From google
At a price of US$1,250 per troy ounce ($40 per gram), reached on 16 August 2017, one metric ton of gold has a value of approximately $64.3 million. The total value of all gold ever mined, and that is accounted for, would exceed $7.5 trillion at that valuation and using WGC 2017 estimates.
also from google
In 2020, global GDP amounted to about 84.54 trillion U.S. dollars, almost three trillion lower than in 2019.

You can perhaps see the imbalance that a gold standard might produce. The value of gold is what people are willing to pay, and the value of fiat currencies is what value and faith people place in the them. The dollar is the world currency because of the stability of our government and our economy. It may not remain that way in the future, especially if we kept using it as a tool of coercion, but alternatives are not yet viable.

Personally I like bitcoin, a digital currency for a digital world economy but it also has no intrinsic value other than that given to it buyers and sellers.

At the moment American politicians are looking rather inadequate compared to Chinese technocrats, so I would say the future of democracy is not assured.
Democracy might work if you had an informed and involved electorate but fear and resentment seem to be the major motivations in current democracies and democratic norms are being undermined in several countries as we speak, including the U.S.

Thus we see already that we can never arrive at the real nature
of things from without. However much we investigate, we can
never reach anything but images and names. We are like a man
who goes round a castle seeking in vain for an entrance, and
sometimes sketching the façades. And yet this is the method that
has been followed by all philosophers before me.

Perhaps scientists should remember this as well as philosophers?

Acceleration and gravity are essentially equivalent and both affect time "dilation". GPS (satellites located in a lower gravity position relative to the surface of the earth) and atomic clocks flown at altitude both exhibit the predicted changes in time (rate of change).

I wonder what the economic and monetary system would look like without the fed?
I wonder what would have happened during the 2008 fiscal crisis without some institution like the fed?
The fed basically controls the central banks interest rate and the monetary supply for the U.S. (not the world) but congress controls taxing and spending policy. The fed is in theory independent of the politics but who thinks that is entirely true. Since government policy regarding spending and taxing is so out of balance there is only so much the fed can do to restore integrity to the system.
Why does everyone buy dollars, what would you rather own, bitcoin, afghan afghanis, angolan kwanzas?

Attaching one world labels to systems of thought and speculative philosophies has always seemed fraught with some difficulty for me.
So called Deconstructive Postmodernism (Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard) seems to be popular in the field of philosophy (maybe not for pure analytics or logical positivists) but exploring how language and culture limits and determines our worldviews and systems of values seems a useful endeavor.

I suppose the usefulness of critiques of modernism depends on what one assumes to be the basic tenets of modernism. If they are materialism, reductionism and determinism then yes I think critiques are well placed and very useful.

I am a strong fan of so called constructive postmodernism particularly the process philosophy forms.

I don’t see why not. Let’s put it this way, is it right to perform an action knowing that that action will lead to suffering for another person, and it wasn’t ameliorating an even greater suffering- you just preferred the outcome of suffering cause maybe you thought a) it’s worth the good or b) suffering itself is somehow good for that person? — schopenhauer1

Somehow I think intent and agency have to be central to any definition of evil. Evil and suffering are not synonyms. Nature inflicts plenty of suffering and yet we don't attribute intention to nature. Doctors inflict plenty of suffering to patients but mostly with the intention of curing them or restoring them to a state of health. Most of us would think it was evil to intentionally inflict suffering upon another sentient being unless there was some greater good which was the ultimate goal. Somehow I think all definitions will be deficient and although we might all agree certain acts are evil and other acts are not, there will be a large categories of actions carried out with agency and intention on which not everyone will agree.

To Buddhists "Life is Suffering" in various degrees, but Life is not Evil.

