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Do You Feel The Deep-Seated Hate And Resentment Also?


charles brough

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The deep feeling of resentment that surfaces in so many of us is, of course, not normal, but it is common enough to be normal. It is something that has grown among the public in the last half century.

 

Those of us who are familiar with economics should be well aware that when there is increased abundance of something, its value drops. It is the same with people. As our society becomes more crowded, "other people" lose value! Our religious and secular ideologies try to minimize that, but it shows up deep within us anyway.

 

As crowding becomes worse, the value of "other people" drops further. Those who had a hard time as children feel added resentment that they carry on through life. Sometimes, in these people, the value of "the other people" takes on a negative value. The two factors combine to break the individual and he goes berzerk. Intuitively, he sets out to "get even" by killing as many "other people" as he can.

 

In other cases, he gives into the resentment and hostility by looking for and finding some "grand cause" that will "enoble" his revenge killing motive and then thus allow him to exit in a wave of "glory." Sound familiar?

 

You all know "the other people." They are the ones who crowd the highways and make you late for work or are ahead of you in the too-long unemployment line. You have to pay too much for gasoline because too many of them have cars. Some of them have faces or personalities that really grade on you and you want to avoid---such as some of those in the TV commercials that are thrust right across the screen and into your house and face just to aggrivate and by so doing attract your attention.

 

As I show why in "The Last Civilization," the stress from this is increasing and leading in strange directions. Each civilization has its own "over-population" problem. Also, each has declined, as ours is now.

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Yes I feel it everyday. I commute 1 1/2 hours each way to work mostly on the turnpike. Why is it so difficult for people to grasp the rule stay right pass left? I wonder what goes through their mind when they see a line of cars behind them as they do 40 mph in the fast lane or worse yet get passed by cars on their right? Traveling as much as I do I can see that just as many accidents are caused by slow drivers instead fast ones, maybe more.

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No. Other people are conscious just like I am. Not all of them are as intelligent, but that is not an excuse to dehumanize them. Some of them, regardless of intelligence do not understand the same things as I do. I take the attitude that it is possible this is because they understand something better, until I am able to convince them that they are wrong or I find out they really do. That way, either I haven't been convincing enough yet (I still have to prove it is even possible to be), or I have convinced them and there is no longer a problem. There is no period in between where I develop hatred and resentment towards the people for being ignorant. This is the TRUE meaning of Socrates' teachings.

 

On the other hand I get pissed when people try to subvert an argument that I make using debate fallacies, and then succeed because groups of people team up and support this behavior.

 

But this anger is driven first by the feeling of loss associated with my inability to reason with them, and second by the feeling of empowerment that goes with knowing I am right. Only this time I can't take my usual attitude because the nature of the thing being disagreed upon is to prevent me from communicating at all.

 

People that act as you say also feel loss at the fact that other people do not respect the ideas that they hold dear, but they have yet to even try to convince those others nor have they dealt with the possibility that those other people have a superior understanding.

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  • 5 months later...

People and civilizations both grow old and die. This civilization is like an old person with no goals left in life - weak, feeble, disappointed with how their life has turned out (me too as an individual). In other words it is the inevitable loss of innocence, growing cynicism and even atheism (all natural consequences of realizing that your life is a dead end).

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Why is it so difficult for people to grasp the rule stay right pass left? I wonder what goes through their mind when they see a line of cars behind them as they do 40 mph in the fast lane or worse yet get passed by cars on their right?

 

It's a pet peeve of mine too! I think they do it intentionally either because of arrogance (they feel they have the right to legislate the rules of the road) or possibly it's out of resentment. Perhaps they feel little control in their own lives and it gives them a sense of empowerment? I swear most when I'm driving!

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But this anger is driven first by the feeling of loss...

 

I think this is a really good and honest statement. I suppose if we were very sure of our ideas it wouldn't matter what others thought! Possibly the feelings of loss reveals too much of a concern about what others think!

 

I believe that criticism (even if it's intended to hurt) is helpful (but never comfortable) because it forces us to examine ourselves.

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The deep feeling of resentment that surfaces in so many of us is, of course, not normal, but it is common enough to be normal. It is something that has grown among the public in the last half century.

What is the basis of this claim?

 

Did someone conduct a study to determine levels of "resentment" in individuals, extending back 10, 20, 50, 100 years?

