The by far most pressing Issue for Society

[Scholar]

 

[NatureB]

Nuclear weapons and global warming are the most pressing. Social media plays into these or hinders progress.

[Scholar]

12 hours ago, NatureB said:

Nuclear weapons and global warming are the most pressing. Social media plays into these or hinders progress.

I don't think nuclear weapons are any pressing threat at all. Infact, nuclear weapons are what has kept peace around the world for almost a century now. Global warming is an issue, but it is not more pressing than social media because social media is what directly hinders us from doing something about global warming (look at the fact that Trump was elected for example).

Pressing means that they need to be solved as quickly as possible, and because social media makes it more and more difficult to have any coherent progessive action within a democracy it is by far the most important issue we can currently address.

[NatureB]

@Scholar I didn't think nuclear was a pressing issue either until I read Noam Chomsky. Far worse than you think.

[No Self]

We need working brains before tackling any sort of problem. 

[Scholar]

Quote

But in the current, digitized world, trivial information is accumulating every second, preserved in all its triteness. Never fading, always accessible. Rumors about petty issues, misinterpretations, slander. All this junk data preserved in an unfiltered state, growing at an alarming rate. It will only slow down social progress, reduce the rate of evolution. The digital society furthers human flaws and selectively rewards development of convinient half-truths. Just look at the strange juxtapositions of morality around you. Billions spent on new weapons in order to humanely murder other humans. Rights of criminals are given more respect than the privacy of their victims. Although there are people suffering in poverty, huge donations are made to protect endangered species. Everyone grows up being told the same thing.

"Be nice to other people. But beat out the competition!", "You're special.", "Believe in yourself and you will succeed."

But it's obvious from the start that only a few can succeed... You exercise your right to "freedom" and this is the result. All rhetoric to avoid conflict and protect each other from hurt. The untested truths spun by different interests continue to churn and accumulate in the sandbox of political correctness and value systems. Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large. The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right. Not even natural selection can take place here. The world is being engulfed in "truth."

And this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Quote from 2001.

[Carl-Richard]

I found this which I think is semi-relevant to this discussion.

 

[Carl-Richard]

Man how many of these are there?

 

[hoodrow trillson]

7 hours ago, Scholar said:

Quote from 2001.

Colonel?!  

[Scholar]

 

Why is the consciousness community, especially here, not at the forefront of this?

 

I want a video from Leo on this topic and how we can tackle it.

[No Self]

17 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Why is the consciousness community, especially here, not at the forefront of this?

In the specific context of sincere spiritual seeking, an 'echo chamber' is exactly what is needed. That is why the tradition was to spend years with a guru hearing the same perspective over and over until liberation can (hopefully) be attained. Adding more perspectives, like asking someone from a different religion to critique the guru, would only create a mess.

When it comes to polarising politics or any intellectual field, however, echo chambers bring out the worst in humanity. The past decade will hopefully be remembered as a low point in the post-internet history of humanity. I call it the trollocracy as global politics were often dominated by the most divisive and grotesque trolls who are naturally favoured by algorithms of Facebook, etc. The question at this point will be whether the masses start to evolve out of primitive tribalism, or if this will be the new normal for the coming decade as well.

[Scholar]

12 hours ago, No Self said:

In the specific context of sincere spiritual seeking, an 'echo chamber' is exactly what is needed. That is why the tradition was to spend years with a guru hearing the same perspective over and over until liberation can (hopefully) be attained. Adding more perspectives, like asking someone from a different religion to critique the guru, would only create a mess.

When it comes to polarising politics or any intellectual field, however, echo chambers bring out the worst in humanity. The past decade will hopefully be remembered as a low point in the post-internet history of humanity. I call it the trollocracy as global politics were often dominated by the most divisive and grotesque trolls who are naturally favoured by algorithms of Facebook, etc. The question at this point will be whether the masses start to evolve out of primitive tribalism, or if this will be the new normal for the coming decade as well.

I also feel like this new dynamic changes Spiral Dynamics fundamentally. We cannot expect the same progession through the spiral to happen when we have such a large regressive force which basically co-opts the worst of the human mind. It would be foolish to just take a model that came from a pre-internet era and pretend like it would be accurate in the time of internet algorythms.

[Jake Johnson]

Restoring the disappearing middle class.