Definitely, developing and using what are still called alternative sources of energy the main sources is huge, though I’m on the fence about nuclear energy.
I read about plants using nuclear waste as fuel, which is great.
You may be very correct about an entire new system needed to implement new energies. — 0 thru 9

Nuclear energy is fine. The waste is not that big of a problem, certainly not compared to other issues we have with carbon emissions. The only downside with nuclear is that it is hard to build... it's expensive, needs a lot of skilled people and takes a while. Because of that we couldn't really built them fast enough - even if we wanted to - to phase out fossil fuels in time to stop further warming.

But the skeptic/cynic in me wonders what kind of calamity it would take to dislodge the ‘elite’.
(By which I mean the robber barons and tycoon tyrants).
Would have to be a heck of an upheaval to separate that dog from his bone!
I probably could easier envision agonizingly slow adaptation of bio-fuels as long as they are profitable for corporations and their elected pals.
Difficult to say really, at least for me. — 0 thru 9

Well there will always be elites, right. The question is what kind of elites. Now they are able to float over and between nations and communities because of our globalized world. They can go "shopping" with different governments to get the best tax deals, etc... and are completely unmoored from any particular community because of the sheer scale of things. Globalization like we have it today, might be one of the things that has to go... and then, yes who knows what will happen.

I wonder if we were raised on a steady diet of bullshit, about who we are and what is possible.
If not bullshit, then we are metaphorically feeding on a mixture of gourmet food and broken glass.
(And besides the metaphor, the standard diet offered to humanity wouldn’t nourish a rat).
Welcome to the machine, my child… may you ride the glorious contraption to the heavens!
(Try not to get in the way of the machine though because it crushes everything in its path). — 0 thru 9

We certainly are raised on a steady diet of bullshit, but then that isn't new exactly... since the dawn of civilization ideologies have been created to serve as propaganda for the ruling class. This is maybe a bit of a tangent, but it's not that surprising nor will it change any time soon I'd think, because it seems that reason has developed as a means to justify ourselves to our peers... or put another way rather than truth or reason strictu sensu, 'rationalization' is what we seem to be geared for.

Every culture molds its young to fit in with the group, whole or tribe.
Which is fine and natural, unless the culture happens to be close to insanity.
The average person follows their orders with body exhausted, mind confused, and heart aching. — 0 thru 9

It's a fine line. It seems to me we do need a culture, some kind of group that share a story and we feel a part of... but then it can easily flip to dehumanization and aggression because of in-group out-group dynamics. This is also one of the things we dropped the ball on in the West.

Yes.
Unfortunately, you may be right about more crises forcing the change traumatically.
I hope there’s a surprise happy ending somehow. — 0 thru 9

There's no ending I would say ;-).

I’m not completely convinced by the arguments listed here… sorry to say.
We could and should develop all our potential, and be positive amid the storms.
Desparate times call for a cool head, and a warm heart.
Not sword-swinging warriors who take no prisoners (another toxic role we’re taught).

I don’t view history as gigantic failure of humanity, and the phrase ‘ideal moral standard’ is somewhat problematic, in my opinion.
Of course, becoming misanthropic is a sign that something is dreadfully wrong.
I theorize that when one tries to follow the contradictory, toxic, and impossible advice and standards of our civilization, instead of training the mind with clear awareness and vision, we will live in something akin to what TS Eliot called ‘The Waste Land’.
The waste land is here now (I’m not the first to say), where the good are uncertain, and the bad filled with energy and are ready to battle. — 0 thru 9

Framing things in term of good and bad is a moral way of looking at it. That's fine, if you want... I'm just saying one can take different perspectives on these things, and also be just as (partially) right. The things is, any story we are going to tell ourselves about the totality of this vast amount of things that have happened in history, always has to be focusing on a few aspects and leaving out the majority of things not focused on... it's necessary only partial, a perspective.

But I agree with you that humans are not completely different from animals in every way.
Thinking that we are the center of all is one of our main misjudgments (human exceptionalism).
Humans at the top of the universal pyramid is as misguided as a flat earth as the center of all. — 0 thru 9

And I'd say, even in this misjudgment we are probably not exceptional. Doesn't every organism think itself to be the most important thing?

No, I think you should go radical ;-), but not in the typical way perhaps.

I don't think little tweaks will do it. Climate change, bio-diversity loss and related issues will not be solved with little tweaks to the system. Our entire global economy is set up around cheap fossil fuels. Swapping those out for processes that wouldn't have this negative impact, essentially means re-inventing the whole system. Regular politics cannot go there because there are always vested interests that stand to lose to much from that amount of change.

That's also the reason I'm not that high on the type of radical activism, or revolutionaries, that demands all kinds of drastic changes to be implemented, not because I don't think we should do them, but because I just don't think it will work. As a whole we will generally not decide to sacrifice short term tangible conveniences for some relatively far off intangible good. We are bad at long term planning, but reasonably good at short term reactive action. And so that is what I think will happen, because these problems ideally demand relatively long term planning and action, we will be late in solving them.

