It's as if this can be known in advance. And that the most acceptable reason/justification is provided (terrorists, child abuse prevention) knowing the likely result at the end of the cascade (security cameras, restrictions, de-anonymised internet).
Yes, nowhere has a 'democracy', this is a sales or branding term.
What we have is 'representative democracy' where people choose someone to represent them.
So, hundreds, thousands or even millions choose one person to represent them for 4-5 years. That person decides those people's best interests on what to do for the thousands of decisions that come up.
The representative however does not need to do any of the things they said they would. They can not be held accountable for saying one thing but doing the other (ie lying), except at the end of their term, when they can be voted out. (Giving another the chance to do the same.) They only have to catch the people's aspirations, not deliver on them.
And even on those 'decisions' that the representative does get a chance to opine and vote on, the representative is hamstrung - bills contain so much that no one would agree with. Even if there were well-meaning representatives, they are unable to do anything with bills written by lobbyists in the pay of the companies that the bill is meant to 'restrain' - representatives cannot agree only with the good and leave the bad.
The closest i feel is with the swiss canton system where each region kind of runs its own affairs and the major ones get put to a referendum - so immigration stuff might be on the local regional level , while things that would impact everyone gets a referendum.
Of course theres the issue with voter apathy/fatigue.Hopefully a system where excluding emergency situations elections should select for implementors of already decided laws(via referendum) to reduce the stakes and possibility of corrupting influence once in power(since there would be limited to shaping not introducing new laws).
Unfortunately i doubt most of the current systems are reformable short of a revolution, so well proceed to stumlealong until the wheels fall off.
But, imagine the case where I do not think serving the social structure is good. And I make what sound like cynical jokes about serving the social structure. For those that believe in serving the social structure, that cynicism only had negative connotations. But for those who don't believe all that, the bitter joke might accurately reflect their understanding according to reality.
Let me narrow the scope a bit. I believe that distrust in others is a flaw in human psychology. But it's old and has been stated by the likes of Plato and Dostoyevsky (e.g. "If God did not exist, everything would be acceptable") and countless others that I look up to.
IMO that is a "series-B" type of argument. We know empirically that great things come out of putting trust on the hands of "unlikely candidates". So even if God doesn't exist, ppl are still capable of "good" just because they chose to do so, given the chance.
At the same time, it would be unwise to blindly trust ppl when there are warnings all around. So why not take a tempered approach? Trust a little, then trust a little more. The "applied answer" (e.g. social policies) falls within a spectrum that might change based on circumstance, there's no absolute representation as if we're picking a point in a Y/X axis, only optimal answers (like NP-complete problems).
I wouldn't call the tempered approach "cynical", I would call that "wise".
> I believe that distrust in others is a flaw in human psychology.
It sounds like you've never met a narcissist or psychopath. I hope you never do. I think your tempered approach is fine, but still doesn't work for some types of personality.
> there might be a general belief that the median human is not intelligent
This is to deconstruct the question.
I don't think it's even wrong - a lot of people are doing things, making decisions, living life perfectly normally, successfully even, without applying intelligence in a personal way. Those with socially accredited 'intelligence' would be the worst offenders imo - they do not apply their intelligence personally but simply massage themselves and others towards consensus. Which is ultimately materially beneficial to them - so why not?
For me 'intelligence' would be knowing why you are doing what you are doing without dismissing the question with reference to 'convention', 'consensus', someone/something else. Computers can only do an imitation of this sort of answer. People stand a chance of answering it.
Did you mean it doesn't set its own goals? Or what did you mean by "determine the why" if not a stack trace of its motivations(which is to say, its programming)? Could you give an example of determinimg meaning or value?
Yes, set its own goals. Here's an example - say you wanted to track your spending, you might create a spreadsheet to do so. The spreadsheet won't write itself. If you want, you could perhaps task an ai to monitor and track spending - but it doesn't care. It is the human that cares/feels/values whatever-it-is. Computers are not that type.
Is your position that humans are pretty mechanistic, and simply playing out their programming, like computers? And that they can provide a stacktrace for what they do?
If so, this is what I was getting at with my initial comment. Most people do not apply their intelligence personally - they are simply playing out the goals that we inserted into them (by parents, society). There are alternative possibilities, but it seems that most people's operational procedures and actions are not something they have considered or actively sought.
