Hi Existoic, welcome, and thanks for chiming in.

VagabondSpectre ChatteringMonkey

Hey excuse me, I'm kind of just passing by, posting randomly and being new here.

I think what you both are overlooking is what humans actually do with their existence, which is to reproduce, replicate old self-sustaining behaviors and display idiosyncratic behavior leading to both death with deep unhappiness(the risk) and newly discovered ways of perpetuating their being(the reward). The newly discovered ways of being over time become established and normal.

What allows us to think that happiness is continuously occurring is the observation whether human being is able to perpetuate itself(the culture he and she is embedded in continues to evolve and survive). This alone is a sufficient test of the goodness of being as per the Myth of Sisyphus (there is nothing a human being likes so much as perpetuating existence, therefore being able to do so makes a human population happy).

We are thus confronted only by two very practical questions: (1)Does the expansion of the ways of human being pose a threat to the perpetuation of culture as a whole? (2)If yes, how much risk is justified?

Conceptually it is easy to see that an expansive human culture may well consume itself. There is a link from this debate to religiosity. There is a link from here to political philosophy too. But the conceptual clarity we can impose now is, that economic development is a baseline that enables being. As such it is an absolute good. At least in so far as it does not saw off the tree branch we are sitting on. How good the actual existence we obtain is, is defined by our mastery of being(educational, political, religious etc). — Existoic

Interesting view on the issue. Having read all of Nietzsche multiple times when I was a bit younger, I'm not altogheter unsympathetic to the view that life is justified through overcoming and mastery. Being is becoming... From that perspective a perpetual stagnation of human civilization and culture maybe is also an ending of it.

That said, it does seem to me that the risks are very high at this moment. A cocktail of a still growing population, an overheating earth, increasing political instability, an interdependent economy prone to crash and high tech mixed with some religious strife, is very explosive to say the least. Maybe it will not be the end for all of humanity, but at the very least I see big conflicts coming... possibly resulting in new unprecedented and semi-permanent inequalities.

But maybe that is the way it has to go...

A secondary/tertiary point I might claim is, that to the best of our knowledge, our universe is finite, the clock is ticking on us and all future us'es(Tony Stark, how do you spell that?), and as such some risk to the whole of culture is justified in attempts to expand it. — Existoic

Given the current tempo of innovation, and the fraction we only spend compared to the astronomical amounts of time left to the end of the universe, I don't see the need for haste.

There is endless debate on these subjects, it's just too highfalutin for channel 6 public discourse. If and when reliable consensus emerges, or the preponderance of evidence comes in, we can then boil down new such technologies into "good" and "bad" camps. Wealth redistribution made necessary as the result of runaway AI efficiency and wealth production is a complex subject that is being rigorously explored, and biotech isn't a direct threat to the public until a government like China decides to somehow force genetic engineering upon it's people.

There is more debate today than ever before and there is more to debate about. We're not all of a single mind about what should even be debated, but that's democracy for you... — Vagabondspectre

Yes debate among specialists and the in-crowd... not a word from say Hillary or Trump about it. Meanwhile we're already spending billions on it.

Wealth redistribution will never be solved in practice before the effects of AI will be there, because it's not only between people in one country, but also between countries with AI and without it.

And you know someone will try genetic manipulation sooner or later. And then others will feel to need to follow if it gives a competitive edge. If it can be done...

But I didn't say anything about wanting to regress, we can't go back period.

I said I didn't want to rely on blind faith. I don't just assume lineair progression. Why do you assume it's going to be better just because it made things better in the past?

Why are governments putting billions of dollars into AI, Biotech and other technologies that will have a profound impact on societies and people... without it having been the subject of any major public debate?

You'd think there would be debate about something that impactfull, if democracy was at a high.

Actually that is not the consensus. The objectively measurable metrics like health and lifespan improved when we made the switch to agrarianism. There was a period of time when we were still figuring agriculture out (we had nutritional deficits before we got it right) but in very short order we have surpassed hunter-gatherers in the above metrics.

"Quality of life" in terms of happiness doesn't favor hunter-gatherers either. It turns out that humans are generally happy whether they're plowing fields or climbing trees for nourishment. The main difference is that the hunter-gatherers die much younger. — VagabondSpectre

Well if it's not the consensus, then I believe the group that believes Agrarian workers were worse of, because their arguments seem better to me. Agrarian workers had to work long days, in ways their body was not really suited for, had a one-sided diet, and the larger groups that resulted from the revolution entailed more hierarchical structures and a ruling class living of the work of others etc...