So where does that leave us one might ask :-)? I think some kind of crisis, or multiple crisis, will force our civilization to change. That is both the bad and the good news I suppose. Change will come, but probably not in the way we would draw it up.

What I do, is try to come to terms with that, manage my expectations, and try to develop some general skills that might be useful in a variety of uncertain circumstance. That is something I can do something about. To illustrate this maybe, one can look at this whole history as a gigantic failure of humanity to live up to some kind of ideal moral standard, what we could have done otherwise in some imagined counterfactual world etc etc... and eventually become a misanthrope. Or one can look at this bizarre history of a naked ape coming out of the savanna and consider it half a miracle that we even got this far. No other species voluntarily avoids overshoot either and eventually runs against the limits of its ecosystem when it has overcome its competition... we are not that different. The latter perspective is a bit more humbling and less judgement it seems to me.

Anyway, maybe this is not exactly what you were looking for, but it's what I got. And yes, it's by no means an easy thing to deal with, take care.

My last reply maybe makes it sound like I disagree a lot more than I actually do.

I know this narrative that claims the real issue is that Western culture is to much out to control or out to dominate nature, whereas ideally we should look more to be a part of and live in harmony with nature (like indigenous people used to do for instance).

All of this is somewhere tied to the notion that we as human beings hold a special place in the world and are not really part of nature (Ironically this setting humanity apart from nature is also part of the Christian tradition, but that's maybe besides the point here).

I think all of this is true to some extend. What I would say, and the point I want to make, is that this is only part of the story that focuses solely on the cultural aspects as if these are the prime cause.... and consequently, if we want to solve our problems we should aim to change this culture. This is what I object to. I claim that it's not the culture that needs to change in the first place, but the incentives, the circumstances... and then culture would follow along.

To make this a bit more tangible an example can help maybe. Take for instance the large scale mono-culture farmer vs the regenerative farmer. The latter is what we should do to improve our soils, preserve bio-diversity, procedure healthier food and sequester CO2 at the same time. At this point we kind of know this, or at least anyone who wants to know it, knows it. Yet very few go that route. At the end of the day, I don't think the main driver for this kind of behavior are our cultural values, but rather the fact that it just makes more sense in our current context to do large scale mono-culture. Because oil and gas, energy in general, has been dirt cheap for a couple of centuries, we can afford to fuel big machines to work large swats of land, we can afford to procedure in large quantities and drive food-surplus around all over the world and we can afford to use huge amounts of fertilizer made from natural gas etc etc...

What would tip the scales in favour of regenerative agriculture is energy prices going up, that is material conditions changing, not merely a cultural change.

My take on the LOTR and its possible implications for us… It seems to be that ‘thinking precedes doing’. Humans have many instinctual behaviors, but they are outnumbered by our many learned behaviors. Somehow, we as a civilization have come to a point where we allow and encourage treating the Earth like a limitless bank account. Take whatever resources that will make somebody some money. Because Progress! Progress! Progress! And thus teach this unconsciously to our children. (Hopefully climate change and other crises are making us rethink everything). — 0 thru 9

Ok. I don't think pursuing progress is some whimsical arbitrary decision we made at some point, and we then consequently "somehow" came to this point. Progress is where circumstance took us as tribes came into competition in a gradually more densely populated world.... the ones that were more advanced were generally the ones that persisted.

So what I think is missing in your story is why we came to teach these particular ideas to our children in the first place. I'd say because they made sense in their circumstances... it was progress or perish probably.

Also, I don't think learned behaviour is a bug, but rather a feature of human beings. As eusocial language using mammals, we need a process of acculturation to unlock our full potential. That's why we have an atypical long period until full adulthood, because our instincts are underdetermined and insufficient by themselves to function.

In our quest for a better life (whatever that may entail) we best remember that. Tolkien had the hero not grabbing the power, but throwing it away! Unheard of! Because that power was against that sustainable rule. It was power over the Earth and others, not power with them. Subjugation and domination was the Ring’s one absolute power. This is a game where the only winning move is not to play.

To those who say “but there is no other way!”, I’d suggest that if no other way currently exists, then we must build it. For what the Ring represents in our actual reality is the ultimate addiction which gives a temporary high followed by complete destruction. So… throw that Ring into the fire! :fire: — 0 thru 9

Yes the hero is Christ, turning the other cheek... surrendering power and therefor also life. We did try that for a while, in the West - as the only civilization on earth mind you - we had this inversion of values at the centre of our civilization.... and then we proceeded and conquered the world. So much for renouncing power!

It doesn't work because this is against the instincts... even if we are taught to think that, we cannot help but do otherwise regardless. So I wouldn't put my hopes on people throwing away power en masse. We already had Christianity for a couple of millennia and we are where we are anyway... Maybe we should try something else lest hitting ourselves on the same stone becomes fatal.

