Why is the world as messed up as it is?

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Why is the world as messed up as it is? (pick the major issue as all might be valid but please aim for a dominant explanation)

Institutional arrangements (capitalism, corporations, etc)	19%	[ 14 ]
The moral nature of the people in power	7%	[ 5 ]
The flawed moral nature of people	8%	[ 6 ]
The flawed nature of people PERIOD	37%	[ 28 ]
The inability of rules and institutions to ever fully deal with underlying realities	1%	[ 1 ]
Lacking resources to address human problems	1%	[ 1 ]
Lacking knowledge at the present on the ideal way to handle problems	4%	[ 3 ]
Supernatural forces	3%	[ 2 ]
The world isn't that messed up.	8%	[ 6 ]
Other	11%	[ 8 ]
Let me see the results	1%	[ 1 ]

Total votes : 75

Sand
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08 Apr 2010, 12:10 am

techstepgenr8tion wrote:

Sand wrote:

Well, the best place to hide out is in the warm loving embrace of personal growth and achievement. If you haven't devised a way of transporting the human 'essence' into a machine without ultimately erasing the person and simply saving their memories on a disc - don't worry, that's a tall order. In the meantime though, I really doubt we'll be blowing ourselves off the map or polluting, populating ourselves out of existence, or polluting ourselves of the map.

I'm not impressed with your doubts.

Quote:

I guess I just don't believe in losing my head over what I can't control. We've had atom bombs for over seventy years now and have managed well enough so far, it seems like there are enough concientious people out there - in power even - who get the concept that this isn't a good idea. Population - the UN has three estimates, all of them show global population peaking around 2050 and falling from there, the biggest concern will that number be too much? We have enough food to go around and unless we're farting methane - again, I'm not too worried. Global warming - companies are working on green technology regardless of whether its a hoax or not because efficiency is simply another mark of quality for the consumer, and if devastating our economic landscape won't be enough to stop the next ice age - great, we'll dump a bunch of salt by greenland, fire off the sulfate rockets, and see how long we can stay it off.

The tides of history are what they are though. My only hope is to simply keep my wits through all of it. I don't control the world, I can't, thus I can only do what I can from my own sphere and hope I'm making a better place within my own sphere of existence.

I wish you'd get your goddamn quotes right. Putting your words in my mouth makes me gag. Your confidence in the control of free floating atom bombs is somewhere down there in the basement of perceptive observation.

iamnotaparakeet
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08 Apr 2010, 2:02 am

Everybody thinks that they are right about everything and nobody thinks that they are wrong about anything. The ones who claim to admit their wrong about some random thing view themselves with pride even more than those who never admit to being wrong even about a single thing.

Sand
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08 Apr 2010, 3:32 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Perhaps this is not the place for confessing your sins.

techstepgenr8tion
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08 Apr 2010, 6:49 am

Sand wrote:

Lol, that's usually a trick your better at - quoting what I said and sandwiching your words somewhere up between the paragraphs - takes me a while to find some of your responses.

On the other hand what's a better way of looking at it? Go emo and cut myself every time I think about these things? Enough people in the world understand the risks of this sort of thing that there's at least somewhat of a bulwark against it. Not saying it'll last forever or that I won't see another nuclear war incident or even nuclear terrorism in my lifetime, just that for as much as we've got out there - I'm just impressed and somewhat inspired that we haven't blown ourselves off the map already, for as idiotic as human beings are we've been unnaturally lucky in this regard.

SilverStar
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08 Apr 2010, 4:53 pm

JonPlatt wrote:

The world is as messed up as it is because humans have developed far, far more quickly than they have evolved. We haven't evolved to deal with modern technology and globalization. We have taken over an entire planet that we are not fit to deal with or look after. We may have some idea of what we should do to make the world a better place, but we haven't evolved the motivation to give up our time and money for global things. Nature basically wants us to live just like all the other species, not in Western and other modern developed cultures. But we can't go back to living like all the other species because we've got so used to modern life.

This idea I agree with. I know the reason the U.S. is so screwed up right now, is because the majority of people are either ignorant, selfish, or greedy, and they don't give a crap about the environment. The economic collapse, high energy prices, and screwed up weather, is the universe's way of forcing us to change our ways.

Sand
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11 Apr 2010, 9:47 am

SilverStar wrote:

JonPlatt wrote:

Have no fear. Nature has its ways. Humanity will either have to shape up or be destroyed. Nature has no mercy.

you_are_what_you_is
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11 Apr 2010, 9:56 am

There are a multitude of reasons.

I'm optimistic, though. The world is better now than it was a few thousand years ago, and I suspect the trend will continue.

