Good luck finding some of these on streaming services. Jesus… — Mikie

I tried a couple. You Tube wants to charge me rent for Doctor Strangelove and Being There. So does Amazon Prime.

Even despite the cringey parts. — Mikie

?? I didn't cringe once. Now I'm curious.

Interesting. Why do I doubt this. If the grass is indeed always greener, what else might hold true. Nurture vs. nature, basically, or something in between? People can't change? Ignorance and reclusivity (or perhaps luck) to never have the limits of one's resistance to temptation tested need not be mistaken for virtue, mind you. — Outlander

There are many factors why people are corruptible, but I believe the chiefest among them is social conditioning. I don't just mean a child being told "Honesty is the best policy" and "You must always tell the truth" and then seeing his parents tie into the neighbour's cable feed or having to tell a salesman that mommy is not home. I mean the prevalence of unpunished crime in popular entertainments and in the news. The blatant disparity of standard of living between people who make their living by honest and by questionable means. The derision of classmates when they don't want to go along with a prank or cheating on a test. Seeing people everywhere, all the time, not only getting away with dishonourable behaviour, but being rewarded and applauded for it.
Unless one has very strong character and some absolute standard (like a heavily influential role model, or a beloved mentor one cannot disappoint) to meet, it's easy to think, What the hell, everyone is doing it. Why be a sucker?

Shirley Valentine. — unenlightened

One of my all-time favourites. Love Pauline Collins. Did you see the series Upstairs Downstairs? The girl was incandescent. Plus, it was cool to see Joanna Lumley, one of the British documentary presenters I like, in an acting role.
Kind Hearts and Coronets
What fun!
The Railway Children.
Excellent!

A Walk in the Clouds
The Aviator
State Fair

Oh, oh oh !
As Good as It Gets
Coccoon
... and never thought I'd say this...
Men in Black

Forrest Gump.
Closeaup
Firestarter
ET
Brief Encounter
Jesus Christ Superstar


Yes, 25 is closer.

Some greed is for vanity, but many of those excesses aren't perceived to be taking from the resources we all need. — TiredThinker

Is that because the super-rich - except for people like the Koch brothers and George Soros - don't understand the power of wealth, or because they're insulated from the this-worldly origins of the many, many things they accumulate and never use?

I wonder then what selective pressures are at work on humans as a society rather than just individuals. — Benj96

Whatever pressures we put on ourselves. For the past 6000+ years, we have pretty much set our own agenda for individual breeding and the survival of societies. Over the last two hundred years, the environment was of little consequence: the odd storm, drought or cold spell might kill off a local population, making more room for the rest of the species; an epidemic would take out a chunk of humanity here and there, but not like the global pandemic we have in the age of universal mobility.
There were plenty of spare people and so much technology that we beat nature into submission: it could not affect us as a species. Of course, now that nature is actually dying, we don't know how it will end.
The human gene pool is an ocean now - diversity is assured in whatever pockets remain, unless we burn off the atmosphere of set off enough nuclear weapons to make life impossible everywhere.

Can it be more hopeless than the millions of bank and insurance company clerks working years for a promotion to assistant supervisory manager? — magritte

Oh, no. It's far more hopeful and fruitful. Every member of the mob knows exactly how well she's doing in comparison to her sisters and which one is most likely to take over when the matriarch dies. The alpha male will then be her choice among the dominant males. No lies, no illusions; no fake carrots.

Airplane (cartoonish characters who evoke no sense of humanity in an absurd reality) — Hanover

Yes!! Stardust, too.
Also:
Nightmare Before Christmas
The Dark Crystal
Caveman
Bicentennial Man
Orlando

Electric Horeseman
and
Finding Forrester are pretty good, too.

We've been watching some of our old VCR's.
Close Encounters and Fantastic Voyage are idiotic. What did we ever like about these lame SF offerings? Obviously, the film-makers were besotted with special effects.
But Apollo 13 and The Day the earth Stood Still (1951 - but the remake didn't stink) are still excellent.
So's The Martian among new ones. And 2010 The Year We Make Contact was better than 2001, if you consider story vs novelty. I couldn't Include Avatar, because I only liked the first half.