Ok, I’ll bite lol… Just for fun… how is the philosophy of LOTR “reactionary”? (I take that term to mean ‘wishing to maintain a status quo or return to a previous condition’). Perhaps Tolkien’s depiction of a devolving world where nothing is what once was? (Ahh… the good old days! :halo: :sparkle: ) — 0 thru 9

Yes this yearning for the good old days sums it up pretty much. Tolkien was coming from a world wherein Britain was the dominant world power, a perceived Victorian golden age... all of that was rapidly changing with the onset of world war one. He was also a devout Catholic in a time where the the faith was waning more and more after the dead of God. I think his writings can be seen as a manifestation of his wishes to go back to a pre-modern time, to some kind of idyllic place of authentic living (countryside England) isolated from the rest of the world that was marching on to its doom (the Shire vs Mordor).

Alas one cannot go back, but ultimately only move on, through, to something beyond.... to something new. In that sense his critique of the modern probably still stands, but his imagined solution may be of little consequence.

Lord of the Rings is good, I definitely enjoyed the movies, but as a philosophy it is ultimately maybe a bit reactionary.

There's a ton about this. But maybe Charles C Mann, the wizards and the prophets. It's an interesting read if you want to understand two very opposing attitudes vis-a-vis progress and technology, and how they shaped different aspects of our world and the environmental movement.

Or maybe Nate Hagens specifically for this topic, he has a youtube channel and podcast that tries to look at all aspects of our current predicament and it's fairly easy to digest.

I think (to be fair) you meant this first paragraph to be a disclaimer perhaps, before you commented about sustainability. (Sorry if I’m preaching to the choir, or even preaching at all. Not trying to write a manifesto lol). Many feel that our current situation is dire. That seems to have been the consensus for many years. The differences in opinion mostly concern possible solutions. So any potential ideas must be considered. (Though any ideas that are a shameless grab at power masquerading as innovation can be immediately dismissed of course). — 0 thru 9

Yes it was meant as a sort of disclaimer or framing of how I think one can sensibly speak about these kind of things.

Our situation is dire, I agree with that. Where I usually disagree is not only concerning the possible solutions, but also with the typical analysis being given for our situation. There are these cultural pessimists today who blame our general culture, or see our problems as a result of a kind of moral failing of our societies/ the human species. While these things play their role no doubt, I think these are mostly downstream of the fact that we happened to unlock fossil fuels when we did. As a social species there is always the temptation to moralize everything and look for culprits to blame.

What if there’s really and actually something from ancient / tribal cultures that can help on a large scale, as well as on a personal one? Even if I have great trouble even imagining the particular solution, the remedy appears coming from the past, from the simple people who came before us. I understand that we have a mistrust of anything seemingly tainted by being from primative people or by outdated mythology.

Of course, any partial solutions to be considered must be throughly examined and tested! Science all the way! (Hopefully disengaged from being under control by money). I say ‘partial solutions’ because there isn’t one big monolithic answer, I’m willing to wager. A patchwork solution, borrowing anything that works from anywhere it can be found!

At this point, we might do well to re-examine absolutely everything. — 0 thru 9

It's not my mistrust for the primitive, or any kind of feeling of superiority that makes me doubt the value of the ideas of these ancient cultures, it's just the acknowledgement that our circumstances are totally different now. I believe that our cultural ideas developed in tandem with the material circumstances we find ourselves in... that is, I don't think they are universal or fixed, but are mostly tailored to a certain time and circumstance. Today's world is globalized and high tech, and also more densely populated and ecologically damaged. This I would presume needs different answers than ideas that worked a couple of millennia ago.

But I'm totally on board with finding inspiration in or borrowing ideas from the past if they make sense now, sure why not.

“Ancient wisdom” is a cliché and a marketing ploy. It’s very popular. It is allowed to exist for sale as long it’s not too questioning. I have a suspicion that this “wisdom” is definitely not taken seriously on the highest levels of power. I imagine that is thought of as quaint at best. (Even if some of the more clever leaders read ‘The Art of War’ and ‘The Tao Te Ching’). But are they honestly missing something? Or just pretending? Are the rulers of today content and happy with the status quo, simply because they are the rulers? (That’s my guess, unfortunately. But if rulers, elected and otherwise, are not leading well, then such people are part of the problem and lose all credibility). — 0 thru 9

Of course there are varying levels of understanding among leaders, as there is among people in general, but I think insofar they realize what's going on, they are rather clueless as to what they can do about it, and scared of the public backlash that is likely coming their way when things do go south. One shouldn't overestimate their individual power, they are always embedded in a party-political context wherein promises are made to their constituencies and stakeholders. Their problem is that, even if they wanted to, they probably couldn't implement the policies that would be a real solution to the problems we have because these typically don't have enough political support.

I voted other, because I think the idea that civilization should be a certain way is misguided. We invented civilization and keep on re-inventing it as we go along and as circumstances change... there's nothing like it that came before, no ideal model we can compare it to. So imbalanced compared to what? Some kind of imagined ideal balance? Nature perhaps? But nature isn't necessarily balanced either, sometimes it can reach temporary stable states for some duration, but that is by no means a given.

