It was the Greeks who wrote the first Christian bible and Greeks held a concept of Hades. Psychologically, Hades is a place we must all go for meaning. Never going to Hades results in a person being frivolous and immature. However, we should never go to Hades without the help of the gods because it is so easy to be lost in Hades. The gods are concepts that help us deal with life. Being lost in Hades is being depressed or even psychotic and unable to find our way out of Hades.

When we go to Hades we can talk to the dead by digging a hole and then cutting the throat of a lamb and letting its blood fill the hole so the dead can drink it and speak with us. You know, as Jesus is the lamb who had to be sacrificed, and the blood of the lamb painted on our door can protect us.

I think to understand the bible we need to know how people thought back in the day.

"in fact Plato argued extensively that democracy is the second worst regime claiming that democratic societies are doomed to sink in anarchy and corruption."

Socrates, Plato's teacher, fought against the Spartans and Athens lost that war. No one should read Plato without also reading Pericles funeral speech explaining why those who fought for Athens did not die in vain. Socrates died for freedom of speech and for democracy. He obeyed the law, giving up his life for democracy. His actions go with an understanding of social/political responsibility and liberty.

Socrates saw fault in the ignorance of the masses and devoted himself to changing that. Plato was his student and Plato was Aristotle's teacher. Now can anyone name a Spartan who equals Socrates, Plato or Aristotle? There is a cultural reason why these men rose in Athens not Sparta and we seriously need to understand the cultural difference that made that life-changing difference that brought us to democracy.

Germany was the Sparta of the modern world and the US was the Athens of the modern world. Now the US is the Sparta of the modern world. Sparta won the war with Athens and ruled over it and Aristotle favored the authoritarianism of Sparta and he was picked up by the church during the age of Scholasticism and this supported the authority of the church until the backlash against Aristotle and then Protestantism. However, it was the US that won the war with Germany, and it immediately sucked up all the of German's experts, and the US adopted German bureaucracy and education for technology. And we are what we fought against in two world wars. Some of the post here give us a good look at that education/cultural problem.

"Democracy does however defend the rights of the weak, encourage individualism and learning, and let the common man decide their own destiny. Freedom is the most basic desire of man, and democracy safeguards it."

What would happen to Christianity if it stopped teaching its mythology and began preparing the young to be products for industry, in a high tech society with unknown values?

Education is like a genii in a bottle. The defined purpose is the wish and the students are the genii. Until 1958 the US had education for citizenship and good moral judgment. In 1958 that wish was changed and education is no longer controlled by those who understand what it has to do with democracy. Education is now controlled by the military and high tech business interest. Our democracy is no longer protected in the classroom, so why would this be different from Christianity no longer preparing the young to be Christians?

Just any education does not serve democracy and education for technology always was for slaves. Liberal education was for free people.

We are having a housing crisis and it is property rights that are protected not human rights. We are experiencing an end to land and resources free for the taking, and the beginning of overpopulation where people are no longer needed and are pushed to the margins of society where they are likely to have a short lifespan. We are totally unprepared to meet this crisis with a focus on human rights. We are no longer protecting human dignity as we did when Social Security was implemented but made it illegal for people to sleep in undesignated areas and deny them access to water and restrooms. People die because of the conditions of homelessness and we are ignoring this reality. And medically we have put profit above human lives. What we have done to education and students loans is a horror making the bankers rich at the expense of the young or caring parents who go into debt for their children's educations. When the bottom line is money and the thinking of what that means is very narrow, democracy collapses.

Did I say something wrong? I listed the changes brought in by the 1958 National Defense Education Act that replaced liberal education and there is no reply. I am disappointed and somewhat confused.

"I think the one of the main aspects of this discussion is also how moral values happen to be what they are, how they are created and by whom."

You are right. :cheer:

:grin: I hope I am not too much of a pain in the ass to all of you. I agree there are extremists everywhere and that secular education has radically changed our reasoning. Personally, I believe there are problems with religious reasoning. However, the title of this thread is

"The Rules Of Morality Are Not The Conclusions Of Our Reason"

My point is- our awareness of the rules is about our reasoning. We may have a good base for reasoning or a bad base for reasoning, We may have good higher order thinking skills or we may not. But how we come to moral decisions is a matter of reasoning. :lol: it might be as poor reasoning "because the Bible says so" but I think we do rationalize our understanding of morality. However, up to age 8 we learn without making judgments or having much discretion in what we accept as truths, and we tend to go through life proving ourselves right, and avoiding questioning if what know is right or wrong and that would make Hume's statement correct.

