Creating an Abundant Stable World with Less Suffering

[XYZ]

At the risk of oversimplifying, and jumping in before reading the whole thread and document, it's been very obvious to me for quite some time that to reduce suffering, increase abundance, and stability in (the human) world, three interrelated things need need to happen together:

Pragmatic anti-natalism: Less people equals more resources to go around, less suffering from lack of resources, directly from use and indirectly through environmental catastrophe. This means both developing the best birth control technology we can, and encouraging mankind not to procreate. This would be very difficult to promote, because having children is seen as a human right, regardless of how poor people are, and what I've observed are that those who can least afford to have children tend to have the most. It also goes against the entire history of human evolution, and the biological imperative, the default purpose of being a living mammal.  

Heavily restrict immigration of unskilled immigrants and refugees: From any perspective, it's utterly ridiculous that a "first world country" would allow people form outside to come in and get all kinds of government benefits, and take entry level jobs, while tens of millions of people already there are poor, hungry, homeless, unemployed and without healthcare. I'm not advocating for some kind of stage blue nationalism, but to argue that, since the world is divided into countries with borders, that a country should take care of their own first, and when it is strong at home, only then should it try to help others from abroad, with privately funded, not taxpayer money.

Eliminate the need to make money to survive. Some wealthier European countries already have such a social safety net, but in other places like the US, you can easily become homeless and go hungry if you are denied the opportunity of being a wage slave. At the very minimum, provide citizens with a safe place to live and healthy food to eat. This would level the playing field by guaranteeing people that the will be okay, they are not at the mercy of cut-throat capitalism, or their employer, but also maximize creativity and human potential, as they will want to make money to have things beyond the bare minimum, and spend their time in ways which result in high quality of life. 

To tie it all together, the less people a society has to provide for, the more, and better they are able to provide for their needs. This is why the people who happen to be alive right now inside whatever made up geopolitical entity is marked on the map should be prioritized over bringing new humans into existence, or supporting others from outside those boundaries.

I also feel that most suffering people inflict upon others, known or unknown, intentional or not, is out of concern for their own survival, side effects of living in scarcity. Environmentalists get mad when regulations are cut, and allow for more logging, coal mining, fishing, grazing, etc. But what the cosmopolitan hippie doesn't understand is that no one gives a fuck about the environment if they have to worry about when their next meal or paycheck will come. That's why endangered animals will be hunted for their fur and horns. Same with crime for financial gain, whether it's white collar fraud, drug trafficking or robbery, most of it is just out of a desire to survive. 

So yes, to reduce suffering & hate, increase stability & prosperity, you have to start small, and locally, by making sure everyone's basic needs, the bottom of the self-actualization pyramid, are met. This is how I would envision creating a peaceful society. As for myself dealing with my own scarcity, I tend to behave more selfishly and indifferent when my needs are not being met, because I am still being preoccupied with wanting a comfortable home environment and having quality food, and these "I want, I need, me me me me" thoughts take precedence over everything else, either that or I detach from humanity altogether. It seems that only once my basic needs are met would I be able to evolve beyond the self-centered perspective and then would actually feel a strong drive to project outward, to develop & share my gifts with others. It's not just "limiting beliefs," increasing lack of resources & provisions in apparently first world countries is a something visionary do-gooders need to address instead of trying to vaguely "help poor people" by throwing money at all the world's problems.

[CreamCat]

5 hours ago, XYZ said:

From any perspective, it's utterly ridiculous that a "first world country" would allow people form outside to come in and get all kinds of government benefits, and take entry level jobs, while tens of millions of people already there are poor, hungry, homeless, unemployed and without healthcare.

From a pure economic perspective, there is no distinction between foreign workers and domestic workers. They are just workers.

The more people there are in an economy, the bigger the economy becomes. USA accepted low-skilled immigrants because it was profitable to have more low-skilled people in the economy.

Nation is largely an illusion. Economy is largely an illusion, too. Debts are an illusion.

Edited December 26, 2018 by CreamCat

[Sbilko]

@Revolutionary Think

I completely agree with your ideas. Just like in your case, this is my greatest worry these days. My worry is that we live in a world that is so technologically advanced that it can blow up the entire world; nevertheless, it is not culturally and sociologically developed enough so as to prevent that.

