Those ancients are still very relevant and, essentially, modern, don't you think? — 180 Proof

Indeed. Stupidity is eternal. So it seems is human nature.

CBT, which I assume you're familiar with, is in large part derived from both Socratic methods and Hellenistic philosophies such as Stoicism & Epicureanism — 180 Proof

You bet. I'm partial to the Epicureans over the Stoics. I first got interested in Albert Ellis' RET which was the precursor to CBT. It works. Later DBT, especially for people experiencing borderline personality disorder. But it does take the person to identify that they need support with persistent, unhelpful ways of thinking and relating. That seems to be the nub of our problem when it comes to finding help: insight.

On a separate vein, some time ago I saw interviews with Trump supporters. Most of them said they would vote for him again because of his significant achievements and his great policies. Not one of them could name any. They just liked him. Is this because they are dumb, or has the American system (education/media/corporate influence) failed people, making them rubes and willing victims of a demagogue? We can't use CBT for political stupidity can we?

Interesting questions. I agree there are lot of (b)'s out there. But is this stupidity, or are they wilful fools? I'm not sure. I think there are a lot of damaged folk out there who reason based upon patterns of paranoia or superstition or narcissism. I'm not sure to what extent they are responsible for their choices.

Taking (b) - which is nicely worded - what do we make of the 'acquired' aspect of such a habit? E.g., acquired through trauma or by laziness? I imagine there are some folk who are partly redeemable on the basis that their habit was initially a learned survival response. Thoughts?

I have no theory of stupidity to offer but I 'm partial to the notion of an incapacity for sound judgment. For me stupidity is often associated with tragedy. The 'stupid person' could have a much better experience of life, but owing to this lack of judgement, or an inability to make certain inferences, ends up suffering. As such, the 'stupid person' is frequently engaged in a battle with themselves which they may perceive as a struggle with others and the outside world.

I would think an atheist is simply anyone who denies the existence of God, regardless of whether they understand the God of theologians, what they are denying, or not. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm an atheist. Like many atheists I know, I don't deny the existence of god. I generally say I have no good reason for accepting the proposition that a god exists. I'm open to hearing arguments, but for me belief in god appears to be an aesthetic judgement informed by how we make sense of the world. Belief seems to me to be a bit like sexual preference. You can't help who you are attracted to.

If terms denoting religious identity don't meaningfully apply, then how come you think they temporarily do apply? — baker

Did I say that? No. I said there is no true Christian or true Muslim. There are just Christians and Muslims. As I see it, rating them for purity or fidelity by attaching words like 'true' or 'proper' seems pointless to me.

Then how can you say that someone is a "former Christian" or a "former Muslim" or that they are "now an atheist"? — baker

As per my above point.

How can someone even call themselves a "former Christian" or say they have "left Christianity", when, per you, it is up to God who decides whether someone was a Christian or not to begin with? — baker

A person calls themselves a former Christian when they say they are a former Christian. I am happy to let people determine how they want to identify.

In relation to my reference to God - presumably if there is a god it decides who is appropriate and no one else, right? I'm just following the ostensible logic of belief.

I think the distinction between religion and spirituality is mostly spurios, so I usually use a joint term. — baker

Perhaps 'should be' but you know as well as anyone that religion is often just a series of behaviours with no spirituality attached.

I also think that saying to an apostate, 'you were never a true Muslim or Christian' is an obvious and often false accusation religions use to defend their own weaknesses.
It's the truth. — baker

We won't agree on this. I don't think anyone true Christian or true Muslim. Such categories are pointless. You might be an inadequate Muslim or Christian, but so what? Who decides what counts? Surely it is God?

:up:

Going through the motions with religious/spiritual belief is actually a phenomenon that is criticized in religion/spirituality. — baker

Of course. But when has spirituality been a factor in the mass support of religions?

They were probaly never insiders, never "in it" to begin with. I used to make a point of reading people's exit stories from religion/spirituality. And in all cases I have seen, they had a poor knowledge of the religion/spirituality of which they claim to have been members of. So many former Catholics with such a shoddy knowledge of Catholic doctrine — baker

The point is it is only when they acquire such knowledge that many realize they can't believe it any more. I've often thought it is much easier to accept a religion if you don't know much about it, if it's just part of your wallpaper and quotidian experience.