I am not so sure we want to get too far from nature when making moral judgments? As I understand, a moral it is a matter of cause and effect.

I would like to see our morals based on what a child needs to have a good life as an adult. Violating our human nature may not be a good choice, and our industrial society has violated human nature with obviously negative results. In the past, we may not have had better choices but technology has changed our choices and our future may be far different and could be better for our human nature than our past. That makes a better understanding of our human nature even more important to our moral decisions.

Are you speaking of a society where women can be stoned to death as it is explained in the Christian Bible, and was commonly practiced throughout the ancient world, where Jesus steps in and says only those without sin should throw the stone? That would be a very radical idea for people who fear the punishment of God because this God destroyed entire cities when He was displeased with people. In fact, He almost destroyed all life on the land of the earth with a flood because humans had displeased him.

How about defending the family's honor by killing daughters who might seek the company of men? Such acts are strong in maintaining social order and we can call this maintaining moral order and hold the notion that is about pleasing a god, not about men ruling. Pleasing the god is essential because this is a jealous, revengeful, punishing and fearsome god. Terrible things will happen if this god is displeased and that is a matter of reasoning for those who believe their holy book is the word, God, right?

It is said, we punish people so others will fear the punishment and avoid the wrong. By the way, I think the present judgment is terrible, but for the sake of argument, other points of view need to be brought up so I will be that contrary voice in a discussion that is important to me. I was once headed for being a probation officer, but after researching this choice, I realized I am opposed to what we call criminal justice in the US the correction institutions that have been created.

Bitter Crank....

"More damaging to the classic liberal arts than retrenchment, in my opinion, has been the perverse corruption of postmodernism, and its peculiar and deconstructing obsessions. If nothing else had happened, this alone could destroy the liberal arts."

Can you explain "deconstructing" to me? I sus[ect this has a German connection?

I am aware of the delayed manifestation of the full degree of the NDEA and as I understand this the delay, it was the result of the time it took to educated teachers for this different way of thinking and doing things. I also think the transition was aided by hiring vets who had military training, to be teachers or school principles. The change would happen gradually as the former education professionals were replaced by those with the changed programming. Greater change was not possible until the fundamental change had taken place but once it took hold, there was no stopping it, and we now have the centralized control of education we strongly opposed.

This forum is the first time in many years I have connected with people willing to discuss these matters intelligently. I have had my threads taken for spots in a forum everyone takes seriously and put the conspiracy part of a forum that is for nut cases. My experience on the internet has been hell as no one can relate to what I am saying. I even had a teacher get on my case for what I say about education and that is how you all got me. Teachers educated for education for technology, think I am attacking them. They have zero understanding of liberal education and what that has to do with the culture and what culture has to do with avoided social, economic and political problems. I don't know why you all are thinking outside of the box, but I do know, my grandmother's generation had to die before the resistance to the change was dead. Once those who remember are dead, the change has no resistance, but when my grandmother was alive and teaching, there was resistance.

The technology of that site is beyond me. I attempted to download the book on education, but that didn't seem to be working for me. I attempted to copy and paste the title "ABC: Alphabetization of the popular mind" and I could not do that. But I do want to comment on that thought. I am often distressed by spell checks opinion of correct wording. Spell check thinks everything is a noun rather a concept and insist I put "a", "an", or "the" in front of every concept.

"Industry has shaped our lives in a way that is not good for humans". That is an example of what I mean. Spell check wants me to write "The" in front of "Industry" but I am not speaking of "the industry" but rather the whole concept of how we spend our lives separated from family, working for someone else whom we probably don't know, so we can meet our daily needs, and how this shape who we are by the job we do. My concern is spell check prevents consciousness of larger concepts. Not for me because I am old and set in my ways, but the young who know no better and are shaped by the present experiences. We can damage our ability to develop abstract thinking and when we are programming our young to be products for industry, not to be thinking and feeling human beings, we probably do a lot of damage.