That said you can look at it and evaluate it from certain perspectives. And sustainability is probably not a bad one, because it is of particular importance to us as we rely on the civilization we are a part of. And then looking at your definition of unsustainability, maybe we should add critically to it, because probably no civilization since the dawn of civilization has been really sustainable. Any mineral or fossil fuels resource use is ultimately unsustainable by that definition because it typically takes millennia to replenish those.

And as a last caveat, sustainability is also a function of total population size because if you deplete your environment it helps if you can just move somewhere else. Hunting and gathering with 8 billion people on earth wouldn't be sustainable either.

So what I would say is that our civilization now is critically unsustainable mainly because we use way to much energy :



Most of this energy comes from fossil fuels, so it is finite by definition. Because we can extract them at a relatively low cost, energy is underpriced as long as this one-time endowment from the earth lasts. And because it is underpriced we were able to build our civilization around all kinds of processes that would otherwise be to wasteful and to costly. It also allowed us to artificially inflate world population to numbers that could not be reached otherwise, and can probably not be sustained without this.

All of this has had a number of by now well know adverse side-effects on the bio-sphere, but aside from that the issue for our civilization is that we have come to rely on this energy-surplus and probably cannot easily wean off of it as we run out. That's why I'd say it is critically unsustainable.

The reason indigenous governance and harmonious living with nature won't save us should be clear, we are with 8 billion people living in a globalised high tech world... that is a totally different world from the one in which indigenous people developed their ideas.
— ChatteringMonkey

The idea that the environment needs to be safeguarded because it is essential to life scales up just fine as far as I can see. — Pantagruel

It doesn't work because in a global economy you get outcompeted by those that cannibalize the environment for any kind of edge... so then there's a systemic pressure against this idea. I personally like it to be clear.

Also I would say that there is a real tension between feeding all of the worlds population and safeguarding the environment. At this point we probably need to continue large-scale mono-culture to get high enough yields... and this is highly destructive for the environment, so much so that it is probably the main cause for bio-diversity loss.

I was talking about a bigger transition to managing the environment on a global level; managing the transition out of a growth model, managing the transition to non-carbon based energy sources. But more, what would we have to become to carry those changes forward on a permanent basis? A global government? A new religion?

I think if you want something to become real, you have to imagine it. You can't bring about change by wagging an index finger. You know? — frank

This sounds reasonable, but I don't think this is how it actually works, at least not on the societal scale. How many times in history has a giant transition really been the result of people imagining a new world? I would guest not that many times.

How we get to a new system, is the previous system breaking and being forced to adapt to new circumstances. Necessity is the mother of invention.

This is also why people are having difficulty envisioning the future now (and why I think all current political ideologies are totally off base), we can't predict and see past a phase shift.

One-hundred percent. Presumably there will be an increase in the general level of social awareness, out of which consensus emerges the forms of governance we deem acceptable. In Canada, there is a growing trend where the government sponsors and supports indigenous-led environmental initiatives.
e.g. Natural Climate Solutions
Area-based Conservation

I'd go one better, and get behind indigenous-led governance. Our indigenous groups have always attempted to live in harmony with nature. It's an attitude whose time is long overdue. If you look at the real numbers of politicians involved criminal self-promotion in violation of the public trust, the need for a really new approach seems clear. — Pantagruel

In Europe there already has been a decent amount of social awareness of the problem. One war and energy-prices skyrocketing, and that social awareness gets thrown by the wayside... people will choose short term energy-security over long-term ecological impact every time.

The real issue is that our whole economy and society is built on fossil fuels. Aside from energy in the most dense and use-friendly form, plastics, steel, fertilizer, concrete, etc etc.... all the pillars of our economy are derived from refining fossil fuels. We have no idea how to replace those "on scale".

Advocates of a green transition, or green growth have no idea what they are talking about from any practical point of view (engineering, materials, financial, energy), it's pure political theory-crafting without any base in reality.

The reason indigenous governance and harmonious living with nature won't save us should be clear, we are with 8 billion people living in a globalised high tech world... that is a totally different world from the one in which indigenous people developed their ideas.

We do need a new approach yes, one that is serious about what can be done and takes all the different constraints into consideration.

If the goal is in reducing the environmental impact of humanity in the planet, my focus is terribly flawed. If it's the other goals I've pointed out, it's not. — Hanover

I think attaining these other goals cannot be separated from humanities impact on the planet. It's not only about people having different values, but also about not fully thinking through or acknowledging the ramifications and impacts of climate change and other ecological issues we are facing now. If we do little to mitigate, we'll have a progressively harder time to increase or even maintain standards of living.

I do share your scepticism about the effectivity of global cooperation on this. Geo-political interests and competitivity-loss make it very difficult. But at the same time, if shared interests become high enough in maintaining some semblance of a liveable biosphere, maybe they can come to some minimal deal.