I also think that saying to an apostate, 'you were never a true Muslim or Christian' is an obvious and often false accusation religions use to defend their own weaknesses.

:up: I suppose it all depends upon why we are on this site. I came to experience ideas that were different to mine and might sometimes poke and prod those ideas based on my own ramshackle presuppositions. I'm not here to find answers, or confirm my own, I'm here, hopefully, to enlarge my worldview, in recognition that I've not privileged philosophy in my life. The unfamiliar, the counterintuitive, the irrational, the strange, the inaccessible fascinate me.

Using substances may well be a path some people adopt to manage significant trauma or anxiety disorders.

But this is a maladaptive approach. — baker

That’s one way of classifying it. On the other hand, substance use can make life more bearable and prevent suicide. Many former users have told me it was substance use that helped them to cope with unbearable pain. But in the end they also had to overcome substance use. Using helped them get by for a time.

We construct a template for predicting events, then when this events happen, they either validate our template by being inferentially ( which isn’t the same thing as logically) compatible with our expectations, or invalidate it by surprising us, appearing chaotic and random. — Joshs

Thanks. I've never really thought much about the role of predictability or expectation. I can see how our ideas and actions are informed by emotion, even where we say 'reason' is the key principle. I'll mull over this.


I think you are being unfair. As I undertand it, @Joshs ideas are located in postmodernism and phenomenology. The language and conceptual frames he provides are sometimes radically different to how you and I have tended to think. To me that makes him interesting. He is also extremely well read and serious about his philosophy. My own view is that if something seems odd or new to me, it's worth looking into.

But not whern it comes to religion/spirituality. This is where most people demand that no qualification is necessary or no qualification should be necessary. What one currently has should suffice to get a definitive judgment on a religious/spiritual matter. Period. — baker

I understand all that and my point is polemical. I still ask it because I like a world where demonstrations are provided. What is interesting however are the amount of formerly religious people who lose their faith when they begin reading the Bible or Koran in earnest. I've met quite a few former ministers, priests, and believers who came to atheism simply by asking the question, why do I believe in this?

This is where most people demand that no qualification is necessary or no qualification should be necessary. What one currently has should suffice to get a definitive judgment on a religious/spiritual matter. Period. — baker

This is largely true and this flaw is worth highlighting. Nevertheless, the secular community contains numerous members who were once devout. They found their way out.

I just don't see why every atheist doesn't agree with me. — Restitutor

I'm an atheist. I don't agree with you. I don't know if we are machines. Atheism is whether on not you believe the proposition that gods exist. It says nothing about other beliefs. Some atheists I know believe in ghosts and astrology - they are not all Richard Dawkins acolytes. Some secular humanists and skeptics go further and deny anything they consider to be 'supernatural' but that's a separate belief system. I don't know what consciousness is, or how to account for emotion and subjectivity. Even if true, my lived experience of being a human is not enhanced by the machine metaphor.

It’s about trying on for size more and more open-ended and flexible ways of interacting with each other, aiming for a ‘dance’ in which each of us can optimally anticipate the others’ moves. — Joshs

I find this interesting. Can you say some more about what you have in mind regarding the anticipation of the other's moves being of benefit - perhaps an example?

The aim of knowledge is not to take an accurate picture of the universe (and the minds of other people) but to effect more and more harmonious changes within whatever small part of it we are interested in interacting with. Knowledge isnt about passively representing what things are in themselves, but about what we are trying to do with things in a pragmatic sense — Joshs

Effecting some harmonious changes in the small part of the universe I interact with is a reasonable description of one person's goals. Do you have thoughts on how we assess whether a change is harmonious (apart from the obvious lack of visible conflict)?
.

fell out of the routine three years ago, and haven't gone back to it. I've become sceptical of Western Buddhism - that is, Buddhism as practiced and propogated in modern culture. And while I have considerable respect for the teaching and principles I don't feel as though I've been able to successfully integrate into them or with them. I did have some real epiphanies associated with meditation earlier in life, but then it's been like a 'seeds and weeds' scenario in the subsequent years. (I'm in a quandary about it, although I suppose internet forums aren't really a good medium to air such things.) — Wayfarer

This is very interesting and I have to say I feel for you. Has this change in focus been responsible for drawing you to some of the richer, earlier traditions of Christianity? I get that this is a hard topic, so feel free to move on. I think it would be interesting to understand more about your position on Buddhism - do you think this reflects personal factors, or is it perhaps something intrinsic to Westerners? I wonder if cultural fit is important in spiritual journeys - obviously the notion a higher awareness transcends culture, but the path along the way seems to be bound to it.

