Re: Mind's Eye Towards a modern morality

People like escapes from reality. :-)

Hope you are feeling better, James.

On May 26, 8:41 pm, James <ashkas...@gmail.com> wrote:
> People like events, circuses, festivities, spring break and such, I
> don't know what else to say right now. Funny, the movie Saved with that
> McCaulay Caulkin (misspelt) comes to mind, Jay & Silent Bob, or George
> Carlin. A sense of humor is handy with some characters, I caricature
> myself regularly! :p
>
> Coming down with something ill so brain no-worky ATM.
>
> On 5/26/2012 3:31 AM, Allan H wrote:
>
>
>
> > James so finding a sinkhole, now apparently that is very easy, after
> > watching Clare Prophet, the Rev. Moon, the new kid Cohen, the "Hour of
> > Power" and many other religious ministries of great variety you can see
> > they develop sink holes for money with the other end a lavish life style.
>
> > You are right we need to work for the betterment of mankind. The
> > emphasis needs to be on the poor but politics often gets I'm the way.
> > Oddly enough it can be circumvented peacefully.
> > Allan
>
> > On May 25, 2012 11:38 PM, "James" <ashkas...@gmail.com
> > <mailto:ashkas...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> >     I think one aspect to consider is what types of thinking it would
> >     take to build up an infrastructure of citizenry with a more
> >     scientific world view, and what that even means (hopefully more
> >     rational). This comes with some challenges in assimilation and
> >     integration, what entry points are there, is there even interest (or
> >     is it a funding sinkhole).  And ethically, should we develop
> >     defenses to teach to our young for identifying and combating faulty
> >     reasoning and logic, what forms this might take. Maybe through
> >     introducing a broad immersion of diverse concepts they will
> >     self-immunize and make the changes generationally (and is that
> >     process fast enough for current/future challenges) if we just
> >     concentrate more on exceptional qualitative development. It takes
> >     time and attention, people are overworked and full of anxiety.
>
> >     I was trying to wrap my head around a challenge between technology
> >     and culture a little while back that involved high performance
> >     materials like stainless steel, high pressure steam and platinum
> >     plated ceramics and getting these things into the hands of your
> >     average third world farming community or poorer. Then it hit me,
> >     people don't need a source of gadgets, universities, a western way
> >     of life, industries and all that to benefit from modern knowledge,
> >     all that is necessary is an accessible vehicle, a friend, neighbor,
> >     or community. A few minutes later I had drafted an integrated energy
> >     refinement system using natural resources like clay, wood, soil, and
> >     rock to produce clean, high efficiency centralised heating with
> >     waste byproduct applications for sterile drinking water, safe human
> >     waste processing, personal/laundry cleaning chemicals and medicinal
> >     applications. It's gathering dust somewhere around here in the form
> >     of a scribble and a few notes.
>
> >     An accessible vehicle for the modern layman might be in how
> >     scientific approaches can be used to refine, redirect redefine and
> >     optimize our ends and means- and the Idols need to be outed as ill
> >     defined means that set an unrealistically low bar for problem
> >     solving capacity. That is one emphasis for science at the inroad of
> >     ethos, what potential could we released by directing a portion of
> >     energy toward actually solving problems and making solutions
> >     accessible? I wonder.
>
> >     Just a couple thoughts while trying to find that voice I put down
> >     somewhere. ;-)
>
> >     On 5/18/2012 12:13 AM, archytas wrote:
>
> >         My stance towards most moralising is one of incredulity, yet I'm a
> >         moraliser and believe most of our problems lie in our lack of
> >         personal
> >         and collective morality.  Economics as our political and business
> >         class practice it is fundamentally immoral against a scientific
> >         world-
> >         view,  My view of science is that it is full of values and the
> >         notion
> >         of it as value-free is a total and totalising dud.  Only lay people
> >         with no experience of doing science hold the "value-free" notion of
> >         science.
>
> >         You can explore some of the moral issues arising in modern
> >         science in
> >         a lengthy book review at London Review of Books -
> >        http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n10/__malcolm-bull/what-is-the-__rational-re...
> >         <http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n10/malcolm-bull/what-is-the-rational-response>.
> >         The book's topic is climate change.
>
> >         Coming up to 60 I regard the world as a abject failure against the
> >         promises I thought were being made in politics.  I'm a
> >         world-weary old
> >         fart now, tending to see the generations coming up as narcissist
> >         wastrels who don't know what hard work is (etc.) though I think the
> >         blame is ours, not theirs.  I think the problem is our attitude
> >         towards morality.  The tendency in history is to focus on
> >         religion for
> >         moral advice - this is utterly corrupt and we have forgotten
> >         that much
> >         religious morality is actually a reaction against unfairness and the
> >         wicked control of our lives by the rich.  It is this latter factor
> >         that is repeating itself.
>
> >         Much moralising concerns sex.  This all largely based in old fables
> >         for population control we can still find in primitive societies such
> >         as 'sperm control by fellatio' (Sambians) and non-penetrative youth
> >         sex (Kikuyu) etc. - and stuff like 'the silver ring thing'.  The
> >         modern issue is population control and that we can achieve this
> >         without sexual moralising - the moral issues are about quality of
> >         life, women as other than child-bearing vessels and so on.  We have
> >         failed almost entirely except in developed countries - to such an
> >         extent the world population has trebled in my lifetime despite
> >         economic factors driving down birth-rates in developed countries
> >         without the kind of restrictions such as China enforced.
>
> >         We are still at war.
>
> >         Our economics is still based in "growth" and "consumption" and
> >         notions
> >         human beings should work hard - when in fact the amount of work we
> >         need to do probably equates to 3 days a week for 6 months of a year.
> >         75% of GDP is in services and only 6% in really hard work like
> >         agriculture.  We could have a great deal more through doing less and
> >         doing what we do with more regard for conservation and very
> >         different
> >         scientific advance.  My view is it's immoral that we won't take
> >         responsibility for this and review our failures.  I believe this
> >         failure inhibits our spiritual growth and renders us simply animal.
>
> >         Human life may be much less than I value it at and just a
> >         purposeless
> >         farce.  The first step in a new attitude towards morality is to
> >         consider living with a scientific world-view.  The implications of
> >         this are complex and probably entail shaking ourselves from a false-
> >         consciousness to be able to see what is being done in our name.  We
> >         need a modern morality not based in the creation of fear and
> >         demons to
> >         enforce it, or the feeble existential view of the individual.
> >           We are
> >         social animals and need to get back to some basics developed with
> >         modern knowledge, not in past religious and empire disasters.
>
> >         Religion has a role in this in my view - religion we might recapture
> >         from sensible history - I'd recommend David Graeber's 'Debt: the
> >         first
> >         5000 years' as a read here.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -