We can either say they are deluded, lying or living a different life... — Tom Storm

Charmed life? Perhaps. But verbal accounts at the least provide contrary evidence. Selective data set allows for any number of false accounts. Try harder at seeing the full picture. You don’t see the spider ripping off that insects head? The homeless man having a meltdown? The terrible accident? The unwanted chore? The starvation of not doing X to get Y? Disagreement? Physical pain? Emotional pain? Ennui? The uncomfortable situation? The hostile situation? The annoying situation? The dire situation? The deadly situation?

Conservatives often wish to preserve anachronistic social systems and privileges, they tend to believe in high culture and are suspicious of new ideas, technology and immigration. Roger Scruton, the philosopher, was a conservative and wrote a great deal about it. — Tom Storm

They should reject Christianity as a liberal innovation on the traditional paganism which also valued plurality and syncretism :chin:. Wait a minute…

So it’s special pleading of only preserving the Medieval ideal it seems. Bacchus is older and more traditional. Doesn’t seem to fit in that model.

I get your argument, but I’m questioning their premise. How can they only see the beauty and not the other?

His account of god provided a type of poetic wholeness, coherence and perfection. Or so he thought. — Tom Storm

I think Schopenhauer did more than a fair job describing how this world isn’t even close to that description. In fact, if there is one, and it isn’t simply hyper-contingency all the way down, he may be even devilish, more akin to the Gnostic rendering.

It was Socrates who posed, “Is it good cause the gods like it or do the gods like it because it is good?” A world where suffering and hardship is supposed to be part of the cosmic game but is beyond the understanding of its participants, is not beautiful, perfect, or good. At best it’s as indifferent and amoral as a Cthulhu. Possibly unable to make much more than a suffering world. At worst, he wants this scenario. Is an entity that uses people thus good because it is godly to want to see people suffer? Even worse is the notion that the world could be worse and we should be thankful our world wasn’t made in an even more suffering version. Everything about it is suspect.

In an inversion of our norm, if humans are the cruelest animal because we know what we do, and do it anyway, how much more so is something infinitely more knowing? Again, if there is one, signs point to a cosmically indifferent Cthulhu perhaps.

We are largely if not completely aligned. Boredom is an aristocratic vice. We write within a peculiar intoxicating genre. Undecidable poisoncure blisspuke. — plaque flag

Lamenting the aristocratic vice of aristocratic vice tracks with aristocratic vice too. Hopefully pessimism is accessible to all.

I agree, but I don't think antinatalism or my own pour of poison escapes that structure. Zapffe and Cioran are tall strong drinks for bold bad bleak boys. Look at me, ma. No plans. — plaque flag

True enough, but I guess, at what point can we distinguish between consolations and telling it just how it is? Precisely because they aren't trying to make lemonade, might help you distinguish that it isn't just to provide a consolation prize. Rather, it is just giving the glib report and you have to make of it what you will.

A better format here might be to encourage people to explain why they are reading that book. What motivated them and what do they want to get out of it. What did they learn that surprises them etc. Because for the life of me, I can't think of any reason why anyone would pick up a book on, let alone write some of these books mentioned (except that they wrote them to publish or perish).

I take poison as my icon because questioning the values of longevity and survival seems like a cornerstone of critical thought. Death is leverage. If I must be respectable, I cannot be a philosopher (not in my pet sense of the world.) — plaque flag

:smirk:

Where we differ is understanding the sublime in terms of relaxation. Allow me a little crudity. Consider the buildup to orgasm. That's excitement before a great relaxation. There is no joy in the tavern as on the road thereto. Actually there is joy in the tavern, sometimes, but the aphorism gets the deliciousness of expectation right. — plaque flag

It's reifying of what we don't have. Sorry. It's like philosophy is always trying to give consolation prizes. I just don't engage in that kind of putting off of what we don't have to feel a bit better. If you lose, it's better to make the losing a good thing, so as not to feel at such a loss and continue on continuing on, trying and trying.

I suggest thinking of reasongiving as a layer on top of something more doglike and automatic. I think we both agree that our hardware (our biology) underdetermines our mode of being, and that just this is our wicked and tormented genius. We have no essence, to overstate the case. We are what we take ourselves to be. We (as bodies) are vessels for tribal software, including the 'illusion'/convention of the ego that must justify itself before the others in a space of reasons which is equivalently a game of scorekeeping. — plaque flag

Correct. If I am for anything then, it is so everyone can get to the natural terminus of collective ennui. Ghetto-thinking, tribal thinking, hunting-gathering thinking, redneck-thinking, middle-class-gardening-with-lemonade-in-bakyard-thinking, and even elitism of academia are all but variations of ignorance leading to cul-de-sacs away from the ultimate cul-de-sac.