We watched Lawrence recently, too and was less impressed, but it's still big, smart and engaging.
I had left of
Searching for Bobby Fisher
Cider House Rules
Dave
and
The Princess Bride

I can't vouch for these being all-time favourites; just movies I like that come to an increasingly porous mind:

The Milagro Beanfield War
Wag the Dog
The Russia House
Finding Forrester
Gandhi
Turtle Diary
Bulworth
Midnight in Paris
The Gods Must be Crazy
Tootsie

As one bad mutation in such an individual pairing could render the entire colony disadvantaged/defective. — Benj96

Not really. If the queen is defective, or she mated with a defective male, her new colony will never get started; she and her one mate are bred out of the gene pool in one generation. Which doesn't matter, because new ones are started all the time. If that one mating was successful, it establishes the gene pool for the entire colony; all her offspring are siblings, but they collectively decide which few are good enough to reproduce.

So with ants it seems the key to the kingdom isn’t as easy as marrying a prince. You’ve got to be born at the right time, with the right gene expression, in the right place.

It wasn't a question of better or worse morals; it was a question of unequal comparison. When people compare the Law of the Jungle unfavourably to the Rule of Law, they are comparing how animals treat other species with how we treat our own species. Apples/watermelons.

So, if you count up the ways a lion can be cruel - to other lions in its own pride, to other lions of competing prides, to other species of predator, to the species on which it preys and to other species that have no significance to him - then you should compare that to the ways in which a human can be cruel to members of his clan, members of his nation, humans in other nations, predators of other species, other species it uses for food, work and entertainment, and other species that have no direct significance to him.

One major factor making for the difference is the shift from a fight for survival in animals to competition for higher social standing for people. — magritte

You think it's easy becoming top meerkat in a mob or alpha wolf in a pack?

Our emotions are necessary for good decision-making. — Athena

Well, they certainly figure into bad decision-making. On the whole, I think we make better decisions with reason than with emotion.

The decision to kill hundreds of people can be simply a mathematical equation, without any of the negative emotions you mentioned. — Athena

The way generals do when planning a campaign?

How can you take our great success and turn it into something so awful? — Athena

I didn't. The capitalists, prelates, generals and heads of state did.

Anyway, none of your worries regarding rule by AI is relevant to my proposition; it's just an idea to speculate on. I've never advocated turning the power of life and death over to a computer, only putting it in charge of resource allocation, which is a math problem more equitably solved by a disinterested third party than the claimants.
What I have advocated, for years, is international policing, regulation, democratic decision-making and human rights oversight under the auspices of the UN.

None of the measures I suggested would prevent educating for democracy, or teaching people to think better than they're currently doing. What they would assure is each individual's access to the necessities of life, safety and education. Is that really so terrible?

General question:
When people talk about "the jungle" and how horrible animals are to one another, they usually cite predators and prey - an then compare that behaviour to humans treating other humans as prey.
In fact, social animals never treat their own species the way humans do. They may fight over mates and territory; they may kill the offspring of a rival male, but they could never have invented the rack or the electric chair. Human law, religious or secular, has never, until the last couple of centuries, shown much regard for other species - not to the harvesting of food animals, the living conditions of draft animals or fairness in the pursuit of game animals (concepts entirely foreign to a hyena, though hyenas are not paragons of predator virtue).
I don't see how human law can be compared favourably with natural law.

Or maybe this view places too much importance on ideas. Maybe these events were the outcome of a multitude of diverse agendas. — frank

The two main bones of contention through history, and long before, were land and water. Who controls most arable land and water, their clan survives longest. Ideas are pinned up on poles to unify people in an endeavor whose actual purpose is to gain territory. In the olden days, the Chinese, the Mongols, the Incas, the Zimbabwe, the Vikings didn't feel any need to disguise their territorial ambition. Later, as the population of empires became more diverse, they might not all share the same ambition or loyalty to the same king, so they had to be collected under a religious or ideological or national slogan.