Have you spent any time on WLC's forum? You might find WLC's arguments don't stand up so well. — wonderer1

Indeed. The Kalam doesn't support any particular brand of religion. Or religion at all for that matter.

The Bible itself is a compilation of many books, from many author, in many periods of time and with many genres — T4YLOR

Yep. As allegorical stories, one of our Baptist preachers used to say - 'I am insulted that anyone who would take the Bible stories literally.'

and what God reveals is what should be sought after. — T4YLOR

The problem here is the old; how do we demonstrate that there are gods and how do we know what gods reveal? On this the believers only have subjective interpretations.

Some people with mental disorders can be considered as "weak willed", and some studies showed that some mental disorders have a higher risk of substance abuse. — Skalidris

The idea that people who become substance dependent have 'weak wills' is old fashioned, Christian influenced thinking and was the traditional model for many years. This thinking did much harm and blamed people for their 'choices'. Around 2-10% of people will develop problematic use or behaviours, whether this be alcohol or gambling. Generally there's a complex mix of genetic, psychological and environmental factors involved.

My thread was mostly about why we keep on feeding these habits as it promotes escapism and gives less importance to meaningful social interactions. — Skalidris

Some people instantly find alcohol pleasurable, from the fist drink. Many people will tell you that on drinking, it was the first time they felt normal or had a sense of wellbeing.

...feeding these habits as it promotes escapism — Skalidris

I would not construct problematic alcohol use as promoting escapism - self-medication is probably a better term for it. Using substances may well be a path some people adopt to manage significant trauma or anxiety disorders.

It's not merely a feeling. We're supposedly living in a democracy, but not when it comes to alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, and meat. We're supposed to consume all those, or at least approve of such consumption, or regret that due to some objective reason we can't consume them. Otherwise, we get judged, severely even.

If one is rich, then one can afford some "quirks and whims", but not otherwise.

If someone comes to visit to my house and lights a cigarette, and I tell them not to, I will be considered rude and weird. — baker

Ok, that's very unfamiliar to me. Sounds like our 1980's where you are. Virtually no one lets you smoke in their home in Australia and it would be considered vastly anti-social to to do so unless it was a smoking household. In fact, smoking is largely a taboo. You are not permitted to smoke in any cafes or restaurants. I live in a big city where veganism and vegetarianism are prevalent. In my office, around 30% of the workers are vegetarians. Alcohol is popular with many people but the non-drinker is not shunned these days. If I say no to alcohol (as I did at a party I went to yesterday) I am offered bubbly water. Coffee, on the other hand remains huge in my city and almost everyone thinks they are some kind of connoisseur of this substance.

Based a wealth of research in the social sciences, religious attendance seems to boost the metrics we use to measure flourishing. And religious attendance also seems to boost a number of prosocial behaviors, like volunteering and charitable giving. — Count Timothy von Icarus

My understanding of such studies are that it is community and being with people for a common cause promotes flourishing. I don’t think this is deniable. The theistic part of it is likely to be moot, but in today’s atomised culture, it is generally only sporting clubs or religious groups that still encourage and build community and no doubt people benefit. Has nothing to say about the truth of those beliefs - it’s likely more about the power of conformity (shared values) and tribalism.

But I think you could also say that being a Nazi in Germany in the 1930’s seemed to boost metrics of flourishing (for most) too. All that community building, sport, collaboration, infrastructure. Shared values and the promotion of a strong culture certainly seemed to benefit most of the citizens.

We can only hope.

His single solitary ability is to convince large numbers of people of bullshit, it’s the only thing he’s ever done in life. — Wayfarer

Sure, but isn’t that what it takes to be elected President?

Mind you, this ‘skill’ without the likes of Bannon and Murdoch, would probably not have taken him far. Even his ‘Art of the Deal’ and so called business acumen was invented and codified by Tony Schwartz, who regrets the shit out of his ghost writing all those years ago.

I think non-drinkers make drinkers uncomfortable. I'm not sure if they feel judged or something or if they feel guilty for doing something that they'd feel less guilty about if everyone around them were joining in. — Hanover

I think this goes both ways. Many non-drinkers I know are uncomfortable around drinkers. Do they feel threatened, at a loss, judgemental, bored?