>Is your position that humans are [...] simply playing out their programming?
Yes, at least it's what I wanted to drill further into.
Boiled down, I'm interested in hearing where "intelligent" people derive their motivations(I'm in agreement that most people are on ["non-intelligent" if you will] auto-pilot most of the time) if not from outside themselves, in your framework.
When does a goal start being my intelligent own goal? Any impetus for something can be traced back to not-yourself: I might decide to start tracking my spending, but that decision doesn't form out of the void. Maybe I value frugality, but I did not create that value in myself. It was instilled in me by experience, or my peers, etc. I see no way for one to "spontaneously" form a motivation, or if I wanted to take it one step further(into the Buddha's territory), I would have to question who, and where, and what this "self" even is.
Here's a question for you. Imagine a child who was well looked after (fed and loved) but didn't go to school for 12+ years. Now imagine the same person who from the age of 5-6 followed the usual path of 12+ years of schooling. Which person do you imagine would be more fully themselves, the more complete expression of whatever was already inside? If the schooled person did a PhD too (so another 6 years) would that help or hinder them from becoming themselves?
To me, the answer is obvious. Inserting thousands of ideas and patterns of thoughts into a person will be unlikely to help them become a true expression of their nature. If you know gardening, the schooled person is more like a trained tree - grown in a way that suits the farmer - the more tied back the tree is, the less free it is.
As I see it, each individual is unique, with a soul. Each is capable of reaching a full expression of itself, by itself. What I also see is that there are many systems that are intentional manipulations, put in place in order to farm individuals at the individual's expense. The more education one receives, the more amenable one is to being 'farmed' according to the terms that were inserted. To me, this is the installation of an unnatural and servile mentality, which once adopted makes the person easy to harness - the person will even think being harnessed and 'in service' is right and good.
The problem is that these principles were not their own. These are like religious beliefs, and unlike principles founded according to personal experience. Received principles will always be unnatural. Acting according to them, is to act in an inauthentic way. However, there is no material reason to address the inauthenticity, as when one looks around, everyone else is doing the same. This results in a self-supporting, collective delusion.
In my view there are answers to what the self is - but 'society' cannot teach you them - it can only fill you with delusions. Imo, you would be on a better footing to forget everything you think you know (this costs you nothing) and do something like apply the scientific method personally - let your personal experiences guide you. Know the difference between 'knowing' because of experience and 'belief' because you were taught it. Even more simply, know thyself.
My position is that we are nothing but our circumstances(I'm assuming that we're in agreement that genetics, pre-birth nutrition etc, are part of these circumstances and not of the 'soul' you're after?), or to put it more directly: We are our circumstances. Our Soul Is That. There is nothing that is "already inside".
The tree does not exist in isolation, separate from the patterns of rain and sunshine that shape its growth. "The separation is an illusion".
I have indeed been on the same path as you of trying to shed delusions and applying the scientific method, and have up to this point found no indication of any "causeless cause" to steer me besides the fundamental is-ness of the universe.
Put bluntly, I believe that if you hadn't started with the assumption of a soul, you would be entirely unable to arrive at the conclusion of a soul by rational methods. And starting by assuming the unproven instead of emptyness is epistemological cheating.
Have you seen babies, or puppies? You would easily be able to confirm for yourself that creatures are born with distinct personalities. Its not just chemistry or nurture.
> "The separation is an illusion"
But you don't really think this. You don't really think you are a tree. You do think you are distinct.
>You would easily be able to confirm for yourself that creatures are born with distinct personalities
Refer to my previous post: "I'm assuming that we're in agreement that genetics, pre-birth nutrition etc, are part of these circumstances and not of the 'soul' you're after?"
That's not some mysterious transcendant soul, that's genetics. Literally the exact same thing as a computer program. Dog breeds are specifically bred(programmed) to exhibit certain character traits, for example.
>You don't really think you are a tree. You do think you are distinct.
You missed the point of the argument. Just as the tree is not separate from its circumstances, neither am I.
You brought up "know thyself" so I assumed we were pulling from a similar corpus and brought up "the illusion of separation" as a mutually familiar point that didn't need much elaboration, sorry about that.
Also, it's not so much that I "think" I am distinct, more that I "believe" it, to put it in the terms you used earlier. I am conditioned to consider certain things "me" and others not.