Totalitarianism was a completely new phenomenon in the beginning of the 20th century, so it was not "business as usual" - something clearly changed. — Tzeentch

It was a new word. The rule of kings, pharaohs, maharajas, popes and caliphs was quite total enough before science was an issue.

crimes of humanity against itself — frank

Interesting concept, from a legal pov. What scale would the court have to be?

Yes, numbers and density have a major effect: even where resources are not particularly scarce, there is a perception that there is not enough for everyone, because those who want more and more and more for themselves make sure the majority is too busy fighting over the scraps to unite and turn on them. Julius Caesar may have declared it, but it was used by rulers before him as well as after.
Yet, ever couple of hundred years, the people do revolt, but by then they've been pushed into such a state of despair, they go mad and destroy the very nation they meant to reclaim.

Another factor is the size of empires. When two tribes had a war, the casualties were in tens. When little countries fight, they may die by thousands, but have neither the armaments nor manpower to keep it up very long. When empires like Alexander's or Caesar's make war, it's open-ended; they don't stop until they run out of real estate to conquer or up against an empire just as powerful. In those days, it took decades or centuries, which means more cannon-fodder waiting in the wings, and more potential victims. With modern weapons, it can be all over in 15 minutes, with very few survivors.

The nature of the madness doesn't change; it just has more to burn.

Like most things in life ethical treatment of others is more art than science, and thus difficult to capture in a formula. — Janus

Pay attention. Do what seems to need doing in the moment.

I have an idea what normal people want, but my normal may be different from theirs.

Is what you want superior to what you think others might want? — James Riley

Obviously! Don't we all think that? But that doesn't mean I can give myself everything I want, or can ever give what I want to other people in all cases. In general social terms, I try to give people their personal space, attention when they have something to communicate, consideration and respect for their autonomy and self-awareness, even though I can't get those things for myself and have learned not expect other people to give me the same, and to appreciate the ones do.
For example, I try never to tell other people what they think or what their motives are or what they ought to want. I do tell them when I believe they're wrong in matters of fact or interpretation, and I make it a policy to challenge misrepresentation of my opinion.
That's one thing I do for myself that I don't usually do for others. The problem there is that, even when I'm 99% sure someone else is being misinterpreted or maligned, I'm never sure they'd welcome my advocacy. I don't trust myself to discern clearly the fine line between sympathy and intrusion.
I can't always tell what other people want.

Ants got it right early on, so they haven't had to change much in their configuration or mode of operation order to keep adapting to new environments and changing conditions. They have somewhat fewer genes - 18,000 to our 23,000 - but it's possible that, because of the high turnover and low tolerance for maladaptation, ants are better able to afford detrimental mutation: it isn't passed on.

I am no judge to know what you understand and what you don't. — god must be atheist

Agreed.

because if you did not understand my critical views the first time, you never will; — god must be atheist

I understood them.

You are employing the fallacy of "equivocation". — god must be atheist

I disagree. " the use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself; prevarication." It is quite true that people "believe in" things like the constitution and the law and 'the invisible hand of the market', and expect those institutions to be just and right and benevolent and invincible - in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Those things are unreal - they "exist" in the same way gods do: they are concepts in the name of which people behave in certain prescribed ways.

I don't follow the genocide part. — Vera Mont
You must be totally blind then to history. — god must be atheist

Must I? The sentence you quoted was a response to:

Religion is a result of evolution and genocide. — Andrew4Handel

I don't think those events are part of evolution; nor do they predate the invention of religion - and in no way did they cause religion.

That is true, however, that in schools, factories and offices, we had to support atheism as the state ideology. People still remained religious; about 1/3 of the total population. — god must be atheist

And, boy, did the bishops make a huge comeback once the Russians were gone! Even some little claimant to the ancient throne tried to come back. And lots of American missionaries. Much the same happened in Russia, the Ukraine, and Islam never went very far underground in the annexed eastern territories of the USSR.