"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering (Nietzsche)"
— ChatteringMonkey

He was a poor, sick man. I wasn't. Different experiences lead to different conclusions. — Vera Mont

I don't think so, It's probably as close to an universal human psychological truth you can come. Maybe you could say he probably saw it a bit more clearly because of his illness.

Some do, some don't; some find it, some receive it, some invent it; some join organizations, armies, movements to be "part of something greater than themselves", some prefer interactions on a small scale, some are loners; some crave ideals, or truths or certitudes; some crave power, wealth or social status; some crave love but will take revenge instead; some cry, some laugh, some lie, some work, some pray, some fight; all die. — Vera Mont

Sure, I'm an atheist and I don't have any particular need for religion, I just think a lot of people probably do.

I don't think it's about fear necessarily.

"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering (Nietzsche)"

I think we want to see our actions framed in a larger whole ideally, so they become infused with some kind of meaning.

So I think Mao actually was consistent in his logic to implement the revolution. Tradition and religion are stabilizing and crowd controlling forces. If your are serious about creating a communist society, you do need to get rid of those... hence the cultural revolution.

But then what, is the real question? It's not as if we, once we get rid of tradition, once we get rid of these controlling evil forces, that we magically start living peacefully all together. Something does need to come in its place. And since we erased the past, in the short term, it can only come in the form of some ideological artifice, top-down imposed... and untested, unproven and unrefined in the real world. Is it really a surprise then that these experiments have invariably been worse then what they sought to cure?

But some leftist atheists during and just after the war came to believe that there was something in the secularized culture of modern Europe that allowed totalitarianism to happen. European antisemitism at the time of the Nazis had become scientific in character (we now know that it was pseudo-scientific, of course). It took up the older religious tradition of antisemitism and ran with it in a racialist direction, so it was motivated and justified differently than it had been in previous centuries. So some pessimistic atheist social theorists blamed the very historical evolution of which the loss of religion's social importance was a central feature. From this point of view, it is something in the progress of secularization that led to totalitarianism and genocide (the instrumentalization of reason and all that). In other words, religion was being lost, and without anything to take its place, bad things happen. — Jamal

I made a similar point earlier, namely that secularization may in fact have created the space for these events in the 20th century. If religion has been a part of all but one civilization since the beginning of written history, it only seems a fair question to ask what functions it serves in society, and whether you can just cut it out without adverse effects.

I dunno, this whole idea, that religion is bad and that we therefor should just do away with it, seems rather shallow to me.

Me, I certainly wouldn’t say that atheism or secularism necessarily result in totalitarianism. The minimal point I suppose is that society can end up in oppression, war, and violence whether it’s religious or not, and therefore that these evils have other causes. The idea that it's all caused by religion is no better than a conspiracy theory. — Jamal

There have been totalitarian religious regimes too, yes, so maybe that's not the axis we should be looking on. What I would say is that religions have heavily curated traditions that only change slowly and are therefor typically more a force for stability than the other way around (Although Christianity may be a bit of a special case). As this influence wanes, you supposedly have more of a chance for societies to oscillate into extreme and unpredictable directions, like we have seen in the 20th century. Mao's cultural revolution is maybe the best example of this kind erasure of the past.

But it's not about truth, it's about values
— ChatteringMonkey

In REAL life, not philosophy, your values come from what you experience and what you learn.
If those values are based on lies peddled as divine truth the people get seriously messed up.
Some get so messed up that they behave like Stepford wife stye automatons in their inability to question the religious doctrine being peddled to them. However, as you suggested, we can 'park it' there for now, if you want. — universeness

Your values come for a large part from the society you get raised in. Experience feeds into it, but not in this direct factual way one maybe might presume. To put it simplistically, one experience usually doesn't suffice to evaluate a value. For that we usually tap into a larger ongoing societal dialogue. We can question those values we get passed on, sure, but it helps that we can at least start from something and that we don't have to all individually devise them out our experiences as we stumble through life. If we want to get across these larger points about values, the factual details usually are no that important.. it's the larger story-arc where it is at.

it doesn't matter so much that it isn't literally true in the details.
— ChatteringMonkey

Of course it matters! It remains almost critical as interpretation of what non-existent gods what has plagued our species since it came out of the wilds. Theism, was a side effect of the primal fears early hominids experienced under the survival rules of the jungle, that was still fresh in the minds of early more settled and less nomadic tribal communities. It was from these mental schisms that the superiority of one human over another was manifest, alongside xenophobia, conquest and territoriality. This had it's most horrific consequences in such as the divine right of kings, messiahs and so called prophets and our entire species still suffers from this terror. For anyone to suggest that the 'truth' of preached religion does not matter, is irrational, provocative and irresponsible. — universeness

But it's not about truth, it's about values, which do not have a truth-value (as in something that can just be verified empirically). I know this is a whole other can of worms where there is much disagreement, so maybe we should park it here.

I don't doubt some of the things you alluded to were part of it, but I think there is more to it than that.

