NationStates Jolt Archive

Perpertually, the world is in decline. People tend to find new ways to satisfy their greed, greed of money, greed of power, greed of knowledge, and thus they are forced to develop the world. Shouldn't we embrace the decline as a way to actually develop the world? For example, the cloning issue has outdated wacko "morality" hindering the development of new science. "Less bad" world may come from restrictions and morality, but a better world is in decline.

The Jennifer Government and Jukka Nokialainen world may be better for THOSE people living in THAT world, and we think of it as "bad" because OUR morality is outdated. It was all right to torture people in the Middle Ages, but then it was seen as a natural extension of the authority of the church. On the other hand, today, they would see the "legality of sodomy" and such as morally corrupt, while we enjoy the benefits of civil liberty. Our morality is more developed.

For example. The development of increasing convenience has lead to a world where it's ok to be stupid and not know. In the stone age, this was not the case; you either knew which plants are edible, or you died. Now, it's ok to not to know. Fortunately, the direction is probably reversing, because the working life demands more and more from the mind as things are automated.

This will ultimately lead to a total industrial society, where most people are basically unemployed, and just consume and break things produced by automated machines, whereas a small proportion of people build and produce the wealth by building those machines. This means that the leadership and engineering profession gets more and more status, and provides evolutionary pressure for more intelligence, leading ultimately to development. Decline is GOOD!

according to the hindhus, the world is cyclical.

right now we're on the way to the downward part of the cycle... so it will get worse. but eventually things will start to get better.

Perpertually, the world is in decline. People tend to find new ways to satisfy their greed, greed of money, greed of power, greed of knowledge, and thus they are forced to develop the world. Shouldn't we embrace the decline as a way to actually develop the world? For example, the cloning issue has outdated wacko "morality" hindering the development of new science. "Less bad" world may come from restrictions and morality, but a better world is in decline.

The Jennifer Government and Jukka Nokialainen world may be better for THOSE people living in THAT world, and we think of it as "bad" because OUR morality is outdated. It was all right to torture people in the Middle Ages, but then it was seen as a natural extension of the authority of the church. On the other hand, today, they would see the "legality of sodomy" and such as morally corrupt, while we enjoy the benefits of civil liberty. Our morality is more developed.

For example. The development of increasing convenience has lead to a world where it's ok to be stupid and not know. In the stone age, this was not the case; you either knew which plants are edible, or you died. Now, it's ok to not to know. Fortunately, the direction is probably reversing, because the working life demands more and more from the mind as things are automated.

This will ultimately lead to a total industrial society, where most people are basically unemployed, and just consume and break things produced by automated machines, whereas a small proportion of people build and produce the wealth by building those machines. This means that the leadership and engineering profession gets more and more status, and provides evolutionary pressure for more intelligence, leading ultimately to development. Decline is GOOD!
im not sure if i would agree with you that the inevitable and arguably desirable decline of society, as you have laid out, is a 'good' thing. However, if I understand your underlying arguement correctly (I am very tired!) I would agree that the world is in desperate need of change.
The current super-fast-paced capatalist society will either burn out economically, burn out in general (run out of natural resources to plunder), or end up in some kind of horrible ultra-consumerism as you described.
As you say, we need less emphasis on money, greed and power; and instead more emphasis on learning, tolerance, love, peace and appreciation for the now & the future. Then again I may be turning Hippie...

edit: welcome to the forum btw

Perpertually, the world is in decline. People tend to find new ways to satisfy their greed, greed of money, greed of power, greed of knowledge, and thus they are forced to develop the world. Shouldn't we embrace the decline as a way to actually develop the world? For example, the cloning issue has outdated wacko "morality" hindering the development of new science. "Less bad" world may come from restrictions and morality, but a better world is in decline.

The Jennifer Government and Jukka Nokialainen world may be better for THOSE people living in THAT world, and we think of it as "bad" because OUR morality is outdated. It was all right to torture people in the Middle Ages, but then it was seen as a natural extension of the authority of the church. On the other hand, today, they would see the "legality of sodomy" and such as morally corrupt, while we enjoy the benefits of civil liberty. Our morality is more developed.

For example. The development of increasing convenience has lead to a world where it's ok to be stupid and not know. In the stone age, this was not the case; you either knew which plants are edible, or you died. Now, it's ok to not to know. Fortunately, the direction is probably reversing, because the working life demands more and more from the mind as things are automated.