Really I am no more distinct from the tree than, say, my fingernail is distinct from my nosebone. They belong to the same Individual.
> Dog breeds are specifically bred(programmed) to exhibit certain character traits, for example.
And yet all dogs have their own unique characters, no? They are not the same individual, right?
> You brought up "know thyself" so I assumed we were pulling from a similar corpus and brought up "the illusion of separation" as a mutually familiar point that didn't need much elaboration, sorry about that.
I don't know what corpus you refer to. Please explain if you like. I'm not basing what I'm saying on a corpus - of course I've read books, but I am giving you my personal view on things.
> Also, it's not so much that I "think" I am distinct, more that I "believe" it, to put it in the terms you used earlier. I am conditioned to consider certain things "me" and others not.
I have heard this sort of (nondual) thinking before and completely dispute it. I personally cannot access anyone else's mind or body, I haven't no idea what you are thinking. I can only pretend to be doing this. There is a self, we live it continuously. There are times when we are fully present, where we are so in the immediate experience, that we can move out of linguistic/common concepts perhaps, but this is still within oneself.
For me, it is more that each person is a world in their own right, rather than "us" all being in the same universe. We simply do not have the level of interconnectivity you believe is there, when you say you are the tree or me. Furthermore, it really is very hard to see the point you are making when we have a disagreement - plainly there is a distinction.
You're either outright refusing or unable to see the point I've been making about the breeds: The traits are physically programmed in, whether individual or familial, not "already inside" the individual's soul. You aren't tracking that part of our conversation properly.
On the "corpus" point: It's not about not "giving my personal view", it's about drawing from a shared lexicon, of terminology, of lenses through which to view and analyze That Which We Are Talking About. My "home" in this respect is mostly in Hindu Yoga, (Zen) Buddhism and Daoism. You will find in those corpus-es(corpi?) essentially the exact conversation we're having right now, and find addressed the questions you have, in a wonderful plethora of different ways. Any other religion's mystic branch, or western occultism or alchemy similarly. If you want a specific recommendation for an entry-point, I could recommend giving the Bhagavad Gita a shot and seeing if you "vibe" with the way it explains things. If you skip the (usually) included commentary and only read the core translation, it ought to be a fairly quick read.
The nonduality point: Your body cannot access others' experience any more than my fingernail can access that of my nosebone, sure. But again, that does not mean they aren't part of the same organism. The fingernail and the nosebone do not make independent choices, the choice is made for them by the meta-organism(my body). Similarly, the argumentation might go, the tree and I do not make independent choices, but are governed by the same meta-organism(Nature, if you will, or perhaps "The Universe", but I suspect that term will turn you off since it might evoke the image of new-age-hippy woowoo).
I'm saying that if you insist that the body/mind/whatever you currently refer to as "you" is your "Self", you are taking "the fingernail" to be your Self instead of "the whole person". "Plainly there is a distinction", yes. But at the same time, there is also an underlying interconnectivity.
>Furthermore, it really is very hard to see the point you are making when we have a disagreement
That is perhaps the wisest thing either of us is going to say in this conversation. This format does not serve high-effort posting very well, I know I'm not doing the best I could be.
Perhaps we'd shelve this discussion for now? If you care to continue more deeply, you could shoot me an email at any point in the future(see my profile), and I again heartily recommend the Bhagavad Gita. Or perhaps, if you're more rational-thinking oriented, you might enjoy(the even shorter) Yogasutras of Patanjali. Or have you checked out Yudkowski's "Sequences"[1]? That one's completely down-to-eath, no spiritual terminology or metaphors (or non-dualism I'm pretty sure!), and covers a lot of the same ground my eastern background does.
> You're either outright refusing or unable to see the point I've been making about the breeds: The traits are physically programmed in, whether individual or familial, not "already inside" the individual's soul. You aren't tracking that part of our conversation properly.
I don't dispute traits. But the traits idea fails to address the unique characteristics of each dog.
It seems I'm not tracking the things you want me to track, terminology, science, traits. But then, as I said in the first place:
> For me 'intelligence' would be knowing why you are doing what you are doing without dismissing the question with reference to
'convention', 'consensus', someone/something else.
