You are assuming that goodness ought not be gradated.
The problem with humans escalates according to population. A village of 1 or 2 hundred will be less likely to have strife and criminal behavior than a town of 15,000. When you stick a population together that is in the hundreds of thousands to millions you cannot expect anything but crime and strife.
Humans become numb to other humans when there is nothing but humans and more humans around. Humans become objects not people.
When it comes to direct democracy, I’d be more worried about apathy than morality. So many Americans don’t even care enough to elect people to make decisions for them, what makes you think they are going to care about actually making decisions?
Are you incapable of reading? I said an example of agricultural violence highlights a specialized adaptation or set of adaptations that must have been created in hunter/gatherer groups where we spent 99.9% of human civilization. Hunter-gatherers surely were less educated, but they were humans, essentially exactly like us mentally, just different environment.
lol, I never denied any of this shit, but along with it comes competition, violence, ingroup/outgroup hate. Try researching huunter/gatherer studies, and you’ll see that humans lived in small bands for 99.9% of our history. Small bands that had conflicts with other small bands.
[quoteWestern philosphers have only made two coherent social statements in our entire history.
Man is Good, attributed to Pythogorus I believe.
And Freud’s statement that man has a troublesome ego.[/quote]
You said the history of western philosophy except for two random people has nothing to say and is verbal diaheria and you call me arrogant because I point out how absurd that is? Think about that for a second.
There have been many great social scientists that have anwsered philosophical questions, most of the stuff freud said was wrong, research into the unconscious or subconcious mind pre-existed freud, his biggest contribution was training or setting the foundation for an entire new generation of psychoanalysts.
That being said theres much greater social scientists today who have made as many contributions or more, and much more widely relevant statements. Social statements envolve language and plenty of language scientists have made widely coherent and relevant statements with massive amounts of evidence, some others, falsify freud today and provide realistic explanations.
Its just absurd and arrogant on the face of it to make such an ignorant claim, theres plenty of sciences that offer relevant information about the social world. And plenty of western philosphers who have made good commentary, better commentary then freud.
Read more about social science? I seriously doubt it, i’ve read over 40 books on the subject and an uncountable amount of hours online at different articles. I read about 3 books a week on average, usually textbooks. Not to brag, but i’m seriously addicted to reading and have been reading that much for about a decade. Though, not all those articles and 3books a week are on social science, the 40ish books were though.
I spend pretty much all my life reading, some might find that pathetic.
I’ll reply to the rest later.
You are still being rude and close to another strike. But seeing as how you are young and still staying with the subject, I will explain in more detail why Stone Age man was a pacifist.
Hunting and gathering, even in a jungle is a marginal way of life. Family groups live a day to day existence, totally dependent on the fortunes of the hunt, and always on the thin edge of starvation. On a typical day, the group splits the sexes. The men and boys check their snares and traps and scout for fresh spoor. Their contribution of meat to the commuinal pot is usually meager; small rodents, an occassional larger animal and evey once in a while a major kill. When this happens the feasting goes on for days until the entire carcass is consumed - then back to the same old Monday routine. .
The women and children spend each day diggging for roots and tubers and any ripe wild fruits that might be in season. If they see anything that can be quickly chased down - snakes, lizards, tortoise, egg-nests, insects, etc it all goes into their shoulder bags. They are the major contributors to the family pot.
The family possessions, other then rude tools and weapons and perhaps some shell beadwork, are virtually non existent. They travel light mainly because hunting/gathering areas are clean-picked within a few days, forcing them to move camp to a new site within their tradtional hunting area.
They never trespass on a neighbor, mainly because their sons are mated to their neighbor’s daughters. They belong to an extended family. (Stone Age groups are Matriarchal - the women never leave the traditional territory,)
Considering all this, the idea that there are other loose bands roaming around looking to kill them, for no gain other than to kill them and steal their day’s fodder, is unfeasible. Finding their own food would be far easier and far less dangerous than trying to kill and rob another group. The idea that Stone Age man lived in moraiding bands is the fabrication of armchair intellects and pseuodo-social philosphers who have no idea of what life is really like at the base level. If we had existed that way mankind would be long extinct. Raiding for cattle, harvests and randsom only came much later after man had domesticated nature - and then only at the end of the Bronze Age, when over-crowding broke down civilized behavior and led to clan fueding.
Besides the civility of extended family interaction, all Stone Age groups were animist. Cave paintings in Africa, Europe and Asia are evidence of the commonalty of this mystical aspect in the human psyche.
The minds of animists are not contaminated by artifical measurements of time and space. They live in the hear and now. For them space/time is truly relative. This leaves their naive psyches open- not closxed down, busy trying to analyze the past or predict the future. They respond to instinctive “hunches” intutive inspirations and lucid dreams. They sense that everything in Nature is a living form of cosmic consciousness, jealous of any unseemly trespass. This superstition makes them careful of where they tread, for trespass can lead to bad luck in the hunt. When one lives day to day so close to death, good fortune in the hunt is imperative.