This will ultimately lead to a total industrial society, where most people are basically unemployed, and just consume and break things produced by automated machines, whereas a small proportion of people build and produce the wealth by building those machines. This means that the leadership and engineering profession gets more and more status, and provides evolutionary pressure for more intelligence, leading ultimately to development. Decline is GOOD!
To be fair (and nit-picky, since it doesn't really address your point) in the stone ages there was a lot less to know, so not knowing a portion of the way thier group represented a much larger percentage of the shared knowledge. There is a lot more to know now, more than any one person can 'know,' so it's not neccisarily stupid to not know how everything works.

Well i am much much stronger than the average person so when the reckoning comes I will crush my enemies and take many a wife to please me.... :)

Perpertually, the world is in decline. People tend to find new ways to satisfy their greed, greed of money, greed of power, greed of knowledge, and thus they are forced to develop the world. Shouldn't we embrace the decline as a way to actually develop the world? For example, the cloning issue has outdated wacko "morality" hindering the development of new science. "Less bad" world may come from restrictions and morality, but a better world is in decline.

The Jennifer Government and Jukka Nokialainen world may be better for THOSE people living in THAT world, and we think of it as "bad" because OUR morality is outdated. It was all right to torture people in the Middle Ages, but then it was seen as a natural extension of the authority of the church. On the other hand, today, they would see the "legality of sodomy" and such as morally corrupt, while we enjoy the benefits of civil liberty. Our morality is more developed.

For example. The development of increasing convenience has lead to a world where it's ok to be stupid and not know. In the stone age, this was not the case; you either knew which plants are edible, or you died. Now, it's ok to not to know. Fortunately, the direction is probably reversing, because the working life demands more and more from the mind as things are automated.

This will ultimately lead to a total industrial society, where most people are basically unemployed, and just consume and break things produced by automated machines, whereas a small proportion of people build and produce the wealth by building those machines. This means that the leadership and engineering profession gets more and more status, and provides evolutionary pressure for more intelligence, leading ultimately to development. Decline is GOOD!

In the 1920's the most advanced science of the day dictated that intelligence was based on racial genetic characteristics, and that defectives ought to have been sterilized. In the 1940's, we had the Holocaust. In the 1950's, science woke up to the fact that most of those "defectives" that had been sterilized were not in fact mentally retarded, so much as they were uneducated and predominantly of cultural minorities.

Your method has been attempted already. It didn't work.

Well I suppose it depends on by what do you mean "decline"?

Are you saying that progress requires a moral decline? That's what it seems like you're saying...

IF that is what you're saying, then I have to disagree. Some technologies (a small part of progress) should be blocked in the name of morality. Sure, this will hinder the progression of technology slightly, but the slight hindrance of technological development for maintaining moral standards is perfectly okay.

Morals don't change... A person whose morals changes does nothing but demonstrate their lack of conviction in their moral beliefs... This holds true amongst a society as well.

Technology can very well advance in a moral society... in fact, in a moral-less society, there would be no advancement...

I think we have been hearing this for a while now that technology will make work obsolete and we will all have easy comfortable lives doing little work. Unfortunately this is the reverse trend of things, at least in america. People are working longer than ever, now people are often expected to take work home and do it work on the weekends, to work on their laptops while in bed or on the train to and from work. The government is making overtime laws ever lax so that wide swaths of white collar professionals will be expected to work longer hours with no additional compenstation. Technology does have the power to free humanity from the drudgery of work but not will not happen without a shift in thinking to a less competitive growth driven mindset to a more laid back French style laziness.

according to the hindhus, the world is cyclical.

right now we're on the way to the downward part of the cycle... so it will get worse. but eventually things will start to get better.
I am vagually familiar with this belief. China and Imperial Japan held this belief too. Anyway, the cycle is very long, and the "getting better" part won't happen in our lifetimes.

To be fair (and nit-picky, since it doesn't really address your point) in the stone ages there was a lot less to know, so not knowing a portion of the way thier group represented a much larger percentage of the shared knowledge. There is a lot more to know now, more than any one person can 'know,' so it's not neccisarily stupid to not know how everything works.

Excellent point! Good that you brought that up, because it shows the difference between merely knowing little and acceptance of stupidity. Knowing little is just knowing little, and being stupid is being unable to manage and use knowledge, any knowledge. Knowing little is not acceptable; in a way, stupidity is, because it's profitable to cheat someone, and a property that is counterproductive is increased.