I made a topic about this years ago but basically I think there are some concepts that don't need definition only "assignment". An "assignment" is when you already know the meaning of a word but just need to assign a word to the already present meaning. These concepts include: Color, Space, Shape, Time, Consciousness and many others. You can't define "color" or "shape" or "consciousness" in simpler terms, all you can do is assign a word to a concept that you come pre equipped with. At least that's what it seems like to me. If you want to disagree then by all means try to define "Space" or "Shape" in simpler terms. — khaled

I will ask again. Are you asserting that electrons are "conscious"? If so, are they conscious in the same way and to the same degree as humans? When we say a human is unconscious (as in an accident or anesthesia) or that some action is subconscious as in reflexive response, what do we mean? What is the difference between experience, awareness, mental, mind and consciousness? Are all these term synonyms in your view or can you define differences in meaning?

Do you find different uses for the terms consciousness, mind, mental,psychic and/or experience. Because I find terminology to be one of the difficulties in promoting the concept of universality of mind in nature.

But understanding that takes a gestalt shift. This is well-understood, if not always well articulated, by the various forms of Eastern philosophy that fall under the umbrella term of 'non-dualism'. The 'duality of subject and object' is precisely the subject of their analysis. That is why non-dualism has become a subject of consideration by modern theories such as 'enactivism'. — Wayfarer

There are several Eastern philosophical and Buddhist concepts which run in a vein similar to monist and process philosophy. One would be the concept of "maya" or illusion, another would be the concept of impermanence "anicca". It is the unity and the flux of reality which dominates.
The distinction between subject and object, between self and other and any attachment to the impermanent things of the world are all false dichotomy. In the process view reality is a constant flux, a becoming, composed of events not objects. All things are relationships and interactions and thus the notion of independent existence is an illusion. There are many different ways to try to express these abstract concepts and many different terminologies and terms from different philosophers to express them. I usually resort to process philosophy and particularly Whitehead to try to express these views as this is the terminology and author that seems to speak to my mode of thought and expression but I find the same basic concepts in many different places.

I don't think the five senses have evolved so much to help us "understand" the world as to allow us to survive and procreate in the world. In that respect the senses can be misleading with respect to the deeper nature of reality and are incomplete in showing us all of "reality".
We have extended our perceptions of reality through instrumentation but even that project has its limitations with respect to the intrinsic aspects of nature versus the extrinsic measurable or observable aspects.

Italic Quotes Taken From Wikipedia Article on Panpsychism

In philosophy of mind, panpsychism is the view that mind or a mindlike aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality.[1] It is also described as a theory that "the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe.
The role and place of mind in nature is at the heart of both neutral monism and panpsychism. I think it is a mistake to use the terms experience, mind and consciousness as though they were synonyms. It is non-conscious experience which is fundamental to nature. Consciousness is the highest form of unified, integrated, self-aware experience and may be limited to humans (with language and abstract thought). Mind on the other hand is also a lesser form of unified and integrated experience and may come in various forms (such as the hive mind of bees and ants) or the distributed but communicative neural networks of the octopus, or the awareness of higher animals with brains. It is non-conscious experience (proto mind or mental pole) which is the most fundamental type of mental property in nature. The intrinsic (not extrinsic or measurable or observable) property of even the most fundamental units of nature (relationships to other events, to the past and to future possibilities) that is the basis of panpsychism.

They therefore ascribe a primitive form of mentality to entities at the fundamental level of physics but do not ascribe mentality to most aggregate things, such as rocks or buildings.[1][9][10]
A frequent criticism of Panpsychism is the assertion that it must postulate that rocks and other such structures must be “conscious”. The taunt intending to make the concept seem ridiculous on its face. This is a misunderstanding. No serious proponent of panpsychism asserts the consciousness of rocks or other such simple aggregate structures. It is also a misunderstanding of the use of the word “consciousness” to mean the kind of high level, integrated, unified, self-aware experience such as we humans ourselves experience. To have such high level experience one must also have a physical structure which is complex, integrated and unified (such as a brain). I tend to avoid using the term “consciousness” for the type of fundamental mental property found ubiquitous in nature and instead prefer the term experience or proto mental. The term experience used in this way does not mean conscious experience but a more fundamental relationship and interaction between events and time.

Charles Hartshorne contrasted panpsychism and idealism, saying that while idealists rejected the existence of the world observed with the senses or understood it as ideas within the mind of God, panpsychists accepted the reality of the world but saw it as composed of minds.
Panpsychists do not reject the “reality” of the physical properties of nature. They merely postulate that the physical properties alone are incomplete explanations of the experiential aspects of nature.

