Trudeau and the lost nation

[Centerpiece]

1 hour ago, Thinkinoutsidethebox said:

That's baloney, you could clone humans and there would be the same discrimination there is today, visible differences have nothing to do with it. Ask Hitler... 

And it has nothing to do with moving forward as a species. Today humans are working harder than ever to exacerbate the human race, war was unsuccessful, disease isn't working, starvation isn't going to do it so maybe AI will be the ticket. If AI is going to be as intelligent as they say then logically it'll see what we are doing and proceed to wipe us out. 

Besides, being all the same would be boring as hell. 

You're thinking very short term. I was talking a couple of centuries.....at least. We are so immature as people.......we need to be confronted with our own ugliness to understand how to move forward. We seemed to have learned that world wars are not such a smart idea. Nuclearization was/is a scary chapter - I'll be curious to see what happens with the North Korea talks. Terrorism - no matter what the source - is the new chapter. China seems to be slowly getting its act together - another 50-75 years or so and they will likely be using some form of democracy. The trouble spot is the autocracy of the Middle East with Iran being the biggest troublemaker. The pivot there is the acceptance of Israel's right to exist....then the peace dominoes will start to fall. I wish I could live for 150 more years to see all this - it'll be fascinating. But it has to happen in its own time. Confront and reject our own ugliness........and that also means confronting capitalism's ugly side that's best defined by "how much is enough".

[Argus]

46 minutes ago, Centerpiece said:

I guess I just have a more hopeful outlook. A family can have strength without children although I admit, it's lousy for the population/demographic requirements. Point is - you draw strength from those who are close. Some family circles are much smaller than others. If the number of lifelong single men and women increases substantially, they won't have people to draw on and MIGHT be more at risk to isolationism. I think you're implying that mental illness is on the upswing. Tough one to evaluate because we are now much better at diagnosis - and treatment. That said, there seems to be a pill for everything when in fact, some people need some guidance and a boot in the arse - tough love. Of course, now you get thrown in jail. Oh the humanity!

I'm not just talking about mental illness. I'm talking about the need to belong to something. If people have nothing to belong to then some of them will seek out something, some group. And if these people are feeling bitter and isolated and looking for someone to blame they will find like-minded people. If people feel rejected by society they will feel anger towards society. That leads to support for populist demagogues as well as radical and extremist groups.

[Centerpiece]

1 hour ago, Argus said:

I'm not just talking about mental illness. I'm talking about the need to belong to something. If people have nothing to belong to then some of them will seek out something, some group. And if these people are feeling bitter and isolated and looking for someone to blame they will find like-minded people. If people feel rejected by society they will feel anger towards society. That leads to support for populist demagogues as well as radical and extremist groups.

You're starting to sound like Justin Trudeau and his "root causes". Outside the issue of fatherless youths or rotten parenting, I don't buy your argument that this is more than just a small minority.

[Thinkinoutsidethebox]

It's an interesting dilemma, as stated earlier the world needs a smaller population but on the other hand families should be larger. What's the human population to do? 

I heard on the radio awhile back there are people setting up communal living in apartment buildings. Maybe something like this? https://www.canadianarchitect.com/features/the-cohousing-option/  with this your neighbors would essentially be family. 

Edited April 27, 2018 by Thinkinoutsidethebox

[Thinkinoutsidethebox]

15 hours ago, Centerpiece said:

You're thinking very short term. I was talking a couple of centuries.....at least. We are so immature as people.......we need to be confronted with our own ugliness to understand how to move forward. We seemed to have learned that world wars are not such a smart idea. Nuclearization was/is a scary chapter - I'll be curious to see what happens with the North Korea talks. Terrorism - no matter what the source - is the new chapter. China seems to be slowly getting its act together - another 50-75 years or so and they will likely be using some form of democracy. The trouble spot is the autocracy of the Middle East with Iran being the biggest troublemaker. The pivot there is the acceptance of Israel's right to exist....then the peace dominoes will start to fall. I wish I could live for 150 more years to see all this - it'll be fascinating. But it has to happen in its own time. Confront and reject our own ugliness........and that also means confronting capitalism's ugly side that's best defined by "how much is enough".

So what are you envisioning? Star Trek where humans all work together against a common enemy? On there they still have different colors though. Star wars still has rogue humans of all shapes and colors. Unless your thinking clone armies of course. 

The human experiment is a fascinating thing, it seems no matter how many times we bring ourselves to the brink of annihilation we never go over that edge. It feels to me like there are unseen forces in play that want us to move forward. 

It feels to me AI is going to be the next big challenge to human existence. We haven't even designed and built it yet but what some are envisioning logic says humans will no longer have a purpose. I guess it'll all be in the programming but super intelligent AI would see we are killing our host.