If you want a first hand account of a day spent with a Stone Age group, (you say you like books) read “Psyche-Genetics” It encompasses forty years of actual field experience - not just sucking ideas out of one’s thumb, simply because they seem rational.
I have thought about it for years - ever since I was old enough to question where authority gets its information. My conclusion is that most western philosophers have confused us far more than they have enlightened us. The simple reason, - not one of them ever invested a day trying to exist in the wilderness with nothing but their wits to keep them alive - they have no practical base on which to expound their ideas of how the human psyche actually functions. This is not the case with me. My education is reversed, I never spent a day in a classroom being systematically stuffed with predigested information, or listening to it being regurgitated by professors who never left town.
My thesis, roughly drawn as it is, is as close to a virgin work as is possible. I am sure that my generalizations throughout have broken every impirical rule in the science book. I draw on the field researches of Darwin and Wallace as a base. It proposes a brand new theory on the evolution of human consciousness. I believe that the simple evolutionary logic that it propounds, lays the ground-work for an entirely new field of study on the origins and eventual destiny of human evolution. Psyche-Genetics paints a real and practical picture of each Age of human occupation and spiritual worship. It reveals how and why each Age had to came to a logical conclusion, forcing our ancestors to adopt, each time, entirely new sets of social and spiritual principles. It takes you all the way through Bronze, Iron, Steel and Nuclear Age contracts. It predicts two Ages of further development yet to come before our specie ends its evolutionary cycle. At that time no more children will be born.
Time will tell if I am right. All I know at present is that I did my homework on the subject.
I’m not being rude, you’re a classic ‘know-it-all’ and think you know it all. How else could you possibly discount the last few hundred years of social philosophy and social science. That is really bold and just plain incorrect.
Most of that is right but once again you just ignore massive mountains of evidence for hunter-gatherer violence, hunter-gatherers were tribes, all tribes engage in intertribal warfare, theres a lot of evidence for this violence. Chato and I have been debating hunter-gatherers since I got here, and the nature of the debate is “how” violent they are, not whether they’re violent period, they’re not peaceful in the left anthropology way of description, whether they’re less violent then a lot of modern societies may be questionable (if not debatable scientifically very well) but they had high levels of violence regardless. We have mental adaptations for ingroup-outgroup classifications.
Just more nonsensical arrogance. These ‘armchar intellectuals’ who spend years digging up dirt in conflict zones, years studying or years spent among suriving hunter-gatherer bands, these ‘arm chair intellectuals’ are exactly the opposite of what you claim them to be hence the ignorance, whether i’m young or not doesn’t mean I don’t know bettter then to assume I know better then THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF WESTERN THINKERS.
Theres cave paintings of human killing human, theres archaelogical evidence that people were butchered by other people, modern hunter-gatherer studies show moderate to high levels of violence, the evidence is very vast.
I’ve read many first hand accounts of people spending decades or years or months among these hunter-gatherers documented violence/way of life, etc.
And thats ignorant and you either don’t understand vast stretches of western philosophy and never could, or you’re lying about reading it, simple as that.
Lots of profs spend time with hunter-gatherers, or digging up shit in inhospitable areas/environments, etc etc etc.
Just a lot of arrogance and no idea what you’re talking about.
What the fuck is psych-genetics? evolutionary psychology? behavorial genetics? what?
psychiatry genetics? psychology genetics?
We have adaptations to detect predatory humans and to avoid them, perhaps you’d like to explain that if there was no prehistoric violencee.
Psyche, in Greek methology was Soul.
Genetics is the body.
Psyche-Genetics connects body and soul and makes the case that both are one and the same.
Other than Tailhard de Chardin, no other significant observer of human nature has come to the same conclusion.
Nuclear theory tends to agree. Mass is energy and and energy is mass.
Einstein tried to make the spiritual connection but dare not in so many words, or be executed for intellectual heresy.
I gave you a first hand account of observations among the Kalahari Bushman, the common sense reasoning behind which you chose to ignor in favor of some convoluted reasoning of your own Too bad. I am not going to bother reiterating the godly foundations of human consciousness indefinately with you. Your continual rudeness has put you on strike three.
You are out. I would suggest you find another thread to go and bug.
Yeah, I realize what it is, I am asking specifically which branch of that overall scientific idea are you talking about. psych-genetics could be behavorial genetics, evolutionary psychology, cognitive psychology, etc, which are you reffering too genetic psychaitry?
Yes the bushman, and we could look towards numerous hunter-gatherer tribes and show how they engage in violence, we can show historical examples, we can show that this is the conclusion that is lined up under a powerful scientific integrated outlook, when 8 sciences arrive at one anwser, all indepdently providing evidence for concecpt A, we can be reasonable sure concept A is true and discount concept B with less evidence/logic.
I could point out instances of violence among hiwi, past hunter-gatherers, could point out archaelogical sites that found violence in these past hunter-gatherer groups.
My continous rude-ness is well justified, anyone who says the entire history of western philosophy on social issues was garbage, is either ignorant or didn’t understand what they read. Sorry, i’m comfortable saying that, just like i’m comfortable saying that to someone who said every concept on biology in the last 500 years is nonsense. Theres enough evidence for some of those observations to be called fact.