Panpsychism is incompatible with emergentism.[8] In general, theories of consciousness fall under one or the other umbrella; they hold either that consciousness is present at a fundamental level of reality (panpsychism) or that it emerges higher up (emergentism).[8]
It is the notion that somehow inert, non-experiential, matter with only physical properties somehow in certain combinations gives rise to experience, mental activity, mind and consciousness that strikes the panpsychist as irrational and mysterious (more magical then logical). The notion that some form of experiential or proto mental property is intrinsic to matter, particularly if one has an event based (process) ontology where relationship and interaction to other events and to events of the past and possibilities of the future are fundamental seems more logical and rational.

Other forms or types of Panpsychism
Goff has argued that panpsychism avoids the disunity of dualism, under which mind and matter are ontologically separate, as well as dualism's problems explaining how mind and matter interact.

Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory-He believes consciousness is nothing but integrated information, so Φ measures consciousness.

Goff has used the term panexperientialism more generally to refer to forms of panpsychism in which experience rather than thought is ubiquitous.[1]

Though there some radical Platonists, such as Max Tegmark, who believe reality has no intrinsic properties. By Tegmark's account, the universe is made of math without anything to ground it.

Panpsychism has recently seen a resurgence in the philosophy of mind, set into motion by Thomas Nagel's 1979 article "Panpsychism"[22] and further spurred by Galen Strawson's 2006 realistic monist article "Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism."[23][24][25] Other recent proponents include American philosophers David Ray Griffin[1] and David Skrbina,
These are all good reading for anyone interested in a more detailed exposition of the various notions and forms of panpsychism.

In the 20th century, panpsychism's most significant proponent is arguably Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947).[4] Whitehead's ontology saw the basic nature of the world as made up of events and the process of their creation and extinction. These elementary events (which he called occasions) are in part mental.[4] According to Whitehead, "we should conceive mental operations as among the factors which make up the constitution of nature."[8]
I am strongly influenced by Whiteheads variety of Process Philosophy. The fundamental units of nature are events, not physical particles. Events have physical aspects and duration but they also have experiential aspects to other events and to the past and to the future. I prefer David Ray Griffins use of the term panexperientialism (avoiding the usual connotations associated with the terms mind or consciousness) to refer to these proto mental aspects of events. Objects are merely repetitive events. These notions are more in keeping with our knowledge about the true nature of reality at its most fundamental level. Fundamental particles are really just quantum events and measured properties are really just relationship and interactions.

Panexperientialism is associated with the philosophies of, among others, Charles Hartshorne and Alfred North Whitehead, although the term itself was invented by David Ray Griffin in order to distinguish the process philosophical view from other varieties of panpsychism.[8] Whitehead's process philosophy argues that the fundamental elements of the universe are "occasions of experience," which can together create something as complex as a human being.[4]
Complex, integrated, unified physical structure gives rise to complex unified integrated experience (mind and consciousness). It seems a very logical proposition and in keeping with our observations and experience of the world. Science measures only the physical, measurable and empirical properties of the world. The intrinsic nature of things (even our own mental experience) remains outside the realm of empirical measurement. So, while science is one of our most valuable tools for exploring and understanding nature, it always gives us only a partial and incomplete picture of “reality”.

From Neutral Monism Article in Wikipedia
Substance can have both extrinsic properties and intrinsic properties. Extrinsic properties are properties that are outwardly observable, such structures and form. Intrinsic properties are properties that are not outwardly observable and concern the intrinsic nature of a thing.[note 1] By its very nature physics deals with the extrinsic properties of matter As a consequence, most of the positive claims in these fields are related to the extrinsic properties of reality. When it comes to describing the intrinsic nature of matter physics "is silent". However, just because the intrinsic properties of matter are unknown does not mean they don't exist.[no
Perhaps this is the most important concept. Merely because we cannot measure something or detect it with our senses or instruments does not mean it does not exist. Our measurements and our senses give us only an incomplete and partial view of nature. Also on this note the “warmth of the sun” and “the redness of a rose” are just as much a part of nature and our experience as infrared and wavelengths of color. It is all part of nature: we cannot pick and choose; the distinction between primary and secondary properties is really at its heart an artificial distinction and the source of many of our philosophical problems.