It is the person pulling the trigger that kills, not the gun itself. With this I mean that being technologically advanced is a good thing; but it is not when you are not enough sociologically advanced too.

Now, why is our society so technologically advanced and so little sociologically advanced? There are a few reasons:

The first reason is that the government has it easier when there are no people who are smart, self-aware and go call out the system's faults. Whenever a dictatorship comes to power, the first thing they do is deport or execute all the teachers and smart people (at least that's what they did in Cambodia, the Soviet Union I think and such). Why? Because those who are smart enough would not support such a regime. For a dictatorship to educate well its people would be like a person shooting themselves in the leg.

The second reason is that all technological advancement has as it's core objective war supremacy. Why else do you think that it is during wars that the greatest scientific achievements are made? Nuclear energy, rockets, modern warfare tactics, etc. were all developed in the WW2. The space race and all that space exploration started during the Cold War. We aren't willing to move unless we are threatened with death.

And if a technological advancement is not developed during a war or in preparation for a war, then it's developed to outcompete your opponents. And that's because economics and war go hand-in-hand: the better your economy is, the more weapons you can build and the more likely you are to beat your opponents.

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I am very frustrated with the educational system, it uses us like tools. There was a time when my dream was creating a computer program that would enable you to learn everything you're interested in, in a simple and pleasant way, for free.

Nevertheless, I later discovered that the problem is not that these programs and tools don't exist, but because the system doesn't implement them.

Doctor Skinner's Learning Machine existed since many, many decades. Nevertheless, it was never implemented in the educational system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJzu-RKpepc

There is this amazing app called Euclidea, it's a game that teaches you geometry in a very interesting and pleasant way. It starts simple and then goes on to teach you complex Euclidean constructions, step by step.

There is this app named Phet, it teaches many things, from Biology to Physics, and from Mathematics to Chemistry. And it does it just like a game, in an interactive and pleasant way.

There is Space Odyssey: The Game, it teaches astronomy, astrophysics, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. in a fun and interesting way. You have to found a civilization and maintain it. It was scheduled to come out this month, but will instead come out next year. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Odyssey:_The_Video_Game

A too effective educational system would make people too smart, too inquisitive and curious; and therefore, dangerous (for the government, because it would not be able to manipulate them so easily). Only the government has the right to be curious, to spy you and such.

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Nevertheless, why is all this happening? Why are governments doing this? I'll tell you why: because those governments who didn't focus all their efforts into advancing technologically as fast as they could, were conquered by their neighbours and had those systems implemented on its citizens anyway.

The educational system just wants to train us into loyal and submissive workers (or in the case of the 20th century: soldiers). Yes, submissive because you can't have 30 students in a class being silent while listening to you, their authority figure, without learning to be submissive.

The people in power don't care whether we like it or not; which is why they don't teach us creativity, nor do they teach us things in a pleasant way.

The only pleasant thing about studying is that once you go to College, you finally get to study mostly only what you have chosen to; and the only reason for that to be this way is that if we do what we like, we'll do it better and be more productive.

It all turns around profit, and it's so ingrained into our society that we say things such as "time is money" and "don't waste my time".

The thing is that society makes us do mechanical tasks which could be done by machines without a problem. Working in a factory, or as a supermarket cassier, or as a teacher, could all be perfectly automatized.

And the problem with this is that people don't understand it, they think that they have to work so as to keep their belly full; despite the fact that they could simplify the process a lot if they grew their own crops.

People are doing the jobs of machines and have been doing them ever since the Industrial Revolution; and it will hit them all like a brick falling from the sky when machines start taking their jobs.

"Of course," you will say, "more jobs will be created". And while that is true, it is also true that machines will start replacing you even in the jobs requiring creativity (as a matter of fact, there already are machines writing articles and books).

And the problem with this is that the people in power will no longer see any need of you, because everything you are capable of doing could be done much faster, better and cheaper by a machine. You were 'educated' (I would rather say trained) to be a loyal and submissive worker only because you were profitable; but now you are not profitable anymore.

What will happen, then? One would think that they would starve us to death and outcompete us because we can't find a job (and that is indeed what would happen if the world population kept itself stable or grew).