It seems to me that you think we can project this scorekeeping structure unproblematically on the species as a global all-inclusion tribe. I do think this is a perverse implication of the quest for justice, but perhaps justice is a dissipative structure --- the kind of thing that helps a tribe flourish and expand. Eliminating evil by eliminating what makes evil evil (the good or value it harms) is...questionable. — plaque flag

Again, I am just waiting for the collective ennui. That is, all roads are exhausted and not enacting more pain on others because one has notions of reasons to do so, things as you are suggesting like "flourshing". You know who really loves the idea that you think you are here to "flourish"? The one who makes his living off of your labor. The one who doesn't mind if someone else suffers for their cause.

Indeed. If Chomsky is right (which he might not be), the ability for language gave a recursive-ness called "merge", that allows for constant thinking about thinking about thinking. Refining it and abstracting. I can agree with Chomsky's conclusion and not his explanation of evolution of it. He isn't great at that part. Better to read accounts by Michael Tomasello for that.

I would use the term "conceptualizing" rather than "reason" for a number of reasons :smile:. Conceptualizing, with the ratcheting ability of language to leverage its effects, creates a recursive ability to iterate constant concepts and reformulate them. Abstraction is part of this process of conceptualizing. That is what our species does. That is how we are unique, if not in kind, then certainly in degree on how much we rely almost fully on it for survival. No instinctual mechanisms combined with early learning (like many birds and other mammals). Concepts, abstractions of concepts, recursive-ness of concepts, and the use of cultural learning, and reasons. I'm just trying to define more clearly the "sapien" part of our species' name.

I don't know. I think a welltreated dog is more reliably happy, but do they attain the same heights ? I don't see how one can answer with more than a guess, but my hunch is no. We have music. We have philosophy. We have sin. — plaque flag

It is precisely that we have music and philosophy (and other conceptualizing-phenomena) that we don't ever reach the sublime. All this hoooha, to try to reach a state a dog has lying in the sun. Again, this goes back to my thread about our break with nature. We can't go back. We are exiled for good.

Schopenhauer discusses the sublime in art and nature. The sense of awe, etc. But I guess I also mean it in a sense of complete oneness and tranquility with being, more like his asceticism than his art philosophy. That is to say, the ascetics and the artistic vision are brief glimpses of what the animal has readily available.

We have sleep at least, but then our species even has the torment of insomnia. We just can't find peace.

We know of the human condition, and yet because we know of the human condition, and we know the consequences of putting more people into it by procreating, procreation simply represents forced conversion. If we posit a reason for why we must have children, we have already admitted that we can have reasons, and thus we can decide to do any number of things, including not force converting other people into the human condition. Any ankle-biting and gnashing of teeth of the "positivity that humanity's achievements and its necessity in continuing" against the pessimists, is yet more missionizing. The pessimists can never force convert though. Not doing something to someone who is not there makes this obviously so. It only works one way. Forced conversion only happens when someone becomes the subject. Thus, only one way represents not force converting.

It's interesting to me to know when the Yawhist cult eventually took over the Israelite/Judaic religion completely. It seems like a contingent of "prophets" (reformer-philosopher-shamans) were the start of it around Jerusalem and spread from there. It wasn't until the Maccabees that the dominance of the "Yahweh alone" group took over as THE dominant narrative of Judaic religious and historical expression (replete with Mosaic law being followed by even the everyday Jewish peasant, not just a small contingent). I'd like to know that transformation because with that transformation came the ideas of that small contingent of prophetic reformers that is the basis for ideas of sin and repentance as we know it in Western culture (at least in their variations of the three religions. Judaism being the closest obviously to the original prophetic version of following Mosaic laws and repenting if not doing it correctly at holidays, prayer, and mainly sacrifices during Temple times.).

That is to say, just because the practice is ancient superstitions, doesn't mean it wasn't innovative. What those shaman-reformer-prophets did was combine a particular deity (El-Yawheh) with the notion of universal laws of behavior, with a large emphasis on ethical laws of behavior. Not "hitting the mark". Greece for example, seemed to separate ethics from religion. Of course, this attachment of the deity with godhead was a long process. When I say "prophets" I mean the reforming kind like Isaiah and Jeremiah of the 7th century or so BCE. Older historians used to call 7-5th Century BCE the Axial Age, because ethics and how to live the "good life" became paramount in all major civilizations around that time (Greek philosophy, Jewish prophetic writings, the Buddha and Pali Canon, the Upanishads, etc.). That prophetic school represented an elite scribal class that was usually centered around (or against) the king of Judah, but then spread as I said much later, starting perhaps with Ezra but really being fully implemented in the Maccabees. I'd like to know how that campaign looked though of Hasmoneans promoting Yahweh alone, prophetic school version of Judaic expression. Archeology points to it being widespread, only then.

God is the last bastion for many to have superstitions. Even those who are agnostic/atheists probably retain some odd fears and ritualistic prohibitions from just being exposed to it in youth. And of course here we are talking a particular brand.. but the other brands also instill this too.

The average (and even not so average) dog has a better experience with the sublime than we would ever have. All the rituals cannot make up for that.

Guilt is a function of living in a social setting with conceptualizing brains that internalize external values.

Guilt connected to a divinity and mediated and quelled through ritual is another phenomena which the ancients thought of and we retained.

The idea of "keeping the rituals" in the context of the Israelite god was more about group cohesion. Usual tribal ingroup/outgroup stuff. "Our" deity wants this from "us". We are his "chosen" for doing so.

Paul had the odd notion of being "Saved". This changed it from tribal to primordial. That is to say, it had the tinge of gnostic idea that this world has been corrupted and somehow an atonement from a sacrifice of a person rights this for everyone. This is simply a foreign/alien concept that hijacked a tribal deity and made it universal. Of course the non-Jews he tried to convert took to this. They already had Greek notions of mystery cults, gnostic notions from Plato's Forms, and the like. They wouldn't care (and why would they) about a small tribal god that wasn't their own nor about their internal history of kings who were conquered by Babylonians, Persians, etc. That was "their" history. If you are a Corinthian, or a Ephesian, or a Roman, that literally, matters nothing to you. But Paul found a master key that used that tribal deity and interlayed the Greco-Roman features that appealed most to people's hopes, fears, guilt-complexes, and the rest. He also had to teach them they were doomed, so that he had the cure to save them. So odd. So odd.

Best description of how to describe the 2000 year Christian phenomenon:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DK5MMOH5OXQ

That's from a much longer video of course explaining the evolution of the Israelite god(s) into THE Israelite God. Most of us who know Biblical archeology and ancient Near Eastern literature are familiar with it. But that particular quote was relevant here.

@plaque flag, is that your new name now?

Do you think that giving someone a deficit to overcome is immoral, bad, unjust, not right, etc?

Agree with all of this. I am interested in your ideas on what the Son of Man (or son of man?) was at that 1st century time. Was it later interpolation or pre-Christian? I tend to think there was an odd element associated with the angel that came as fan-fiction literature from the Book of Daniel. Daniel could be interpreted as "son of man" meaning "the elect of Israel" (or just Israel), or it could have meant some real super-hero type angelic entity, The Son of Man.

Clearly it is from Daniel 7: 9-28.

With regard to an alternative I was thinking of a movement in American Judaism beginning in the 19th century: "tikkun olam,” a Hebrew phrase meaning “repairing the world.”. Rather than a messianic figure who arrives, it is up to the people to act. — Fooloso4

Indeed, probably a better version, but let's not anachronize it to Jesus' time when ideas of a messiah were very fluid. Son of Man / Enoch tradition seemed to have popularity. I believe Son of Man is/was still popular in even Hasidic and Kabbalistic writings. The Metatron tradition probably came from this. Merkabah mysticism was popular in the early centuries of the common era in Rabbinic circles, for example. Metatron was a central figure in Enoch 3, and associated with Enoch as his transformed angel counterpart. That tells of Rabbi Ishmael's "ascent" into the divine realms, etc. This is much later literature though. Certainly parts of Enoch 1 were around the time of Jesus as is attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Anyways, my point here is don't discount apocalypticism as an important element of even mainstream "Judaisms" of 1st century Judea, even ones that eventually became Rabbinic Judaism post-Temple. The Son of Man was the angel that judged people at the end of times and wrote good and bad deeds, etc. Again, associated with Enoch and then Metatron. So, this is all to say, Jesus was probably not something akin to a post-Enlightenment Reformed Jew :wink:.