 

 

Those of us who are familiar with economics should be well aware that when there is increased abundance of something, its value drops.

Meaning what, if there is more resentment then it's less valuable? :blink:

 

 

As our society becomes more crowded, "other people" lose value!

Again, this sounds like an unjustified claim. 35 million people died during WWI; 60 milllion in WWII; the US probably killed 1 million North Vietnamese during that conflict. Iraq is probably around 100k.

 

There's also zero indication that dense urban areas devalue the lives of others. Crime has dropped nationally; NYC has less crime now than at any time since the 1960s.

 

 

In other cases, he gives into the resentment and hostility by looking for and finding some "grand cause" that will "enoble" his revenge killing motive and then thus allow him to exit in a wave of "glory." Sound familiar?

Sounds like you're trying to find an excuse for mass killings based on unsupported conjecture.

 

And one fairly easily refuted, since there is basically zero correlation between population density and mass murders. Most are taking place in suburban and urban environments, and don't seem to be terribly common in dense cities, like New York, Chicago, Mexico City, Tokyo, Shanghai....

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People and civilizations both grow old and die. This civilization is like an old person with no goals left in life - weak, feeble, disappointed with how their life has turned out (me too as an individual). In other words it is the inevitable loss of innocence, growing cynicism and even atheism (all natural consequences of realizing that your life is a dead end).

 

Some years ago I published an earlier book entitled "The Cycle of Civilization." As you write in the excellent paragraph above, societies and their civilizations have a discernable life cycle. What I did in the book was show all the parallels, the similarities, of each stage of the cycle with that of each of the other civilizations. They all tended to have gone through similar stages. Historians, however, are not prone to dwell on that. One problem is that in each of their books, the concentrate on only one society or civilization rather than dwell on all in a way that the similar stages are evident.

 

In my last book, "The Next Civilization," I go a step further than the first book and treat societies as "social organisms" not only with a life cycle but that undergo a process of natural selection. This line of work has never been seriously exploited before because it is too determinist, too fatalist, to be appealing. It unavoidably forecasts the ultimate end of this civilization and the religions and even the secular system on which it is based.

 

But, hay!, what use is science if it can't be objective?

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What is the basis of this claim?

 

Did someone conduct a study to determine levels of "resentment" in individuals, extending back 10, 20, 50, 100 years?

Meaning what, if there is more resentment then it's less valuable? :blink:

 

Again, this sounds like an unjustified claim. 35 million people died during WWI; 60 milllion in WWII; the US probably killed 1 million North Vietnamese during that conflict. Iraq is probably around 100k.

 

There's also zero indication that dense urban areas devalue the lives of others. Crime has dropped nationally; NYC has less crime now than at any time since the 1960s.

 

Sounds like you're trying to find an excuse for mass killings based on unsupported conjecture.

 

And one fairly easily refuted, since there is basically zero correlation between population density and mass murders. Most are taking place in suburban and urban environments, and don't seem to be terribly common in dense cities, like New York, Chicago, Mexico City, Tokyo, Shanghai....

 

It is hard to determine if this part-nit-picking response to my post is due to hostility or from the sociologist viewpoint in which nothing socially is known unless you can back it up with surveys and statistics. My field is social theory and having lived many more years than you and traveled a great deal more as well, I observe things. I also study all the social and natural sciences (some twenty plus of them). I never had much use for sociologists because they cannot even agree how to define "society", the subject of their field! Theirs is the only "science" that uses a variety of definitions for each term they use. It helps them rationalize.

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It is hard to determine if this part-nit-picking response to my post is due to hostility or from the sociologist viewpoint in which nothing socially is known unless you can back it up with surveys and statistics.

It's due to a complete lack of evidence supporting a highly pessimistic speculative opinion.

 

For example, you offer a brief and vague claim that an increase in population leads to resentment, alienation, and a reduction in the perceived value of human life. If this was the case, it really should not be that difficult to offer some evidence that, at a minimum, correlates "population density" and certain social problems. If you actually want anyone to take your position seriously -- rather than just chalk up agreements from a few disgruntled people who cave in to the general tendency to indulge in pessimism as they grow older -- I'd be happy to see it.

