Unfortunately, in my opinion, you seem borderline psychotic concerning these issues. I'll tell you from experience, I thought very similar ideas in the past, until I realized it was merely a recipe for my personal misery. I didn't like it so I changed my tune. I have no advise other than to say be happy and make your life good, stop worrying about things outside of your direct control. I say this all as a friend. — Merkwurdichliebe

Thanks for your friendly advice. It's a pity that those who wish for a better world and remain confident that it can and will be achieved by humans and the human race are TO YOU, borderline psychotic, or you at least think I may be.
I think this speaks more to your own mental state than it does to mine.
If you have held similar ideas to me in the past, then it's a pity you were unable to maintain them. Perhaps a personal strength is something that will return to you one day and then you will become again, a more significant part of the solutions we need.
I know this may be difficult for you to fully accept but in general, and by far, I am happy and have no personal misery, such as that you describe so negatively affected you. My life is good, and it is part of my function and responsibility, to influence, as much as I can, those issues that you think are unassailable and which YOU have personally surrendered to, using your excuse 'out of my control,' and exasperated typing's such as

That is the history of the world and the future of humanity until its extinction — Merkwurdichliebe

and

"Economic parity for all" is the biggest pipe dream in human history. — Merkwurdichliebe

I am glad that you can still find some embers in yourself that still invokes your support for:

I think you and I would agree that the playing field could be leveled a bit. A guaranteed nice standard of living for the working girl would be a nice start. But as long as we continue to elect these treasonous cowards (left and right), we get what we deserve — Merkwurdichliebe

Perhaps you could rekindle some of your early strengths by listening a little more to certain songs like:

At times, when I struggle with online communication and forms I begin to doubt my own cognitive abilities, — Jack Cummins

For what it's worth to you Jack, your 'cognitive abilities,' based on your typing's, here on TPF, seem pretty solid to me.

Whether it is due to cognitive or other difficulties, it may be that an underclass is developing, of people who just are a bit outside the parameters of the mainstream. It is probably not an entirely new development but as life gets more digitalised and 'faster' there may be greater exclusion of those who find it hard to compete in the fight for resources. In the case of the most downtrodden, they may be less able to argue for their rights and be cast outside of agendas for arguing for their rights, and be a silent minority on the periphery or edge of society. — Jack Cummins

I think that 'From each according to their ability, to each according to their need,' is still a fundamental imperative. But perhaps we need to add ', their freewill, and democratic consent,' after the word 'ability.'

@schopenhauer1 should chime in. He says life is a game we're forced to play and the theme is Sophie's choice and variations thereof. This world seems designed for those who don't give a flyin' f**k about right & wrong i.e. it's meant for sinners, not saints.

Yeah, :lol: thanx for that suggestion, should cheer everyone up!

should cheer everyone up — universeness

Shhh! I design ships that float for only and exactly 5 seconds! :lol:

Shhh! I design ships that float for only and exactly 5 seconds! :lol: — Agent Smith

Such a short but bright, flashing, spectacular life of colour and adventure before some freakin iceberg sinks yer ship (designed and built by the typical flawed god that is our one and only deus, Agent Smith)

:zip:

It's not easy, that's all! I dunno how we can show the fly the way out of the bottle. Maybe that's precisely what we shouldn't be do, oui mon chéri? — Agent Smith

That means liberty, doesn't it? But I am watching a show about a man who works with the homeless and it is so discouraging because the homeless in this show have lost all hope and trust in others. However, he rescues them and sends them home to family. My sister has done that too. I got a man I helping in touch with his family.

I think we are putting our faith in technology instead of family and that leaves people dependent on the state and that is not working as these people get so lost and become like feral cats. So liberty can lead to bad things. I am struggling with these thoughts. Can you help me? How can we bring out the best in people and reduce social problems?

I am struggling with these thoughts. Can you help me? How can we bring out the best in people and reduce social problems? — Athena

By adding to the solutions, by reducing the problems, sticking your finger in the hole in the sea wall, if you can help stop the flood or help clean up afterwards.
By each of us feeling/taking the responsibility and having the empathy to do what you can when you can, just like you exemplify every day.
Out of little acorns, big Oak tree's grow. The only help I think the folks on TPF can offer you is textual/human support unless they stay near you. Perhaps even some financial support, if you can get involved in some kind of crowdfunding/fund raising efforts which would directly support the local help initiatives you are trying to participate in.
I was watching a show about Chile recently and a woman was trying to feed 70 local kids every day using mostly her own limited pay she gets as a nurse and some local charity she was getting a little help and money from. Again, the likes of she, you and the schoolgirls in Iran are what helps convince me that there is great hope for the future of the human race.