However, I think that they would be smarter than that: they will drug us with smartphones, the internet, pornography, virtual reality, reality glasses, etc. just like they are doing at this very moment. And they will spy you to make sure that that is happening and going smoothly. This would drastically decline the population growth; just like it is doing now, but on a bigger scale.

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What can we do to prevent all these terrible things from happening? Only one thing comes to my mind as a good solution: to protest and pressure the government into changing the educational system.

The educational system should be just like a game; the human being, just like every other mammal, has evolved to learn through playing. In primitive societies, children ran around with their spears and learned to hunt by playing. Playing is the way to learn things effectively; memorizing them would only make you forget most things after a while.

Furthermore, if children learned things by playing, they would no longer need to have the same things repeated to them year after year. Our educational system teaches us for too many years; it keeps us sitting in a classroom for too many years of our lives. That would no longer be a problem if children learned by playing, because: they would not have needed the same thing to be repeated to them over and over; and they would be more skilled in it because they've been playing/doing it for some time.

Bonus video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l7tGrbqhTTY

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"For example a factory that just replaced its workers with automated robots means abundance for the one who bought the robots and scarcity for the person who is being replaced by them."

I would like to add that the scarcity comes from the too much competition and complete lack of cooperation. With this I mean that the scarcity comes because of the boss not sharing his profits with people; he's selfish, not generous.

Nevertheless, that could be reversed if the system taxed the rich and redistributed the wealth equally among everyone. See: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kl39KHS07Xc

Edited December 26, 2018 by Sbilko

[Sbilko]

@XYZ

About overpopulation, please see this: 

 

And about immigration, please see this: 

 

And if you'd like to learn more about this latter one, this would be a nice addition: 

 

[Revolutionary Think]

@XYZ You're mainly looking at the stage orange level of abundance. I'm not just talking about an abundance of resources I'm talking about an abundance of fulfillment. If you look at the lifestyles of some rich and famous people they have their abundance of resources yet not the fulfillment as you look at the recent trends of celebrity deaths. The schools in my opinion if they don't concentrate on fulfillment at all and just make us mindless cogs in a heartless machine that should be paid attention to. You may have an abundance of money as a doctor or lawyer yet feel empty inside and burnt out because of the structure of the work or it's something that your parents and teachers pushed you into but, it was never something you wanted to do. So when thinking of this abundance we must think of it at the green and yellow stages as well and go to the turquoise level with it. 

[XYZ]

@Revolutionary Think

I understand what you mean, but don't the higher stages of abundance build upon stage orange security and prosperity? You can find endless new-age type movements that want to raise the collective consciousness of humanity, make everyone happy, loving and fulfilled. But they can't do that because most people are still wage slaves barely getting by materially.

So what happens is that these organization do some things to help the poorest of the poor, while the rest are overlooked, and it becomes this inside circle-jerk of "spiritual elites' telling everyone else they just have limiting beliefs and can manifest anything they want if they ask the universe and believe it's possible, all that sort of bullshit.

To move societies into post-scarcity mindset, the economic system first has to change. Experiments with this can be done on very local levels, like designing intentional communities where resources are pooled, people are interdependent and able to better meet their needs, as well as have the time and resources to engage in higher pursuits, discover and do things they are passionate about.

I'm sure you've noticed on how all the forums here there are constant threads about needing to make money, not having enough money, being stuck in soul crushing jobs, careers not aligning with purpose, and so forth. I tried to ignore all that stage orange stuff, write it off as petty superficial material concerns, and focus on spirituality and self-inquiry instead. But it keeps coming back to bite us in the ass, as not having material needs met, or being inauthentic in order to meet those needs keeps getting in the way of truly being our highest selves and giving our greatest gifts to the world. 

 

[Revolutionary Think]

@XYZ I agree on that. We can start with our stupid education system that doesn't teach about money at all. Have you ever wondered why our stupid system is set up in a way that doesn't even prepare us for the future. Why we grow up learning a whole bunch of irrelevant crap that doesn't do anything for us once we're outside the education system? 

[XYZ]

@Revolutionary Think

Perhaps so that the military will have a steady supply of recruits. That is often what guys do after finishing high school and seeing no other options for them besides working at WalMart, or taking on loads of debt to go to college.

[Revolutionary Think]

@XYZ Yes very scarcity minded. 