 

Until then, of course, we have consistently and even holding steady in the worst recession in decades; falling crime rates in urban environments; we have plentiful evidence that the loss of the life of a single fellow citizen is treated far more seriously than in the past; we have increasing respect for civil rights, extending to the use of language in the public sphere. We also don't necessarily see identical problems in all cities that reach specified population densities.

 

Of course, not everything is peachy-keen, e.g. we are witnessing significant increases in disparities between the wealthy and all other economic groups. However, this hasn't even generated enough outrage (or, if you like, hate and resentment) to give Wall Street much more than a light slap on the wrist, let alone rein in hedge funders who pay lower tax rates on capital gains than if they were paid salaries, to do anything about high executive pay, give the nascent consumer protection agency anything resembling real enforcement capabilities, or give the SEC a clean sweep and a real budget, or....

 

 

My field is social theory and having lived many more years than you and traveled a great deal more as well....

With all due respect, you may know you very well, but you don't know jack about me. ;)

 

For my part, I've lived long enough, traveled far enough, studied enough history and sociology and philosophy and other fields to know that you're just expressing a pessimistic opinion, and little more. While the specifics vary, "society is going to hell in a handbasket" is a downright common theme throughout history; e.g. Juvenal very likely satirized what he saw as the degradation of his society by the worsening state of the traditional Roman aristocracy and the rise of the freedmen. Malthus, as you ought to know, started decrying the negative aspects of population growth well over 200 years ago. At any given time, someone somewhere has likely believed that their own society is in decline since day one. :D

 

In the US, people have been terrified about the degradation of society for decades. In the early part of the 20th century, the threat was anarchism, Communism, robber barons, monopolies and economic distress. In the 50s it was gangs, Puerto Ricans, Elvis, and (of course) Communism. In the late 60s, for the leftists it was Vietnam, COINTELPRO, resistance to the Civil Rights movement, Watergate and "the Man"; to the right it was sex, drugs, rock & roll, the Black Panthers, and (to some) integration. In the 70s it was stagflation, OPEC, casual sex, disco, Japanese manufacturers and losing the Vietnam War. In the 80s and 90s it was obscenity, AIDS, feminism, crack cocaine, Communism (still), punk rock. In the 90s and 00s it was computers and the Internet, terrorism, radical Islamists, NAFTA and foreign competition, the "gay rights agenda," illegal immigration, the rising economic power of China, anything that could be construed as a threat to children. Oh, and for a brief time in between the fall of the Berlin Wall and terrorist strikes on US soil, it was the "Black Block" anarchists and anti-globalization protestors. Some of these were real threats; most were exaggerated in import. I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface of the Enemies List, most likely because I'm exhausted by how often someone dreams up yet another existential threat to our sacred "way of life."

 

Over the past 100 years the US managed to survive all these threats, two incredibly disastrous wars, multiple recessions, its first real attack on US soil in well over 100 years, and the Great Depression. Heck, the US inflicted a devastating civil war on itself and still survived. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that while we do face many challenges, and yes eventually we will lose influence and/or crash one day, I do not believe this is that time or that day. There's plenty of life left in the ol' gal.

 

If you are as well-read as you claim, you probably should have come across David Berreby's "Us and Them: The Science of Identity" which discusses the cognitive, social and neurological aspects of group identities. He believes the tendency to generate social groups is very likely innate, but the actual content of who is "in" and "out" of said groups is actually quite fluid and can change very quickly, under the right (or wrong) circumstances. I.e. an increase in population is highly unlikely to alter this dynamic in a uniform manner, especially in a society as fluid as the US.

 

You might also be wise enough to realize that anecdotes are emotionally persuasive, but ultimately a poor substitute for statistical data, and therefore unreliable as a basis for a social theory. While I would agree that high-quality statistical measures of socio-economic phenomena are not especially common, anecdotal evidence is essentially worthless, especially since we could summon up this type of claim to justify almost any position.

 

 

In short, I just think you're wrong. You don't offer evidence, and clearly I've got ample reasons for my beliefs on these matters. Your rejection of the merits of anything resembling empirical evidence is also not working in your favor.

 

Does this clarify the nature of my objections...?

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. . .you offer a brief and vague claim that an increase in population leads to resentment, alienation, and a reduction in the perceived value of human life. If this was the case, it really should not be that difficult to offer some evidence that, at a minimum, correlates "population density" and certain social problems. If you actually want anyone to take your position seriously -- rather than just chalk up agreements from a few disgruntled people who cave in to the general tendency to indulge in pessimism as they grow older -- I'd be happy to see it.

