41 replies to this topic

[FLASHINGROOSTER]

That does look like a good episode I will have to check that out. Some good homework gents, if a guy finds the time to invest those lengthy videos it can be well worth it.

 

Somebody was discussing primate aggression and they pondered the question what if humanity was a closer relative to the bonobo rather than those chimps? The idea being that we could possible be a gentler more sharing society like some of the behaviors exhibited in bonobos.

 

I question the idea that humans are less prone to use violence, in the sense that it appears to be more of a learned behavior rather than an innate DNA centered one. Considering what I have observed in young children and their reflex to give out little slaps ect. What might be more telling is the adults like myself who find it a bit funny, because you realize in that moment they have emotions just like you but have not yet learned it is not okay to manifest them into violence. When your an adult you have to scheme and think up other ways of "clapping back" when feeling slighted.

 

 

The idea that we overestimate ourselves and our capabilities as humans is an interesting thought indeed. One I would agree is highly underestimated when considering how the doo doo found its way to the ceiling fan. My thoughts are a work in progress but I have an idea around how basically memory serves as the skeleton key to everything. We can't even remember what we had for breakfast three days ago let alone try to catalogue and manage the imperceptibly long existence that is the human experience. Add a few billion minds to that equation trying to explain their ideas to one another while simultaneously trying to sort out the collective memory is a dubious enterprise on its best day.  I even have a hard time holding onto my own thoughts writing this and trying to build on what was already spoken. The thoughts can vanish as quickly as they appeared.

Edited by FLASHINGROOSTER, 20 October 2021 - 03:35 PM.

[shiftingshadows]

Very interesting movie clips. I will look for more info. from Richard Wrangham.

I would guess that since modern warfare involves great expense and organization that it usually involves by necessity very dominant (aka power hungry) or charismatic (aka possessed of the ability to persuade and motivate others) individuals as the leaders; such as Napoleon, Alexander the great, and Genghis Khan, being well know examples.
Wether they qualified as sociopaths or psychopaths I don’t know.

So by modern, I mean technology beyond, bows and arrows and spears and blow guns. Thus I include Genghis Kahn as his followers had horses. But the importance of leaders becomes, more manifest, when vast resources go into weapons manufacture involving machines (after the domestication of the horse ). ( The first being of course ships, and armor & crossbow, before the big step of gunpowder, guns & cannons & and then later the internal combustion engine making planes, tanks, jeeps and trucks possible; along with the machine gun and poison gas.) (Somewhere in between we had the pouring of boiling oil from castle walls…..quite an inventive species we are).

As to wether some of the most warring tribes had psychopathic leaders I simply don’t know. But some were very fierce and practiced regular warfare as an intrinsic part of their culture; this includes the ancient Maya. More recently the Yanomamo tribe are one of the better known ones.

https://duckduckgo.c...omo&t=h_&ia=web

https://duckduckgo.c...ibe&t=h_&ia=web

However my view of human capabilities, is not just a reaction to our extremes of violence from the Spanish inquisition to our country’s current practices of Guantanamo Bay “detention camp”, outsourcing torture, & waterboarding.

My view is that without, the sort of training, that comes from living in a Zen monastery or a similar sort of type of setup for intensive character training , where compassion, mindfulness, and some sense of the importance of community & stoic endurance of hardship are daily ideals, practiced by all - that humans are simply so malleable, easily influenced, often some what lazy and pleasure seeking, and so on that when push comes to shove, that one does get the sort of result found by the Stanley Milgram experiments mentioned by pharmer.

Perhaps ironically the hunter gatherer ‘Bushmen’ of Africa had a culture, that had many of the same values as Zen Centers, and which certainly had ( & maybe still exist) a less militaristic feel than some Rinzai Zen Centers.

Neither Zen centers or hunter gatherers emphasize individual rights, intellectual brilliance, huge group size, or competition. One could wonder whether these characteristics are more at fault than sociopaths or psychopaths for the human condition.

Why some people choose to follow crazy leaders like Trump or Jim Jones, when no danger is present from choosing not to be involved with them, unlike the cases of Stalin, Mao, Hitler and other dictators is another question; whose answer, I again suspect points to, the fact that although humans have great potential, it is usually, incapable of manifesting unless extremely carefully nurtured for decades.

Edited by shiftingshadows, 20 October 2021 - 04:12 PM.

[shiftingshadows]

Besides  Richard Wrangham on youtube, the Robert Sapolsky lectures also on youtube are a great source of insights into the human condition, and the issues raised here.