"What we have in the United States is a deceptive slow-motion fascism. What happened in Europe was a high-speed fascism that developed over the course of a decade, though it was built on much older cultural characteristics. Our authoritarian government, militarism, racist regime, degraded education system, and so on developed over more than a century, and was in service to capitalism, rather than some vague master race theory. The techniques of manipulation and control which are used in the United States became part of normal everyday life, rather than the sharp disjuncture of the very rapid rise of German National Socialism or Italian Fascism. End of flip."

Your knowledge and ability to articulate yourself brings tears to my eyes. And then add to this the author of which Valentinus speaks and the importance of validating personal authority and I am overwhelmed with thanksgiving that after many years on the internet I have come across people who can carry on the important discussion.

I love you speaking of fascism as fast and slow fascism. That opens the door to investigate this in more detail. I will argue fascism depends on the bureaucratic order and the education.

Most people around the world are prejudiced in favor of their own people. Many aboriginal people believed they live at the center of the earth where creation happened and their stories tell them they are special people. This is relatively harmless until they have the organization that clearly defines who is one of them and who is not, and they have the organization that enables them to overpower others. My point of argument is that the difference between being fascist or not is organizational.

The US picked up the important organization for fascism, that is a bureaucratic organization that crushes personal liberty and power and education that leads to dependency on authority and believing authority must be obeyed. I come to this conclusion because of information from several books. I would like to discuss this more if there is interest.

The bureaucratic adaptation happened during the Roosevelt administration and this was both praised and came with warnings of the dangers. What slowed the progression of fascism was liberal education and that was ended in 1958, Now the consciousness of the US is better suited for fascism than the democracy we had.

Why read you instead of Illich? Because I am drowning in books that I haven't read yet, but now I really want to know what Illich has to say. You seriously made me interested. The value of validating personal authority is not well explained in any of my books. The notion is there but it is not well defined and the reason why that is important to society is not spelled out. It simply comes up as a vague principle of democracy and the need to respect people and protect their dignity. The last thing I want to do is buy another book, but I do need to know what he said. Please, can you tell me more?

:lol: I really want that book, but this is a bad time for me to buy another book. Like buying a book I want instead of getting the kids gifts is just wrong. Please, tell me more.

"Morality and the concept of good and evil only seem to emerge as a social response. Moral considerations to one's family are the most simple."

:gasp: That is what I thought until enduring a bad marriage for 21 years. In the recent past it was pretty easy for a man to have a wife for life, because females didn't have many options other than to be supported by a man. Especially not if they had children. That seems to have lead to a lot of miserable marriages and we are still struggling with an adjustment to our changed reality. It is really nice to see fathers in the park with their children today. Now was not common 40 years ago.

Killing is not wrong when it is done to maintain a moral order. I like the Aztec game plan. You screw up, you become a slave. You screw up again, you are sold to someone else. You screw up a third time you become a sacrifice to the gods.

However, we know the Aztecs failed. Using your neighbors to sacrifice to the gods leads to enemies and that makes their survival need the destruction of your civilization. But is it possible they may have done better if they had assimilated their neighbors, and limited their sacrifices to the few who violated the moral code?

"It's frustrating when you're the lone loon who disagrees with something, though."

Tell me about it. I am always regretting my inability to keep my mouth shut and go along with the crowd! I have been a loner my whole life, but right now my life is pretty full of friends so I must be doing something right. But on the internet, I am not doing so well. I read books no one has read and that means having a different perspective, and plenty of times I wish never saw those books and had the same understanding as everyone else.

"The fantasy, the imagination, rides on top of this. Even love, romance, etc. are all secondary to the needs of the real, which I stated earlier seem to be indifferent or harmful."

I see a lot of truth in what you said. And I think you missed a few needs, such as a need to be appreciated and to have our feelings validated. When our emotional needs are not met, that can have bad health consequences and trying to compensate for what is lacking with fantasies of love can be harmeful to ones and psyche and health.

The moral is, be real.

I think you speak of liberty. We defend our liberty by obeying the laws even when do not like them, but it is also our responsibility to argue for a change in the law if we believe the law is wrong. Liberty is not the freedom to do anything we please, but the right to decide for ourselves what is right, as long we do not violate the rights of others.

