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Freedom & Modern Systems of Control

Our ability to destroy any and all threats allows us to choose peace. How lucky that the previous generations did all the hard work for us.

Comprehensive new research has emerged with much more archaeological data on violence in prehistory. Analysis indicates that prehistoric hunter gatherers were considerably less violent than is commonly believed. This finding also seems to be borne out by ethnographic data on modern hunter gatherers with lifestyles relatively similar to their prehistoric ancestors.

Hunter gatherers were not non-violent noble savages by any stretch of the imagination. They were relatively violent when compared with modern standards and even when compared with rates of violence experienced by other primates and mammals in general. However, we think this is primarily because human conflict is so lethal, not because it happens so often. On the contrary, hunter gatherers typically exhibit non-violent norms, with amoral and atypical sociopaths accounting for a disproportionate share of violence, just as in our own societies today.
 
It’s not safe to wander anywhere near my house. There’s huge mountain lions and bears. Nature is awesome but still everyone has bear spray or more. No one wants to mess with a mountain lion.

Everyone just accepts it as part of life. It’s not uncommon I see deer in my yard with huge scars from being attacked. I’ve seen some pretty brutalized animals. Nature is a crazy wonderful place.
 
The nomad in me can't settle in one place. My wild nature calls me to far away shores and mountains.
What this modern world took from us is the sense of mystery and unknown. It must have felt miraculous to discover new lands.
We can create a divine garden on this Earth if we just put our greed and ambitions aside. Grow trees and sing praise to God. What else to want?
 
I'm telling you brother, that if you want a world completely at peace you will need to force everyone to agree with you or be ready to fight.
Can therer be no world at peace where individuals share different opinions without having to agree to each other?
The only thing required for peace is respect, in terms of everyone involved respects the others opinion without having to agree to it.
The idea that plants and fungi are outside of the realm of competition for resources is definitely an oversimplification. Plants use chemical warfare for instance.
Trees and fungi also live in symbiosis.
Not every kind tho.
But at the same time different fungi fight for the resource.
The bottom line for me. Unless you are capable of violence and make a choice to be peaceful... you're not really peaceful. You're just lucky that your circumstance allows it. Somebody else is defending you from violence.
Sometimes not reacting is a bigger violence without being violent.
But that requires a choice and does not need defense from others.
 
Can therer be no world at peace where individuals share different opinions without having to agree to each other?
The only thing required for peace is respect, in terms of everyone involved respects the others opinion without having to agree to it.

I wish it were that simple. It seems to me that there are many reasons violence erupts, opinions are only a small part of that.

Consider this: the vast majority of new recruits in any army cannot wait to 'get some action'. The standing armies of most nations are filled with willing combatants. At least until they realise the true horror of war.

We have video games about killing each other with hundreds of millions of avid gamers playing every hour of the day. We have paintball and airsoft as popular war simulations. Children love a wooden sword or a cap gun.

Conflict is so deeply ingrained in our psyche. Strength is celebrated. Destroying enemies considered honourable.

In an existence without a defined purpose, playing the ultimate game alongside your brothers and sisters is an experience unparalleled.

It's definitely a lot more complicated than everyone agreeing to disagree peacefully.
 
Love would still be the answer, but it's a tough one to pick when someone is coming at you with a knife.
I feel like aggression is part of the lesson of life. To go beyond our animal nature is a great step towards becoming truly human.
How this step would manifest in reality is beyond me at this point. I'm still an ape through and through.
🙏
 
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Children love a wooden sword or a cap gun.
Only once they learn that they have to obey to the rules of society and have to abandon the magical world. The power of a weapon is programmed within, as being needed to keep ones individuality.

It's a self-licking lollipop, mimicking the recursivity of Life itself. Quite ingenious really.

Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

To unprogram oneself comes at a perceived cost that is hard to ignore.

To keep this core-program means it stays valid for as long as it is perceived to be true. Just like everything else in life.

All perceptions are a catch-22, and all perceptions are illusions that we fool ourselves with.

Start moving some core-perceptions and it becomes clear that the possibilities are endless. And with that the illusionary veil is lifted, it is revealing that what is behind the veil is also an illusion. As if only with illusions can we create the World as we experience it.

My favorite illusion is that there has to be a third way. The one that isn't. The one not yet created by yourself.

🦋
 
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Yes that is beautifully put rkba.

At this point, we've been here for a long time. Could it be that this current human experience is a development of trying many other ways over millions of years?

The scales of suffering and happiness may be the same severity in all versions of the human experience.

In utopia, a lost car key may yield the same levels of distress and excitement as fighting to the death does to us. Without comparison, emotion may be just as powerful.

Maybe this, what we are all doing here is the most fun it's ever been.

If we dont extinct ourselves for good I'd say we stand a chance of all coming to this positive realisation but the process is parhaps longer than my imagination can visualise
 
I wish it were that simple. It seems to me that there are many reasons violence erupts, opinions are only a small part of that.

Consider this: the vast majority of new recruits in any army cannot wait to 'get some action'. The standing armies of most nations are filled with willing combatants. At least until they realise the true horror of war.

We have video games about killing each other with hundreds of millions of avid gamers playing every hour of the day. We have paintball and airsoft as popular war simulations. Children love a wooden sword or a cap gun.
I do not really see a point in having armies.
We as human beings bomb each other while we forget that every human is shareing the same peace of soil and they are literally bombing themselves.
Like we are not capable of solving things in different ways.
Also I view playing videogames and paintball as something completely different compared to army, war and killing.
One is a hobby or sport and the other is destruction.

But I get your point.
All this activities can create interest for war and likewise.
And while people are thriving how many bombs have fallen in a country they would at the same time shit their pants when war nocks in front of their door.

A while ago I read a paper which told that some moralists have their own moral system while this morals allow them to do what is unethical in other regions.
I came to the point that this conceptually happens also for those who deny any morals.
Conflict is so deeply ingrained in our psyche. Strength is celebrated. Destroying enemies considered honourable.

In an existence without a defined purpose, playing the ultimate game alongside your brothers and sisters is an experience unparalleled.

It's definitely a lot more complicated than everyone agreeing to disagree peacefully.
I get your point.
That is how it was and is.
But that should not mean that it is fine the way it was or is for the future.
The opposite would be a logical naturalistic fallacy.

Destroying enemies being viewed as honorable hits the nail on the head.
But it is not someone should be proud of.
Destroying is easy and a weakest path in my opinion.
 
Completely agree with you Lux. I imagine not many humans have got to the end of their lives thinking war is a good idea. We can be convinced to do some crazy things when we are young.
 
Completely agree with you Lux. I imagine not many humans have got to the end of their lives thinking war is a good idea. We can be convinced to do some crazy things when we are young.
This is an interesting point and highlights a complelty different dimension of the same puzzle.
What is the reason why we thrive for this things when we were young?
 
Completely eliminates the need to find an individual purpose.

Kids turning into adults, terrified about making something of themself. Warrior lore within a society, great heroes and so on, influences heavily at an age when your insignificance has just been highlighted so acutely.
 
Glad you bumped this thread, as I was planning to share Benn Jordan's video here. Thanks for sparing me having to find it myself!
Obviously it's from a US perspective and has its limitations that necessarily prevent it from being comprehensive, but he does bring up many salient points about finance and media which seem pertinent to the topic at hand.

Or did @Nydex share this one already? 😂
 
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