 

I can understand why it might seem that way to you. I have had to re-interpret a lot of data from many social and natural sciences because the standard enterpretation prefers a less confrontive-to-religion view.

 

As you must know, mammals generally orient to a territory they consider their own and which even erbivors will defend. Also, many of the mammals, especially the primates, have an optimal group size. When the group size grows beyond the optimal size pecular to that species, it breaks up. It is hard to know what they are thinking and feeling, but there is good reason to believe that as their numbers grow in excess of their optimal, they are subject to increased stress. Indeed, we know that deer that are isolated on islands and that increase in number beyond their ability to have enough food tend to die of shock or stress more than starvation. Primates generally break up into smaller and more normal-to-them sized groups. We are also small group social primates having evolved in hunting/gathering groups for millions of years. When we show signs of increasing stress, it is only to be expected that it would lead to a pessimistic attitude. And the logical way of thinking, barring any other good reason, is to say that it is because we are running out of territory and that we feel over-crowded even though there is still unused land and enough food for most of us.

 

As you indicate, there is no obvious correlation between population density and stress. Other facts which I also deal with are involved. I lived on Java for three years and found less stress there than in the US. One reason is that we are the product of a natural selection epigenetic process that went on in Europe. We got those there who wanted to escape and build into a new fronteer. We liked to push away from others and spread out over the near empty land. We more easily feel crowded.

 

We are evolved as small-group primates and we live now in such vastly larger groups because we use our ideological systems to unite us and in that way retain the small group feeling of community and security. We therefore lose that and feel stress in direct proportion to how divided and weak our ideological systems become. I won't try to bring to you all the data from the different sciences to back up all that. I have to assume you know the data. Let me know if any specific part of the above does not fit the data.

.

"society is going to hell in a handbasket" is a downright common theme throughout history, Someone somewhere has likely believed that their own society is in decline since day one.

I don't dispute that but it is irrelevant. Civilizations do collapse and are replaced. That is history. I am merely pointing out some of the mechanism that causes it.

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I'm not seeing any correlations between population density and societal "falls."

 

Here's a list of cities by population density: http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-125.html

 

Some of the worst-off cities, like Mexico City, have the same population density as significantly better-off ones like Singapore or Taipei.

 

By the way, did you find that Jakarta was off the charts in terms of stress? It's the 17th densest city in the world. (H'm, isn't Jakarta on the island of Java...?) You do know, also, that Indonesia is one of the most populous nations in the world, and that Indonesia's population density is much higher than the US (313/sq mi vs 83). Singapore has the 3rd highest population density (18,583/sq mi) and is doing quite well. China -- despite its huge land mass and large rural areas -- has 1,655 people per square mile, and is apparently on the rise.

 

(FYI, it took me all of 15 minutes to look up these statistics.)

 

How did you measure the "stress levels" of the population, by the way? Did you interview any of the 7.7% of Indonesians who live on $1 a day or less, and ask them if they felt any stress? Did you keep extensive documentation? Are you comparing blood pressure, rates of heart disease, conducting surveys? Were you there as a tourist, or did you specifically choose to travel to Java to investigate this issue? Which nations are you using for comparison? Are you comparing Jakarta to Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago or Portland? Are you comparing rural areas of Indonesia to rural areas of the US, UK, France, China and Russia?

 

On what basis should we assume that the US has allegedly outgrown its environment? After all, we import food and other products not out of basic necessity, but because it's cheaper.

 

Haven't you noticed that living in dense urban environments is actually more efficient? It's easier to set up public transportation and encourage residents to walk or use non-motorized transport. Residents occupy less space, which means lower power consumption, less heating and less cooling per person. Distribution systems tend to be more efficient and use less fuel.

 

Why doesn't a reduction in population help? Detroit and Newark don't seem to be helped much by their shrinking populations. Are people less stressed in Detroit than Los Angeles or NYC, both of which have significantly higher population densities?

 

Why isn't improved access to natural and/or manufactured resources figuring in to your calculations?