We are put into a treadmill on top of a thresher. If we actually try to get off the treadmill, we only get torn in the thresher. The low level annoyance of existing varies from mild to extreme and everything in between. This existence is thus morally disqualifying.

I am a socialist, a humanist, and I damn the nefarious rich and powerful to destruction.
I want economic parity for all humans, from cradle to grave. — universeness

I do not agree with hating the rich because that is like hating someone because of their color. However, I think we all could be improved with knowledge of how to play the economic power game. How does it work? I wonder if we do not teach high school youths about economics because those in control really do not want the masses to know. Or maybe it is because most high school students are nowhere near ready to comprehend economics and struggle just to have some awareness of personal finances. Or maybe no knows enough to make economics a part of the high school curriculum?

Some high schools gave students a little knowledge of how to start a business and we have volunteers that provide information to people wanting to start a business such as the Small Business Bureau and Junior Chamber of Commerce.

The rich have provided jobs and built the economy of cities and I am very glad we have these people. Maybe the whole game is not fair but we are darn lucky to have people who do start industries and run them.

In 1917 teachers were proud to teach democracy and about uniting to get things done. That would be fraternities, granges, and unions. For me, everything comes back to education. How should we prepare our young for citizenship?

How should we prepare our young for citizenship? — Athena

Why should we create people that must be united in the first place. What right do we have to create new people? Legitimate question. Go back to the root. First principles. Why we make others work, go through the treadmill of life. What right we have to make others do this. All people have in this forum as a response to these questions is snark and sarcasm..the refuge of those without a rational response.

It is important to think about how the various people, especially those who have 'cognitive' problems are affected by changes which are occurring. At times, when I struggle with online communication and forms I begin to doubt my own cognitive abilities, so what must it be like for people who are really unable to read and write. Some have support and some don't.

Whether it is due to cognitive or other difficulties, it may be that an underclass is developing, of people who just are a bit outside the parameters of the mainstream. It is probably not an entirely new development but as life gets more digitalised and 'faster' there may be greater exclusion of those who find it hard to compete in the fight for resources. In the case of the most downtrodden, they may be less able to argue for their rights and be cast outside of agendas for arguing for their rights, and be a silent minority on the periphery or edge of society. — Jack Cummins

And those who do have support are nicely dressed and well-mannered and can do simple jobs. Oh dear, I am feeling emotional about this as I struggle with my present circumstance of trying a help a man with brain damage. It is obvious he comes from a good family and does not identify with the common street person who is unlikely to have a supportive family. With his sister and cousin who live far away, we trying to provide a support system but here I am again needing to talk to people in person and no one is in the office. Our systems are running against giving these people the support they need.

Yes, you are on to something, because those who have cognitive and emotional problems are "people who just are a bit outside the parameters of the mainstream". Most likely they never had a supportive family and know only poverty, do not how to think middle class. I worked for an organization that educates and trains cognitively challenged people and also the homeless in general and there is a huge difference between those who had supportive families and those who did not. Those who had supportive families have all the benefits society can give these people. They usually have government support in the form of monthly checks. They are often put in foster homes for adults. They get all the training and social actives that help them fit into society. This is a point I really need to make when I address the Oregon legislature. Thank you for how you worded the problem, the words I bolded.

I have said this before, your thinking is so valuable to the whole of society, and I hope you find your niche. Perhaps working for a politician who wants to solve the problems. You have the insight and wording they need to understand the problem. You are a bridge between those who have only a mainstream awareness and those who don't.

Certain philosophers from Socrates to Nietzsche explained the gross deficienies of democracy, while the more collectivist philosophers like Hegel and Marx portrayed it as the salvation of mankind. — Merkwurdichliebe

Yes and let us have a symposium to talk about these different philosophies! Hum, this forum has repeatedly made me want to go to the coast and invite the public to discuss philosophy. In the inland city, people are too busy for symposiums but in the coastal city, life is slower and there are many retired people. This time, I am seeing perhaps a more viable to do a symposium. There is a community center at the coastal city nearest to me. I have time to visit there before the snow storms come and crossing the mountains is a bad idea.

I love your grouping of the two sides to the issue.

Man, when I was young and full of energy, I was also ignorant and bored out of my mind. Now my head is so full and I can get the meaning of what the people here are saying, and I am so excited about what is possible, but I don't have the courage nor the energy to act on what is possible. :sad:

I do not agree with hating the rich because that is like hating someone because of their color. — Athena

I always try to be careful when I damn, unlike the gods, described by theists. I stated the 'nefarious' rich as opposed to all rich people. I have some space for the 'least they could do,' altruistic, philanthropic rich.
Hating a person's colour is irrational and imo, inaccurate as racism is much more based on fear of difference and dislike of anything outside of your experienced, daily culture. You can change your economic policy, much easier than you can change your physical colour or your cultural influences/indoctrinations.