In the stone age, or in some tribal cultures, a man basically knows all about his entire life. There are no "occupations", or "someone who knows better", so the tribesman cannot and will not depend on the help of someone else, that is, stupidity is not accepted. In today's world, a man doesn't "know his entire life", because the mind cannot handle such a corpus of information. Thus, stupidity becomes acceptable, because you can always ask someone else, and stupidity is profitable. (Seen the Silverstar silver cleaning plates? Any chunk of aluminum does the same job!)

In the future, there are two things that happen: people themselves develop with new methods and even evolution to manage this knowledge, and secondly, information technology develops so that a single person-computer pair could actually manage his entire life, even if the person alone can't.

according to the hindhus, the world is cyclical.

right now we're on the way to the downward part of the cycle... so it will get worse. but eventually things will start to get better.

No, no, no. We're always on the "downward part of the cycle". That is expected, and my argument is that that's (normatively) a good thing. It won't eventually "get better" according to our current morality; instead, our own morality develops, and our perceptions change such that we begin to see the problem with the old way. For example, the Correct Way to Think was what the church said was Correct before these "morally declining" Koperniks and Galileos. Their vision changed our morality such that we saw the old way was wrong.

In the 1920's the most advanced science of the day dictated that intelligence was based on racial genetic characteristics, and that defectives ought to have been sterilized. In the 1940's, we had the Holocaust. In the 1950's, science woke up to the fact that most of those "defectives" that had been sterilized were not in fact mentally retarded, so much as they were uneducated and predominantly of cultural minorities.

Your method has been attempted already. It didn't work.

For the rulers then, it was the moral thing to do. They asserted the power of those people, and by today's standards, that's a bad thing. Today, we gloat over them not "obviously" seeing that their methods were wrong and their morality misguided, because we can't identify with their morality. A society defending these victims would be morally corrupt in their eyes. So, "moral decline" is actually moral development. The problem with the mentally retarded having children is marginal compared to the potential for civil rights abuse, as you said.

What I predict is: whether we want it or not, the current anomaly of the stupidity gene being somewhat acceptable or even beneficial for the carrier will not last long. Actually, it's not even very strong now; if we put people to do old intelligence tests and compare the score to the old statistics, we find out that intelligence is increasing at a steady pace.

For the rulers then, it was the moral thing to do. They asserted the power of those people, and by today's standards, that's a bad thing. Today, we gloat over them not "obviously" seeing that their methods were wrong and their morality misguided, because we can't identify with their morality. A society defending these victims would be morally corrupt in their eyes. So, "moral decline" is actually moral development. The problem with the mentally retarded having children is marginal compared to the potential for civil rights abuse, as you said.

What I predict is: whether we want it or not, the current anomaly of the stupidity gene being somewhat acceptable or even beneficial for the carrier will not last long. Actually, it's not even very strong now; if we put people to do old intelligence tests and compare the score to the old statistics, we find out that intelligence is increasing at a steady pace.

Wait. . .what?

If I read you right, then what you are saying is that the Holocaust was morally beneficial because it taught us something about morality? I suppose you could say this, but can't you think of better ways of coming to the same conclusion?

Furthermore, I think you need to be more clear on exactly where and how you stand before I can critique your ideas. Are you or are you not a moral relativist. You seem on the one hand to say yes, because you admit that some cultures/time periods have differing standards of morality and would admit it as such. Yet overall, I find your writing ambiguous because you also seem to suggest a Hegelian dynamic to morality: we're more moral over time through the forces of history. The problem is: the two are incompatible. Hegel was an absolutist, not a relativist, and there is no middle for the twain to meet. Is your point relativistic, or merely anthropological statement of fact?

What I predict is: whether we want it or not, the current anomaly of the stupidity gene being somewhat acceptable or even beneficial for the carrier will not last long. Actually, it's not even very strong now; if we put people to do old intelligence tests and compare the score to the old statistics, we find out that intelligence is increasing at a steady pace.

I don't think there's such thing as a stupid gene. IMO. It's just a gene that went out of place. Although I agree with you that retarded people shouldn't breed.

Past Intelligence test is to me very subjective, how can we prove that kids now are smarter than kids before based on their genes? Ask them to take the same test these kids took a hundred years ago?

With better education today and better facilities (internet, books, bla bla bla), and all/more kids going to schools, its by no doubt intelligence is increasing on average. Not the stupid gene dying out.

The government is making overtime laws ever lax so that wide swaths of white collar professionals will be expected to work longer hours with no additional compenstation.

Are you serious? I thought it would be other way around. If you ask me, If I don't get paid overtime, Hell, I'm not going to work till the sunrises but go home and watch the footie.

Technology does have the power to free humanity from the drudgery of work but not will not happen without a shift in thinking to a less competitive growth driven mindset to a more laid back French style laziness.