 

And which societies can we say truly fell apart because the population became too dense? Not the Romans, since there isn't much evidence of a massive population boom in the 5th Century. The Eastern Roman Empire took another thousand years to fall, and quite clearly did so because of repeated attacks by external powers. Ottomans? Egyptians? Aztecs? Spanish? British? Qing or Yuan dynasties? Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates? Soviet Union? I'm sure that some population somewhere was seriously harmed by overpopulation, overfarming and similar issues, but it doesn't seem to be all that common a factor.

 

 

We are evolved as small-group primates and we live now in such vastly larger groups because we use our ideological systems to unite us and in that way retain the small group feeling of community and security. We therefore lose that and feel stress in direct proportion to how divided and weak our ideological systems become. I won't try to bring to you all the data from the different sciences to back up all that. I have to assume you know the data.

Nothing I'm aware of leads me to the conclusion that "increased emotional stress due specifically to population density leads to the downfall of a society, but can be thwarted via ideology." Nearly every government that is failing may use ideology to prop itself up, but will also use other tools of repression such as jailing or executing dissidents, sealing borders, blaming foreign powers and controlling the media.

 

Nor do I see many signs that failing or failed states like North Korea, Zimbabwe, Myanmar/Burma, Somalia or Sudan are in their current condition primarily because of population density and/or significant population increases.

 

 

So while I accept that a species can overpopulate its environment and will subsequently shrink (via various mechanisms), I do not see this as a factor in the fall of many societies.

 

It is also far from a given that Ecotopia and Texas plan to secede from the Union, as the rest of the US slides into a dictatorship.

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I'm not seeing any correlations between population density and societal "falls."

By the way, did you find that Jakarta was off the charts in terms of stress? It's the 17th densest city in the world. (H'm, isn't Jakarta on the island of Java...?) You do know, also, that Indonesia is one of the most populous nations in the world, and that Indonesia's population density is much higher than the US (313/sq mi vs 83). Singapore has the 3rd highest population density (18,583/sq mi) and is doing quite well. China -- despite its huge land mass and large rural areas -- has 1,655 people per square mile, and is apparently on the rise. (FYI, it took me all of 15 minutes to look up these statistics.)

 

How did you measure the "stress levels" of the population, by the way? On what basis should we assume that the US has allegedly outgrown its environment? After all, we import food and other products not out of basic necessity, but because it's cheaper.

 

Haven't you noticed that living in dense urban environments is actually more efficient? It's easier to set up public transportation and encourage residents to walk or use non-motorized transport. Residents occupy less space, which means lower power consumption, less heating and less cooling per person. Distribution systems tend to be more efficient and use less fuel.

 

Why doesn't a reduction in population help? Detroit and Newark don't seem to be helped much by their shrinking populations. Are people less stressed in Detroit than Los Angeles or NYC, both of which have significantly higher population densities? Why isn't improved access to natural and/or manufactured resources figuring in to your calculations?

 

Nothing I'm aware of leads me to the conclusion that "increased emotional stress due specifically to population density leads to the downfall of a society, but can be thwarted via ideology." Nearly every government that is failing may use ideology to prop itself up, but will also use other tools of repression such as jailing or executing dissidents, sealing borders, blaming foreign powers and controlling the media.

 

Nor do I see many signs that failing or failed states like North Korea, Zimbabwe, Myanmar/Burma, Somalia or Sudan are in their current condition primarily because of population density and/or significant population increases.

 

So while I accept that a species can overpopulate its environment and will subsequently shrink (via various mechanisms), I do not see this as a factor in the fall of many societies. It is also far from a given that Ecotopia and Texas plan to secede from the Union, as the rest of the US slides into a dictatorship.

 

I'm sorry you had to go into such detail and spend so much time researching your response when you have made that point very well earlier. Unfortunately, you still do not understand what I am trying to get across to you. You are thinking sociology while I am thinking primate biology. I also spent considerable time writing the process down on paper for you dealing with animal small group behavior. It explains the process. You ignore it completely because you seem to be wired only to sociology, a subject that is lost when dealing with long term human cultural changes.You are dealing with cities, I am dealing with "societies" which I have defined in my paragraph on our social group nature.