 

There are many to choose from and they are at a college level, so it is an amazing resource for what amounts to a free college course, and he is a good speaker. He spent years in Africa studying Baboons.

 

He is also the author of many books. In particular this one is very funny.

 

“A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons”

by Robert M. Sapolsky | Nov 1, 2007

[shiftingshadows]

CARTA: Domestication and Human Evolution - Richard Wrangham: Did Homo sapiens Self-Domesticate?

 

.                Interestingly the conclusion is a sort of Eugenics, which is now a "dirty word". A good lecture well illustrated.  Richard Wrangham is a good resource, thanks TV.

.    Since 'eugenics' is still apparently necessary (as the New Guinea, example briefly mentioned at the end, makes clear), it confirms my view that homo sapiens is at present an incomplete manifestation of its potential. Very incomplete.

.    Quite possibly it will never be fully realized, given current conditions, IMO. Not just due to covid or global warming or warfare, but due to extreme over population, inequality, and the spread of the most decadent aspects of western culture world wide, all of which combine to render proper nurturing of our very vulnerable young impossible.

.     As FlashingRooster pointed out the young are extremely uninhibited and immature on many counts for about 18 to 20 years depending on the culture, and emotional maturity of the parents. As many parents are both emotionally immature and dysfunctional, damage is done to a large percentage of the vulnerable, that may take years to overcome if it ever is. So generation after generation, humans blindly harm those they feel they love.

 

* & research shows this is not a new insight

• Euripides (c. 485-406 B.C.) Phrixus: "The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children."
• Horace, Odes: "For the sins of your fathers you, though guiltless, must suffer."
• Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice: "The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children."

[Direct Link]

[TVCasualty]

TV would the Milgram experiments fit your category of atrocities in large groups without an identifiable leader?  No leader in the experiment, only "authority" making the atrocities acceptable.

 

Good question. I get the impression that peer pressure acts as a kind of de facto authority that (some) people choose to follow. And it often functions as a way of absolving oneself of responsibility for one's actions. Hence the strong appeal that doing what they're told has to so many people, I guess.

 

It's all in our head, so the authority we bow to doesn't have to be an actual person. I guess it can be whatever convoluted logic or intolerant ideology someone uses to motivate and justify arguably-abhorrent behavior. If you mix them all together (an authoritarian leader, convoluted logic, and an intolerant ideology) you have the basic ingredients for a religion (and once religion is added to the mix, anything's possible; "God told me to do it!").

[TVCasualty]

I was considering putting this in one of the "education" threads, or maybe "WTF? of the Day" because, well...
 

 

Pictures showing teenage boys dressed in women’s lingerie, dancing on and near school leaders, including Principal Happy Mobelini, were posted to the Hazard High School Athletics Facebook page. Mobelini is also Hazard’s mayor.

 

 

Not sure why they focus on the boys since it involved plenty of girls, too.

 

 

 
https://www.wkyt.com...chool-assembly/
 
One comment I saw about it was kind of funny: "It's like Dollar Store Epstein Island!"

 

An investigation is ongoing, as if that matters.

 

 

Edited by TVCasualty, 28 October 2021 - 05:39 PM.

[SatanEsquire]

u think its the ol holy spirit going through it senagog tv..      i know noone but me would believe what ive seen ..     now that ive seen it.. i believe in all kinda holy ghost spiritual experiences people would have.. whether it be they burned with real fire over there.. waking up to tell you about it...      if you follow that is.. please.. love to hear from you in these days and times..

[SatanEsquire]

i find the doctors are even insane     they gave me psy cos sis..  and .. a bill if Y..       everything in this language can be contorted and redefined into a paradox of menial babble.. which it is..        the whole all  F i Bet is geared for you to take that trip on down the rabbit hole...     it goes on forever

[SatanEsquire]

i didnt wanna put any Cure Se words in there/Cursed...     just so ..   psy  .. cuz sis is out there... an she will argue her scientific alliance forever.. with me

Edited by SatanEsquire, 30 October 2021 - 11:38 PM.