I still think it is the fear of losing what one has that compells them to continue accumulating wealth and other resources almost regardless of those that might be in greater need. — TiredThinker

That's a lot like the animal to keep eating almost until you burst, just in case there is a famine coming. Yes, that's one kind of mind-set that might motivate a person to accumulate long past their needs and desires. But it goes nowhere near to explaining the flamboyant conspicuous consumption of many super-rich - the gold toilets, $100,000 bottles of wine, $5,000,000 pictures, two Lear jets and eleven chateaux in different parts of the world, the overdecorated bling, the hideous dresses and ridiculous watches that have to be kept in a vault. That's not about fear of scarcity; that's about compensation for.... something.

You seem to be doing the same thing as 180Proof and selecting natural behaviours you have a preference for. But you are not being explicit enough. — Andrew4Handel

I picked social species at random to illustrate that family, social norms and standards of acceptable conduct predate the advent of religion. It's nothing to do with my preference; it was a simple response to your claim that religion was required to 'justify' social norms. I say it wasn't: we already had them.
What species would you prefer as a comparison?

However if humans are apart of nature or our behaviour is natural and if we are genetic all of our behaviour. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, our behaviour is natural. Yes, our depravities have natural origins. Far from perpetuating natural behaviours that worked for millions of years for other animals, and about one million years for our own species, the big brain, its imagination and its lust for patterns resulted in the invention of some elaborations of social behaviour that eventually leads to our destruction. Religion is only one of those inventions.

Religion is a result of evolution and genocide

I don't follow the genocide part.

Are you advocating a return to nature? Taking inspiration from nature or transcending nature? — Andrew4Handel

NOTA/NA/WTF are you even talking about?

Do I have to read the articles? I am well aware of pro-social animal behaviours but we are talking about humans and their well documented history. Humans aren't lemurs or wolf packs. — Andrew4Handel

Oh, so you're an evolution denier as well? ....Sad....

I don' think aping other animals resolves the issue. — Andrew4Handel

Aping our own heritage? How? Social behaviour is social behaviour, in all species. It has been the norm among sentient creatures for a very long time before imaginative human hairless apes invented supernatural entities.

They have tried it under communist regimes and in revolutionary France — Andrew4Handel

No they didn't. The entire french dechristianization program only lasted about 2 years.

Most scholars would argue that the goal of the revolutionary government between 1793 and 1794 ranged from the public reclamation of the massive amount of land, power, and money held by the Church in France to the termination of religious practice and the extermination of religion itself.

It didn't work, of course. The church got all the wealth and power back as soon as the monarchy came back. In fact, they're not doing so badly now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_religious_organizations

As for the so-called communist regimes, they failed spectacularly in Russia and the Balkans and has made barely any effort in China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_China

A generation is nowhere near long enough for the priests to lose their stranglehold on the population.

Are you referring to cooperation among animals? — Andrew4Handel

I am referring to social organizations, with families, norms, codes of behaviour and enforcement of rules.
As to physical laws, they've been around even longer. Every lemur understands gravity; every eagle has terrific depth perception; every cuttlefish knows the colour spectrum.

(I don't think you've had time to read all those articles.)

I am attacking the false dichotomy about the conduct of the religious and non religious and whether a society without religion would be more fact based, rational and humane. — Andrew4Handel

Let's try it for 2000 years and find out!

Can you provide evidence for this claim most human societies that have been recorded have been religious, or superstitious, had gods of some sort. — Andrew4Handel

No problem! https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/meerkats2.htmhttps://defenders.org/blog/2014/07/wolves-are-even-more-socially-complex-we-thoughthttps://wwf.panda.org/discover/knowledge_hub/endangered_species/elephants/african_elephants/https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/primate-sociality-and-social-systems-58068905/

I don't believe that atheists have ever started a society from scratch — Andrew4Handel

Nobody ever has. Get off that train; it's never leaving the station.

Christians fought against slavery — Andrew4Handel

Some Christians fought against slavery 1600 years after the mainstream churches endorsed it. To wit,

Ephesians 6:5-8 Paul states, “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ” which is Paul instructing slaves to obey their master.

