Rogue Keeper on 29/2/2008 at 11:01
How about you try to study lives of famous altruists and meet more of them in real life, try to know them better?
But if idealism is a meaningless abstraction to you, a waste of time and consideration... yes, we have hit a dead end.
Vivian on 29/2/2008 at 11:04
Ok, name two and I'll give it a shot.
Rogue Keeper on 29/2/2008 at 12:24
Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa.
Funny?
Wait, you meant some you can meet in real life.
Bill Gates?
Vivian on 29/2/2008 at 12:45
Ok, I'll read up, but my first thought is that Mother Teresa probably acted out of belief in some kind of religious negotiation (helping out in this life = heaven in the next), as well as getting a lot of satisfaction out of improving other peoples lot. You're not serious about Bill Gates.
Rogue Keeper on 29/2/2008 at 12:58
Actually I am! To be fair to many rich people, it's better to create a fundation than just slack and waste all money on expensive vacations, parties and buying expensive things.
Many Christians believe that if they do good, their journey to heaven will be easier, but not too many have such guts to dedicate their life to work with poverty and dirt with their own hands. You can take idealism as another kind of faith of this sort. We need some belief, motivation, set of values to do good, right. Everytime we judge somebody doing good, we often are second-guessing them. But we can't really get into their heads - we can't see to what extent they are doing good just for the goodness' sake. There is no schematic psychological equation telling you that every person dedicated to charity or pursuit of peace is or was necessarily a happy camper.
37637598 on 29/2/2008 at 16:33
Quote Posted by BR796164
But who's just WAITING? You can create basis for peace merely by spreading positive thoughts that people and groups should be nice to each other and try to solve disputes with a rational debate, diplomatically respecting each other's position. You can save helluva lot ammunition and blood this way.
What am I doing for support of world peace in practical life, if somebody wants to know? I'm in asylum system for refugees. And along that, I'm spreading my libertarian socialist pacifist bullshit, of course.
On the other end we have altruism-denying nihilism, emerging from weakness of human spirit, frustration, resignation and desperation. Not that I don't have such moments. But I have at least some hope for a better future, not my future, everyone's future. What have you, my esteemed, permanently cynical critics? Just your gorgeous ignorance. Well I'd better be unhappy than ignorant if I had to choose.
I was being raised poor (lower mid class to be precise), sometimes I control my emotions to the point some think I'm not a normal human, and I learned different lessons than you. Isn't the world marvelous?
Also 37637598, don't take everything above to be meant personally, I just forgot to control my emotions a bit and spoke out some generalizations... nasty things these emotions, aint'they. :cheeky:
If I took it personally, I would be replying out of defense rather than reason. So I do not :) .
I don't see myself as being ignorant, I take all of the facts I know and then make an educated opinion. If I learn something new, I may change my opinion. My opinion on world peace is that it will never exist for more than a day. It is in human nature to be greedy as it is in most all mammals, this greed will always take its toll on people with weak minds. There will always be parents neglecting their children's needs in their most crucial years of growing up and learning, there will always be countries fighting over land which will only get worse as the free land space decreases, there will always be tree-huggers fighting with whoever is taking and altering the land, there will always be old farm folk fighting and whining about sub-divisions, there will always be arguments amongst countries based on money which since the beginning of time have been settled with bullets/swords/whips and death.
That said as my opinion, I believe what you are doing is great and it gives some people hope that might be false hope, might not, but it's still a good thing and makes an impact on many peoples lives. Does it have an impact on world peace? Being on a global scale? I don't think so.
Even if for one day the whole world was in peace, human nature would kick in and someone would be greedy and piss someone else off which would make them try to play an evil prank on that person which would back-fire on an innocent person which would piss that person off making them go home and beat their significant other causing people to judge and make gossip behind their backs which would lead to rumors which would make people mad which would break the peace.
When I think about it, peace is slowly falling under a large system which works in everyone's benefit, but will always be controlled by something non-peaceful. It takes evil actions to determine peace, or it would not exist so... I'm rambling now.
I bet i was raised poorer than anyone here!:joke: Maybe we could hold a contest!
Rogue Keeper on 29/2/2008 at 17:01
Interesting. But you know that human nature does develop as the evolution proceeds. Our psyche is much more sophisticated than psyche of a Cro-Magnon. Human nature develops very slowly, but it does. It may sound too post-humanist to some... I don't even know if our successors will be 'humans' as we understand it. What worries me is that the flaws in our nature and stupidity eventually won't give that development a chance - but it should be nearly a duty of every good-minded person today that it won't happen. What's in the hands of the nature or higher forces of the universe may be beyond our concern. But humanity is mature enough to know it should develop itself ethically - or to show the broken ones a better way. 'Vanitas vanitatum' baroque folks would stress. But hey, we still live and look forward, ain't we.
Vivian on 29/2/2008 at 17:04
Quote:
Interesting. But you know that human nature does develop as the evolution proceeds. Our psyche is much more sophisticated than psyche of a Cro-Magnon.
No offence, but how the fuck do you know that? Cro Magnon
H.sapiens had if anything a slighter
bigger head than us, and there is no way of really telling what their psyche was like. Unless you believe that you can tell that by looking at pots, like one of my old tutors. They painted on caves, they made ornaments, they may have been
culturally backwards compared to us but cultural sophistication and psychological sophistication are not neccessarily the same thing.
Rogue Keeper on 29/2/2008 at 17:37
I'm nearly sure that intelligence, cultural sophistication and psychological sophistication are developing hand-in-hand. Hard to say what can develop faster, but one sooner or later slows down without the other not developing itself. What IQ you estimate for an average Cro-Magnon? Athough they presented similar or even bigger cranial capacity as today's humans, on the average they seemed to posses a lower average IQ, as measured by Cro-Magnonian standards. Isn't intelligence dependant more on the complexity of brain structure rather than size of the skull? Their intelligence was enough for primitive drawings and even some tribal music, but would they understand depths of modern times civilization - if one was born right now, would you be able to teach one to understand the complexity of our art, not talking about natural sciences, distinguish nuances and patterns in various philosophic schools of thought, concept of ethos - how to understand the self? I think the best success you would achieve would be something like a more hairy Forrest Gump. And that's maybe better for his good.
Vivian on 29/2/2008 at 18:21
Quote Posted by BR796164
on the average they seemed to posses a lower average IQ, as measured by Cro-Magnonian standards.
Stop talking balls.
Anyway, Cro-magnon man is the same species as us (it was only 10,000 years ago or so), not some hairy fucking beast-man. Anatomically indistinguishable, maybe slightly different to modern Europeans, but certainly within the current range of human variability. I would imagine that if you brought a child from that era up in modern times they would have little difficulty fitting in, yes. It would be like bringing up a child from one of those New Guinea tribes that were using Neolithic tech a few years ago in London - you'd still get a little smart-arse listening to music via his speakerphone on the bus.