I agree. I think this is why Paul closed his eyes and turned his back. He decided the Law does not matter. Do your best, which is not much given his opinion of man's weakness and sinful nature, but don't worry. Be joyful it is all about to end at any moment and the faithful will be saved. — Fooloso4

Yeah certainly this was all original to Paul's ideas. He had the bizarre notion that you had to be perfect to follow the laws, so why bother. Nowhere before that did anyone presume such a thing. Rather, that was the point of constantly atoning at every holiday, the Sabbath, in prayer, at synagogues, etc. It was a way of constantly trying to follow the rules more closely. You didn't have to be perfect at it. I think gnostic ideas preceded Paul (as can be seen in writings akin to Philo), and Paul kind of took smatterings of Greco-Roman gnostic / Platonic ideas along with a good dose of Greco-Roman-Near Eastern resurrecting god cultic practices that were popular around the area of Tarsus and beyond.

I agree. Jesus did not start the messianic movement. It is a mode of escapism that was transformed into what some of the hopeful took to be the truth in action, while others still wait.

There is what I take to be a reasonable and not necessarily secular alternative, human responsibility. — Fooloso4

Yeah. It does seem that he formed communal societies of sorts where pooling resources and charity and such was a thing. Perhaps, this was in imitation of Israelite prophetic books and their exhortations of corrupt kings. Clearly, he is borrowing from John the Baptists' ideas, who in turn seems to have cultivated a slight innovation or variation of sects like the Dead Sea Scroll sect.

However, his message of the Son of Man, and better days at a future Kingdom of God that will be ushered in "very soon", seem to undermine his more earthly efforts to establish proto-communes of sorts (if he did that at all). My guess is he was educated to some extent as a Hillelite Pharisee, based on his interpretations of Law. At some point he joined John's more "action over theory" Essenic splinter group and essentially carried those ideas out mixing it with his Pharisaic understanding of following Mosaic law. The unfortunate part of being mixed up with John's ideas is the idea of an immanent End of Times coming soon. Thus, again, the communal aspects were thwarted by the apocalyptic aspects.

I do realize this is all very speculative, but using Occam's Razor to the context of time and place. Clearly Galileans and Judeans of the lower classes (the Jews of 1st century Palestine in general) were not doing well under Roman and Herodian rule, and hopeful figures talking of better times and more charitable acts, and elites being last, seemed appealing. I'll give him a B- for effort and balancing the two ideas. He would have gotten an A if he stuck with the action and less of the "Son of Man coming at the End of Times" :wink:.

One thing I don't quite buy in Dawkins' theory of kin selection and altruism is that I don't see that precisely playing out that way in real life. That is to say, relatives (like children) are only cared for more because of proximity and cultural expectations (that are internalized).

If we take a scenario where you had a close friend that isn't a relative that you knew your whole life and were very close to, it would stand to reason that you would feel a kinship to them way more than a child that way later in life was introduced to you (that you didn't know was even yours). It's not like on seeing that person, you automatically form a kinship. Clearly this is the case of adoptions as well.

I'm perhaps misrepresenting his theory, but the point is that kinship altruism seems to be more altruism of proximity in relations (not due to being related because of the mere fact that they are relatives).

In fact, if someone were socially isolated but had a stuffed animal their whole life, they might form more loyalty and altruism to that object than any relation to a person. It's simply relational attachment and familiarity that tends to form in social animals, not even anything about persons per se.

I wouldn’t say it’s elusive. I’d say that my first person experience is the most self-evident thing there is to me. And I have no reason to believe I’m special, so I assume others have it too. — Michael

I don't think @green flag meant that way of being elusive. Rather, I think he was meaning that it's elusive in how it fits in the narrative of other phenomena. It's "wrong" in terms of being "not at home" with the other things that that very experience interprets. He can correct my interpretation of him of course, if I am wrong on that.

Cool. We are on the same page I think. That's all I was getting at. So I guess to put it together with your other ideas of better philosophers, I don't think Jesus' ideas were even really relevant beyond his immediate surroundings and the people of the community of that time and space. Greek philosophers, like Plato, and such were meant to be doing universalized philosophy. They were intentionally creating theories of metaphysics and epistemology that though came out of a particular culture, was less relevant to "being Greek" at some time an place, and more about just "understanding the world" (however wrong or right they might be about their ideas of the world).