I also believe that. Moreover, neutral monism does not solve anything, it just hide behind ''something''. — Eugen

There are many different varieties or kinds of neutral monism. At its heart neutral monism seeks to reject pure physicalism (eliminative materialism), pure idealism and a Descartes like dualism. It substitutes one fundamental kind of unit (constructive element) of nature which can explain both the physical and experiential aspects of reality that we are aware of. Russell, James and Mach are promoted some version of neutral monism.

Panpsychism (which also comes in a variety of flavors and forms) is in most instances a type of neutral monism.

In the future won't more rural areas inevitably become more densely packed and require more efficient infrastructures? — TiredThinker

Actually the opposite is occurring. The population is moving towards metropolitan areas and away from rural areas. This has been going on for decades in the U.S. Many rural communities are losing businesses, jobs and young people.

The 62 U.S. Senators from the smallest (least population) states represent about 25% of the U.S. population.

First you must try to define them such that they don't end up being the same thing. I have failed at doing tha — khaled

But the point is that in neutral monism (process variety) , they are the same thing, or at least inseparable aspects of the same thing, inherent aspects of the "actual occasions" which are the fundamental units of reality

https://www.processpsychology.com/new-articles/Whitehead.htm
Try this for a more complete explanation of the idea.

n other words, the assumption that there are these physical objects that have no mental properties that somehow come together and suddenly have mental properties has gotten us nowhere, so people are starting to reject it.
— khaled — Pfhorrest

Which brings up the question "What are Physical Objects"? and what are "Mental Properties"?
In the process view objects are merely repeating patterns of events, repetitive becomings not beings and mental properties are interactions, relationships and largely non conscious experiences. Consciousness is a relatively rare and high order of integrated unified for of experience but most of the experiential aspects of nature are of a non conscious and low level variety.

From Betrand Russell The of Philosophy:
http://www.paulgraham.com/valueofphilosophy.html#:~:text=Philosophy%2C%20like%20all%20other%20studies,convictions%2C%20prejudices%2C%20and%20beliefs.
The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.

I do not believe the universe is a purposeless accidental event.
I tend to think (if there is a divine) it acts through the processes of nature.
The divine in my mind is the tendency of nature to self organize and the increasing creativity, complexity and experiential aspect of life over time and evolution.
I do not believe in heaven or hell or even think that there is any God that concerns itself much with human morality or even human survival.
Creativity, novelty and experience are the divine drives.

I have become an advocate of the "process philosophy" view. That reality is a process, not an object, a becoming not a being. The fundamental units of reality are :actual occasions" (moments or droplets of experience) which have physical and experiential aspects. There are no independent static particles or objects with inherent properties only relationships and interactions (non conscious experience).

In the 2020 election, Brookings found that the 2,497 counties across the country that voted for President Donald Trump generate 29% of the U.S. GDP. Meanwhile, the 477 counties won by President-elect Joe Biden contribute 70% of the American economy.


So Trump won 2,497 counties in the U.S. but Biden only won 477 counties. Check the map and the blue areas (Biden wins) correlate to large metropolitan areas.

If you live in large cities government provides many services for you but if you live in the country or farm government mostly provides rules and regulations which interfere with your use of your land and your lively hood. The rural urban divide is real and growing.

"The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind"
It is memory that keeps us from repeating our mistakes.

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods”

― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome

There came a point where the miracles, the resurrection, the immaculate conception, the trinity, the stories of the saints, the claim that Christianity was the only true path to salvation, couldn't be accepted as convincingly true — Ciceronianus the White

But unfortunately (at least I think so) Christianity's emphasis and insistence on its peculiar beliefs overwhelmed its uncomfortable assimilation of pre-Christian philosophy, especially as far as its "flock" was concerned if not its shepards. So as Christian doctrine became unbelievable, and God was despaired of, nihilism and other alternatives were accepted by some. God being dead, all was permissible, etc.