↪ChatteringMonkey
I know what secularism is. How about the tribes that lived by the seasons, and had pagan based celebrations? What are you calling a state? The early city states? Nomadic tribal communities?
Many early worship was based on nature and animism. Such societies could be quite secular in the sense that respecting the forest or even manifesting a forrest deity, did not necessarily affect how you shared the forrest provided food amongst your tribe. We don't have a great deal of knowledge oh how early civilisations separated their pagan beliefs from how the tribe/state functioned.
Epicurean Communes were not ran under religious dictates for example. — universeness

Ok, in written history, that is as far as we know, every state-organisation was fused with some kind of religion. So yes the early city-states in Sumer, sure.

This is speculation of course, but I would presume that most of these tribes also had some kind of mythos (a kind of mostly made up origin-story to pass on the wisdom of the tribe).

Language-use is speculated to have evolved because we are an eusocial species. That is to communicate, to share knowledge that we then can pass on over generations. Because we are social species, we are also specifically interested in all these rather mundane social happenings... and so a narrative form with characters is easier to remember and pass on over generation in an oral tradition. These eventually turned into stories about great men ancestors, semi-gods and gods etc etc.... But to return to point of the OP, you can see that if the function is to pass on wisdom in an easy to remember form, it doesn't matter so much that it isn't literally true in the details.

No secularism before Jesus Christ? Really? :rofl: Did every human on Earth that existed before Jesus Christ (who himself probably never existed, believe in gods? — universeness

No you probably had the odd atheist/sceptic, but there was no societal organisation that was outside of the religious/mythical, i.e. no secular state. Secularism is not the same as atheism.

One could go another way with the Nazism example. Namely that precisely the secularization in the west, made it possible for guys like Hitler and Stalin to usurp religious tendencies in people for their political ends, because there was a void to fill.

Isn't that was the great ideological battles in the 20th century were, a search for some kind of (secular) replacement after the dead of God?

The question to me isn't whether religion is bad or not, the question is whether the role religions or myths used to play in societies can adequately be replaced by something else, or indeed by nothing at all? And I'd say the jury is still out on that one... as a wider sociological phenomenon this plays out over centuries. We will have to see, but I'm doubtful because secularism is certainly a peculiar exception in world history.

As a side note, and maybe to piss of militant atheists some more, secularism specifically came out Christianity. It was in the times of Augustine, that a split was conceived between the worldy/temporal, i.e. the seaculum, and the eternal, the church. Only from then on a division in power between state and church was thinkable in the west. In all other non-christian societies the idea of a secular state made little sense, there was one way society was organised and religion was integral part of that... so really atheists should thank Christianity that it made secularism and atheism possible.

We should all want to know the facts, whether or not they agree with a particular religious tradition. — GRWelsh

Why is that?

↪ChatteringMonkey

I'll say to you what I said to Baden - This all seems plausible. Is there justification that it's true, or is it just a general sense of history, society, and culture? — T Clark

Yeah from me its the same T Clark. It comes from a broad understanding of history and philosophy... but mainly through a Nietzschian lens I suppose, because he was one of my earlier influences. And that made me look for other, specific things in later readings.

I used to ask myself the same question as you are posing me here now, but about Nietzsche views, about this broad historical arc he seems to be painting. He does seem kinda loose and poetic at times, which makes one wonder, is this just fiction or is this based in reality? But he did have a very deep understanding of history, especially the Greeks through his philology studies.

This question in particular was basically what his entire philosophy was focused on in its different aspects and implications (the value of truth, scientific and the ascetics values, the dead of God etc). From the beginning, even before his first books, in his courses in Basel on the pre-platonics, this was the question he was concerned with, as he uncovers the progression of pre-platonic philosophy becoming more and more materialist :

https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Platonic-Philosophers-International-Nietzsche-Studies/dp/0252074033

And then as you track back his sources, you come across all kinds of material you otherwise wouldn't have. For instance the work of relatively unknown and forgotten philosopher who was a direct predecessor and influence on Nietzsche, Friedrich Albert Lange who wrote a whole book on the history of materialism. This was the question, between Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer, where the whole of German philosophy was apparently revolving around at the time.

But you know, there's a lot to be said on this.... and you can't really paint with a broad brush and go into all the details at the same time.

Yes, agreed.

We are cultural beings. In homo sapiens, evolution has offloaded part of the process that determines how we act from instinctual algorithms (fixed outside of gene-evolution) to knowledge that can be transmitted via language over generations (adaptable via meme-evolution). Because evolution has offloaded a part of our survival-strategy to culture, we are incomplete without it.

The point of a culture however is not only to know precisely what things are, but more importantly to know how we should act. In mytho-religious societies, however imperfect one may think that was, everything was fused into one overacting story... things made sense and actions had meaning in a larger whole.

Socrates thought he was smart to point out (over and over again) that no one could give a reason for why they believed such and such. No individual knows however, because it is a communal process that spans generations, and not a matter of dialectical reason only.

Dialectics are a dissolvent of tradition. In the west however we ran with that, and we (mis)took this purely critical, reductionist and predominately left-brained mode of thought as the only viable way to arrive at anything of value.

