What is the aspiration of modern civilisation?

NVP

NVP

NVP

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We all know what makes the world go round, but is it a fight against natural instinct? Is the eternal happiness of a wealthy life in the freedom of Monaco trumped by an instinctive urge to meditate peacefully in the mountains of Kathmandu?


Perhaps if we turned our civilisation more towards positive, natural behaviour we would encounter less negative scenarios, individual through to global.

Does a happy medium already exist? Some places in the US (Eugene, Oregon) appear to be aiming for an equilibrium.


Personally, what would be your preference?
 
apology's if i miss the gist of the thread but I think if i was really wealthy with every object ive ever wanted i would still have less than perfect mental health ,still be crap at forming relationships and still not like myself very much
happiness probably does lie within and within close relatioships and ,finding and liking yourself
i am not a person that chases material possessions and luck has given me a great lifestyle but i really need to work on the personal stuff as its all pretty screwed up in my life
 
The aspirantion of civilisation in a general seems to be to destroy itself at the moment.

Personally however, I think my preference would be leaning towards the Monaco side, but in order to enjoy freedom rather than expensive trinkets. I'd like to have enough money that I never have to do a boring job again. That would give me freedom to watch films, read books, go hiking, etc all the time if I wanted to. I think I'd still have a feeling that I should be being creative and contributing something to 'the world' though, so I'd probably try my hand at writing a novel, photography etc, maybe eventually start a business/charity doing something that would make the world a better place like conserving some wilderness somewhere and taking people on guided tours or something.

On the spiritual side I think I do have a desire to 'know myself' (oi, not like that!) etc, but I think that comes out through the things I do and making some time to reflect. I don't think going off to be a monk in a Buddhist temple would really do anything for me.

In terms of 'positive, natural behaviour' I'm not really sure what that is. Maybe it does exist, but the history of the human race seems to show it doesn't.
 
Human race is destructive but particularly selfish so the aspirations seem to be based around those things,. whether that's from the perspective of an individual or a country.
Imagine having body frozen and coming back in lets say 10000 years and find that nobody gives a damn about peoples colour, race, religion. There's free roaming between countries, for travel but also work. Everyone in the world has a universal basic income or something, funded by every country. The grunt work is done by robots. Everyone who works (which could be a low 50% of people) is working to better human kind because there is minimal further financial gain and it's not needed because things are provided for us (it's an automated world). In fact, maybe no income is required :). Population growth is controlled. The main focus would be an ultimate goal - to populate other planets and spread out into space.

Unlikely and probably only after a huge reset which even then would more likely put us way back into the past instead, given our natural behaviour.
 
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we have been taught from an early age to want/need this is a natural thing ,as we get older it turns into greed ie: i have worked hard for it i want it ..
if everyone truly asked themselves do i need this it would be no ..do i need a 4 bed house for 2 ? do i need a car that cost 100k?
it's all a status symbol to show we are better than. = greed. it's how our banking system works debt makes money .
i truly believe we are coming to a stage were we will move past this ..or move down the road to the total collapse of civilization and have to start again ..
 
There's no goal of civilisation. Just the goals on individual people which shape the way civilisation goes. Some people want to stop climate change, some people more money, some people more quality etc.
 
I found after watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos and the later Neil deGrasse Tyson variation of the show it really helped with my own perspective on humanity as a whole and my own life.

There's a lot about the human condition in those documentaries that deal with what different civilisations represent and how they came to be rise and fall, though not the central feature. Fascinating stuff. There are negative aspects of our civilisation now like our short term economic system and casual disregard for climate change but generally speaking innovation is still happening and life has generally got better as time has progressed.

More of an emphasis on science and innovation, sadly this is stifled by the politics of most social democracies. Take NASA for instance and the work they're doing with private enterprise currently in making space travel more accessible and the like, fantastic stuff, regardless of the possible implications down the line. The pursuit of science proper factual evidence unbiased and pure at its heart.

There's a lot of doom and gloom I worry but still remains an awful lot to be inspired by if you look for it, some of the great advances in human history and these individual discoverers own stories are incredible.
 
To enjoy life i guess. Makes me laugh the amount of people on social media who get embroiled in political arguments. Like, your putting all this energy into getting annoyed, whats the point?
 
Am I really the first to say a corner sofa and a Gucci belt?