Objective measures, like lifespan... don't tell a whole lot about quality of life. Quantity is not quality.

Anyway, you can obviously respond to this if you want, but i'm not really interested in going into this right now, because it's only an example to show that more prosperity overall doesn't necessarily entail more quality of life for the majority. If you want to make the case that this allways is necessarily so, then that seems to be a hard argument to make. The answer, it seems to me, is that we can't know for sure.

Those millennia spent under the green canopy wern't unchanging. During that time human groups were growing, shrinking, dispersing, congregating, warring, making peace, discovering technology and forgetting it too; human groups were being formed and dying off in an environment of harsh selection. It's not that all human groups lived the same as ancient hunter gatherers, it's that those groups which tended not to behave like typical hunter gatherers (egalitarian nomads), tended to die out. In other words, it's not that we were unchanging, it's that the environment tended to kill off all deviation thanks to our then primitive survival strategies and infrastructure. — VagabondSpectre

Yeah well a lot of different things probably happened all over the planet in all those millenia, no one really knows. What didn't happen was the rapid expansion we saw after the agrarian revolution.

We've had nukes since the 40's, and we havn't managed to fuck that up yet, so I'm actually pretty confident that we can handle AI...

We're not that stupid you know... — VagabondSpectre

Really... and the times we came close doesn't give you pauze? All that is needed is things getting out of hand one time.

As for AI, I'm not so much concerned that they will end up 'terminating' us, it's the effects on society that might not be so positive. If large parts of the population become useless for the economy because of automation and AI, that would create problems that needs new kinds of solutions. And I don't have that much faith in the whole economic and political system, if I look at how things are going now.

My point is this really, I'm certainly not against economic growth, innovation and new technology in principle... but I also don't think we should just have blind faith that it will necessarily make things better. And as it stand now, we just seem to be dragged into it without much deliberation, whether we like it or not, and for better or for worse.

Higher population numbers have a greater chance of surviving the next catastrophe, so no, we should not arrest economic/technological growth.

Economic growth can lead to the emergence of novel problems, but at the same time it generally solves others. It is conceivable that economic growth could create a problem so large that it exterminates all or most human life, but this is an unlikely risk.

The cost of holding ourselves in economic stasis is that when environmental changes eventually come we will have less wealth and fewer numbers capable of adapting (we will be less capable of change). Nature has caused us to always want more, which motivates us to constantly expand. This is decidedly a better strategy than seeking homeostasis because homeostatic societies are less robust in the long run. The change and adaptation that growth allows and entails (its value to our survival and prosperity) seems to outweigh the risk of creating novel problems (else I reckon greed would not be so ubiquitous of a human imperative). — VagabondSpectre

Your arguments seems to be based on utilitarian grounds for the most part, which I don't think I agree with.

For me it's not so much, and certainly not only, about maximalising our prosperity or the chance to survive as a species. It's also about quality of life for individuals.

For instance the agrarian revolution may have been better in terms of prosperity, but consensus among historians seems to be that the agrarian worker was worse off than the hunter gatherer in terms of quality of live.

Likewise it's doubtfull that technological innovations and economic growth will translate into better quality of life for the majority of people. For instance, given the current economical dynamics, chances are that technlogical innovations like AI will make more people obsolete for the economic proces, and will concentrate even more wealth in the hands of the few owners of the means of production.

Also I think one shouldn't overestimate our ability to handle increasingly powerfull technologies. We are still only monkeys with a slightly bigger brain in the end. So either we will make mistakes and bad things will happen, or we delegate more and more to computer algorithms and AI and then we lose control over the whole thing. I don't really like any of these options.

Nature has caused us to always want more, which motivates us to constantly expand. — VagabondSpectre

I think this is still up for debate. We have lived for millenia as hunter gatherers not changing a whole lot in our way of live. Maybe something did change in our genome, but we might also still be as good as genetically identical. The latter would indicate that our continual expansion is more a matter of particular circumstances and revolution in ideas.

The thing is that it's not so clear cut I think. Yes those on top are the ones who profit, but at same time without any established order, there is nothing really. Brainwashing or creating a common ideal to work to, depends on the perspective of your particular position in relation to that order.

That's what I was taking about in my OP, that it makes sense from both perspectives. I wish it was a bit more fair too, which is the problem right now I think, that a large part of the population doesn't feel like they are a part of it.

