For some reason, baffling to me, children's rights (something I've campaigned for all my professional life) is not an issue either side of the political spectrum cares much about - I guess if you don't vote you don't count. — Isaac

I believe the biggest change in Western countries since WWII has been the de-prioritization of children and their needs along with the prolongation of adolescence well into adulthood (the proliferation of adult-children).

What are you trying to convince me of?

Including old Shakyamuni? — praxis

Especially him.

That's it's possible there's a god that's massively interfering in the world when we're not looking. — RogueAI

The way I look at it is that there are two basic categories that thinking falls into, the first being those things that people acknowledge they have no understanding about (e.g., speculating about what's on the other side of The Universe, the second being those things that people actually believe they know (or understand).

The difference between the two is that on the first count they are being honest, on the second, they are not.

The only thing that people can (really) understand is that they can not (really) understand anything. Once you let go of having to understand, then you can accept all things as they are...

Just what kind of philosopher was Karl Marx? — Shawn

Marx was a brilliant economist, no doubt about that. Otherwise, he could have been any of us here pontificating about all kinds of non-sense.

But...you've got to give the guy credit because all those years years he spent at the library in London weren't for naught. He came up with (essentially) his own socio-economic system that half the world bought into, lock, stock, and barrel, a system that has caused massive chaos, death, and destruction for over a century and a half now.

No meager accomplishment.

I am not a dis-believer, only that when you bring The Absolute (God) into the conversation, what can one say?

God intervenes in reality on a massive level when we're not looking to inconspicuously prevent as many accidents as possible without revealing its existence. Or "simulation programmers" if you like. The funny thing is, it's impossible to prove or disprove that. You would need to establish the accident rate when things are truly random, and of course we don't know that things are truly random. — RogueAI

Actually, it's impossible to prove or disprove anything (in an absolute sense). In a relative sense, you can prove or disprove everything (as the woke crowd demonstrates daily).

Something similar happens on a bicycle. — Bitter Crank

It happens whenever we need to process a great deal of information in a very short period of time. Our brain go to another level where there is no time for analysis.

You are walking down the sidewalk and all of a sudden you see a four year old chasing after a ball that is heading into the street toward an automobile approaching at a high rate of speed. In a split-second you grab the child's arm saving his life.

We use this ability a great deal and the results are almost always quite positive. It is only when we fall back on our intellectual analysis do we often crash and burn because reality refuses to acquiesce to our demands (and, as well, reality has moved on as we are stuck in the muck of analytical hell).

This is nice idea - overthinking or analysis/paralysis is a pet hate of mine - but how do we put it into practice exactly? How do we determine the level of reflection versus action? Or am I overthinking it? :joke: — Tom Storm

It's one of the many benefits of meditation. It appears as if driving (and many other tasks) must be some form of meditative state in order to for our brains to be able to process the amount of information necessary in order to make the precision adjustments necessary.

If you have ever been in a vehicle with a new driver, you well know that over-thinking what you are doing can be disastrous. Here's another example...

Once in a great while we'll all experience a bad driving day. Perhaps something really negative has happened in our lives but we are not in the driving zone and almost get into an accident. After this happens, we fully bring our attention to our driving and what happens?, it's almost like we are new drivers again, making poor judgments and faulty decisions. We have switched to our normal thinking and it does not work very well.

The amount of information our brains can process seems nearly infinite, but only if our intellect remains quiescent. If we kick into analysis mode, our thinking almost grinds to a halt as we must apply all of our biases to what simply is, ending up with (is + us).

And to your question about the level of reflection, all action should be doing. The feedback from doing will tell you everything you need to know. Reflection will simply remove you from understanding what is happening now. Let the past go.

Our subconscious is continually predicting and reacting based on our conditioning, and this can happen in the background, so to speak, freeing us to think whatever we like. — praxis

Says who? Nobody has a clue as to how thinking works.

The current situation with BIG government and corporations is precisely and simply what some people saving themselves looks like. — baker

That's the problem. It's only the elite in corporations and government saving themselves. How about everybody else?

People can be happy only in one way ... If they become Buddhas ... — Anand-Haqq

There are as many paths that can result in happiness as there are people.

A buddha is one who sees with clarity.

Happiness is not a result, happiness is a way of life. — Anand-Haqq

There is no question that there are many folks fixated on happiness, but life does not always present the conditions for happiness to arise. Let's say you have a health condition that cause moderate to severe chronic pain. Or if you have a child who is suffering very harsh difficulties in life. Let's say many, many other things that happen to people in their lives.