I’m rude?
You say: The entire history of western philosophy on social issues except for shitty frued and someone else is bankrupt.
I point out this is nonsense.
you continously make references to my age for not knowing better.
Grow up, you don 't have all the time in the world left. 
Galileo was charged with religious heresy for refuting 4000 years of theological thought.
If I am to be charged with heresy for refuting 25 centuries of science dogma because of trying to prove the Divine nature of Consciousness, so be it.
Yeah the problem is the claims are not equivilent, I talked about mountains of evidence, because theres mountains of evidence for widely coherent and far-reaching claims made by social philosophers/scientists, many of those claims more so then freud, that is the point.
and comparing yourself to Galileo Galilei literally, as in realistically in comparison to what you say about social philosophy/social science, is almost beyond the arrogance of saying that the entire history of each was barren except for freud/someone else.
I keep hoping the blindingly bold absurdity of your posts will become clear to you.
You have no justification to support those claims, though the modern mainstream social science model is absurd, theres plenty of social sciences/philosophy that has come through.
There are literally miilions of testaments to paranormal experience, made by mystics and saints for thousands of years.
Since every human being is unique, no two paranormal experiences can ever be repeated - therefore they are all negated.
All are dimissed by science as self delusions of the mind, if not outright lies.
Such arrogance, such foolishness, such ignorance.
They aren’t just dismissed, they’re subjected to rigorous investigation. They are found to be without merit, not presumed to be so.
Probability, ability to falsifiy, evidence, things like that don’t matter to people who claim science ‘dismisses’ such ideas.
Science is verified by scientific evidence and scientific fact. Until it is validated by a means that is not self-validating then it holds no more merit than personal experience.
It is validated by the ways we receive information from the world. It relies on senses and reason, rigorized to eliminate bias and to minimize the role of interpretation. It is validated by the fact that we are communicating on a product of the scientific method. So, there you are, science has more merit than personal experience.
You described the ‘scientific’ method. That is how science validates itself using science. That is still self-validating. Where is the validation that isn’t self-validating? It is still the same as personal experience in that perspective, therefore doesn’t exhibit any more merit.
Every thing in life, including all the discoveries of science, boils down to nothing more than a validation of personal experience. If that reaity has no merit then life itself is pointless and science is left without meaning.
One can entirely understand the need for empirical standards in order to establish a viable discipline and retain its integrity. But this rigid dogma of science cannot and should not be applied to the investigation of consciousness - and certainly not try to defines its qualities. Consciousness is a metpahysical concept - and as such every report regarding its nature must necessarily be subjective. Science should therefore, at the very least remain silent and non-commital. yet, if this thread is any criterea, its voice is shrill in denial.
Without phsyical evidence that consciousness exists and exerts undeniable influence on matter, then all we have to prove it exists is circumstancial evidence. If there is enough if it, including motivation and purpose, then it should be admissible in any court of man. Every religion on the planet asserts that a Divine Consciousness exists and that it keeps the Universe in balance. Tens of millions of ordinary people, of every race, of every clime, of every period in human evolution have attested to making personal contact with it - and via that contact their personal lives have been illuminated. That vast wealth of circumstancial evidence, which ponts to a universal force of goodness, should be enough for conviction in any fair mind.
Any dogma that has no irrefutable proof of its own to back up its denial, yet continues to deride the earnest testimony of an over-whelming number of their fellows, will in the end, hang itself on its own petard. 80% of this country belives in this Divine Consciousness. In this democracy, no matter what science dictates, those who deny it do not have enough votes to make their case stick.
If I may return to the the point I made in my opening post. I believe that Republicanism is passe - that there are enough good men and women among us to make government work via instant cummunication technologies. YThere is no need any longer for representatives to make the case for us in Washington on any vital issue.
I have been cyncically challenged on this point, suggesting that without political leadership the nation is incapable of good behavior, that man is not innately good in every sense of the word. Scientists here have tried to make the case that early man, without government, was originally a maurading bandit.
I have presented an argument that shows that 99.9% of the evolution of human consciousness was invested in our Stone Age - and that during that long era of human development, mankind acted only for the good. I have shown that any act of trespass during that age was entirely pointless, gainless and counter-productive to basic survival needs. Substenance living on the verge of starvation in a hunter/gatherer milieu allows no time for bands to form, scheme their raids and execute them - with almost nothing of value in return for their venture. The basic survival fact is that living on one wits in the wilderness, in any climate, was and is marginal at best. It takes all of a cooperative group’s effort and time every single day to stay alive just hunting and gathering. This was valid two million years ago and remains valid today as well. I challenge any modern group to go out into the wilderness, make and maintain primitive tools and weapons, and not only find time feed themselves, but also time to form murderous bands, plot raids, risk retaliation from hunter groups equal to yourself- and see how long you exist. During the remaing 1% of our time evolving, a minority of less than 4% of people have succumbed to out-right dysfunctional behavior. The rest of us have retained a solid base of good genes to rely on. This is enough for all of us to have faith in.
Has yet I have to hear a coherent argument that explains why we need to continue with representatve government.