I have been a non-drinker for 10 years. I find drinkers often become boring after the fourth drink. And some people who drink can become strident and repetitive - especially at functions or parties. No thanks.

Perhaps for some people, who get more out of drinking, it is a matter of wanting to feel like others are on their "wavelength" or something like that? — wonderer1

Not for me. When I was a drinker I drank because it felt good. There's a sense of wellbeing and happiness that comes to many who drink. It tends to come on after the second drink but can depart if you have had too many drinks. The trick (as with so many things in life) is knowing your limits. If drinking alcohol doesn't make one 'feel better' however that looks to you, and if one's surroundings don't develop a bit of a 'golden sheen' with some alcohol consumption, why do it?

My parents dank 2-3 glasses of wine every day with dinner. That time was often their happiest. They were moderates, and I rarely saw them drink more than this. They used to consider the two hours around dinner to be the happiest of their day.

My own view as an unremarkable, contemporary egalitarian Lefty, is that everyone should have the same (or similar) opportunities, freedoms and access to resources. If a society places restrictions on certain people - women, particular races, religions, the poor, gays, etc - from participating fully in community life and opportunities available, that's regressive.

I personally don't see progress as a journey since improvements in politics, environment, safety, rights, etc can be reversed just as quickly as they are initiated and there is no particular end point in mind. I have generally used the word to describe positive enhancements to equity and social justice. But this can be unpacked until the cows come home.

Qidquid agis, prudenter agas et respice finem. — baker

One might also say, Fiat justitia ruat caelum

This gets to an interesting question: by progress do we mean the metrics that technocrats tend to use: self reported well being, income, educational attainment, crime rates, etc. or do we mean subscribing to a specific set of beliefs and policy positions? Further, we might ask, is democratic participation a good in and of itself, even if it leads to regressive policies, or is democratic process only a means to progress? — Count Timothy von Icarus

People's values vary, which I have already stated. No doubt many Saudi Muslims would consider giving women more rights and autonomy to be a mistake and some may argue very reasonably for why this is the case. So?

For me progress is like morality. We might base it on presuppositions around notions of the flourishing or wellbeing of conscious creatures (as I do) but not everyone will agree on values. If you wish to defend, (for instance) that dictatorship is better than democracy then let's hear the argument.

Hence, it is a blend in terms of influence. While churches may tend towards regression in political views, you're also far more likely to see women speaking than in academic settings. — Count Timothy von Icarus

How many churches will let trans women speak? Again, no one is arguing that the academy is progressive. Academic circles are notoriously restrictive and sexist and regressive (perhaps because they grew out of the churches) - but it depends on the institution, the department and the personalities. It doesn't let religion off the hook to argue that there are other institutions who are also regressive.

Part of the problem is that religion makes special pleading for itself - its values are founded on what god wants and are transcendent. It's close to impossible to argue with someone who thinks gays should be jailed because homosexuality is against god.

Just to take one of your examples; isn't gun control simply a means to an end, fewer murders and assaults? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't know the ins and outs of the guns debate other than the fact that when large groups of people own guns there's a good chance they will be used on innocents. Fewer guns and more restrictions will always be progress to me. But that is an entire debate on its own.

I agree with you. I remember studying the Enlightenment at university within the context of comparative religion and having it described as the apotheosis of Christian rationalist thought, severed from transcendence. Which of course made it doomed to fail (in the eyes of the lecturer).

I consider the idea that our culture’s quest for interstellar travel is really the sublimated longing for immortality. — Wayfarer

Agree. But there's a lot of sublimation going around, right? Some forms of extreme woke thinking seem to me to be what happens when religion is replaced by culture. But don't tell anyone...

Why would we think otherwise, given the utter dominance of religion for centuries? Free-thought as a belief system is a comparatively recent thing: it is nascent.

One of the problems with the idea of progress is that some people (often secular types) consider it an inevitability, a kind of historical process, leading to a brave new world - almost as if progress is a transcendent phenomenon. I don't know what you think about that, but I consider progress to be the word we use to describe a preferred personal or social change. Such a change has to be understood subject to some criteria of value. No doubt Trump being elected in 2024 will be seen as progress by the 81% of evangelicals who support him.