In all seriousness we’re a very materialistic society at the moment. Not much we can do about that in the short term. Global disasters and forcibly removing that drive through economic collapse might just change the way we think. Or we could all rush out shopping once lockdown is over.
 
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generally we all want more money, more this more that and walk over everyone to get it
i try very hard not to be materialistic but it's hard in this society
(try not getting envious when you see a beautiful large detached houses overlooking the sea)
i'm really not sure of the answer, more money more stuff seems to be the order of the day
i'll keep trying to find the inner peace just :o
 
NVP said:
Does a happy medium already exist?
Click to expand...

Yes, but they are only brief moments in time and very localised.

Since humans are a sexually selective species that means there will be perpetual conflicts. Conflict is the sorting mechanism. It's not a bug, it's a feature, and therefore there is no 'solution' because it's not really a problem. Civilisation then is merely a way of trying to limit the range of these conflicts so they don't stay in the extremes (ala tribal warfare etc), but not eliminate them.

For individuals the good news is that it's never been easier to go off the grid and leave in 'peace'. But who wants to pay the price of solitude and isolation?
 
Continuity of government, sustainment of life, upholding law and order until the end days. The final battle between good and evil.
 
Thanks all for responding :)

Poneros said:
Since humans are a sexually selective species that means there will be perpetual conflicts. Conflict is the sorting mechanism. It's not a bug, it's a feature, and therefore there is no 'solution' because it's not really a problem. Civilisation then is merely a way of trying to limit the range of these conflicts so they don't stay in the extremes (ala tribal warfare etc), but not eliminate them.
Click to expand...

You just opened my mind. So wealth is a byproduct of the "game" we play to ensure humanity is controlled? Perhaps we need a new method prevent natural conflict, one which doesn't enhance our competitive, survivalist nature.
 
Poneros said:
Yes, but they are only brief moments in time and very localised.

Since humans are a sexually selective species that means there will be perpetual conflicts. Conflict is the sorting mechanism. It's not a bug, it's a feature, and therefore there is no 'solution' because it's not really a problem. Civilisation then is merely a way of trying to limit the range of these conflicts so they don't stay in the extremes (ala tribal warfare etc), but not eliminate them.

For individuals the good news is that it's never been easier to go off the grid and leave in 'peace'. But who wants to pay the price of solitude and isolation?
Click to expand...

That's a very atheist/evolution outlook. What about the Bible?
 
NVP said:
Thanks all for responding :)



You just opened my mind. So wealth is a byproduct of the "game" we play to ensure humanity is controlled? Perhaps we need a new method prevent natural conflict, one which doesn't enhance our competitive, survivalist nature.
Click to expand...

Weed.
 
NVP said:
We all know what makes the world go round, but is it a fight against natural instinct? Is the eternal happiness of a wealthy life in the freedom of Monaco trumped by an instinctive urge to meditate peacefully in the mountains of Kathmandu?


Perhaps if we turned our civilisation more towards positive, natural behaviour we would encounter less negative scenarios, individual through to global.

Does a happy medium already exist? Some places in the US (Eugene, Oregon) appear to be aiming for an equilibrium.


Personally, what would be your preference?
Click to expand...

What are they doing in Eugene which is different to elsewhere?
 
NVP said:
Thanks all for responding :)



You just opened my mind. So wealth is a byproduct of the "game" we play to ensure humanity is controlled? Perhaps we need a new method prevent natural conflict, one which doesn't enhance our competitive, survivalist nature.
Click to expand...

Wealth is more of another way of keeping score. The point is there is no way to prevent natural conflict, and attempts at such ideals usually end up producing the inverse of what's aimed for, e.g. commies wanting 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' end up with murderous genocidal regimes where a few people end up in control of the state, or religious organisations trying to suppress human sexuality in their members end up breeding all kinds of pathological deviants engaging in the most vile perversions, etc.

Try reading about evolutionary psychology, you might find it interesting.
 
Might just go l
NVP said:
You just opened my mind. So wealth is a byproduct of the "game" we play to ensure humanity is controlled? Perhaps we need a new method prevent natural conflict, one which doesn't enhance our competitive, survivalist nature.
Click to expand...

You've seen Demolition Man I take it
 
People spends their youth and heath to chase money in order to escape the city in the countryside to escape from modern civilisation.

That’s the modern aspiration. It’s like that story with the poor fisherman meeting a millionaire.
 
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