 

And which societies can we say truly fell apart because the population became too dense? Not the Romans, since there isn't much evidence of a massive population boom in the 5th Century. The Eastern Roman Empire took another thousand years to fall, and quite clearly did so because of repeated attacks by external powers. Ottomans? Egyptians? Aztecs? Spanish? British? Qing or Yuan dynasties? Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates? Soviet Union? I'm sure that some population somewhere was seriously harmed by overpopulation, overfarming and similar issues, but it doesn't seem to be all that common a factor.

 

As I tried to make clear in the main paragraph, "over-crowding" is the tension and stress caused by either the group becoming too large for us small-group primates and/or because the ideology weakens that compensates for us the massive size groups we otherwise struggle with. The ideological unity breaks down and so does the society.

 

In dealing with the rise and fall of civilizations and the cause process, sociology is of little use. In it, you are dealing only with the modern time study of groups. You do not study "society" because you cannot even define the word. In Sociology it can mean any group of over one person! When important terms are defined in multiple ways, you don't even have science. What is the difference between a "group" and a "society" as well as what is a "religion" and is "Communism" a "secular religion? Do you have a way of defining both so you can answer the question?

 

If you are Catholic, we should have avoided this whole subject.

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You are thinking sociology while I am thinking primate biology.

Jumping from one field to the other is not even remotely problematic for me.

 

The problem is that there is apparently no evidence whatsoever for your claims.

 

Oh, and I'm no stranger to this kind of "evolutionary psychology" argument. Trust me, you're not doing anything remotely new in that respect.

 

 

In it, you are dealing only with the modern time study of groups. You do not study "society" because you cannot even define the word. In Sociology it can mean any group of over one person!

Nice straw man argument.

 

You can't define your way out of the simple fact that you have presented no evidence to support your theory.

 

It's fairly clear that you're more interested in adolescent protests against "sociology" than in actually proving your theory. Thus, I see no particular reason to waste any more time on this discussion.

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Jumping from one field to the other is not even remotely problematic for me. The problem is that there is apparently no evidence whatsoever for your claims. Oh, and I'm no stranger to this kind of "evolutionary psychology" argument. Trust me, you're not doing anything remotely new in that respect. Nice straw man argument. You can't define your way out of the simple fact that you have presented no evidence to support your theory.

It's fairly clear that you're more interested in adolescent protests against "sociology" than in actually proving your theory. Thus, I see no particular reason to waste any more time on this discussion.

 

It would appear that you disbelieve we evolved as small-group primates. That we did not evolve as hunter/gathering small size groups. tI also appears that you do not believe we have innate social behavior that is involved in the groups.. It also seems you do not understand that when the groups of all small group mammals grow larger than the group size pecular to the species that it breaks up. Thus, you think I need to prove all that to you so you will understand my reasoning. All that is firmly established. You even ask me to trust you as you dismiss the scientific consensus because you have neglected to keep informed in other fields.

 

The inevitable break up of too large groups results from what can be logically labeled, "over-population." What would you call it? And if it is not tension and stress that leads to the breakup, will you contribute to our knowledge and explain what does lead to it? The only way humans can function in such vastly larger groups or societies is for us to be ideologically united, otherwise (e.g., when the ideology splinters) the too-large group causes increasing stress in the form of esculating and medical and social problems---including hostility. Why is all this so difficult for you to understand?

 

If the term "over-population" offends you because you are Catholic, please say so. I did not set out to offend your faith.

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  • 1 month later...

I think this is a really good and honest statement. I suppose if we were very sure of our ideas it wouldn't matter what others thought! Possibly the feelings of loss reveals too much of a concern about what others think!

 

I believe that criticism (even if it's intended to hurt) is helpful (but never comfortable) because it forces us to examine ourselves.

 

No, that is not correct. It is entirely possible to experience a feeling of loss that no one understands the things that you do while still being 100% certain of your ideas. Human beings are social by nature, but through special conditioning people like me become far more aware of our surroundings as part of a survival instinct prior to worrying about fitting in or getting attention from other people. We still then care somewhat about social interaction.

 

For most people, it is ok if one person does not understand their idea, as long as someone else does. I have never met anyone that understands a significant fraction of the things I do. Also, if for some reason you are forced into a social circle, you also want those particular people to understand your ideas.

 

But besides this as part of my conditioning, I do not allow myself to be content with having influence over small niche groups. A lack of desire to overemphasize your niche group is part of the conditioning that makes someone infinitely more capable in the search for knowledge.

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