However, I think we all could be improved with knowledge of how to play the economic power game. How does it work? I wonder if we do not teach high school youths about economics because those in control really do not want the masses to know. Or maybe it is because most high school students are nowhere near ready to comprehend economics and struggle just to have some awareness of personal finances. Or maybe no knows enough to make economics a part of the high school curriculum? — Athena

The money trick is well understood and not difficult to explain but you are correct that those who hold power wish to maintain as large a population of ignorant people as is within their power.
The nefarious rich, need such a resource, to service them and to enhance/maintain their profits.

The rich have provided jobs and built the economy of cities and I am very glad we have these people. Maybe the whole game is not fair but we are darn lucky to have people who do start industries and run them. — Athena

I disagree, the jobs were always there, as were and are the industries and resources and ingenuity.
I prefer 'these people,' you describe to be decent people and if they are nefarious, then we have the state of affairs we have now. The problems started as a residue from our time in the wilds. The process and means by which the first nefarious few were allowed to become an established malignant infestation, is simply the story of how the first nefarious King/Queen/Messiah/chief/community leader came to be, and allowing such to become established and prosper, was the greatest mistake in human history.

Have you read Jack Cummins' thread on uncertainty? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The problems started as a residue from our time in the wilds. The process and means by which the first nefarious few were allowed to become an established malignant infestation, is simply the story of how the first nefarious King/Queen/Messiah/chief/community leader came to be, and allowing such to become established and prosper, was the greatest mistake in human history. — universeness

I blame patriarchy for the division of those who have power and those who do not. It is my understanding matriarchies have a family order but not the hierarchy of power and authority that men seem to prefer. I have often been surprised by the male concern of ownership. A few things are special to me but when I live with others almost everything is ours.

You mention a residue from our time in the wilds. I assume you accept evolution. How about male and female differences? I think we all agree other animals are ruled by their hormones. How about people? Do you think they are also ruled by their hormones?

The establishment of nefarious group leaders is a bit of a fascination to me. Greeks did not conquer the world as the Romans did. We seem to think the Romans were superior, but really? Intellectually at least Athens was superior. I have read the Greeks and those living in Celtic territory got along just fine, but the Romans enslaved everyone.

Why should we create people that must be united in the first place. What right do we have to create new people? Legitimate question. Go back to the root. First principles. Why we make others work, go through the treadmill of life. What right we have to make others do this. All people have in this forum as a response to these questions is snark and sarcasm..the refuge of those without a rational response. — schopenhauer1

One of my favorite professors was a sociologist and he gave us a textbook explaining we live by social agreements. Instinctively we desire to be accepted and it is nice if we are also valued. We can neither if we do not understand the social rules and comply with them. We sure can not have liberty without a willingness to know and follow social rules. Even chimpanzees require following social rules. Social animals depend on each other and they have social rules. If a chimp refuses to obey the rules, the chimp is pushed to the outer circle where it is more likely to be eaten by a predatory, or the misbehaving chimp may be driven away and forced to seek a new group it if survives long enough to do that.

Tribes share a mythology and Joseph Campbell said the purpose of a mythology is to prepare the young to be adult members of the tribe. This is vital to our mental health and it is devastating when we invade an aboriginal territory and destroy their way of life.

Please question what I have said and I will try again to give you a rational response.

By adding to the solutions, by reducing the problems, sticking your finger in the hole in the sea wall, if you can help stop the flood or help clean up afterwards.
By each of us feeling/taking the responsibility and having the empathy to do what you can when you can, just like you exemplify every day.
Out of little acorns, big Oak tree's grow. The only help I think the folks on TPF can offer you is textual/human support unless they stay near you. Perhaps even some financial support, if you can get involved in some kind of crowdfunding/fund raising efforts which would directly support the local help initiatives you are trying to participate in.
I was watching a show about Chile recently and a woman was trying to feed 70 local kids every day using mostly her own limited pay she gets as a nurse and some local charity she was getting a little help and money from. Again, the likes of she, you and the schoolgirls in Iran are what helps convince me that there is great hope for the future of the human race. — universeness

I immediately flashed back to a time when I felt like an infected boil on the face of the earth. To clarify what I said, I don't think I could have felt any lower. I had no self-esteem and no sense of power and I unintentionally hurt a young woman who felt just as low as I did. When I learned I had hurt her I was shocked, because I didn't think I had the power to do that.