Even for the most fortunate, life is difficult. The pursuit of constant happiness seems similar to people who are seeking an escape via all kinds of distractions . Balance is what is needed in all things so you can deal with the inevitable challenges and not-so-wonderful things that defines everybody's life (regardless of the public mask many wish to don).

OTH, contentment is a worthy rung to reach for as this allows one to make the most efficacious responses with the not-so-great things and enjoy the wonderful parts of life without becoming attached (addicted) to such.

Thanks goes to all who've contributed to the thread. I'm out of my depths at the moment. Will get back if I think of anything interesting. — TheMadFool

Perhaps you are neither mad nor foolish enough. Consider the following...

What if there was no time as we conceive it, instead of this "movie-like" series of events, life is actually discrete moments, complete in and of themselves, one after the other, each lacking nothing, perfect.

Imagine how this reality might change human perception!

I don't know what precisely should be done, anymore. — Bitter Crank

Exactly. Nobody else does either. This is why you allow people to do what is in their interests. Revoke all corporate charters, cut the government back by 90% and allow freedom to do its thing!

That the way our thinking works. We start with perceptual reality and run with it until we make ourselves crazy with all kinds of fantasies. Once deluded, we must rationalize our place in Hell with wild stories that have little to do with what's actually taking place.

It doesn't take too long listening to most people to understand their degree of dis-reality (for lack of a better term).

The abnegation of simplification. — Nagel

We are just simple, as simplicity is truth and Absolute simplicity is Absolute Truth.

Increasing levels of complexity transports us further and further from the truth and, as well, is the womb where all fabrication is conceived.

Well, I would have to wait and see if I end having health problems. It’s kinda common to start having them before 55 though — TheHedoMinimalist

Live each day really well and it will take care of itself.

There was probably a time when atheists would be whispered about behind their backs. Now I think we live in an era where it is the reverse. — Paul S

Although I do not consider myself a religious person, I have great respect for those who have committed themselves to such practices, and as a matter of fact, the nicest and most sincere people I have known throughout my life have been devoutly religious.

I personally hope that I’ll die around the age of 55 in a fairly painless manner. — TheHedoMinimalist

Why 55? I am ten years north of that and have never felt better. There are many people who have taken really good care of themselves (or have genetic privilege :) that are in great shape well into their 80's and even 90's now.

The problem with man is his thinking. Regardless of the era, there are people who make the best of it and those who make the worst of it.

Believing that things will always get better is a tough way to go through life, never satisfied, always looking for the "new and improved" version of every damn thing.

There is no evidence for or against atheism any more than there is for or against theism. — Paul S

There's all kinds of evidence for both atheism and theism. My problem is having a word for people who do not believe in something...seems kind of lame.

God is one of those things that should rarely escape from the personal realm. Who gives a rat's ass what anybody else thinks when it comes to your religious/spiritual beliefs?

In life, you do the best you can, help others where you can, and then you die. It's just the way it is.

I'm pointing out where the minimizing of government leads to. Which you clearly don't care about. — baker

BIG government leads to BIG misery for the majority every time.

People need to save themselves. The government is not going to do it for them. Government (at best) is a racket controlled by the people who control everything else.

I know life is hard, but working diligently is the best hope people have to live a good life.

You have a solution for your own life, and the others can just go to hell, those rats and vermin, right? — baker

I used to have a partner who would often say, "The best way to help the unfortunate is to not be one of them." He and I would get into to it occasionally regarding what I thought was a callous decree, but over the years, and long after his passing, I wish I could tell him how right he was.

So what is your solution to the problem of power differentials between people (and everything they entail, from hostile takeovers of business to abuse of power)? — baker

The only solution I have is for my own life. I can't (nor do I desire to) control anybody else.

Esp. the freedom to be oppressed by a rich and powerful neighbor! — baker

Do you live in Canada?

I see. Are you 100% with happiness or 100% with sadness? — TheMadFool

Both. Happiness and sadness are normal parts of life. When either arises, you be with them fully, when they are done, you let them go fully (by moving on).

In Yogic logic happiness is not dependent upon external causes, but can be elicited at will, with some practice. — Pop

Regardless of its cause, happiness comes and happiness goes. The key is in letting it go in its own time. If you attach to the feeling and morn its loss, this is the suffering. The same applies to all feelings.