Right, but I was just wondering if his teachings were mainly a response to what was taking place. At least, as much as we can surmise of the ever-so-buried "historical" Jesus of 1st century Judea under the rule of Herod Antipas and Roman procurators.

Yes. And if someone methodically designates an elusive entity that cannot, even in principle, be plugged into the rest of the causal nexus, then it's no surprise that science can't help us with it. It's been defined as exactly what concepts can't address, as a surplus or remainder of public inquiry. — green flag

Yep. That seems to be the case. Good way of putting it "cannot..be plugged into the rest of the causal nexus" and a "surplus" or "remainder of public inquiry". Precisely. The thing that provides the very foundations of knowing, interpreting, sensing, and perceiving of the other phenomena seems to be itself elusive.

Can you blame his tendencies though? Oppressive tax collectors, leadership that was nominally Jewish (Herod), and ones that were flaunting pagan symbols (Roman standards) and corrupt priesthood. However, the status quo may have been better than the revolt that resulted in destruction and exile. It's all about context. We tend to universalize it. Paul seemed to start that trend.

I’m sorry but I just don’t understand what you’re asking. — Michael

If someone were to claim that "feeling like something" is a property of the universe, this would raise questions about what is meant by "feeling" in this context and how it is related to the physical processes that occur in the universe. Without a clear explanation, this claim would not be useful in helping us understand the world around us.

Similarly, the question "why is blue?" is not a meaningful question unless it is clarified what is meant by "why". If we were to say that "blue is one part of the universe sensing blue", we would be engaging in circular reasoning, as this explanation simply restates the fact that blue exists without actually explaining why it exists or how it is perceived.

And it might be a physical fact that a sufficiently advanced brain will cause first person experiences. — Michael

f you said to me, "a feeling of melting is felt by the ice cube", becomes a question of "how?". And you can say, "feeling like something" is a property of the universe. And then I would question that further for explanation. Otherwise yes, that is just brute fact and not useful. Why is blue? If you said, "Blue is one part of the universe sensing blue" then we have some circular reasoning. — schopenhauer1

I don't understand the issue. If I say that it's an unavoidable, deterministic consequence that heating an ice cube above 0 degree celsius will cause it to melt, am I committing a homunculus fallacy? — Michael

These are all physical events. If you said to me, "a feeling of melting is felt by the ice cube", becomes a question of "how?". And you can say, "feeling like something" is a property of the universe. And then I would question that further for explanation. Otherwise yes, that is just brute fact and not useful. Why is blue? If you said, "Blue is one part of the universe sensing blue" then we have some circular reasoning.

It could be that first-person experiences are an unavoidable, deterministic consequence of a sufficiently advanced responsive organism. — Michael

How does this not avoid the homunculus fallacy though? The ghost is already in the machine. That is the very thing to be explained though. It's too "just so" or "brute fact" perhaps?

Am I still in the ball-park here? — Benj96

Yes in the ball park.

My conclusions was that with a lack of the "simply be" we invariable replace it with "simply ought to be" - some form of principle for direction. — Benj96

Ok. With you there...

That principle must be both morally and rationally sound. Because reason without moral alone is not sound, nor is moral without a good foundational reasoning as its basis. — Benj96

Ok, so here is where it kind of takes a left turn.

That principle must be both morally and rationally sound. Because reason without moral alone is not sound, nor is moral without a good foundational reasoning as its basis.

If we can't simply be we must define what we ought to be (an ideal state). And thus we construct ideologies unlike our animal counterparts.

What I was saying is that such an ideology woukd require knowledge (reason) and benevolence (ethics/moral imperative) to be workable, and both motions must satisfy one another, in essence be unioned.

"it's moral to reason and it's reasonable to be moral" this concepts like "truth" is the foundation of both reason and morality. — Benj96

I just don't know what else to say to this. I guess I can start with how much of our lives are motivated by a moral narrative versus other narratives? We are pretty contingent beings, so our narratives can vary, but it seems more-or-less circling around self-interested ideas such as accumulating goods and services for survival, comfort, and entertainment. One huge (and easily identifiable as an internalized meta-fiction) is "I have work to do!" to get work done one would sometimes not care to do. It becomes routine self-referentially justified with "I have work to do!" self-referentially justified with "I have work to do!", etc. etc.