We enlightened moderns dismiss the ethnic identities of the rabble, frown on nationalism, disapprove of the nation state, regret the existence of hierarchies, reject religious identity, and so on. We, of course, think of ourselves as transethnic; beyond gender's dictatorship; world citizens; above hierarchy (or would that be below hierarchy?); not religious; etc.

If we want to find the people who are quite out of touch with reality, all we have to do is look in the mirror.

Very large complex societies maintain their internal organization using national identity, gendered roles, hierarchies, ethnicities, religion, race, and so on. The results of maintaining strong internal identity -- identity strong enough to survive world wars, civil wars, regional wars, economic collapse, and so forth are not altogether pleasant, but they work quite well.

I think a nation state that can hold itself together and function in a complex, sometimes destabilized world is a good thing, and citizens, being the primates that we are, need recognizable features to identify with. — Bitter Crank

Good post Bitter Crank.

Thought you are probably right that I myself am somewhat disconnected for all these identities, as philosophical types tend to be, it was not my intention to frown on or dismiss any of them per se.

I have allways been critical of the intellectual left in my country and Europe for disregarding these identities as outdated, barbaric or what have you. With their war against these 'social contructions' I think they alienated the working class, the people... and so are in my view one of the main contributors to what we see now.

The cosmopolitan values they promoted are mainly only negative values, or 'meta-values' as i would call them. Equality, non-discrimination, multi-culturalism, freedom of religion etc... don't really have a content of themselves. They only serve to let different cultures and religions co-exist in one super-state. They are really empire-values, probably first originating in the Persian empire. And as such they can't really be the main course... there need to be recognizable features to identify with as you say.

So I guess my point is twofold. First, culturally I have no problem with strong national or ethnic identities, as long as they don't lead to what we have seen in Europe in the 20th century. And second, although these identities play an important role, we do need to recognize that the world has changed, and some of todays problems probably cannot be solved if we do not delegate some of the power to a higher level of governance.

Trust me, I think that they could do that.

There are many ways like starting a civil war or simply adapting the economic policy of Venezuela, just to name a few examples. In Venezuela they have been successfull in getting the economic growth rate to be less than -10%. So it's totally possible. Likely the Syrian government has achieved even a bigger decrease in GDP growth than Venezuela as they have deliberately pushed masses of their own citizens into exile. — ssu

Yeah sure, I mean 'could work without killing off parts of the population or without crashing the economy into a massive crisis'.

The biggest problem in our time is that the procedure of making regulations, laws and governmental supervision has been basically taken over lobbyists, which push a very narrow agenda of their employers. These employers, mainly big corporations but also other pressure groups, do not think that it's there duty to push anything else than their narrow self-centered agenda. They (the employers of lobbyists) can just assume that the politicians would further the agenda of the voters as they have been elected by the people. But once the system is taken over by lobbyists, it doesn't function so anymore. — ssu

Lobbyist are in itself not the worst maybe, if they also would represent other groups, like part of the general population. But taken over by lobbyist, here ultimately means taken over by money essentially. I don't know what would be a good solution here. I think with multinationals it's something that needs to be taken on globally, like a lot of issues nowadays.

I guess it goes so that the more affluent a society is and the more solid institutions it has, the more is the environment and other 'externalities' are taken into account. Assuming the voters do favour saving the environment. — ssu

Yes, the problem seems to be getting to that point for countries that are not there yet, without messing up the earth first.

What a lot of this seem to boil down to is the population growth in Africa and parts of Asia.

How the EU would make reforms is the problem. And I think it cannot create an common European identity.

It simply is too bureaucratic and basically the shall we say 'domestic' politicians are totally fine for "Brussels" to be in charge. Then they can blame "Brussels". In fact, the whole problem is that people can critisize "Brussels" and not their own politicians. True power lies with the heads of state of the member countries and their administrations, not with the faceless bureaucracy in Brussels. Perhaps France can have unified it's country with faceless bureaucrats, but the whole of Western Europe is a different thing.

Furthermore, the federalists have this idea that if federalization is not continued, everything will fall somehow apart. How that would happen is beyond me. Why cannot the EU be happy about a loose federation and grant that countries want to go a little bit differently some freedom. Even the state laws in the US can differ a lot. — ssu

I agree that it's too bureaucratic and that the whole federalization and creating of a European identity feels forced right now... still as I alluded to before, some issues simply seem to require a higher level of governance then the national level.