That aside - there are some traditional progressive causes I listed earlier which I believe represent his matter reasonably well.

Why should it be otherwise?
What is the ideal you're trying to live up to?
And why? — baker

Deleted previous somewhat ruder answer. I'm asking Joshs a hypothetical question, not subscribing to any ideal or suggesting it need be otherwise.

Progressive toward what? — baker

I provided a list of examples of traditionally held progressive issues. I wasn’t aware progress was a journey. Is that how you see it? If we hold women's rights or gay rights up as progressive issues we support, I don't think the next question should be, 'But where will that lead us?'

Deleted

By deconstructive I mean locating two hidden gestures operating together within the terms of a discourse. First, whenever a discourse makes claims for a boundary of opposition between two meanings, such as rational and irrational, love and hate, true and false, knowledge and ignorance, or good and evil, based on the assumption of a true quality intrinsic to each term, one can reveal that the sense of ‘goodness’ and ‘evil’ are themselves contingent, changeable and relative. The second deconstructive gesture is parasitic on the first. If supposedly reliably true, self-consistently grounded senses of terms like good and evil are themselves multiple and various, then the strict opposition between good and evil can no longer be justified. That is, dissolving the purity of categorical meanings ( or better yet, showing how they already dissolve themselves in practice) dissolves the violent sharpness of the oppositions they supposedly justify.

How does your notion of the good exclude those who you deem bad, how does your idea of the true banish those you deem false, how does your conception of the moral exclude those who appear to you as immoral? The religious gesture of grounding and binding always presents the danger of erasing the differences within its categorical terms, and as a result creating and hypostesizing oppositions that harmfully separate off groups of people from one another. — Joshs

I like it. But this is hard to put into practice. Particularly if the world largely rejects this. Speaking personally, I like to blame and judge (to some extent) and the way I make sense of the world has been shaped irrevocably by concepts I can't transcend. How could one escape? Because even in recognizing the accuracy of your account, the temptation to stick with familiar patterns is irresistible. I wonder how one can be a human being and not be bound by a bunch of contingent and culturally constructed bullshit?

My point would be that "the general principles by which theologies, philosophies, and ideologies become either progressive or regressive seems to transcend the secular/religious divide." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think this is accurate. And I wouldn’t argue that religion is the only source of regressive or bad ideas on Earth.

I don't want to get sidetracked. My point was merely that, according to peer reviewed findings in the social sciences, the gold standard of evidence in the scientist framework, religion seems to be more a progressive force, at least within wealthy countries. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. The point we were exploring was the point you made about religion curbing child abuse. Which seems somewhat risible given church history.

So, my point would be, by what standard do we say religion is regressive if this is what our gold standard is telling us? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Isn't this an easy one? And I think we agree on these, Religions regularly provide strong opposition to progressive ideas like women's rights, environmentalism, euthanasia, gay and trans rights, drug law reform, teaching science (evolution) in the classroom, stem cell research, contraception, is an advocate of capital punishment and against gun law reform. That's enough to be getting on with.

Eudaimonia. We should all be as fortunate as you, Tom. :cool: — 180 Proof

:pray: Or I might just lack imagination

Beats the hell out of doing great, glorious historical things, like carving out an empire or conducting a crusade or discovering a savage continent, ripe for plunder. — Vera Mont

I imagine it's people who did things like these who most craved immortality. Second prize - historical fame. :wink:

However, teachers have been implicated in plenty of child abuse cases, and school districts regularly try to cover up and settle these cases — Count Timothy von Icarus

Rank amateurs against the Catholic church. And are you committing an equivocation fallacy? So what if others were/are also abusers? Your original point was that Religion curbes child abuse. This does not appear to be the case. As our Hillsong (Protestant) Church in Australia has also recently discovered.

Because for religion to be regressive, it would seem to imply that irreligion promotes progress, and that doesn't seem particularly easy to justify. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not really the point. Some secular culture may also be regressive, which does not let religion off the hook. IMO that's not the salient argument. The point is there is nothing special about religion, no appalling crime or regression going that it hasn't enthusiastically supported.

Look, I don't think we can say that the percentage of religious people with regressive ideas are the majority of all believers on earth. It may only be 30% of them. That's roughly the percentage of fundamentalists in the Christian world, according to Pew Research. Islam? Who knows? I won't even hold Trump (and his regressive, nascent fascism) against all those evangelicals who form the bulk of his base. But I can say that it is far from clear how progressive religions are around the world. And we can see very clearly the mess many of them are making in god's name.