All i was arguing for is the use of knowledge for moral means. To combat the abuse of knowledge for immoral means. I don't see how this can be "off" but wait patiently for your rebuttal as to why this is not the case. — Benj96

It's off the topic of human operation I was proposing in the OP. The "break" I was referring to with the rest of nature. It wasn't necessarily about morality or a justification for A or B.

Look at the back-and-forth I was having with @green flag for more context of what I am looking for.

I wonder what the "trouble" is if the other monkeys found out about the deceptive monkey. Do they have punishment?

Humans developed linear argument in contrast to the self satisfying argument, the cycles and frequencies underlying evolution, time and life. We unravelled the circle and took the line as straight from A to B. But that takes away an original reason. A beginning. A first cause. And so we write our narratives and motivations, we work to inspire ourselves to keep progressing ever since. — Benj96

Yes.. "Personality", "Preference", "Anxiety" seems to fit some basic "causes" that we often provide narratives (reasons) for. And all of these layers.. Reasons > Causes underlying (Personality, preference, anxiety) and their various intermixing of them are part of Zapffe's paradox of our break from the rest of nature:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Messiah

True. Our awareness of our capabilities and options are seemingly more advanced than the basic instincts of other animals. The realm of human thinking - reflected by the complexity of our language - is not likely accesible to other species. Which are more restrained to basic emotions like fear of death, joy of eating and sex and aggression against competitors. Of course we can also do these things. But we have another layer on top of this layer cake of awareness and capability. — Benj96

Exactly.

What drives our demand for reason instead of "simply be" is a need for control. Because control can prevent you from suffering as you can understand, anticipate and mitigate those effects on you.
Also we are in an "arms race" with one another - the weapon? Knowledge. Awareness. And that comes from the doubt that it will be used wisely or benevolently.

So if one is unsure if the smart kid is good or bad, then they had better become smarter themselves. Assume control of the narrative. Eat or face the possibility you may be eaten.

In an ideal world, a paradise, we have a benevolent God. As such a god would take away our inherent need to be smarter or more omniscient than them knowing that they act as a parent, with our best interests at heart.

And that, is the underlying fact that causes religions to come into being. Trust. Trust or a hope or optimism that the universe/mother nature isn't out to get you, out for blood.

Ideology is thus a cornerstone of a peaceful society. Democracy is our answer to balance that we see in nature. Equality. Imbalance always starts with someone behaving as a malevolent God. Arrogant, self interested and lacking empathy or desire to cooperate with others.

We must always use our knowledge to combat immorality not propagate it (propaganda) . Otherwise no one can ever "simply be". Which is a human right (food, water, habitat, medicine, love and entertainment. All of these things are what it is to simply be happy). — Benj96

No no, your end goal "simply be" description there is off. That is not what I meant. Think more like your first paragraph of what the animal's way-of-being is. All of that last paragraph is not that. You are just creating a narrative (of a scientific humanism variation it looks to be).

We can decide to. It isn't easy, but it is possible. — BC

I think that's my whole point though. We don't have access to being (I'll just equate it to "The Tao" for now). If we have to "get there" and it "isn't easy", then something is seriously wrong here, hence Zapffe's paradox:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Messiah

Simply BE. Excellent advice. — BC

But one we can't follow, by definition of our human operation, hence my OP.

The impossible goal is to become unthrown, to get back to the garden that never was. — green flag

And thus the juxtaposition with the projects (project?) of the enterprise(s). You can't go back, you can only go forward. Going forward is engaging with the systems that be, the "throwneness" of the structures and maintaining them endlessly and repeatedly. To have personal fictions that somehow must align with the structures to survive, comfort-seek, and entertain. Thus, "I have work to do." Can you think of a personal narrative that aligns as perfectly with the existing structures? Talk about distraction, ignoring, anchoring, and sublimating :lol:.

I wonder when we finally get hip to collective ennui...Perhaps the AI will give us time.
Modern projects- science and technology, economic blue, pink, and white collar
Old school projects- farming, hunting, gathering, gardening

It don't matter. Touch metal. Touch grass. Your mind has the thought "touch metal' and "touch grass", thus it is already removed. It's a placebo. Not in the present, but the virtual world representing the present. "I must dig the ditch and plant the seed". "I must push the number and calculate the formula".

Yes. In us, Darwinian evolution got to take a look at itself. — green flag

:smirk:

I reread it quite recently. Can you specify ? — green flag

Look at the part about the paradox...