At another time also during the 1970 recession. I had begun hoarding and was not eating or heating my home. I lost so much weight, I had to cheat the scales when I sold plasma by wearing very heavy clothing. My daughter questioned my behavior and it shocked me. I slumped to the floor in front of the cold wood stove and realized I had forgotten how to think middle class. I was afraid if I used what we had there would be no more, like the crazy people we heard of from the Great Depression.

I think my point is, I was not always as self-confident as I am today. The girls in Iran are caught up in the history of their time, as I was when I thought I was a hippie, but during the recession when people were losing their homes and businesses, we were not united in an effort to improve things. We were alone as we slowly sank to the bottom.

Shit, I don't know what I am trying to say but you have made me think.

Wow, I love you guys and the thinking you make me do. :heart:

I blame patriarchy for the division of those who have power and those who do not. It is my understanding matriarchies have a family order but not the hierarchy of power and authority that men seem to prefer. — Athena

I personally don't think that male lineage produces fewer nasty leaders than female lineage.
Do you think, Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Maggie Thatcher etc are any better than horrors like Trump? It has always seemed mere anthropocentrism to me to assign gods a gender. Evil has no gender Imo. Evil is just base behaviour which has its origins in the 'rules of the jungle,' we evolved from. It looks quite evil to me, when a lion kills a small, weak, slow, unwell zebra and then rips it to shreds and eats it. If a human did that to a lamb in a field, in front of others, we would think of that human as a savage, a throwback, not welcome in our world. Evil has got nothing to do with woo woo gods and demons, it's just humans behaving in ways we NOW CONSIDER, is somewhere in the range of unacceptable/criminal to completely savage/horrific.

I assume you accept evolution. — Athena

I consider evolution to be scientific fact.

How about male and female differences? — Athena

Human males and females are different in many ways. As a heterosexual male, I am very happy about some of those physical differences. I don't think we differ greatly, mentally, in any significant ways, perhaps with the exception that the vast majority of women, do have, imo, an obviously higher imperative towards nurturing children, in all its forms, than men do. But I do think that this is merely an instinctive difference and is malleable as advances in science and technology and social role changes, continue to blur the gender borderlines.

I think we all agree other animals are ruled by their hormones. How about people? — Athena

Some influences can be very strong indeed in many people, others can control such natural instincts and hormonal imperatives quite successfully and are not controlled by them. The level at which an individual human is more under the control of their instincts or base chemistry, differs from person to person and perhaps even year to year, or it may depend on how hard your reasoning is able to battle with your, wants, needs, personal cravings/satisfactions etc.

Greeks did not conquer the world as the Romans did. We seem to think the Romans were superior, but really? Intellectually at least Athens was superior. I have read the Greeks and those living in Celtic territory got along just fine, but the Romans enslaved everyone. — Athena

Tribal groups have warred since the beginning. Many female warriors were as involved as the men were in many early civilisations. Why, for example in some Western cultures and in the USA, are the Mongols, and Genghis Khan considered to be less influential than the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians etc.
I don't place any of the early civilisations above each other. They were all just 'earlier humans.'
I hate to use the term 'superior,' when comparing one earlier people against another.
That was always one of the main problems, yes?
WE ARE BETTER THAN YOU! AND WE ALWAYS WILL BE. It's freaking BULLSHIT!
It seems to me that, we need to all really work from the position that humans are not superior to each other. I look to the future for a fair, balanced human civilisation. I use past failed systems such as all those which have gone before as 'lessons to be learned and not repeated.'

I think my point is, I was not always as self-confident as I am today. The girls in Iran are caught up in the history of their time, as I was when I thought I was a hippie, but during the recession when people were losing their homes and businesses, we were not united in an effort to improve things. We were alone as we slowly sank to the bottom. — Athena

We all have our story of raw thinking and impetuous actions when we were younger.
The bottom is merely a place you can improve from!

I am posting now so it is easy to find this thread when I return. Tomorrow I will join my sister's protest at the Oregon State capitol. She needs someone to watch her tent while she testifies and then goes off to help a homeless person. I will go with my warmest clothes and an excellent raincoat.

We have agreed to help people, but the resources are exhausted so people are not getting the help they are qualified to have. No, we are not intentionally killing them like the Nazis killed Jews, it is death by neglect, and a failure to deal with today's reality. The US is still mentally where it was in the pioneer days when we had more land than people. Exponential growth has radically changed all that.

I will be back to talk about reality and how the US is not dealing with it well.