Do You Share My Cynicism?

[TheGravemind]

Everywhere I look, there's petty factionalism, hatred and blind zeal. I see jingos screaming for blood, innocent people dying, and people enjoying their lives in blissful ignorance in spite of this. In particular, the renewed conflict between Israel and Palestine has made me realize this to a greater extent. People always devolve to idiotic factionalism.

It seems no one can use common sense. No one can rise above the idiocy. Sometimes I wish for some alien fleet to pop up beside Earth and liberate it from itself.

Does anyone share my cynical outlook on the world, or am I alone?

[vizzle]

Credits to obdigore for linking this a few weeks back.

[TheGravemind]

Credits to obdigore for linking this a few weeks back.

Lol.

If that's true, then why do people act the opposite way? I don't buy it.

[Kuthe]

You are not alone, believe me.
The way humans try to claim dominance over each other and every living thing, it's insane.
I hate it, I hate those people to promote that type of thing.

We should be living in peace, not fighting, killing, and dominating everything we get our hands on.
So yeah, sometimes I'm keen to see Aliens rock up, and a unity be formed to combat them. Probably would lose, but atleast it would be some sort of unity.

[Deleted]

i will try to explain very brief with 2 better pictures.
First one is our Earth . If some people want a bigger slice of pizza, some other are required to get a smaller one .



If we want a want a bigger slice , we either increase the pizza size , or we need to take a bigger slice from our neighbour .
Increasing the pizza size would have resolved the problem without conflicts , but look at the second picture , the world population during ages:



We were able indeed to increase the pizza size over the ages , but the population always grow too , the competition for everything being there . And, looking at the graphic, we see an exponential growth , not a normal one . It was obvious that some population always got in competition with others for land , resources,oil, metals, minerals , forests ...
The bad new is we are not be able to keep increasing the pizza size , cause we live on a finite piece of rock .Earth. There is a limit somewhere.

But looking at the graphic , the situation in the future is not looking more promising then the one in the past . More people will be in competition for same / or less resources , and this always transform in wars . The history proved it.

The reasons for wars ? The leaders always invent one . The masses need a "casus belli " to raise at war . And as we saw, they are very good at brainwashing them . And thrown them against each other . They can always appeal to religion , race , history ...

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

I have no idea why the population of Earth is directly relevant to what he is saying or to what you are saying in response. You could have just said "Leaders invent reasons for wars and are good at appealing to the general populace who flock around them."

[Deleted]

Humans have been at war with each other since time immemorial.

Have a nice day!

[TheGravemind]

i will try to explain very brief with 2 better pictures.
First one is our Earth . If some people want a bigger slice of pizza, some other are required to get a smaller one .



If we want a want a bigger slice , we either increase the pizza size , or we need to take a bigger slice from our neighbour .
Increasing the pizza size would have resolved the problem without conflicts , but look at the second picture , the world population during ages:



We were able indeed to increase the pizza size over the ages , but the population always grow too , the competition for everything being there . And, looking at the graphic, we see an exponential growth , not a normal one . It was obvious that some population always got in competition with others for land , resources,oil, metals, minerals , forests ...
The bad new is we are not be able to keep increasing the pizza size , cause we live on a finite piece of rock .Earth. There is a limit somewhere.

But looking at the graphic , the situation in the future is not looking more promising then the one in the past . More people will be in competition for same / or less resources , and this always transform in wars . The history proved it.

The reasons for wars ? The leaders always invent one . The masses need a "casus belli " to raise at war . And as we saw, they are very good at brainwashing them . And thrown them against each other . They can always appeal to religion , race , history ...

The Earth is not overpopulated, if that's what you're attempting to say. It's far from being overpopulated as well. If the entire world lived with the population density of Paris, the entire population of the Earth would easily fit inside France.

That's besides what I was saying, however.

---------- Post added 2012-11-23 at 08:37 AM ----------

Humans have been at war with each other since time immemorial.

Have a nice day!

So, you resign yourself to history? I won't.

[Deleted]

The problem is belief.

It's not that belief is inherently bad. We humans, while able to assess evidence, are particularly ready to hold beliefs against evidence. This has made us stronger. Has helped us constitute social groups larger than the family or the clan, has helped us harvest natural resources on a scale that no other species ever did on our planet, including the rest of the species of the Homo genus.

We get fond of our beliefs, so fond that we attribute them qualities they don't have: rational, realistic, scientific, beneficial for the common good or for the self...
But our ease to latch onto beliefs makes it hard to be critical with them. We are very good at criticizing those beliefs we didn't adopt, but very bad at criticizing the beliefs we like, just as we are bad at criticizing the people we like opposed to the people we don't.

All of us are reasonably intelligent. The problem is that we use our intelligence to defend our beliefs, instead of to assess their truth. And hence we get extremely intelligent people defending extremely stupid beliefs. And thinking themselves the only thinking persons.*

Can we get rid of this? Well, i think it's very difficult. Our love for our beliefs is entrenched in our genes, so until that's gone... Meanwhile we need to put our best effort to be more critical with our own beliefs than we are with the beliefs of others. To use our intelligence to help us find the weak points of our mindset, and attack those points. But how to do this without adopting new beliefs to substitute the old, ending up with the same problem again?


*And yes, this is a big warning sign! The more alienated you feel from the rest of the people, the more you should worry that maybe your beliefs are wrong, and you should reexamine them immediately.