Are you being sarcastic?

the world is constantly changing. It is totally at random.

Wait. . .what?

If I read you right, then what you are saying is that the Holocaust was morally beneficial because it taught us something about morality? I suppose you could say this, but can't you think of better ways of coming to the same conclusion?

Furthermore, I think you need to be more clear on exactly where and how you stand before I can critique your ideas. Are you or are you not a moral relativist. You seem on the one hand to say yes, because you admit that some cultures/time periods have differing standards of morality and would admit it as such. Yet overall, I find your writing ambiguous because you also seem to suggest a Hegelian dynamic to morality: we're more moral over time through the forces of history. The problem is: the two are incompatible. Hegel was an absolutist, not a relativist, and there is no middle for the twain to meet. Is your point relativistic, or merely anthropological statement of fact?

There may be better ways to come to the same conclusion. However, the genocidal maniacs were just that. They acted as their own delusions commanded; sort of pathological moralism in the extreme. That is the very wrong way to go. The problem with this debate is, that that's such an extreme example it's not representative of the current issues, such as stem cell research, cloning, genetic research, European integration or globalisation, etc etc.

There should be some middle ground in the sense that "moral absolute" in itself is a pompous claim. It's in the vein of "I have personally talked to God, and he told me I am the Messiah." Also, I don't believe in the idea that all by itself we become more moral through time; exactly the opposite, as it is in the original message. The world becomes "less moral". The morals people develop for their societies reflect the situation the society is in. And these situations change, prompting for new moral standards.

For example, a poor nation threatened be imminent destruction almost always institutes the death penalty. It's not morally questionable even if the current morality says death penalty is bad, because the situation is understood. That's just one reason I cannot accept moral absolutism.

The point I'm making is that the new, "immoral" developments CHALLENGE our morality, which is necessarily outdated. And as for those who think morals should not change, ...
:sniper:
... that only means that they're so overgeneralized that they can be applied to give two opposite views, or that they are outdated and you'll discover it the hard way.

Now, morals as such are basically persistent agreements on what's good for "the both of us". All :fluffle: basically. If they no longer serve that role, they're :headbang: really.

im not sure if i would agree with you that the inevitable and arguably desirable decline of society, as you have laid out, is a 'good' thing. However, if I understand your underlying arguement correctly (I am very tired!) I would agree that the world is in desperate need of change.
The current super-fast-paced capatalist society will either burn out economically, burn out in general (run out of natural resources to plunder), or end up in some kind of horrible ultra-consumerism as you described.
As you say, we need less emphasis on money, greed and power; and instead more emphasis on learning, tolerance, love, peace and appreciation for the now & the future. Then again I may be turning Hippie...

edit: welcome to the forum btw

Thank you.

Where is the "hippie out" smiley? :D

Certainly we need to take an aim of peace, love and such. But that doesn't just happen.

Anyway. Man's only resource is adaptability and intelligence, and while that can be hindered, it's endlessly renewable. I don't believe in this "burning out economically". We'll end up plundering ourselves and our fellow human beings, ultimately, as it was described in the earlier post. I do predict that oil and such supplies are mercilessly burned to the end, but that will not destroy mankind, the earth or anything. Humans are better than cockroaches when it comes to surviving. (Actually, I'm the living proof of that. The first time I saw a cockroach in my life was in Turkey at the age of 20.) It's not good that this happens, but no one cares, so it happens.

The world is in a need of change, and fortunately, it's for the better right now. Few really serious developments are underway. But there is a hindrance, and it's the "morality" that demands destruction of innovation. The "profit margin" of technological development - gain minus investment - is razor-thin, and a few strategically placed moralists can do enormous damage. We should embrace the "immoral" new things!

Are you serious? I thought it would be other way around. If you ask me, If I don't get paid overtime, Hell, I'm not going to work till the sunrises but go home and watch the footie.



Are you being sarcastic?

Um I wasn't being sarcastic. I assume you are British because of your use of the term "Footie" but from what I read in the economist I hear you guys work more than anyone in Europe. In the US they are changing overtime laws so like 6 million workers are going to lose overtime pay which totally sucks balls. http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2004-08-23-overtime_x.htm

I really think American society needs to become a lot more lazy and slothful, American workers don't even get paid maternity leave. It is absurd with all our automation and advanced techonolgy we should only have to work like 20 hours a week. Who gives a damn if our economy doesn't grow, we are rich enough already we should just all sleep in till noon go to work at 2pm and go home at 6.