So perhaps nihilism is the result of the failure of Christianity, or that failure contributed to it. — Ciceronianus the White

I think the traditional tenets or doctrine of Christianity are no longer believable in the "literal interpretation or meaning" to the educated and informed mind.
The way moderns interpret and understand the world is not compatible with literal Christian doctrine.
For this reason, I think, traditional religion is doomed unless unless it reinterprets or reinvents itself in a more figurative or mystical or mythical sense.
Myths have meanings, stories have lessons even if they are not literal true or historically accurate.
One can look at falling church membership and attendance particularly in the Western World as evidence that the Church is becoming less relevant in the modern age.
Nihilism still lacks appeal as a worldview and the most common response is "spiritual but not religious or not affiliated with any traditional organized religion". Non the less most people think there is some larger meaning or purpose to life even if they can no longer accept the literal teachings of the church.

I do not believe in the "reality" or "realness" of "nothingness" whatever that could mean.

This is because God’s ability to bring something into existence, is proof that He can will for it to exist. So given that He can bring any possible essence into existence, then He can will for any possible essence to exist. — Mutakalem

I think making God omnipotent, makes God responsible for the "evil" in the world.
I think the "problem of evil" is a major cause of disbelief or rejection of that conception of God.
I prefer conceptions of the divine which involve persuasion or "lure" but not force or coercion.
God is not omnipotent, in the Bible, in the Koran or in other major religious scripture.
God as omnipotent and omniscient creates unsolvable logical problems for also conceiving of God as loving and relatable (personal). Personally I think God is creative and not too concerned with petty moralism.

I have never really thought an eternal, immutable, changeless, and timeless God was of much use to anyone.That is the God of some stodgy theologians and some philosophers..
If God is to have relevance to the world, it must be in some relationship to the world, taking in the experience of the world and responding to it, offering possibilities for advance or creativity. That is the God of the Bible.
I think the di-polar picture of God with a primordial and a consequent nature found in Whitehead and in process theology is one notion of God worthy of some consideration and discussion in philosophy of religion.

Name one thing that on close examination is "static being"?

Abortion is a problem. It is a problem for young women of reproductive age and their conscience and their doctors.
Not for old white men in legislative chambers who do not care to provide any support for the poor or for preschool care or head start programs.
The best solution for abortion is ready access to sex education and pregnancy prevention methods.
The next best solution is early detection and early termination of unwanted pregnancy, modern serum pregnancy test are accurate within the first 14 days and pharmacologic termination is available.
There still will remain fetal defects and deformities, genetic diseases, and threats to maternal health.
The investment of time, emotion, money and resources in raising a child is not a responsibility to be taken lightly.
I think it is forcing someone to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term that is criminal and not good for society, the individual or the child. If privacy and autonomy mean anything they mean control over ones own body and reproductive choices.

The world is a continuous creative becoming.
It is static being that is an illusion.
Objects are merely repetitive patterns or events. Change (process) is the essential nature of reality.

I am never sure what one is supposed to "believe" to qualify as a "Christian".
For me one who admires the example and teachings of Jesus would qualify.
Belief in Jesus as God in the flesh, the physical resurrection of the dead, and the Bible as the literal word of God itself all seem beside the point and the musings of intolerant theologians.
Love and the golden rule seem to be the best teachings and the best of religious doctrine, the rest just seems to lead to conflict and violation of the fundamental basis of good behavior.

There are no perfect people we are all flawed (don't mistake this for original sin).
The same characteristic which might be an asset in one situation, might be a vulnerability in another situation. That is even assuming there was any agreement on what is good, what is bad, and what perfect even means.

Space time may be a lot of things but in modern physics it is not "nothing".
Nor is space infinitely divisible and empty.
It is clear there is something wrong with the logic of "space and matter cannot exist" just as there is something wrong with Zeno's paradox.
Personally I subscribe to the view that space and time are both quantum just like matter and energy.