"But even then things even seem to work out for the group:" Yes, if it isn't working for the group it is not working for individuals either. But that seems like a lot to get our heads wrapped around. The three year old child is not thinking of the group! I am not sure when a child does begin thinking of others. However, in observing children it is evident the child who does not learn to think of others does not have friends. In a troop of chimps the uncooperative chimp will be pushed out to the outer circle where it is most apt to be eaten by a predator. Social animals must balance looking out for their own self-interest with what is best for getting along with others.

Here is my evidence that if we believe we are good thinkers and conscious of our thoughts, we are screwed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0

I think Daniel Kahneman's research will revolutionize what we think of ourselves and what is required for us to have good judgment. But it does not begin and stop with him. We have always known unhappy people will perceive the world and other humans as awful, while happy people will see everything differently. Our perspective colors our view of life, and our perspective is built on childhood experiences and from there we spend our lifetimes proving ourselves right, even when this means being a totally miserable person, and social failure. Our egos cannot tolerate thinking what we think is wrong, and we would rather die than admit to ourselves we are the cause of our suffering, not that bad experience, not our mother, not our spouse and not because other people are awful. Please check out Daniel Kahnemann. Our thinking is more complex than we think.

I am sorry you don't trust science. I know we can share a false belief, but the method of science is the surest way to not hold wrong beliefs. Science is very important to our liberty and social justice. Maybe we can talk more about this at another time.

Van Illich was a Croatian-Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and critic of the institutions of modern Western culture. That might be an interesting point of view. How does it apply to education, democracy, and liberty?

The major changes in public education in the US happened in 1917 and 1958 and both are the direct result of war and changed technology needs. It makes no sense to disagree with these facts. Either something like this happens or it does not.

Why this really matters is until 1958 our national defense depended on patriotic citizens so until 1958 public education transmitted a culture to assure patriotic citizens and prevent social problems by training everyone for good moral judgment based on reason. But technology changed all this. Not only did military technology change, but so did the need for patriotic citizens. It no longer takes a year to mobilize for war, and the masses no longer have to make the sacrifices or cooperate with military goals.

Technology, airplanes, and drones have made us less dependent on humans to engage in war. The social, economic and political ramifications of the 1958 National Defense Education Act are huge and only part of this about technology. The other part is humans are not needed. Education for technology has always been the education of slaves needed to do the work. A liberal education is for free people, not education for technology. Please rethink the importance of the change, and explain why Van Illich is important to our understanding.

"when we focus on what we see with the eyes emotions are seen as not fundamental, but we would get a very different picture by focusing on emotions first."

Interesting comment. I once went through an art gallery with my eyes closed and touching things. No, I was not supposed to touch things, but the urge to do was too strong to resist. Touch is feeling and our feelings (emotions) are feelings. Those might not be the best words to use for my experience but to know the world through touch is so much more intimate than to know the world through sight. When we know the world through sight it is far away from us relative to knowing things through touch.

" Unless you're saying that's supposed to have something to do with the notion of unconscious mental content".

I do not totally understand how forums work? Are we to limit our comments to individuals, and do we address the subject?

Should all our arguments only oppose what someone says or should we sometimes support what someone is saying with our own argument?

However, we should do things, I must say, the way people conduct themselves in this forum is superior to any forum I have been in! You all are giving me the best forum experience I have ever had.

And for sure our group behavior is filled with unconscious thoughts. That is why many of us need counseling. :lol: So we become aware of the thought beneath our conscious thought that is causing us a problem. Of course, you are just picking on me because you know I am the at the bottom of the pecking order and everyone picks on me. :roll: I am kidding. You are doing a marvelous job of communicating and if I can do something better to improve my communication please let me know.

I checked back post and I think I was attempting to focus on science by taking a different direction than the consciousness issue, rather than react badly to what appeared a rejection of science. Our group behavior being more on topic but still about science. Like the book "Science of Good and Evil".

Okay if I understand Terrapin Station correctly he wants me to address the issue of self-interest versus group interest with you. Do we have agreement that social animals live in herds or troops for their mutual survival and that members of these groups will act to defend each other, protect and feed the young? :smile: Females often have much more to do with protecting and feeding the young than males and among some species they must protect the young from the males. :lol: Possibly some of our disagreements are the result of being male and female and by nature having different hormones and therefore different truths?