If you're talking about facts, you need to be less selective, or you might end up with cherry picking again to claim whose system of beliefs is the least corrupt.

— Andrew4Handel

The point is however that vocal atheists have spent a lot of time trying to pick apart religion (mainly Christianity as opposed to Islam and Hinduism) but don't make the same demands of lots of other aspects of life that could be said to warrant equal scrutiny — Andrew4Handel

Why would American and British atheists argue about Hinduism, which doesn't affect them? They do have quite a lot - none of complimentary - to say about Islam. And they also come out in protests against wars and segregation and police violence and the tyranny of capital; they campaign for candidates they consider worthy. But cherry-picklers on a mission miss those tiny fruits.

The point I am making is that atheists do make claims and do actions caused by their atheism. — Andrew4Handel

They make claims, certainly. Have you ever fact-checked the claims? How many can you disprove?
They do actions, as everyone does. To which particular actions are you referring here?
How do you know what causes what claims and actions?

I think the problem of doing away way with gods is then that you have to justify norms without reference to gods. — Andrew4Handel

That's your problem, not mine. I think the concept of gods has always been problematic at best; at worst, it has been used as an excuse for horrific acts. Child sacrifice and self-mutilation leap to mind. Also some really very bad legal decisions. Torture and burning at the stake are some of the nastier examples of individual harm, but one might also mention wholesale slaughter in religious wars and wide-spread abuse of indigenous populations. Overall, not a good idea, imo.

Belief in gods has been used to justify a lot of social norms including the family and the justice system and even the notion of physical laws. — Andrew4Handel

All those social conventions existed long before gods were invented. All those social norms existed long before humans walked on two legs.

When atheists get involved in the business of creating society their atheism does effect their other beliefs and values. — Andrew4Handel

Nobody "gets involved in creating society". Society just grew. It's here and we're stuck with it, so we each try to nudge it a tiny little bit in the direction we wish it to go.

But instead we Have Books like "The God Delusion" and The Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution — Andrew4Handel

Why is it so hard to understand that those positions are not taken with regard to a god, but with regard to what men do in the name of that god?

t is clear that atheism has not just left people in a simple state of unbelief but produced other motives in people. — Andrew4Handel

Atheism did not cause those motives; the motives, in reaction to the activities of Holy Roman Church, caused atheism. The priests, by taking possession of and misapplying the god, turned an awful lot of decent people against their version of godhood. The fundamentalists of today, both Christian and Muslim, are doing the same.

Life is sufficient...when you are actually alive... — Janus

And when you're not, you don't care either way. Unless you go to hell, of course, but fortunately, I don't believe in hell. Sadly, I don't believe in heaven, either.

Hard to explain to the youngsters, nowadays. — Wayfarer

Let 'em dream! It wasn't all wine, protest and roses.

And this despite there being a clear definite description of each: the Bruce on the left and the Bruce on the right. — Banno

I admit to being philosophically illiterate, but if there were twins on the left and right, shouldn't there be four Bruces?

Part of that was a consequence of early experiences with hallucinogens, also very much part of the culture of the time, but I also had a couple of naturally occuring epiphanies. — Wayfarer

That was eerily familiar! I had a flashback to one summer night circa 1967, in the bed of a pickup truck, looking up - which was also out and down - into the void and it looked back, just like the crazy man said. And realizing that that was all right. There is no need for meaning or purpose or significance. Life is sufficient.

What is your explanation for existence? Why it occurred, what purpose or meaning it may or may not have? — Benj96

I have no explanation for how and why, and I was not convinced by any of the explanations I have so far heard and read. Until I come across one that I do find convincing, I'll mark it as "unknown". This gives me no sleepless nights.
As for purpose and meaning, I think they exist in the mind of the beholder. I'm content to put those questions on the shelf, too, as unanswerable; and the probable answer is "none".

What are your ethical, epistemological or personal views related to existence? — Benj96

I think as long as we're here, we ought to minimize pain and maximize well-being for ourselves and the other organisms with which we interact. And clean up after ourselves: take nothing but memories; leave nothing but memories.