[SatanEsquire]

when you venture past the fabrications of space and time..  you receive yourself into a paradox of.. wtf am i..   so..    a droid came to mind...     id always tell my angels i need a doid     .. doid woide wep became my brain..    cuz i communicate angellically all the time..    dreams..    when im hallucinating off ice..   the ice.. they dont know what that shit is..    why its so studied...     but.. sue da fed ....    is what comes to mind.. so painful ... so painful.. that sheet..    crypta logic achilliacies ark hives from gods mind i think is the ticket to understanding .. what exactly that stuff does..     i thought the mexicans would throw a homosexual jesus in the vat...    pink crank..    really disturbing where i think that stuff really comes from...    but i think theres more to it than is allowed.. some can do it forever and ever.. never get nothing out of it but sick...     some..     venture to the promised land.. why i think god allows it in the first place...    but...      on to.. droids..      space stations..    which i think were on...    fabrications of reality..   deceptacons of truth..    to get you to conform to the painful interlaces that life requires to make the divine instigations necessary for droids to be fabricated into existance.. some people live in a world where its really god...  others plug into..    planned it ..    its.. sci dense....     since your so dense..  and since were gonna kill each other forever.. it seems...      we fight over what is right... but i didnt do a world war.. and im not a leader in no sensible fashon.. i just became aware.. that there is something else out there.. and im curious as to ....     can i work again... please!!!

[FLASHINGROOSTER]

Well when Russell Brand, man of the Jeffery can grow up to become a greater voice for reason and truth than the corporate press it sure says a lot about how the masses are controlled.

 

Mainstream media is way to nice of a word for a group of people that are paid and therefor essentially owned by outside sponsors looking to push certain agenda's. Lets play their game of using language to control thoughts and call them what they are. Corporate Press

 

Newspeak

 

noun

1. Deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language used to mislead and manipulate the public.
2. A mode of talk by politicians and officials using ambiguous words to deceive the listener.
3. deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language use to mislead and manipulate the public

[shiftingshadows]

I was considering putting this in one of the "education" threads, or maybe "WTF? of the Day" because, well...
 

 

Pictures showing teenage boys dressed in women’s lingerie, dancing on and near school leaders, including Principal Happy Mobelini, were posted to the Hazard High School Athletics Facebook page. Mobelini is also Hazard’s mayor.

 

 

Not sure why they focus on the boys since it involved plenty of girls, too.

................

One comment I saw about it was kind of funny: "It's like Dollar Store Epstein Island!"

 

An investigation is ongoing, as if that matters.

 

What I am reminded of is that as the fall of the Roman Empire approached, decadence became more pervasive. It may sound moralistic, but it may also be a way to see the big picture without being distracted by details.

The 1969 movie Satyricon: Directed by Federico Fellini, attempted to detail some of the decadence.

I haven't studied enough history to guess how frequent this is, but would guess that prior to the French and Russian revolutions, decadence and inequality also reached peaks. The english aristocracy seems to have been even more preposterous, before the collapse of their Empire.

I think that America has been riddled with absurdities for decades, whether there is evidence for a recent acceleration may be hard to say; but it seems the politics have become more and more divisive, and the inhumanity ( Guantanamo bay prison and treatment of immigrants) much worse, although Mccarthyism and Kent State & etc. ... were also pretty bad.

I wonder what the historians views are...

Edited by shiftingshadows, 01 November 2021 - 01:27 PM.

[TVCasualty]

when you venture past the fabrications of space and time..  you receive yourself into a paradox of.. wtf am i..   so..    a droid came to mind...     id always tell my angels i need a doid     .. doid woide wep became my brain..    cuz i communicate angellically all the time..    dreams..    when im hallucinating off ice..   the ice.. they dont know what that shit is..    why its so studied...     but.. sue da fed ....    is what comes to mind.. so painful ... so painful.. that sheet..    crypta logic achilliacies ark hives from gods mind i think is the ticket to understanding .. what exactly that stuff does..     i thought the mexicans would throw a homosexual jesus in the vat...    pink crank..    really disturbing where i think that stuff really comes from...    but i think theres more to it than is allowed.. some can do it forever and ever.. never get nothing out of it but sick...     some..     venture to the promised land.. why i think god allows it in the first place...    but...      on to.. droids..      space stations..    which i think were on...    fabrications of reality..   deceptacons of truth..    to get you to conform to the painful interlaces that life requires to make the divine instigations necessary for droids to be fabricated into existance.. some people live in a world where its really god...  others plug into..    planned it ..    its.. sci dense....     since your so dense..  and since were gonna kill each other forever.. it seems...      we fight over what is right... but i didnt do a world war.. and im not a leader in no sensible fashon.. i just became aware.. that there is something else out there.. and im curious as to ....     can i work again... please!!!

 

Good point, though they make it with phenyl-2-propanone now (and have for years at this point), which is very bad news and might explain a lot more than I assumed before reading the article linked below (including mass-psychosis).

 

This is a must-read for anyone who dabbles (and why they shouldn't, and why drugs need to be legalized to stop this shit): https://www.theatlan...ew-meth/620174/

Edited by TVCasualty, 01 November 2021 - 02:28 PM.