I do workshops on living with diabetes and getting people to make good decisions is very complicated! They must feel good about themselves and their future before they will take the steps they must take. Some cases of diabetes are worse than others. Some people can do all the right things, but not get the desired results and this can destroy willpower. The better people's relationships are, the better they tend to do. However, there are some single people who excel on sheer willpower and self-interest. Obviously, these people do not depend on others for their happiness or anything else.

Oh my, we are all so different, it might be a little insane to argue truth as though there is only one truth and not many.

It is about science. Science improves our understanding, and the issue with you came up when you said you do not agree with what I said about all the unconscious thinking we do.

Science also helps us understand what hormones have to do with our feelings and decisions. It may be my bad but I thought that was important to the discussion. All animals, are programmed for the survival of the species, not just self nterest. This is especially so for social animals that live in groups for their mutual survival.

How are we to understand anything if we do not include science in our understanding? What is the bases for our arguments without science?

"I did not present the idea that we are driven by pleasure/pain as a theory, just a self evident truth or axiom."
Hum, how often do you exercise and do you restrict your food to what is healthy? Obviously, both exercise and healthy eating are essential to feeling good. So why are people obese and sickly and crippled by the excessive weight on their knees? We feel better when we exercise and restrict our diet to healthy food, but most of us are reluctant to it. Why? Nature rewards us for making good choices but many of us are not making good choices. However, some people are making good choices, why?

:yikes: you didn't say
"Obviously I don't agree with that."?

Terrapin Station
4.7k
Most of our thinking is unconscious.
— Athena

Obviously I don't agree with that. So repeating the idea, or acting as if I must not be familiar with conventional views (that followed what I'm quoting above) isn't going to have any effect in terms of persuasion.

I'm not denying autonomic functions, doing things by muscle memory, etc. I'd say that there's no good reason to say that any of that is akin to mental phenomena. — Terrapin Station

Yes, it is akin to mental phenomena. Science has provided a clear explanation of that.

What do you means here

" . . As if one can't disagree with conventional wisdom in the sciences."?

I must admit when the point being argued is not part of the agrument, things can be confusing. You appear to lack knowledge of the resent science and most of this knowledge hasn't been around long enough to be conventional wisdom. With the knowledge we have recentaly gained I think hope for humanity has greatly improved. However, we have a lot of work to do to make it common knowledge.

What you said makes no sense to me, because it had nothing to do with science, but maybe we can move towards science by examining why humans are patriotic? Could it be because we are programmed by nature for the survival of our group and its way of life and ideals? Thousands of people have died in wars defending democracy. Why? It sure as blazes was not limited to self-interest. People don't throw themselves on grenades out of self-interest, they do not run up a hill defended by an enemy shooting guns and sending bombs because of self-interest. They do it for love of family and country. Now they may get into this situation because of self-interest, wanting an adventure or wanting the excitement they imagine war to be, but they used to be drafted into wars and went if they wanted to or not. Even if you can still find self-interest in their choice, it would not be there if they did not care about others. And if people do not care significantly about others, they tend to die in concentration camps or other extremely bad situations because they loose their will to live. Over and over again survival stories are about how thinking others made it possible for them to endure and survive.

PS science is vital to our liberty and our progress and our ability to save our earth. It would be sad if you do not value science.

"For example, a mother may sacrifice much for her child, but those sacrifice's make the mother emotionally happier."

Oh yes, hormones affect how we feel and what we do, and the same is so for all animals. However, our mental capacity adds another layer to this. Animals do not stay in a relationship because of notions of love and duty and our notions of love and duty can make us appear irrational. Nature has programmed us not for our individual survival but the survival of our species. All animals are programmed for the survival their species.

If you do not agree with what said, then you are not familiar with the science. I will be interested in what you have to say after you are better informed.

Your limited understanding of human motives is really sad. :cry: Some of us hold ideas to be more important and we will make great sacrifices to for our family, our country, an ideal like democracy or fascism, or communism and for future generations we will never know.

I hate the selfish gene talk. I think it is has caused us much suffering. And I know it is a lie because I did not live for self-fulfillment. Before my children left home, my archetype goddess was Demeter, the mother goddess. I sacrificed my desires to fulfill my family duty as society once said we should do. When we understood what family order has to do with democracy. That is our duty to family is also our duty to our country. I can not comprehend feeling our lives are meaningful if we do not have a sense of duty? If we do not live for others, then how do have a sense of self-worth?