Fast forward a couple of millennia, and we more or less got there, we dissolved most of our traditions and also killed god in the process.... Hooray! The problem with this picture however is that we are cultural beings, incomplete without it, and so the void created by dialectics, has to be filled someway somehow. And what better to way to fill the void than with all things our hearts desires, provided in the most effective and efficient way possible, via the markets. Why determine what to value and where to go as a society, if we can just leave that to the invisible hand?

Perhaps it makes sense to see incels as people whose recognition that there is unfairness is valid, but who fail to see the unfairness as being the result of the nature and nurture that resulted in them being an incel, and mistakenly attribute the unfairness to women? — wonderer1

Yes, I would add to that, they probably originally started from the equally false notion that they themselves were entirely to blame for their failure... and then, to feel better about themselves, invented other stories that shifts the blame from themselves to women or society at large maybe. Blaming the physical world, or acknowledging it as a cause, doesn't quite seem to cut it in our psychology, or maybe that's just the way we are taught to think as a result of being raised in a moralizing culture.

Life isn't fair, but life being unfair doesn't equate to there being a victimizer. To "play into this" notion that incels are victims doesn't seem likely to get incels out of the victim mentality that is a big part of the problem they have. Acknowledging to an incel that life isn't fair and perhaps they did get the short stick in some regards I'd go along with. However, what seems likely to me to be most beneficial for the incel (and society at large) is for the incel to stop obsessing about being a victim, and start learning whatever they need to learn to improve their social competence. — wonderer1

Yeah I mostly agree with this, I do wonder (in light of you question about determinism) how relevant the distinction really is that we seem to be making between unfairness caused by non-human factors and unfairness caused by human actors.

As an aside, does anyone want to venture a guess as to what percentage of members of this forum believe in libertarian free will, determinism, and anything in between? — wonderer1

I think a small majority maybe theoretically is some kind of compatibilist determinist, but in practice, in their moral views, most are more on the side of libertarian free will it seems. I mean, I would also call it a useful or even necessary illusion probably, if I was pushed on it.

If what they want is some compassion and sympathy (for not getting what they really want), is the best strategy then denying them that too? Wouldn't that end up making them even more marginalized, frustrated and radicalized?

Why not play into this? Because we have set up this Manichean distinction, wherein they are purely victimizers, i.e. the enemy we should fight at all cost, VS the victims we should protect at all cost? Can't they be both victims and victimizers, as they appear to be?

Isn't this essentially the same mistake as the criminal system is making in focusing on retribution instead of rehabilitation?

Because that's probably the philosophically least interesting thing about it. They are evil, that's it, conversation done.

It think it's actually a pretty common phenomenon that recurs time and again in history. In Europe for instance, at the start of Islamic State(IS) and the terrorist attacks in European cities, there were a lot of young European Muslim men "radicalizing" and joining the ranks of IS. Looking at their profiles it were mostly young men, without a family of their own, without any direction in life etc etc... I think there's a story to be told that goes a bit further than simple moral condemnation of this particular incarnation of involuntary celibate men, and looks at how societies historically dealt with them.

guys we are not good at getting in relationships...
— ChatteringMonkey

They say... But did they want to? Were they trying? If they were unsuccessful, you assume it's because of factors they can't help and can't change - and that's generous of you. But is not necessarily the case.
Nice guys want to understand things in their own framework, on their terms. So do not-nice ones. So they misinterpret and misestimate one another's intentions. — Vera Mont

Maybe they are not all that socially inept and unattractive, maybe some choose to remain single...but ultimately I don't think even that matters a whole lot. The label Incel itself, regardless of who they are, isn't going to attract a large percentage of the population. And their morally abject ideas certainly aren't going to help... So I can't really see them becoming anything other than a fringe group.

We have climate denial bots now? This would be funny if the situation wasn't so dire.

Here's a question, would you say what ideologies are in power, what is culture and what is counterculture, can change over time? And what then would be the criterium by which we judge that? I'd say that criterium would be power.
— ChatteringMonkey

Sure, culture changes. I presume that matrilineal culture was dominant in prehistory, simply because we knew where babies come from - between the legs of a woman. Somewhere about 1-2 millennia BC. patriarchy came to dominate. But I don't know how you measure power in this context. The ruler needs an army; the chess player needs pawns, and the little people are what the culture is made of, more so than the powerful's ablity to control it.

To change the mix of metaphors; the powerful can only blow the dog- whistle that the dogs have already been trained to respond to. — unenlightened

I'm thinking it used to be pretty clear what the dominant culture was (or maybe this is just the benefit of hindsight), but now not so much these days... we are left with a lot of splintering and polarization. Looking back maybe this will turn out to be a transitional period.

Ok no worries.