[TVCasualty]

I was considering putting this in one of the "education" threads, or maybe "WTF? of the Day" because, well...
 
 

Pictures showing teenage boys dressed in women’s lingerie, dancing on and near school leaders, including Principal Happy Mobelini, were posted to the Hazard High School Athletics Facebook page. Mobelini is also Hazard’s mayor.

 
Not sure why they focus on the boys since it involved plenty of girls, too.
................
One comment I saw about it was kind of funny: "It's like Dollar Store Epstein Island!"
 
An investigation is ongoing, as if that matters.

 
What I am reminded of is that as the fall of the Roman Empire approached, decadence became more pervasive. It may sound moralistic, but it may also be a way to see the big picture without being distracted by details.
The 1969 movie Satyricon[/size]: Directed by Federico Fellini, attempted to detail some of the decadence.[/size]
I haven't studied enough history to guess how frequent this is, but would guess that prior to the French and Russian revolutions, decadence and inequality also reached peaks. The english aristocracy seems to have been even more preposterous, before the collapse of their Empire. [/size]
I think that America has been riddled with absurdities for decades, whether there is evidence for a recent acceleration may be hard to say; but it seems the politics have become more and more divisive, and the inhumanity ( G[/size]uantanamo bay prison and treatment of immigrants) much worse, although M[/size]ccarthyism and Kent State & etc. ... were also pretty bad.
I wonder what the historians views are...

 
Imagine if they had Twitter/IG/FB/etc. in ancient Rome...
 
At the very least Caligula would have an Onlyfans, I'd guess.
 
It's downright surreal when We the Peasants get to witness the decadent phase in High Definition, and in real time. But will it change anything? My guess is "probably not."
 
 
And how on the nose was it that the Principal's name sounds like someone's porno pseudonym? "Happy Mobelini?" Really? Make it rain, Happy!

[KunLong]

Satyricon was.....weird and yes, in ways pretty accurate.

[shiftingshadows]

Is it mass psychosis that caused everyone to ignore the truth ( except for the child ) in the tale of: "The Emperor's Clothes"?

 

Seems to me like Isaac Asimov, way back in 2016, told ( a big part of ) the truth, that everyone likes to ignore, just like the child in the 'fairy tale'.

 

Less than 10 minutes & worth watching.

 

[Direct Link]

 

 

Also Isaac Asimov explaining the greenhouse effect in 1989

 

https://www.youtube.... global warming

 

So again is it mass psychosis that causes those in a position to make a difference to ignore the truth. or perhaps the simpler explanations of: herd behavior ( the desire to 'fit in', be popular, 'not rock the boat', type of thing), habit, greed/selfishness, and stupidity?

[FLASHINGROOSTER]

I always say a person is a fairly rational organism that can be reasoned with. Most folk can sit down together and find some common ground and learn to appreciate the others perspective.

 

However groups of people act independently from personal thoughts,  empowered by the group they act and behave in ways that the individual would never dare to do.

 

 

 

So again is it mass psychosis that causes those in a position to make a difference to ignore the truth. or perhaps the simpler explanations of: herd behavior ( the desire to 'fit in', be popular, 'not rock the boat', type of thing), habit, greed/selfishness, and stupidity?

 

I am going with power corrupts absolutely on that one.  To your point it seems like the herd behavior described above are the mechanisms that make us move around, however that doesn't prevent outside forces from exacerbating those emotions in order to manipulate others. Like a Shepard that understands how to flock his herd. As far as the recent century goes perhaps due to Freuds work one could argue we have become far more effective at manipulating the unconscious fears and desires of others. Especially when the massive data collection campaign began, creating a pipeline into our true thoughts and feelings. For a long time it was a very difficult task to get that deep, for the most part people are not truly honest with themselves let alone the marketing department.  I remember reading about amazons data and how valuable it is considered in the collection game. Due to the fact that by simply following browsing it is difficult to tell how ingrained an idea or thought actually is when its free to consume. However when you browse and then purchase something it shows your willing to put your money where your mind is so to speak.

Edited by FLASHINGROOSTER, 03 November 2021 - 12:41 PM.

[shiftingshadows]

Yes manipulation is part of the picture, due to my personality, and peculiar circumstances while growing up, it seems I have always been an outsider and so may underestimate the degree to which people are influenced by one another on a constant basis, to a degree they may not realize. Those who are rebellious tend to be free of much superficial fashion and the like, although of course a compulsion to rebel is just another sort of "prison".