"You must buy the idea of unconscious mental phenomena. I do not."

Most of our thinking is unconscious. At least 80% of it is automatic thinking. Automatic thinking makes it possible for us to drive cars or dance gracefully. Before we learn these skills we must focus intensely on the effort and we are very clumsy. But it is much more than this. We live by the habits we develop and this leaves our minds free to think of more important things. And advertisers love the fact that they can influence our thinking without us being aware of this.

Recently we have gained a lot of knowledge of how our brains work and if this interest you look it up. You will find exciting information on youtube by googling "fast and slow thinking".

The gods argued with each other too. Arguing about what is desirable and what is not desirable is how gods and humans increase their understanding until they come to a consensus on the best reasoning. Really what could be better than this? As birds were born to fly, we are born to reason. Democracy is an imitation of the gods. We are as the gods because we have the capacity of reason. Arguing is how the gods resolved their differences and when Christians learned of this they largely replaced their the model of a kingdom with the model of Greek gods. Unfortunately, we stopped educating for this understanding and now we are in trouble. We are locked in power struggles that are devoid of reasoning and we are destroying our democracy and our planet.

We might want to add to the story of the gods, Sumer's story of creation, about the river that displeased a goddess by overflowing its banks, and how the goddess created a man and woman out of mud to help the river stay in its banks. Many aborigine people around the world had creation stories that made them caretakers of the earth. Surely we would make better decisions if we thought we were the caretakers of our one and only planet. :grin: Add to this the Greek understanding of the gods and reasoning or the NE native American story of the man who taught them to live with reason, and we might return to a reality we can enjoy.

Ah shoot, I had a burning need to add a PS to my last reply and I really hope you will respond to what I say of liberty and freedom and the education we once had that made us different from Germany. I want to point out today we have young men who idealize the Nazis and think their freedom means the right to discriminate against others and kill Jews to make American great again and that this is what Trump is talking about when he speaks of making American great again. Freedom without good moral judgment is not a good thing and it is not what got children to return to their studies.

"I’m familiar with your views. I know you lean toward the pessimistic and I cannot blame you too much for that because you’re willing to listen and talk."

Woo, I had no idea that is how people interpret what I am saying. I have a lot of faith in humanity and that is why I say education for a technological society with unknown values is not a good thing. Democracy was not always an unknown value but now it is. We understood moral judgment is based on reason, but since leaving moral training to the church, we think morals are about religion. :roll: During the age of enlightenment many opposed Christianity because it stood against democracy and the freedoms we assume today, and today we think Christianity gave us democracy. :worry: Only those with high morals can have liberty, but since we put an end to education preparing the young to make good moral decisions, we scream we don't someone else to teach our children morals. We have zero understanding of what is required for a democracy to thrive.

I am not saying humans are the problem. I am saying education for a technological society with unknown values is a big problem.

PS It is not freedom that gets children to care about each other and learning. Freedom will get you Lord of the Flies without strong leadership from those who understand liberty is not the freedom to do anything we please but the right to choose what is right and it requires knowledge to do that well, so we give up our freedom, for a higher standard of living than living a pack of wolves. Lord of the Flies and pack of wolves refers to Nazi Germany and it was our education for good moral judgment that made us different, not Christianity and obedience to authority.

When the bottom line is the dollar, the decisions may not favor the people.

When the bottom line is a healthy democracy, consideration of human needs and interest are more likely. The Roosevelt administration poured a lot of money into the arts and public buildings decorated by artists of all kinds, painters, sculptors, ironworkers and it poured a lot of money into a forest and national parks and protected this national resource for everyone, not just for those who can pay the fees. This is no longer a national choice and while children once had a time for singing together, and making music, and art classes, this has mostly been cut out of school budgets, along with PE classes once thought essential for a healthy nation. Education for a technological society has not been education for cultural development and love of humanity.

"I would suggest some sort of feudalism-democracy fusion where planetary systems are governed by elected officials like a senate, congress, or parliament, and are given significant internal autonomy, and they are lead by an executive, with checks and balances of power, appointed by a Monarch."

How about simply relying on a computer? That is the obvious choice isn't it? None of the human faults and far more capable of accumulating data and applying it to decisions. Isn't this the most efficient choice?

"I also want to reiterate how our education and means of production are involved with each other. Expressed another way, the way we work and what is taught are bound up with each other. A significant change in one is talking about a significant change in the other."

Education motivated by the enlightenment was not education for technology, but did encourage science as our liberty and advancement require science. Education did it have much an economic purpose. Education for technology is the result of modern warfare dependent on technology. I am quite sure the economic benefits of adding vocational training to education were unexpected. Industry wanted to close our schools in the US when we mobilized for war. Closing schools would have put an end to child labor laws as industry wanted to return to child labor and argued the war caused a labor shortage. I wish we could discuss this more because it applies to us today when we decide the present purpose of education and how to spend our education dollars. And technology is so changing our lives we really need to re-evaluate our vision of the future and how to prepare the young for that future.

"However you could say that a moral judgement comes after life starts to exists so the judgement is created by the data. Life just happens to tend in a certain direction."

No life does not just tend in a certain direction. It can only move in the direction of good or become nonexistent. That is the point of the story of the destructive monster. If the tendency were in the favor of destruction, all would be destroyed, long before you and I got here to argue the matter.

As far as moral judgment coming after the manifestation of matter and then the manifestation of man, that is agreeable. Chadian said, "life is asleep in rocks and minerals, waking in plants and animals, to know self in man." We are possibly god's consciousness unable to be aware of self through any other manifestation other than man, and as far as we know this is exclusively true on the planet earth.

What I realize is the tightening of opportunity and the horror that our children maybe not be competitive and may themselves become jobless and homeless, even if they are greatly in debt for school loans and have college degrees. Our children no longer have the luxury of being children but are expected to perform as college students totally dedicated to their educations. No more careless and free days for children, not even recesses or PE but total dedication to preparing for a high tech job. Any other purpose of education is axed from the school budgets cheating artistic and talented children from the educations they need to actualize their potential and killing the culture that all civilizations need. Never in the history of humanity has life been so unfit for humans. But on the other hand, never has life been so good.

We are at crossroads. Do we want to manifest the human dream of the enlightenment or do we want to be the efficient Borg? The ultimate Nazi power minus the racial prejudice. The old world order was family order. The New World Order is Prussian military bureaucracy applied to citizens. I loved the original Star Trek shows and all the warnings of the danger of being a computer-controlled society, but those shows were not family shows. The role models were not mothers and fathers. And at this point in time, our bottom line is the dollar, not humanity. We want the world to spend more in arms because it is good for our economy. It is unfortunate if a child looses a parent or grandparent or his/her own life because s/he can not afford the foods and medication to manage diabetes but that is really none of our business. Arming Saudi Arabia is our business. :lol:

"If their raison d'être is staying in power, what difference does the public good make to them? The public be damned!"

:strong: Absolutely! President Carter was right about our need to conserve oil and Reagan lied to us about us having plenty of oil and not needing to conserve it, but Reagan won the election and he became one of our favorite presidents despite the fact that his term resulted in a huge shift of money and power that is not in the best interest of citizens. He slashed domestic budgets when an economic recession meant a very high unemployment rate and the young could not be assimilated because there were no jobs for them. In this time of great need, we cut two parent families off welfare forcing young fathers to abandon their families so their families could get help and this prevented young people from marrying, causing a surge in unwed mothers. We threw our young and poor overboard and pour all our national resources into a military buildup because our abundance of oil depended on control of mid east and ever since then we have been taxed to maintain a war ready state and despite the high taxes our national debt continues to spin out of control because of the military spending.

Today Trump wants us to know we need to accept lower wages so we are competitive on the world market, and he wants to cut all domestic programs. He will do anything to sell weapons to boost our economy. Like arming Saudi Arabia is in the world's best interest? People who think decisions have been made in our favor might need to rethink our reality. Supporting the Military Industrial Complex is not what our democracy used to be about. The MIlitary Industrial Complex doesn't so much need our sons and daughters, but this high tech military force needs our tax dollars, and we must have control of global oil because all industrial economies depend on oil and he who controls oil controls the world.