Power is a vital aspect of the patriarchy. I don't think Incels have much power, on the contrary, they seem very much a marginal group.
— ChatteringMonkey

But appearances are deceptive. Compare with the case of the poor white racist:

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.
— Dylan — unenlightened

Yeah I had been thinking about this specifically. It's an interesting question. It definitely was the case that racism was an ideology of the ruling class and patriarchy originally. But I don't think I would say a white supremacist is part of the ruling ideology or patriarchy these days, if outing oneself as one would probably get you fired in a matter of days in most places. Those who have power set the rules, that is what power means in practice, therefor I'd say if you have to hide who you are, you are not a part of the powers that be.

Here's a question, would you say what is culture and what is counterculture can change over time? And what then would be the criterium by which we judge that? I'd say that criterium would be power.

Power is a vital aspect of the patriarchy. I don't think Incels have much power, on the contrary, they seem very much a marginal group.

So I dunno, Incels and the patriarchy just seems like a weirdly forced association.

However, to a great many people receiving daily threats, and those who have already been attacked, it is very serious indeed. The fact that the 'movement' is spreading, growing, recruiting
Four clicks on an incognito browser is all it takes for YouTube to churn up a video about, as the host puts it, “embracing the idea of violence” in a society that “despises” what it means to be a manhttps://globalnews.ca/news/8508795/canada-social-media-algorithm-reform/
and increasingly violent in its rhetoric is very serious. — Vera Mont

I guess I would doubt the degree to which the Incel-movement has an additional effect on these issues. Violence and rape have been a part of our history since the beginning. I don't think we need organisations and/or ideologies to have this be an issue.

because they are almost by definition socially inept, unattractive etc. and we have some kind of biological preference for the attractive and the successful.
— ChatteringMonkey
You you keep saying. How do you know? What does "almost by definition" actually mean? Might there not motivations other than self-pity involved? — Vera Mont

Well an incel means involuntary single, so you have "almost by definition" guys we are not good at getting in relationships... that is probably because of a number of factors, but high on that list would be things like attractiveness and social skills I presume.

I think the motivation is to feel better about themselves predominately.

I would argue that Incels will never gain any amount of social power to sufficiently alter the culture so it would become damaging to women and our culture as a whole...
— ChatteringMonkey
I've heard that argued about some groups who have since done a good deal of damage. ISIS comes to mind... Society as whole might recover from them; the direct casualties will not. I consider poisoning a large segment of the next generation of men to the whole concept of healthy relationships as a damage. — Vera Mont

I suppose there is always a remote possibility, like how Christianity became a world religion against all odds and almost by accident. But still, on the list of things to worry about these days, I would put them very low on that list. There's so much and my time and energy is limited.

Okay, I"ll re-iterate why this shouldn't really be a concern other than for the incels themselves maybe.

Social power, the ability to influence large amount of people and maybe sway culture and values in certain directions, is what is relevant here.

I would argue that Incels will never gain any amount of social power to sufficiently alter the culture so it would become damaging to women and our culture as a whole... because they are almost by definition socially inept, unattractive etc. and we have some kind of biological preference for the attractive and the successful.

The idea that Incels might come to pose some kind of danger to society is purely hypothetical, it's not going to happen. People don't take them seriously, it's mostly a sad phenomenon of evolution in combination with our alienating culture.

Don't take it to seriously Vera Mont, It wasn't meant that way.

I actually asked the spokesman of the the Incel-movement these questions, and he told me that they want nothing less than world-domination.

In their analysis, sexual reproduction, and the evolutionary downstream-effects in terms of social status, are the cause of a lot of hardship in men.

Therefor they want to abolish sexual reproduction (and as a consequence also women) to tackle the problem at the root-cause, and in doing so prevent a lot of pain, not only for men living now, but also in all future men.

To achieve this goal, a-sexual reproduction via cloning of men, should become the only legally allowed way to create offspring.

Since this can only really work in a globalized world if it is implemented unilaterally across the globe, world-domination should be the first goal of the incel-movement.

Look Ciceronianus, coming here on a philosophy discussion board and telling someone he is just wrong in a demeaning way, without any argumentation or explanation as to why, is just bad form. I don't know what you expect from this, other than signaling "you must be stupid, I'm so smart".

What, other than a tendency toward self-destructive and self-loathing behavior, is keeping these guys from succeeding at least at minimal levels? Are they as inept in their occupational lives as they are in their after-hours lives?

Are they just surprised to discover Thoreau's insight--most men lead lives of quiet desperation--actually applies to them? Or is their problem that their desperation just isn't quiet enough? — BC

My take it that this whole community-forming around misogynist values is a way to cope with their desperation yes.

The idea that they themselves are responsible for their situation, and feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem that come with that, is probably to hard to bear for them. And so they invent stories and a community around those stories that can serve as rationalizations that shifts the blame somewhere else.

EDIT: Put in more Nietzschean psychological terms,
either 1) you try to overcome your situation and learn some social skills and start self-actualizing (not everybody had the mentality to do this)
or 2) you spiral further down a path of lowering self-esteem, depression and inaction (from the perspective of the individual this probably the worst)
or 3) instead of this continued inward directed laceration, you let your resentment become creative and active, and create new standards of valuation wherein your situation isn't considered that bad