You should probably consult the field of epigenetics.
Genes may or may be expressed depending on environmental and other influences.
So genes are not destiny. There is an interplay between your genetic code and the environmental experience which determines phenotypes and gene expression and interplay.
Your genetic clone would not be you, having had a lifetime of different experiences and influences.

Time travel and time machines aside.
Leaders like Hitler do not arise in a vacuum and are products of their time, taking advantage of historical trends and grievances to obtain power.
Without Martin Luther King would there not still have been a civil rights moment, albeit with a different figurehead or leader?
Is Donald Trump the cause of Americans divisions and concerns about globalism and racial and ethnic diversity or is he the symptom? Perhaps a little of both?

I think if one wants to talk about "God" one should take some time trying to define the term.
For "God" means many different things to many different people.
Is god some superhuman being who intervenes in nature through super-natural events?
I consider myself a "theist" of sorts but doubtless would be considered an "atheist" by most traditional religions (except maybe the mystical crowd).
In any event most proofs for God seem a great waste of time, one must as Kierkegaard asserts "make the leap to faith" without ignoring the value of science as well as its limitations.

I am always curious as to what people mean by "socialist"?
Is providing basic health care to the population of your country "socialist" or is it responsible government? In either case sign me up.
Is free education for the most talented, motivated and capable regardless of race, sex, religion or socio-economic status "socialist" or an investment in the nations future? Again I am all for it.
It seems to me most cannot distinguish between "socialism" and "communism".
In terms of economies, central planning and state ownership of entire economies seem to have failed multiple times but there are other state interventions that would seem to be in the interest of both the state and the general welfare.

From Steven Shaviro:
For Hume, ‘all events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined but never connected.’4 It is true that we often
observe the ‘constant conjunction’ of certain events. But correlation is not causation, and we cannot legitimately infer from the former to the latter. Hume concludes that the ‘idea of a necessary connexion among events’ arises only because ‘the mind is carried by habit’ to expect a second, associated
event when it encounters the first.

Kant, of course, endeavours to overcome Hume's scepticism by means of a transcendental argument. We cannot do without causality. If relations of cause and effect cannot be found in sense-data themselves, as Hume maintains, then they must inhere in ‘our ways of thought about the data’ (S 37). For Kant, causality is rescued as an a priori category of understanding. If we were not able to organise the sense-data we receive according to the laws of cause and effect, Kant says, then we would scarcely be able to have subjective experience at all.

From Wikipedia
“ In metaphysics, a noumenon (/ˈnuːmənɒn/, UK also /ˈnaʊ-/; from Greek: νoούμενον) is a posited object or event that exists independently of human sense and/or perception.[1] The term noumenon is generally used when contrasted with, or in relation to, the term phenomenon, which refers to anything that can be apprehended by or is an object of the senses. Immanuel Kant used noumenon to refute idealism, that the noumenal world may exist, but remains unknowable through human senses.[2] In Kantian philosophy, the unknowable noumenon is often linked to the unknowable "thing-in-itself" (in Kant's German, Ding an sich), although how to characterize the nature of the relationship is a question still open to some controversy.”

From Stephen Hawking
“If what we regards as real depends on our theory, how can we make reality the basis of our philosophy? But we cannot distinguish what is real about the universe without a theory. I therefore take the view, which has been described as simple-minded or naïve, that a theory of physics is just a mathematical model that we use to describe the results of observations… Beyond that it makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of theory.”

I think both Kant and Hawking would object to the notion that the models of science get us direct access to reality itself. Scientific models are good in so far as they allow us to make predictions. That does not allow us to say that science gives us an entirely, complete, adequate or satisfactory model of all of our experience of the world or of reality itself.

I think a certain amount of physicality and therefore objectification is inherent to sexual attraction and sexual activity but no one wants to be just an object. So we all want to be physically desirable but we also want to be treated as a entire person. I admit I have not given it a great deal of thought.

Sociopaths have a hard life, but psychopaths usually do quite well if they can avoid becoming serial killers. About 3% of the population is estimated to fall into one of the antisocial categories.