Presumably, such a person would have life experience useful to people who have less. So I'm asking why such a person should be ready to die at 50? Why would they not want to continue a rich, full life? — Vera Mont

I'm not saying early death should be compulsory, it's just an additional dimension to the formulation of the OP's question - what constitutes 'an ideal lifespan' as if years are the only criteria of value. I'm simply making the point that a 50 year-old who has experienced and done a lot can die with that satisfaction. If I were to die tonight, for instance, I'd be reasonably ok with this as I have done a fair bit and don't really have any significant further goals.

I've known a few 90 year-olds who just seem to keep on living - sitting in their chair watching TV for decades.

I am obviously bringing my criteria of value to this which is that there seems little point to immortality, or a even a long life, if you spend most of it doing fuck all.

Life is as interesting as you are able to and choose to make it. — Vera Mont

I hear you but not everyone finds life especially interesting after a certain point. I don't think it's a choice so much as a disposition. Note, I am separating this tendency form anhedonia or other psychological conditions.

Why should naïve teenagers of 90 be censured, or 60-year-olds with rich and varied experience be snuffed out before they could pass along what they've learned? — Vera Mont

Who is talking about censuring? I was simply expressing a personal view about my repugnance at the idea of immortality.

Why should naive teenagers of 90 be censured, or 60-year-olds with rich and varied experience be snuffed out before they could pass along what they've learned? — Vera Mont

I don't associate age with wisdom. In generally I have learned a lot more from people younger than me.

What do you think the ideal life span for a human is? How do we justify the right to death if one is perfectly healthy but simply feels it's their time?
Should anyone be allowed to be immortal and if so why? — Benj96

There is no ideal lifespan. People move at different speeds. Some people of 50 have lived a life so rich, full they can make someone of 90 look like a naïve teenager.

The idea of immortality seems like a torment to me. I’m in my 50’s but I can’t imagine wanting more than 80 years, I simply don't find life interesting enough. But I imagine that disposition and physiological drives account for much of the difference between folk.

Thanks.

Rationality asks ‘What is the case’?, bit underneath it emotion asks a more fundamentalset of questions: ’what is the valuative significance and meaning of what is the case’? ‘Why do we care about it?’ ‘What the sense of it’? ‘What pattern of thinking makes the rationality of what is the case intelligible? — Joshs

Yep, I can see this.

When you think about or study through a topic, you then summarize it, and this summary is then captured in a particular emotion. Later on, you don't revisit your thoughts or your study notes on the topic, you just have an emotion about it. — baker

:up:

Isnt the history of scientific progress akin to (and running parallel with) historical shifts in artistic movements? Isnt the historical progression of science, art and other cultural domains bound together via enculturation and socialization? — Joshs

Maybe. I can't say I know if this is accurate.

Weekly religious attendance is a curb on criminal behavior, child abuse, — Count Timothy von Icarus

To make such a claim, you'll need to, at least, leave out the Catholic church and its international legacy of systematic child abuse and continuing criminal cover ups.

don’t do it on the basis of rationality vs emotion, because the science of emotion no longer justifies that dichotomy. — Joshs

Can you say some more on this and the role of emotion in reason?

Just say you prefer an atheistic value system. — Joshs

'Prefer' something seems a curious or 'cold' word to choose, given the subject matter; it makes theism versus atheism sound like selecting a pair of pants.

I've often held (perhaps wrongly) that (along with socialisation and enculturation) belief in deities is often arrived at aesthetically or emotionally, perhaps along the line of one's sexual preference. In my case, I never felt a jones for theism and no amount of argument is able to make it exciting or meaningful.

I can't believe Japan is out from the list! — javi2541997

Isn't Japan famous for its unhappy salarymen and its terrible work/life balance?

What would be realistic criteria for a state to be considered successful? — Vera Mont

A hard question to answer in some ways as it goes to the core of people's values and some value things like community, freedom or individualism more than others.

The basics would include clean running water, power, a sewage system, infrastructure which is maintained and working appropriately. I would include, not in any particular order, rule of law, effective services for the disadvantaged, employment opportunities, free education for all, health care, affordable housing, safe streets, work/life balance, a decent living wage, protections for the environment.