Re: Mind's Eye Towards a modern morality

People like events, circuses, festivities, spring break and such, I
don't know what else to say right now. Funny, the movie Saved with that
McCaulay Caulkin (misspelt) comes to mind, Jay & Silent Bob, or George
Carlin. A sense of humor is handy with some characters, I caricature
myself regularly! :p

Coming down with something ill so brain no-worky ATM.

On 5/26/2012 3:31 AM, Allan H wrote:
> James so finding a sinkhole, now apparently that is very easy, after
> watching Clare Prophet, the Rev. Moon, the new kid Cohen, the "Hour of
> Power" and many other religious ministries of great variety you can see
> they develop sink holes for money with the other end a lavish life style.
>
> You are right we need to work for the betterment of mankind. The
> emphasis needs to be on the poor but politics often gets I'm the way.
> Oddly enough it can be circumvented peacefully.
> Allan
>
> On May 25, 2012 11:38 PM, "James" <ashkashal@gmail.com
> <mailto:ashkashal@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I think one aspect to consider is what types of thinking it would
> take to build up an infrastructure of citizenry with a more
> scientific world view, and what that even means (hopefully more
> rational). This comes with some challenges in assimilation and
> integration, what entry points are there, is there even interest (or
> is it a funding sinkhole). And ethically, should we develop
> defenses to teach to our young for identifying and combating faulty
> reasoning and logic, what forms this might take. Maybe through
> introducing a broad immersion of diverse concepts they will
> self-immunize and make the changes generationally (and is that
> process fast enough for current/future challenges) if we just
> concentrate more on exceptional qualitative development. It takes
> time and attention, people are overworked and full of anxiety.
>
> I was trying to wrap my head around a challenge between technology
> and culture a little while back that involved high performance
> materials like stainless steel, high pressure steam and platinum
> plated ceramics and getting these things into the hands of your
> average third world farming community or poorer. Then it hit me,
> people don't need a source of gadgets, universities, a western way
> of life, industries and all that to benefit from modern knowledge,
> all that is necessary is an accessible vehicle, a friend, neighbor,
> or community. A few minutes later I had drafted an integrated energy
> refinement system using natural resources like clay, wood, soil, and
> rock to produce clean, high efficiency centralised heating with
> waste byproduct applications for sterile drinking water, safe human
> waste processing, personal/laundry cleaning chemicals and medicinal
> applications. It's gathering dust somewhere around here in the form
> of a scribble and a few notes.
>
> An accessible vehicle for the modern layman might be in how
> scientific approaches can be used to refine, redirect redefine and
> optimize our ends and means- and the Idols need to be outed as ill
> defined means that set an unrealistically low bar for problem
> solving capacity. That is one emphasis for science at the inroad of
> ethos, what potential could we released by directing a portion of
> energy toward actually solving problems and making solutions
> accessible? I wonder.
>
> Just a couple thoughts while trying to find that voice I put down
> somewhere. ;-)
>
> On 5/18/2012 12:13 AM, archytas wrote:
>
> My stance towards most moralising is one of incredulity, yet I'm a
> moraliser and believe most of our problems lie in our lack of
> personal
> and collective morality. Economics as our political and business
> class practice it is fundamentally immoral against a scientific
> world-
> view, My view of science is that it is full of values and the
> notion
> of it as value-free is a total and totalising dud. Only lay people
> with no experience of doing science hold the "value-free" notion of
> science.
>
> You can explore some of the moral issues arising in modern
> science in
> a lengthy book review at London Review of Books -
> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n10/__malcolm-bull/what-is-the-__rational-response
> <http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n10/malcolm-bull/what-is-the-rational-response>.
> The book's topic is climate change.
>
> Coming up to 60 I regard the world as a abject failure against the
> promises I thought were being made in politics. I'm a
> world-weary old
> fart now, tending to see the generations coming up as narcissist
> wastrels who don't know what hard work is (etc.) though I think the
> blame is ours, not theirs. I think the problem is our attitude
> towards morality. The tendency in history is to focus on
> religion for
> moral advice - this is utterly corrupt and we have forgotten
> that much
> religious morality is actually a reaction against unfairness and the
> wicked control of our lives by the rich. It is this latter factor
> that is repeating itself.
>
> Much moralising concerns sex. This all largely based in old fables
> for population control we can still find in primitive societies such
> as 'sperm control by fellatio' (Sambians) and non-penetrative youth
> sex (Kikuyu) etc. - and stuff like 'the silver ring thing'. The
> modern issue is population control and that we can achieve this
> without sexual moralising - the moral issues are about quality of
> life, women as other than child-bearing vessels and so on. We have
> failed almost entirely except in developed countries - to such an
> extent the world population has trebled in my lifetime despite
> economic factors driving down birth-rates in developed countries
> without the kind of restrictions such as China enforced.
>
> We are still at war.
>
> Our economics is still based in "growth" and "consumption" and
> notions
> human beings should work hard - when in fact the amount of work we
> need to do probably equates to 3 days a week for 6 months of a year.
> 75% of GDP is in services and only 6% in really hard work like
> agriculture. We could have a great deal more through doing less and
> doing what we do with more regard for conservation and very
> different
> scientific advance. My view is it's immoral that we won't take
> responsibility for this and review our failures. I believe this
> failure inhibits our spiritual growth and renders us simply animal.
>
>
>
>
>
> Human life may be much less than I value it at and just a
> purposeless
> farce. The first step in a new attitude towards morality is to
> consider living with a scientific world-view. The implications of
> this are complex and probably entail shaking ourselves from a false-
> consciousness to be able to see what is being done in our name. We
> need a modern morality not based in the creation of fear and
> demons to
> enforce it, or the feeble existential view of the individual.
> We are
> social animals and need to get back to some basics developed with
> modern knowledge, not in past religious and empire disasters.
>
> Religion has a role in this in my view - religion we might recapture
> from sensible history - I'd recommend David Graeber's 'Debt: the
> first
> 5000 years' as a read here.
>
>
>
>