To name a few :

- Seperate national foreign policies seem wasted in a world where everything seems to be determined more and more by big blocks, and the same is true for the military
- The immigration problems seem hard to solve if you have to negotiate and agree with 28 members states every time
- It seems again wastefull to not have common science and innovation agenda's, and to not share research and infrastructures (how are we to compete for instance with China where everything is directed centrally?)
- Climate change is another one that is really only effectively dealt with on a higher governance level.

There are problems too with having an open economy, yet keeping taxation and social policies strictly seperate. You then get competition between memberstates for the most advantagious taxation and social systems, advantagious for companies only that is... so then it quickly becomes a race to the bottom.

So returning more to the nation states does seem a bit reactionary to me, and not really suited to today's world and problems.

The inefficient bureaucracy is a big problem, I definitely agree with that, and the question is if this can ever be solved or if it's just a natural consequence of scale. But there are two things that might be reasons to expect it to get better. One is that the European Union is in terms of a governing body still very young. These things need time to iron things out and traditions to be built up. And two, with new data technology the larger scale might not be such a big problem in the future.

Anyway, though I'm conflicted about this, I just can't really see the nation states as the solution for the future.

Plan A would be trying to keep that celestial bal liveable, but maybe it isn't a bad idea to also have a plan B if at all possible.

That seems to be the consensus among economists, and I can buy that to a large extent. Governments historically don't exactly have a good trackrecord of interfering in economics, so it's hard to see how trying to stop economic growth could work.

What economist seem to more or less agree on too, is that there is a problem with environmental and also social costs being externalised when the economy is left to its own devices. This is where I would try to find effective ways of regulating it.

Because the distances involved are staggeringly enormous. Don’t forget that a ‘light year’ is the distance light travels in a year which is roughly nine and a half trillion km. And interstellar travel talks in multiples of that. The amounts of time - millions of years - and energy involved to traverse such distances put it forever out of reach. I think we’ve been deluded by the popular Star Wars images of Star Wars and so on [Lawrence Krauss published a great book years ago called The Physics of Star Trek which discusses what would be physically required to replicate some of those technologies.]

My view is that the earth is the spaceship, the only one we’ve got, the only one we’ll ever have. See Spaceship Earth — Wayfarer

Aaah ok thanks for the clarification.

I don't necessarily believe in interstellar travel either, although given the astronomical timeframes until the end of the universe, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that we could eventually find a way to travel astronomical distances too (if we survive that long). Either way it's not something for the forseeable future, i agree.

I was thinking more along the lines of populating and mining our own solar system. These distances do seem within reach, and it seems do-able in principle with current scientific knowledge. From a resources and space scarcity perspective that could be a solution for a good while given the small percentage of resources and space the earth represents in the totality of the solar system.

Continual economic expansion wasn't a thing in the centuries preceding the IR. What made it possible was a somewhat stagnant society that had a low level of technology. (The medieval period wasn't the dark ages it was made out to be, but it was economically fairly tame.

How much stagnant society can we stand? — Bitter Crank

That is the question. Though I would argue that growth will have to slow down sometime eventually anyway, if not because of limited resources, then because we have no new technologies left to research practically (and growth is partly dependent on innovation).

Be sure to calculate the cost of fetching useful ore from asteroids before you decide that is a workable solution. — Bitter Crank

I think the idea of futurists is that we will also start to live in space (in big orbital habitats and the like). The biggest cost seems to be getting away and back to the earth because of earth's gravity and atmosphere. If that isn't necessary anymore then that would reduce costs substantially.

Chattering Monkey, which Harari book are you referencing? — Bitter Crank

I'm reading Sapiens right now, where he talks a lot about the myths and fictions we tell eachother. His definition of religion, the function it plays and his ideas about liberalism, I got from one of his talks at google though. That can be found on YouTube :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6BK5Q_Dblo

At about 1h10 he gets into this when he answers a question from the moderator.

I got Yuval’s first book, but he is a fairly generic sceintific materialist. It was one of those books I read a few chapters from but then regretted having shelled out for. And the problem is, the sole story, the only story, is ‘interstellar’: we’re going to develop hyperdrive and then populate the galaxy. That is what Stephen Hawking was banging the drum about before he died. Problem is it’s not actually do-able - we have our spaceship, suitable for a population of billions, but it’s dangerously over-heating and immediate action is needed. And it requires major attitudinal shifts. — Wayfarer

I just bought his first book, I'm a third into it now. You may be right that he's a scientific materialist, but i don't see this necessarily as a problem, as long as he's not of the reductionist kind that wants to reduce everything to physics or matter, or something like that. From what i've read he doesn't seem to be opposed to the idea of myth and religion, in fact he seems to aknowledge that we need it for coörperation on larger scales.

I'm not at the end yet, so I don't know if he thinks the sole story is 'interstellar'... But why do you think it is not do-able, from what i've gathered it would be possible even with current technology. I would agree thought that it's probably not the short-term solution that we need right now.

When you say 'stop economic growth' do you mean...
- no increase in GDP?
- no new products, or new products only as replacements?
- a flat rate of change in quality of life (various ways of measuring QoL)?
- zero population growth (ZPG)?
- negative population growth?
- etc. — Bitter Crank

I think the general idea is indeed no increase in GDP, or at least a decoupling of policy-targets from GDP in favor of more 'social and green' policy-targets such as social well-being and environment etc... One of the cited problems with coupling policy-targets mainly to GDP, is apparently that a lot of societal and environmental costs of economic growth are not included in GDP. And so since costs are externalized, GDP does not give a real idea of growth.

Even in a non-capitalist economy, I am unsure whether zero-economic-growth (ZEG) is possible. Certainly, maximization of growth doesn't have to be the goal of society. But problems arise...

If ZPG is enforced as part of ZEG, this can have very difficult consequences--a mushroom shaped age distribution: Lots of elderly (the cap), not too many care givers (the stem). Japan is or will have problems from low birth rate. So do, and so will other countries. Of course, eventually the problem dies and goes away (that may take...50 years?)

If ZPG is achieved as part of ZEG, one can achieve a chronic shortage of labor. Yes, mechanization, robotics, and automation can compensate for much of that labor, but many tasks will still be done by hand (like, picking raspberries or strawberries). Will there be enough labor to produce the surplus of food in one area needed for sale or donation elsewhere? — Bitter Crank

Yes demographics may be a problem, but I don't think this is as big of a concern in Western countries as in will be in the rest of the world. PG has already declined substantially in Western countries and we already have a lopsided demographic pyramid. This will be an issue we have to deal with no matter the economic growth. I'm less pessimist about a shortage for labor. You're probably right that some job will still need manual labor, but overall I think we will have the opposite problem, that there are simply not enough real jobs left to employ the population.

But I agree that ZEG in the rest of the world would be impossible if you don't achieve ZPG, and achieving ZPG seems to be something that is still far off.

Some surplus of wealth will be needed to pay for legacy costs: retired nuclear plants have to be looked after and eventually deconstructed. Infrastructure can't be abandoned until it really isn't needed. Highways, for instance, have to be drivable (freight, for instance) until freight is moved entirely by rail (over long distances). Refineries have to be maintained until there is no further need for processed hydrocarbons. Toxic waste sites have to be stabilized and cleaned up. Bad policy (burying garbage) will probably be need to be undone (over time). For one thing, there are a lot of material resources in the waste pits. Forests need to be replanted (that means many billions of trees, not millions.

If ZEG is achieved, will it produce enough resources (food, machinery, energy, etc.) to cover the labor of dealing with legacy costs?

Obviously research into certain areas will need to continue: pharmaceuticals; food and fiber production; energy capture from solar and lunar sources (photovoltaic, wind, wave, hydro); technology to reduce resource use (making fabric out of more readily biodegradable fibre; cotton doesn't degrade quickly), etc. — Bitter Crank

The idea of post-growth is not necessarily no more innovation across the board, but focusing innovation instead on social, green and sustainable technologies... and not on more, faster and cheaper production per se.

There is also an element of social redistribution in the idea of a post-growth economy. I think the idea is that there already is excess wealth, but that it mainly goes to a few people who get richer. Part of that generated wealth could presumably be used to finance legacy costs?

I'm no economist either so i don't know how feasible this exactly is.

Thanks for the reply, you're right about the spel check, I hope I got most of the errors out now.

Yuval Harari defines a religion according to its societal function, and he argues that it is basically the stories we tell each other and collectively believe, so as to provide a framework that can give legitimicy to a set of norms and values. The current 'religion' he says then is liberalism (which includes capitalist economics and consummerism), which would be one of the reason we can't let go of the idea of economic growth so easily.