[XYZ]

On 12/26/2018 at 5:58 AM, CreamCat said:

From a pure economic perspective, there is no distinction between foreign workers and domestic workers. They are just workers.

The more people there are in an economy, the bigger the economy becomes. USA accepted low-skilled immigrants because it was profitable to have more low-skilled people in the economy.

Nation is largely an illusion. Economy is largely an illusion, too. Debts are an illusion.

My point is that since sovereign nations are a thing that we have to deal with in the current day, people from outside the country should not be brought in to do work that nationals can do, jobs that citizens would gladly take instead of being poor, homeless and unemployed. I'm thinking only pragmatically here, all politics aside, it just makes no sense that a supposedly first world country would help migrants/refugees and give them work and/or benefits, while they can't even take care of their own first.

Doesn't matter where anyone was born or what their citizenship, bottom line is that more bottom of the barrel lower working class people equals more scarcity and inequality, resources are stretched thinner, and more will get left behind as everything becomes increasingly competitive. As long as we are in a capitalistic society, the less people people have to compete for scarce resources, the less suffering there is. A post competitive economy, or more socialistic state can only be sustained if the population is contained. Evidence shows that increasing the standard of living decreases birthrates, and so this would happen naturally, as long as you don't go and import more people.

Case in point, some European countries are headed for bankruptcy because after letting in so many refugees, there are immensely more people on the dole than can find ways to make a living. A stage yellow nations would avoid the mess that is mass migration, and instead, first make sure their own citizenry are provided for, no labor shortage can't be fixed domestically, and then when there is more than enough prosperity to go around, spread this abundance with the rest of the world in a responsible manner. Invest in developing countries, fund education & training programs, broker peace agreements, rebuild war-ravaged lands, and so forth, not bringing needy people in to compete with the locals for starting level jobs like farm labor, driving cabs and working in retail.

[CreamCat]

17 minutes ago, XYZ said:

not bringing needy people in to compete with the locals for starting level jobs like farm labor, driving cabs and working in retail.

You're underestimating automation. Automation is becoming cheaper and out-competing third world country workers.

No country is ready for the kind of radical automation that the 21st century is going to unfold.

Automation is a bigger threat than third world country workers. Yet, people are worried far more about people from third world countries.

Robots can already learn to make burgers through machine learning. AI techniques more advanced than machine learning will emerge soon. You can't just kill the technologies.

Welcome to 21st century dystopia. Your local people will become really needy in a few decades.

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by CreamCat

[XYZ]

@CreamCat

Automation and all other improvements in efficiency will be a boon for the post-scarcity economy, and the catalyst to push capitalistic ones towards it. Where we are at now is in a great upheaval, a transition period, where we can live in a country where resources are theoretically plentiful enough to feed and house everyone, but individual survival still depends upon competing in the economy for a means to acquire money. This is why the likes of Elon Musk see the government providing basic provisions as an inevitable reality in a not so distant future.

Smaller communities are coming up with creative ways to to maintain their own cooperative local economy based on direct exchanges of value with mutual concern with their collective well-being, and ideally this meme could spread throughout the rest of a country and transform the larger economic model. If we keep following the same trajectory of cutthroat capitalism sprinkled with lopsided socialism, the brutal competition, extreme concentration of wealth and widespread scarcity would become so severe it leads to all kinds of war and death fighting over who gets what.

[CreamCat]

is the very idea that third world country workers take jobs from local people not an example of scarcity mindset? If you operate from a scarcity mindset, you end up attracting more scarcity through law of attraction.

Edited December 28, 2018 by CreamCat

[XYZ]

Problem-solving requires looking at a situation as objectively as possible, trying to interpret reality without any personal investment in the matter, looking at the big picture over your own life.

An idea like "the reason I'm poor and can never get a job is because of all these immigrants" would be a scarcity mindset, victim complex, limiting belief, self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

 

[Revolutionary Think]

It's a factor of a lot of things. 

[CreamCat]

I think you better focus on actually helping others. Unless you come up with specific solutions, your ideas will be forgotten.

As leo gura said, unless you have specific goals, you only have vague desire such as wanting to become an artist of some sort.

A specific goal has specific outcomes with deadlines.

Edited January 13, 2019 by CreamCat