26 Sep 2012, 10:11 pm
26 Sep 2012, 10:54 pm
Kraichgauer
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Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 49,751
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.
27 Sep 2012, 3:00 am
27 Sep 2012, 4:30 am
27 Sep 2012, 4:34 am
27 Sep 2012, 4:35 am
27 Sep 2012, 4:37 am
27 Sep 2012, 8:19 am
27 Sep 2012, 9:43 am
27 Sep 2012, 11:16 am
Robdemanc, your post and most of the responses to it put the fire back in my heart 
The turn of the millennium was the best of times and the worst of times in the west - Progress had made all of us monsters of vulnerability (i.e. the absence of any recognisable shade of the armoury that constitutes a living creature), aspies often more rather than less so, although in the absence of a social layer of our foundational being, there is atleast less psychic material within us to be vulnerable.
Our spirit-eroding 'civilisation' aside, it seems to me that humans and great apes are particularly violent for one very good reason - By nature, our overdeveloped mind-brains cannot handle the humiliation of defeat with the breezy nonchalance that other animals seem to greet it with, so when we do fight, we tend to fight to the death, even if words are our only weapon.
Survivors as we all are, though, my own example is telling - When it became clear to me that something was still 'wrong' with me -a mismatch between my personality and my autism which caused me, uniquely (I want to emphasise), to develop a tennis-ball-sized brain tumour between the ages of 28 and 32- after I'd apparently patched myself up in my later teens, I became interested in spirituality and became a Buddhist, and for most of the time since then, I've seen no alternative but eons in Hell as a consequence of my suicide. Further, I started taking antidepressants after my AS diagnosis at 20, which numbed my mind until I felt I'd come to terms with my autism enough to 'taper' off, which I recently managed - although I'm now dealing with post-operative epilepsy.
Andrew Marr, an economist by training I believe, in the recent 1'st episode of BBC 'History of The World'
dochttp://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode ... _Survival/
put it more simply, suggesting (with good evidence) that every problem humans have dedicated themselves to solving throws up a host of new ones as a direct consequence of its being solved. The Sentinelese -the world's last remaining uncontacted hunter-gatherers- are more fortunate than us, not because they are less 'conformist', Tallyman, but because they have more direct control over their means of survival - If you live 'in the wild' you conform to the simple needs of your immediate physical environment or die, although positive adaptations are likely to have a quicker payoff in that no-one needs to 'vet' your new and clearly-more-successful way of hunting a prey animal, for instance.
Sometimes I'm happy to come across as an internet nut if I feel like 'venting', although this whole thread has an interestingly Nietzschean tone to it. The 'sane' point buried beneath my ravings here, though, has already been hinted at:
It is as though nowadays we have reached a point where our survival tactics have gone to the extreme and we are have basically dug ourselves into a hole. If our technology, civilizations disappeared suddenly most humans would not stand a chance.
- All of us in the west -especially non-Americans- are poorly adapted to the business of physical survival, and any neurotic brooding on the subject merely confirms this truth.Not only would we not have had time for negativity, but with proper coming-of-age rituals for boys and so on, we'd never have allowed our minds to become stagnant enough to entertain anything that might cause negative feelings. The positive point to take from this thread must be that we would not have been unhappy in the absence of civilisation.
Oodain
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Joined: 30 Jan 2011
Age: 36
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Location: in my own little tamarillo jungle,
27 Sep 2012, 11:30 am
The turn of the millennium was the best of times and the worst of times in the west - Progress had made all of us monsters of vulnerability (i.e. the absence of any recognisable shade of the armoury that constitutes a living creature), aspies often more rather than less so, although in the absence of a social layer of our foundational being, there is atleast less psychic material within us to be vulnerable.
Our spirit-eroding 'civilisation' aside, it seems to me that humans and great apes are particularly violent for one very good reason - By nature, our overdeveloped mind-brains cannot handle the humiliation of defeat with the breezy nonchalance that other animals seem to greet it with, so when we do fight, we tend to fight to the death, even if words are our only weapon.
Survivors as we all are, though, my own example is telling - When it became clear to me that something was still 'wrong' with me -a mismatch between my personality and my autism which caused me, uniquely (I want to emphasise), to develop a tennis-ball-sized brain tumour between the ages of 28 and 32- after I'd apparently patched myself up in my later teens, I became interested in spirituality and became a Buddhist, and for most of the time since then, I've seen no alternative but eons in Hell as a consequence of my suicide. Further, I started taking antidepressants after my AS diagnosis at 20, which numbed my mind until I felt I'd come to terms with my autism enough to 'taper' off, which I recently managed - although I'm now dealing with post-operative epilepsy.
Andrew Marr, an economist by training I believe, in the recent 1'st episode of BBC 'History of The World'
dochttp://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode ... _Survival/
put it more simply, suggesting (with good evidence) that every problem humans have dedicated themselves to solving throws up a host of new ones as a direct consequence of its being solved. The Sentinelese -the world's last remaining uncontacted hunter-gatherers- are more fortunate than us, not because they are less 'conformist', Tallyman, but because they have more direct control over their means of survival - If you live 'in the wild' you conform to the needs of your physical environment or die, although positive adaptations are likely to have a quicker payoff in that no-one needs to 'vet' your new and clearly-more-successful way of hunting a prey animal, for instance.
Sometimes I'm happy to come across as an internet nut, although this whole thread has an interestingly Nietzschean tone to it. But the 'sane' point buried beneath my ravings here has already been hinted at - All of us in the west -especially non-Americans- are poorly adapted to the business of physical survival, and any neurotic brooding on the subject merely confirms this truth. As another response put it:
It is as though nowadays we have reached a point where our survival tactics have gone to the extreme and we are have basically dug ourselves into a hole. If our technology, civilizations disappeared suddenly most humans would not stand a chance.
Not only would we not have had the time, but with proper coming-of-age rituals for boys and so on, we'd never have allowed our minds to become stagnant enough to entertain anything that cause of negative feelings. The positive point to take from this thread must be that we would have been happy -or atleast emotionally muted- without civilisation.
aha
so there are no people in the west capable of physical survival?, wrong, plenty, happens all the time, even a decent amount of people that live like it today,
i think these issues have far more to do with any one individual and their perspective than any objective society, a society will shape individuals and such indirectly shape how a person is affected by the issues they face in life, that however is not to say that the society is the direct causal reason for it happening.
you still find plenty of people that enjoy old crafts, hell you find schools that teach them, i learned to create a longbow from scratch as well as knife smithing and metal casting, all before the age of 16, in school.
i will agree thatt here is a subset that is affected to the degree owhere they seem almost like zombies, stuck in a loop of infinite absurdity all to the sound of societies drum
27 Sep 2012, 12:18 pm
27 Sep 2012, 12:25 pm
There are occasionally documentaries of such tribes on TV who have supposedly never even seen a white man and lead primitive lives, most of them naked or only with a loin cloth passing their time hunting in the forests with bows arrows and blowpipes... yet their leader proudly wears a Nike cap.
27 Sep 2012, 2:28 pm
27 Sep 2012, 2:35 pm
The positive point to take from this thread must be that we would not have been unhappy in the absence of civilisation.
I am glad I have put fire in your heart.
Yes I agree that it is probably the modern world that makes a lot of people miserable. But also the strong sense that most of us are not in control, but are controlled. Animals do not experience this except in those last few minutes where a predator has just caught them.
Some else mentioned ants or bees, and I believe that is where humanity is heading. Its as though as a species we have become obsessed with social control.
27 Sep 2012, 3:23 pm
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