I think I basically agree with what you said... that we need to come up with a new story.

Thanks for the advice. These idea's can be bewildering indeed. I'm counting on reality to anchor me during these thoughts. — Mind Dough

I'm afraid to ask, but what do you mean with reality?

Existence is not a thing, literally and figuratively.

We are biological beings with a body containing a brain.

That brain is best suited to navigate our body through the world we see with the eyes attached to our brain.

Using that brain for thinking about abstract worlds beyond everything or nothing will lead you astray.

My advice, stay close to the earth!

I think complaining can serve a host of different functions.

Because we care about something, and we think complaining can have an effect on realising that something.

Because it can play a role in our emotional economy, i.e. sometimes venting is better than keeping it all for yourself all the time.

Because it can serve as a socio-political tool to help getting what we want.

Because we have legitimate grievances and we want redress.

If there's really no God (and after life) then there's no meaning to life. So why hang on them? — AwonderingSoul

I don't see how this follows. It seems to me that an afterlife only devaluates life, because you are living it in function of that afterlife.

For atheists life, eventhough only transient, is the only thing we have, so we might as well make the best of that limited time.

And making the best of it, entails making some agreements with other people so as to not make eachother miserable... and boom you get morals. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

The EU has responded with a trying establish “control centres” across the bloc – at locations still to be decided, and only in countries that volunteered to have them. Then it has decided to tighten border controls and give money to Morocco and Turkey, which have to deal with the immigrants. Billions of euros. — ssu

Given the more right wing governement in the East of the EU who refuse to coöperate, it's still unclear if this will work at the moment, certainly should the situation become worse in Afrika.

What I think is notable that after all the tweets, tantrums and excesses of Donald Trump,
you can notice the Trump administration still having quite similar foreign policy in the end compared to past administrations. From this one can see that there is this consensus in many things about US foreign policy which isn't changed by one populist President, but favored by both political parties and government institions. It's not a conspiracy or actions of a deep state, it's simply a consensus. Hence isolationism as it was known isn't coming back any time soon. — SSU

You are probably right... which means the US policing the world for the forseable future in coöperation with NATO. Still, one should not forget the craziness that is the hunderds of US bases in Europe with rockets aimed at Russia.

I think that could happen if in the US a post-Trump administration turns to the left. The popularity of Bernie Sanders tells that is a possibility. That would have big consequences. — SSU

My concern here is more what the US will (be forced to) do in relation to China. China's economic power is still growing and the US trade defit still rising. And since China's economy is controled by the government, it translates more directly into political power. If a chinese company buys a harbour (Piraeus) or a utilty company in another country for instance, this is not merely a foreign investor, it's under controle of the Chinese state. This creates yet another unbalance in relation to non state-controled capitalist countries.

EU's problem is that it is inherently a confederacy of independent states that is desperately trying to become a federation... as if the process would be possible to be done just by bureaucrats in Brussells. You can make a confederation act like a federation up to a point. But just up to a point. — SSU

Yes it's a bit of a mess at the moment, which is why I think institutional reforms are necessary, in one or the other direction, but not this hybrid form.

Allright, I'll say some more because I feel like it didn't really answer to the point.

What I think the difference is with the left/right split or any other regular difference in party programme or ideology, is that a lot of those parties are considered totally unacceptable by the rest of the polical parties and a part of the population.

In a lot of countries, like in mine, they are either implicitly or explicitly excluded from the political proces even before the election... they are put in a 'cordon sanitaire' as they call it, which could be translated into English as a 'quarantine zone' (so the disease cannot spread).

Apparently this is not the case in Finland, and in other parts of Europe, as they were allready part of the government... so i would have to agree that it's not the same everywhere. Still the 'vitriol' you speak of, and the hysteria after the Trump election in the US, indicates to me something that is in essence similar.

Yes they are only 'advocating' something that seems to go beyond the current order, once in power they can't really deliver that and adapt because it was never something that really could be implemented in the first place... hence 'populist'.

But your point is well taken, it's an oversimplification. In the end what I am interested in are the major changes in Western capitalist liberal democracies :

- Changes to migration-policies : This is presumably only going to get worse with population growth in Afrika and climate change, so how will the EU handle this?
- Changes to foreign policies : What's going to be the impact of the shift in geopolitical balance of power on the foreign-policy of the US. Will the US become more isolationist again? And will the EU finally devellop a foreign policy of it's own (unlike the last 50 years or so), and start faring a seperate course?
- Changes to economic policies : Will free-market capitalism be limited by protectionism again? And will policies be put into place that limit multinationals floating their money between and over nation states to avoid taxation, or how will be dealt with that?
- Institutional changes : In which direction will the EU go? The people seem to oppose further integration, yet geopolitics and a host of other issues seem to point in the direction of a more integrated EU.
- Technological changes : Artificial Intelligence and the whole Fourth Industrial revolution... what will be the impact of that on our societies?

You rightly point out that immigration policies have allready been changing, also in 'establishment' parties... I think there is a lot more to come, it's sort of an existential moment in Western history I think, with a lot of things coming together at the same time. These are interesting times, if anything.

Well, I think that neurologically we have "free won't", or inhibition. We can do a lot of rationalizing to explain our behavior, but it is mostly inexplicable. When it is premeditated, and intentional, this is usually considered dubious, and inferior to spontaneity. So that, the majority of our "conscious-deliberation" is about what not to do, not what to do. We never run out of thinking of stuff we could be doing, and things we want, but we do refrain from a lot of it. The better one feels, the more impulsive, and spontaneous. Right down to food energy levels. "Neat", or non-exercise acitivty thermogenesis, is just the random impulsive activities one makes, and they increase with higher calorie intake and decrease with lower caloric intake. Sugar also makes one do all kinds of big and often repetitive purposeless or obsessive behaviors.

I also think that the higher energy, more elevated someone is the less they are able to restrain, or inhibit themselves. That's why we have "crimes of passion", and we all know how intense emotions are extremely difficult to restrain. So that, I think that not only do we just have "free won't", but we also purposely maintain low energy levels because we're too afraid to allow ourselves to lose control, so must maintain levels of energy we can control. — All sight

This is interesting, especially considering that it is apparently well-established in studies now that the level of 'self-control' seems to be by far the best indicator of succes later in life in our societies.

Not sure what to think of it yet. Reminds me of Freud... I need to think about it some more.

It's not my intention to take a political side here with the terms populism and extermist, I'm just using commonly used terminolgy to convey meaning, to indicate where I think the split runs nowadays.

And yes, reducing something to it's essence will tend to be an oversimplification. Still I think there might be something to it. Every party uses marketing techniques and spins things in their favour, to get the support of the people. The difference between that and populism is probably mainly a matter of degree, in that it goes further in pandering to the people, suggesting even more simplistic solutions to complex problems, inciting the passions of the people to an even higher extent etc...

And sure there are differences in Europe, they all have their particular history. But the similarities are striking, it's all about immigration, they are reactionary (they all want to return to some time and values gone), they are nationalist and want to fall back on their borders etc...

The difference with the left/right split is that populist don't really engage with current existing order and institutions. It's not just some policy changes left and right, they are advocating going beyond it, sanctioned directly by the people.

And it's not so much about the size of the split, but rather about the nature of it.

Well, reason as slave to the passions is basically meaning that we are charged with pleasing the limbic system. That's what life's about! You don't control how you feel, or how perception is marked by signification, nor how memory is consolidated, and motivations established, but you do know what causes what, and how to figure stuff out... you know, if you aren't too afraid to admit it. — All sight

Yes I basicly agree. Free will is nonsensical, if it were free it wouldn't be will. We don't choose our will, we are our will... biologically determined.

And Praxis you do not accept some philosophy merely on authority, right, but you also don't live in suspension of judgement the rest of your life... to live means to make choices. Philosophy provides tools for formulating better questions and thinking about them, so you can come up some answers of your own... ideally to make better life choices.

How to deal with emotions? How does it tie into living a good life, or into virtue etc... ?

Yes i don't disagree, but I think good philosophy should also provide some answers. And it does that too... just not in this case it seems.

Well I have questions, I'm just not sure philosophy needs to deal with them. They do more of that in eastern philosophy, but then the lines between philosophy and religion seem murkier there, so then there's that.

I'm not sure if objective knowledge from a third perspective of emotions will necessarily tell us much about how to deal with emotions. Maybe...

Eastern philosophy has a long tradition concerning this subject, but it starts from a phenomenological description of first person expercience.

What are good and bad ways of dealing with them generally. But maybe that aren't exactly philosophical questions, hence the questions in the OP.