Sand
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11 Apr 2010, 10:09 am

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

There are a multitude of reasons.

I'm optimistic, though. The world is better now than it was a few thousand years ago, and I suspect the trend will continue.

That's not a point of view appreciated by whales, elephants, bisons, the dodo or the passenger pigeon.

you_are_what_you_is
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11 Apr 2010, 10:26 am

Sand wrote:

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

There are a multitude of reasons.

I'm optimistic, though. The world is better now than it was a few thousand years ago, and I suspect the trend will continue.

That's not a point of view appreciated by whales, elephants, bisons, the dodo or the passenger pigeon.

It's also not a point of view that would have been appreciated by the third world, until fairly recently.

These days we've also started expanding our considerations to other species. In a hundred years or so, we will probably be treating them much better, too.

Janissy
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11 Apr 2010, 1:51 pm

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

Sand wrote:

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

There are a multitude of reasons.

I'm optimistic, though. The world is better now than it was a few thousand years ago, and I suspect the trend will continue.

That's not a point of view appreciated by whales, elephants, bisons, the dodo or the passenger pigeon.

It's also not a point of view that would have been appreciated by the third world, until fairly recently.

.

I think the people living in the 3rd world were a lot better off a few thousand years ago than they are now. Back then they had to contend with disease and an unpredictable food supply, with war from time to time. Now they have to contend with disease, an unpredictable food supply, ecological poisoning, refugee camps, dictatorships, and in some quarters a state of war which literally never ends. They were better off before.

Sand
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11 Apr 2010, 1:52 pm

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

Sand wrote:

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

There are a multitude of reasons.

I'm optimistic, though. The world is better now than it was a few thousand years ago, and I suspect the trend will continue.

That's not a point of view appreciated by whales, elephants, bisons, the dodo or the passenger pigeon.

Considering the way things are going, in a century there won't be anything to treat better.

you_are_what_you_is
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11 Apr 2010, 8:54 pm

Janissy wrote:

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

Sand wrote:

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

There are a multitude of reasons.

I'm optimistic, though. The world is better now than it was a few thousand years ago, and I suspect the trend will continue.

That's not a point of view appreciated by whales, elephants, bisons, the dodo or the passenger pigeon.

It's also not a point of view that would have been appreciated by the third world, until fairly recently.

.

Violence has been declining in the developed world for centuries; as the third world becomes more developed, we will hopefully see a similar trend. One also then has to consider the other positive goods such as better medical care and better education, two things which developing countries are already benefitting greatly from. I mean, I'm not saying that it's a paradise, or even particularly good. But it never has been.

you_are_what_you_is
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11 Apr 2010, 8:57 pm

Sand wrote:

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

Sand wrote:

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

There are a multitude of reasons.

I'm optimistic, though. The world is better now than it was a few thousand years ago, and I suspect the trend will continue.

That's not a point of view appreciated by whales, elephants, bisons, the dodo or the passenger pigeon.

Considering the way things are going, in a century there won't be anything to treat better.

The main existential risk at the moment is climate change. If we can develop more environmentally friendly technology, and if we can also adapt to the changes which are going to come anyway, because of the damage that's already been done, then we can look forward to a wonderful future. I think we can do both those things.

zer0netgain
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12 Apr 2010, 7:58 am

I say it's the flawed nature of people...period.

A psychologist told me this when I made the comment that children were rotten little bits of evil.

He laughed because he spent his early years working with children, and his observations confirmed what my opinion was.

Simply put, short of the upbringing/discipline that parents and society give kids, they would turn into feral monsters on their own.

All the problems of society can be traced to a single word....LUST.

Man lusts for many things. Food, drink, money, power, sex, etc. and we find ways (both civilized and primitive) to satisfy those lusts.

If we are enlightened, we respect that our lusts can only be satisfied so long as they don't victimize others. However, many people (both civilized and primitive) see no reason why THEY should have to curtail THEIR lusts and they find ways (both supposedly civilized and primitive) to take from others until they satisfy their lusts.

Sand
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12 Apr 2010, 8:08 am

zer0netgain wrote:

Lust is a prejudicial term. If a person needs food and clothing and a place to sleep I would hardly term a need for those basic necessities as lust.

zer0netgain
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13 Apr 2010, 6:45 am

Sand wrote:

Lust is a prejudicial term. If a person needs food and clothing and a place to sleep I would hardly term a need for those basic necessities as lust.

Prejudicial, but accurate.

Lust is want in excess of need. You need your "daily bread" but if you demand champagne and caviar, that's lust.

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