The question is, when should we give up? — TheMadFool

If you seek contentment, you can be 100% with happiness when it comes and 100% with sadness when it comes. The key is letting each go, otherwise you will fall into the cycle of birth and death of both over and over and over...

Happiness results from an experience that is pleasurable. It is the emotional pleasure that the experience provides that makes us happy. Conversely sadness results from displeasurable ( painful ) experience. Every moment of life is an experience, so every moment of life is either pleasurable or displeasurable or something in between. We are a pain averse, pleasure seeking creature. The pain -pleasure spectrum that we land upon as a function of experience is what provides impetus to life, in my opinion. — Pop

That's a very nice opinion but happiness is a state-of mind. Since all things knowable arise and pass away, so must happiness. In it's place is left (fill in the blank).

It seems as if the strategy to avoid pain and seek pleasure is not working out so very well. What do you think? Perhaps seeking the middle and being ok with whatever happens your way might be a tad bit easier on the heart (literally and figuratively).

If you are asking WHY .... aren't you already depressed/sad? — Cate

Many see either happiness or sadness. There is also contentment which can involve neither. Nobody really knows what happiness is despite all the science that tells us, this, that, and the other thing. What can be realized is that happiness and sadness arrive hand-in-hand. When the former is spent, the later makes its presence known.

Minimising work is often a key driver of human behaviour - I suspect we are hard wired for shortcuts. This seems to be the wellspring of most technology. We are a time saving, effort saving species. Given that you have defined a problem or situation, do you have some suggestions towards a solution? — Tom Storm

Increasing productivity is a wonderful thing, don't get me wrong. And if people don't wish to work very hard, so be it. They should have less. But to have a system so corrupted by all this fraud and stealing (even in the best of times) seems a bit harsh (I would suggest that people in the future will look back on our times as being pretty backwards).

Even when you point out the absurdities, I've run into few over the years that really have any problems with themselves getting little while the biggest scammers in all fields get rich off of other people. Not that the answer is socialism or communism, God forbid. Those systems take what's not so great and turns it into a f****** catastrophe!

Now for one of many possible reasons—maybe he had to move to a smaller apartment in which the table wouldn’t fit; maybe he inherited a better table and had no room for the one he bought; maybe his wife didn’t like it and told him to get rid of it—the man who bought the table sets it out beside the street in front of his house and puts a “for free” sign on it, and I, who need a table, come along and see it, load it onto the back of my pickup and take it home. — Todd Martin

Even though somebody ended up with the table and didn't pay for it, it was not free. Somebody else paid for it. This notion of 'free' is one that should die a quick death. It's like the one where the government can print money out of thin air. That's free too, eh?

To your previous point, a lot of things 'should be' that are 'not going to be' anytime soon. Perhaps one of these days, though, everybody will work for themselves. Stranger things have happened.

I know of no country in the world which is moving towards more freedom. Freedom is apparently too oppressive for some these days.

But I take the point that the "intellectual" is not self sufficient. — Valentinus

For all but the very, very few, the intellectual is a snare in many different ways. First, it warms you with wonderful thoughts of oneness with all The Universe, and then brings the hammer down as you get caught once again in the revolving door of life and death.

As wonderfully meaningful and poetic are the teachings of, The Dao, one must completely let it go and instead embrace it's essence lest you go down the rabbit hole of infinite duality...

This sort of economic system would certainly hold a lot of self-satisfaction, and encourage individual enterprise...

...but it would also be very, very lonely...not to mention primitive. — Todd Martin

It's hard to imagine anything more lonely or alienating than what goes on now.

Obviously you cannot have a system where everybody is completely independent, but you can probably have one where people are MUCH more independent. How about getting rid of corporations and 90% of the government. That might be a good start!

Are you trying to say indirectly that all human beings have intrinsically exploitative relationships with others? — Tom Storm

I was saying that it seems like (most) people will do just about anything to obtain something for nothing (and the great majority of it is perfectly legal).

But why should one of inferior skill profit the same as one of superior skill? Shouldn’t greater skill be rewarded by greater profit? — Todd Martin

If it were my economic system, everybody would work for themselves (which would solve a lot of problems).

Believers cherry pick what they want to accept in all religions. — Tom Storm

I believe you can expand this to... "Thinkers cherry-pick that which they wish to accept."

We are all ONE, always changing form. That's about the extent of it.