In countries like the United States (and others) a great deal of effort has been poured into hiding the fact that the economic interests of the rich are quite opposed to the economic interests of the worekers — Bitter Crank

Often i'm wondering what the reasoning of these rich-elite might be for doing what they do. I mean these are presumably pretty smart guys, and it seems to me that in the long term the growing gap between rich and poor isn't good for them either, in that it threatens the system they are on top of. It would seem that even from a purely self-interested point of view, it would be better to not let the gap grow to great.

Is it simply mindless short-term profit seeking at work, maybe because that what brought them to where they are, and they just keep doing that out of habit?

Maybe there's some other reasons that they don't see the growing gap as a threat to their economic interest in the long term?

Or maybe they just don't have that much power to influence things either, and so they are also at the mercy of the way the system work... and are in the end just content they can move it some inches in their direction?

Yeah Hume did think that reason was a slave to the passions, and there was ofcourse also Nietzsche. On of my favourite passages from him that ties back to this :

"It has gradually become clear to me what every great
philosophy up till now has consisted of — namely, the confes-
sion of its originator, and a species of involuntary and un-
conscious auto-biography; and moreover that the moral (or
immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the
true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always
grown. Indeed, to understand how the abstrusest metaphysi-
cal assertions of a philosopher have been arrived at, it is
always well (and wise) to first ask oneself: ''What morality
do they (or does he) aim at?" Accordingly, I do not believe
that an "impulse to knowledge" is the father of philosophy;
but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made
use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instru-
ment. But whoever considers the fundamental impulses of
man with a view to determining how far they may have here
acted as inspiring genii (or as demons and cobolds) , will find
that they have all practised philosophy at one time or an-
other, and that each one of them would have been only too
glad to look upon itself as the ultimate end of existence and
the legitimate lord over all the other impulses. For every
impulse is imperious, and as such, attempts to philosophise."

With Thus Spake Zarathustra, and also with his style in other work in general, he attempted to engage with more than the rational only. Still there is not a whole lot of that in Western philosophy... and especially there doesn't seem to be an equivalent of something like ritual, or a practice that tries to engage the body also. Maybe that is a consequence of mind-body dualism, or the notion of pure spirit/reason?

Now, what will be your next step? :) — Damir Ibrisimovic

I don't know... smileys :-) 8-) ;-)

Maybe poetry, though i'm not much of a poet i should say.

I'm a sad chattering monkey,
still chattering cheerfully!

It will be chitter, chatter, cheer,
until the end I fear.

:-(

Enjoy your day, i'm off to sleep.

I don't think there's any purely 'mental' solution to the problem. We are biological beings, thoughts are more a product of our biology than other way arround. So I don't think a mere idea or belief will get you out of depression.

You can probably rationally come to see certain ideas as distortions, and that may help somewhat, but in the end it's probably more an emotional problem. Thought's are tied into that and probably reïnforce it, but at base it's emotional. If a baby or child cries or is sad you don't try to rationaly talk him out of that... you engage with him on some emotional level.

I don't know what your social situation is, but relating on a regular basis with close friends, family and spouse could probably help some. And if that is no option, a therapist can be a proxy for that. Or maybe the right meds if it's something more genetical...

I do belief a good social enviroment is key to long term mental health.

Well if we are alone that won't be a problem.

Defending the planet against an alien (the ultimate immigrants) invasion? ;-) — rachMiel

That would do it, a common external enemy.... if the aliens would be muslim communist even better!

Somewhat semi-serious I was thinking that we need to devellop a consciousness of our unique place in the universe to avoid possibly fatal dissasters, as a sort of secular replacement for religion or myth. As far as we know we are still alone in the universe, which would be remarkable considering the vastness of the universe and all the galaxies, stars and planets in it. The chances to have overcome all that we had to overcome to get here, must be astronomically low. And so wouldn't it be a shame to throw all that away... we still need to go to the stars, that is our destiny! ;-) This kind of origin story would be far more exceptional than any of the religious ones as far as i'm concerned.

I'm thinking along the same lines, that nothing has changed all that much.

Lately I've been entertaining the idea that we need a new overt nobility or aristocracy again. What we have now is an oligarchy, which is not exactly nobility because nobility at least has overt standards. The standards of current day oligarchs are probably just profit, which is worse i'd argue. And if every system necessarily devolves into some kind of oligarchy, then it'd better be a noble oligarchy. Noblesse oblige et al...