[Skizo]

All beliefs are founded at a very basic level on opinion, and people who have different opinions from you will think very differently than you.
Assuming that there is no inevitable judgement and astral truth, I have absolutely no reason to exploit you in every way possible to further my goals.
There is no "common sense" in calculating the worth of a human being. Going to war for land might make sense to one person and not to another, but that doesn't make either one wrong, assuming that there is no objective truth.

[Deleted]

Thinking this once and making a decision is a part of growing up, you now have 3 options.

1. Do something about it and i dont mean make a forum post, become someone that can actually make a difference.
2. Get over it and live your life
3. Keep thinking your special and live a saf life full of resentment, douchebaggery and pretentiousness.

Most people chose 3, a few brave people chose 1 and the rest me included go for #2 !

[Deleted]

The Earth is not overpopulated, if that's what you're attempting to say. It's far from being overpopulated as well. If the entire world lived with the population density of Paris, the entire population of the Earth would easily fit inside France.

That's besides what I was saying, however.

Yes, the Earth is overpopulated. Yes, the entire world might live in France but... you're forgetting things like:
-politics
-standard of living on different countries
-distribution of wealth
If everyone lived at the same standards USA medium people live, only 1 billion people could live on it.
If we lived at the standard of the UK, 1.5 billion.
If we lived at the standard of India, 15 billion people could live on Earth.

That said, would you want to live at the standard people in India are living in or at the standard EU/USA people live in?

[Skizo]

Yes, the Earth is overpopulated. Yes, the entire world might live in France but... you're forgetting things like:
-politics
-standard of living on different countries
-distribution of wealth
If everyone lived at the same standards USA medium people live, only 1 billion people could live on it.
If we lived at the standard of the UK, 1.5 billion.
If we lived at the standard of India, 15 billion people could live on Earth.

That said, would you want to live at the standard people in India are living in or at the standard EU/USA people live in?

There's significantly more arable land than is necessary to sustain the population, and the population is leveling off as countries become more modern.
Overpopulation is not an issue.

[Kasierith]

I consider myself a highly intelligent person, on a number of areas even outside my exceedingly specialized calling, and I do not share this cynicism in the slightest bit. Yes, there are a number of completely ignorant people out there. But attempting to extrapolate this cynicism upon the population as a whole is nothing more than a twisted form of anecdotal thinking, and is a pit trap that you would be far better off avoiding.

As for the world not being overpopulated, its not an immediate concern, but it is a growing one. Trying to assume that you can make the entirety of arable land available for maximum efficiency farming doesn't quite follow.

[bergmann620]

Most, or nearly all, of my cynicism has burned off as I've aged.

I've actually arrived at a pretty good place as far as my mentality/outlook towards life in general.

The only area I don't have a basic faith in at this point is politics, and even then, I love the fact that we have a minority president, even though I didn't vote for him, and that I can hold opinions differing from his, and it not be due to his skin color.

I guess a lot of it has to do with where you are, and the rest of it has to do with where you are inside your own head.

[Reyzzz]

Does anyone share my cynical outlook on the world, or am I alone?

No, but I share the difference in interest in politics.

[Anakso]

Oh you're definitley correct on your factionalism comments. People will always split up into factions, whether it be about serious things like Palestine vs Israel or none serious like Girls Generation vs Super Junior (If you could see some of the ridiculous fan war that goes on, even though these two groups are close friends and grew up together, the fans still have to fight!)

Not everyone does it but I think it's not something that's going to stop any time soon.

But don't give up on humanity for it, I'm not a cynical person at all. Humanity has lots of bad points and does terrible things, but just as it does terrible things so too does it do amazing and kind things. There are good people in this world, they just make less noise than the bad ones.

[TheGravemind]

Not alone, i lost all hope in humanity couple of years ago, are you psyops from requiem? if so, small world (of warcraft)

i see it like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRNcrokes5g

And to all the idiots saying that this planet is overpopulated... it's not and it's not a growing issue, you people have no idea how much food is wasted every year because they would rather wait until the expiration date for a possible sale instead of giving it away to those dying from hunger.

Yeh, I'm Psyops from Requiem on Kil'jaeden.

Most of the world's hunger problems are a result of a lack of distribution, not a lack of actual food supplies. The planet is not overpopulated and not even near that point.

[Hraklea]

If that's true, then why do people act the opposite way?

...Because people have different concepts of what means to be a sheep?

[Gheld]

Everywhere I look, there's petty factionalism, hatred and blind zeal. I see jingos screaming for blood, innocent people dying, and people enjoying their lives in blissful ignorance in spite of this. In particular, the renewed conflict between Israel and Palestine has made me realize this to a greater extent. People always devolve to idiotic factionalism.

It seems no one can use common sense. No one can rise above the idiocy. Sometimes I wish for some alien fleet to pop up beside Earth and liberate it from itself.

Does anyone share my cynical outlook on the world, or am I alone?

Shit happens, and it's usually because of people who think that everybody should be miserable. The world has always been the way that you describe and I can assure you it's not going to change within your lifetime, because one of the biggest problems it has is that it's run by a bunch of self-righteous fucks who think they have the right to change it (and thus go to war with each other over HOW to change it.)

So rise above the idiocy and enjoy your life in blissful ignorance.