it's the attitude that we can't change our ways, that keeps us stuck in the mud.

I think that grass-roots movements work just as well as large scale ones, which is to say not at all. I'm a pretty cynical ass when it comes to humanity. Not to say that you shouldn't be nice to people in everyday life, but being nice here is not going to do anything for someone in Africa. Even if I went to Sudan, and was nice to people there, it would not change anything. I have no faith in the government; protesting to them is useless. At some point, I think humanity will just have to say "fuck it" and cut our losses.

Originally Posted by Devo

People can get better, people were better actually. If you look at civilizations predating 5000 BC there were no recorded instances of large scale social problems like war, crime, slavery. You could attribute that to whatever you want (size, enough resources to go around, etc) but the fact is it's the attitude that we can't change our ways, that keeps us stuck in the mud.

Are you sure this is due to a lack of reliable sources or the actual lack of such things such as war, slavery, and crime. Most of the earliest forms of written language were beginning to be developed around 5000 BC onwards into that millennium, so obviously we wouldn't be seeing a lot of what life was like back then aside from artifacts and artwork which may be interpreted three ways past Sunday. For one thing, the world population was a mere fraction of what it is today, and agriculture was still rather new to most people, so civilization is caught between the nomadic and settled life.

Are you saying we would really be better off living like that? Don't assume that the past was some idyllic paradise. A proverbial Eden if I say.

Before World War I, the widespread feeling amongst human people was that humanity was gradually moving towards perfection. Then WWI comes along and throws that out the window.

While that optimistic view has changed and become far more pessimistic, I do not think that it is unreasonable to think that we, as a global human culture could make our way back to that. I do not think that it is unreasonable to not only re-assume this optimistic view, but also relocate the path that we were on. At some point, we will hit rock bottom and begin to make our way back to a place where humanity improves itself. A place where humanity works to improve the quality of life for people of all races, religions, nationalities, not because of what they can provide us {popular current example being oil}, but because it is what is right.

Originally Posted by Dullenplain

Are you sure this is due to a lack of reliable sources or the actual lack of such things such as war, slavery, and crime. Most of the earliest forms of written language were beginning to be developed around 5000 BC onwards into that millennium, so obviously we wouldn't be seeing a lot of what life was like back then aside from artifacts and artwork which may be interpreted three ways past Sunday. For one thing, the world population was a mere fraction of what it is today, and agriculture was still rather new to most people, so civilization is caught between the nomadic and settled life.

Are you saying we would really be better off living like that? Don't assume that the past was some idyllic paradise. A proverbial Eden if I say.

I'm saying we need to change the laws by which we live. As humans we tend to think we're above the laws of nature, I really don't think we are. The problem wasn't advancement dullen, it's how we advanced. Doing everything to serve our own needs and not realizing we were hurting everything else in the process. Now we even turn on each other, because our resources are dwindling.

People are truely unpredictable, there isn't such a place of ideal freedom from "hurts and wrongs." People afterall are innately evil due to their desires to fulfill their unconscious. Hence that is why people have the superego to somewhat suppress this desires. People are selfish as well, when it is the fight/flight situation usually they decide to choose the one that is most ideal to them (as in survival). So how can anyone expect a united world of peace due to people pursuing their own wants and desires? It is natural for people to turn on each other as well if the situation becomes necessary...it is all innate.

valiant, I agree with you that people are shit, but what does Freudian theory have to do with this thread?

The problem addressed is that people killing each other (I guess genocide or such). I am merely stating the motivations the problem stated above and how a paradise of unity is impossible due to this possible theory. And it is, afterall pretty prevalent everywhere (people do things to suit their own shelfishness)

Originally Posted by valiant

People are truely unpredictable, there isn't such a place of ideal freedom from "hurts and wrongs." People afterall are innately evil due to their desires to fulfill their unconscious. Hence that is why people have the superego to somewhat suppress this desires. People are selfish as well, when it is the fight/flight situation usually they decide to choose the one that is most ideal to them (as in survival). So how can anyone expect a united world of peace due to people pursuing their own wants and desires? It is natural for people to turn on each other as well if the situation becomes necessary...it is all innate.

Freud presupposes a lot of bullshit I don't even want to touch in this thread. He basically puts all humans in one little "we are all selfish" box, and doesn't give us any viable solutions.

Originally Posted by valiant

The problem addressed is that people killing each other (I guess genocide or such). I am merely stating the motivations the problem stated above and how a paradise of unity is impossible due to this possible theory. And it is, afterall pretty prevalent everywhere (people do things to suit their own shelfishness)

Are you suggesting that the only way for some people's desires to be met is by murdering others? This is foolish. The nice thing about being human and being capable of logic and reason is that when I desire something, there are numerous paths which I can take to achieve my desire. The problem is when people think that the ends justify the means.

I didn't say that, you read it backwards. I say possible motivations for people to murder is mostly based on selfishness. But of course, people are narrow minded in means of obtaining their desires (one being power possibly in this situation or survival)

So, you're saying someone might kill somebody else for various reasons.

Quote:

If you look at civilizations predating 5000 BC there were no recorded instances of large scale social problems like war, crime, slavery.

There were less people, less contact between people, less justification to fight over resources, and other things. I don't think we've been on a decline. We haven't changed at all since Ug fought Grog over a bunch of bunch of pretty rocks. The thing that sucks is that we could be doing a lot more to improve ourselves as a species, but we don't.

Quote:

Posted by Devo
People can get better, people were better actually.

WRONG. This is an extremely common misconception. There is no such thing as a "golden age". The past is invariably worse than the present. Crack open some history books - REAL history books, not the revisionist shit they teach in high school - and you'll see what I mean.

Quote:

If you look at civilizations predating 5000 BC there were no recorded instances of large scale social problems like war, crime, slavery. You could attribute that to whatever you want (size, enough resources to go around, etc) but the fact is it's the attitude that we can't change our ways, that keeps us stuck in the mud.

There is practically no recorded history predating 5000 BC, so obviously we're not going to know much about society back in the bronze and stone age. However, if we had a time machine, I'd put down my entire bank account we'd find tribes spearing one another to death, stealing each others' food, and raping their women left and right. Historically, humans have always been xenophobic, and will make up the flimsiest of justifications to go over, kill some other people, and take their stuff.

Let's put all this in context. Social progress is a very slow, ponderous thing. Technically, the United States has only had anything resembling democracy for about 40 years. Look how many thousands of years it took slavery to fall out of favor in society as a whole. Comparitively speaking, on a historical scale all the social advances we take for granted have happened blindling fast.

Even ancient Greece, which everyone holds up as the model of civilization, was pretty barbaric by today's standards. They supposedly invented democracy, but their definition of it was the same as the founding fathers not 200 years ago - rich white men. The very idea of black women voting is so topsy-turvy in the context of all recorded history, you'd think the country was run by madmen. Even the closet racists more or less let it slide now, and the more they remain silent, the more of the next generation grows up oblivious of the notion that other ethnicities should be considered inferior.

Society sucks. People are horrible, rotten creatures. But people in the past were far more evil and despicable than anything we can come up with. Human achievement is measured in baby steps, but despite lot of stumbling we have quantifiable forward progress to show for it. Not very much, but enough to justify continuing onward.

World Peace = a World without humans

Originally Posted by sleipner

World Peace = a World without humans

Nah, the world is still a rather violent and chaotic place even before we came along. It's just that those living at the time never had a thought to describe it as "peaceful" or something like that.