I can tell you are sincere with your investigations, but I can't help wondering whether direct observations of reality, the development of a personal outlook on reality, use personal experience as primary source, is ultimately more valuable than familiarity with a corpus. But then I would say that. And you would disagree.
Again, you are not getting what I was saying about the corpus. I am pulling from a vocabulary to express my personal outlook from personal experience, from direct observation.
It's not either/or. You are the one completely rejecting half of all power-of-truth-finding available to you, and calling it intelligent?
I'm explaining mathematics to you and you're complaining that I'm leaning on centuries of established proofs instead of, what, inventing a new lexicon just for talking to you?
I am giving up. You are engaging with the points in your head instead of those on the page.
> Australia’s native flora and fauna regenerates and even thrives after burns; in fact, some seeds will only germinate after a fire.
Indeed. As is the case in most places where there are wildfires. I suppose using the word "devastation" is appropriate - fires create a radical change in the local environment - but the change is a necessary one for the local flora and fauna.
Perhaps because humans like things to stay the same, and perhaps because these sorts of natural, inevitable changes aren't that common - most of us don't regularly see fires in our local environment - we label this change in an emotive way: devastating, despite the necessity of the thing.
> Perhaps because humans like things to stay the same, and perhaps because these sorts of natural, inevitable changes aren't that common - most of us don't regularly see fires in our local environment - we label this change in an emotive way: devastating, despite the necessity of the thing.
The problem is different IMHO. Humans have effectively terraformed our surroundings. We (i.e. everyone but the Romans where they had aqueducts) used to build away from forests (or, where necessary, tear down the forests) for as long as we didn't have motorized fire pumps, because it was simply too dangerous to build too near to forests.
Nowadays? Land has gotten scarce, the only place where one still can get land is land that wasn't zoned for residential developments. And now that a lot of this land very close to forest boundaries has been settled, we routinely see devastation from forest fires.
And, specifically to the US, their building style aka wood frames and cardboard makes the situation worse. Here in Europe, we had devastating fires wipe out entire city blocks because embers flying around set other buildings ablaze in the long-distant past - but ever since a lot of our buildings were made out of brick and later on cement, it's rare to see buildings on fire from a forest fire. Even in Croatia, where forest fires are a sad routine every summer (mostly from morons with cigarettes or glowing-hot DPFs parking illegally on dried out bush) and we got a looooot of questionably-legal settlement going on, it's rare that houses catch fire simply because the structure is so much more resilient.
There is an argument, perhaps no longer PC, that the indigenous population used fire to hunt, and so burnt off regularly. Fires these days are indeed devastating because we try to stop them. Established eucalyptus trees also thrive after a scrub fire; a "devastating" fire kills them.
Just want to reassure you that is not at all 'no longer PC'. If anything, the practice was banned by the coloniser - only for it more recently reintroduced.
> Not in the literal sense (which would semantically impossible)
Why is it impossible the humans are not domesticated? Are you making a point about language?
I think this is certainly true. People in cities, where there are high amounts of people around act differently when they are in a small village or in nature with fewer or no people around.
Do you realise we have never had 'democracy' - we have 'representative democracy', a totally different thing. Thousands, perhaps millions of people, vote once every 4-5 years for one person to represent them on thousands of governmental decisions. That person is under no constraints to do what they said to gain your vote either - they can do the exact opposite with no repercussion.
Voting as we have it, is a highly abstract, meta "democracy", with 'the will of the people' effecting a meaningless level of force on the tiller. As per the design.
At least in the US, each person has a lot more than one representative they vote for, with multiple levels of government with different intended scopes. As much as that doesn't completely eliminate the problems you describe, I'd argue that that focus on only the first election listed in the ballot at the expense of the others is one of the (many) causes of how we ended in the state we are today. It's a lot easier for someone to be elected to represent you while ignoring your interests if you don't even know or care about the fact that they're running. If people cared more about local elections (and even federal elections other than for president), there would be at least some increase in pressure for legislative bodies to respond to the will of the people. Without that, the issue isn't even that they're going the opposite of what the people who voted for them want, but the the number of people who voted for them (or even for the candidates they're running against) aren't anywhere close to representative proportion of the population. We don't really know if representative democracy would approximate actual democracy because the people they're representing aren't the full population, but the small segment of politically active ones.
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