 

"EDWARD BERNAYS: [known as the] Father of American Public Relations (1891-1995)", could be said to be the instigator of the modern use of science to influence the masses, prior to the digital age whose, mass data collection you refer to. Interestingly Bernays was related to Freud ( whom you mentioned ), and influenced by some of his ideas

 

https://propagandapr...edward-bernays/

 

https://www.youtube....=edward-bernays

 

and also as you suggest the desire to stay in power and to increase one's power, should go along with herd behavior ( the desire to 'fit in', be popular, 'not rock the boat', type of thing), habit, greed/selfishness, and stupidity.

Edited by shiftingshadows, 03 November 2021 - 02:41 PM.

[FLASHINGROOSTER]

 

"EDWARD BERNAYS: [known as the] Father of American Public Relations (1891-1995)", could be said to be the instigator of the modern use of science to influence the masses, prior to the digital age whose, mass data collection you refer to. Interestingly Bernays was related to Freud ( whom you mentioned ), and influenced by some of his ideas

 

Faith in the reader I did place. I though I remembered you mentioned earlier about watching the century of self series too

 

 

You know it really is wild how much control peer pressure has on humans. Most adults like myself are never truly free from its grasp. I wonder if its deep seeded roots have to do with survival, considering it would have been very difficult to survive way back when without the rest of the tribe. So finding acceptance via peer pressure and creating conformity might have been an important part of staying alive and creating unity within the groups.

 

What can we do as a society about this seemingly inescapable fact of power corrupting people in positions of power? The only good answer so far is trying our best to create systems where that is increasingly difficult to do. Increasing transparency via checks and balances would be huge, of course that ultimately also can become corrupt, it will never be perfect but we can try to suppress it.

 

Something like a movement to eliminate lobbying from politics would seem like an obvious win for the people.

[shiftingshadows]

....I wonder if its deep seeded roots have to do with survival, considering it would have been very difficult to survive way back when without the rest of the tribe. So finding acceptance via peer pressure and creating conformity might have been an important part of staying alive and creating unity within the groups.

 

....

Seems the way it must have been. For example:

 

"Why 'Bushman banter' was crucial to hunter-gatherers' evolutionary success

The Ju/’hoansi people of the Kalahari have always been fiercely egalitarian. They hate inequality or showing off, and shun formal leadership institutions. It’s what made them part of the most successful, sustainable civilisation in human history"

 

rest of article here:

 

https://www.theguard...tionary-success

 

The meat of the matter:

 

"Insulting the meat

In Ju/’hoan society, envy functioned like the “invisible hand” famously imagined by the economist Adam Smith. In the case of small-scale hunter-gatherer societies, the sum of individual self-interests ultimately ensured the most equitable “distribution of the necessaries of life”, and in doing so created the most sustainable economic model in modern Homo sapiens history.

 

How this worked is best exemplified in the customary “insulting” of a hunter’s meat. While a spectacular kill was always cause for celebration, the hunter responsible would not be praised – instead, he was insulted.

 

The meat of a kudu antelope is shared between Ju/’hoan households.  [ caption for photo]

The meat of a kudu antelope is shared between Ju/’hoan households. Photograph: James Suzman

 

Regardless of the size or condition of the carcass, those due a share of the meat would complain that the kill was trifling, that it was barely worth the effort of carrying it back to camp, or that there wouldn’t be enough meat to go around. For his part, the hunter was expected to be almost apologetic when he presented the carcass.

 

Everyone knew the difference between a scrawny kill and a good one, of course, but nonetheless continued to pass insults even while they were busy filling their bellies with meat— the most highly prized of all foods. Half a century ago, a Ju/’hoan man provided Lee with a particularly eloquent explanation of why they did this:

 

“When a young man kills much meat, he comes to think of himself as a chief or a big man – and thinks of the rest of us as his servants or inferiors. We can’t accept this ... so we always speak of his meat as worthless. This way, we cool his heart and make him gentle.”

 

This behaviour was not limited to hunting. Similar insults were meted out to anyone who assumed airs and graces, encountered a windfall or got too big for their leather sandals. Everyone in Ju/’hoan communities scrutinised everybody else all the time — something easily done when all social life was conducted in public spaces.

 

[another photo caption]

Ju/’hoansi hunters were expected to be almost apologetic when presenting their kill.

Ju/’hoansi hunters are expected to be almost apologetic when presenting their kill. Photograph: James Suzman

 

They took careful note of what others ate, owned, received as gifts, and whether or not they were sufficiently generous in return. The net result was that everyone went to considerable lengths to avoid being singled out for selfishness or self-importance – so much so, indeed, that good hunters usually hunted less often than poor ones, even if they enjoyed it." ... etc