I think you're right, we are blessed to live in the present time.
Like i said in the opening post, western civilisation has had something going for it. All the positive things you mention are a result of the belief that has been deeply rooted in our civilisation for a long time, that every human live is very precious, not something you can buy or sell like it's just a piece of flesh.

I think that all that fractal enchantment describes, living with the hart instead of the mind, ironically enough would have never been accesable to us if we wouldn't have had the so called enlightened 'age of reason' that enabled us to shed-off the tirany of monarchs and churches.

Only then, wealth, prosperity and good health was slowly allowed to spread among all the people instead of it being only for a privileged few.
And it still took a while before the abolition of slavery was actually achieved within the western world.

At the same time though, doomsday prophets have not always been wrong. Think of the horrors of the past century, for instance.
We are still here, but millions of people have been slaughtered. For millions and millions, the world DID end.

Western civilisation has achieved a lot. Sometimes unfortunanely, at the cost of others, but yes, we did learn from our mistakes eventually.
But our greatest achievements, wich i think are living peacefully and living in a relatively peacefull part of the world, ARE eroding.

The deportation in france, the very country where the idea of human rights was more or less invented, of hundreds of gypsy's is a sign on the wall. The line has been crossed, and the majority of the french aprove of it.

Yes we had it good....But the line has been crossed.

And history has shown that in time, that can prove to be very, very, very serious shit.

It's not that I believe we're all going to hell in a handbasket, or that the world will soon come to an end... far from it. Rather, it's the collapse of the Western mindset; the death of the decadent and unsustainable culture which has numbed millions to aspects of life other than the rat race. I don't believe that there is more bad stuff happening than before. The end of the west is not tied up in this; it is the end because soon (hopefully) the mentality will become critically disbalanced and collapse.

Sounds like you're predicting the the END of the BAD... That's reason to celebrate then, no?

The king is dead, long live the KiNG!!

JBArk the harbinger of good tidings

Hi jbark and the other optimists!

I'm an optimist too. In fact my vision is of extreme optimism whether for the planet or the human race. Yet we must not be blind to what is happening. Just because some places are good to live, and in fact, as a whole, we are living better than ever, it does not mean anything.

A fact is that we are depleting all our natural resources and the tremendous amount of technology we created has not increased proportionally our productivity. This will inexorably lead us to a Malthusian situation, where our economic growth must stall. The issue is that such a situation is financially unsustainable. The amount of money we create is in a large part derived on the expectation that growth will happen. It is a matter of very few years until this situation is actually perceived. This will cause a real Economic Mayhem with unforeseen consequences.

As I said, in the face of such adverse situations, Man may actually find itself, and create a new paradigm, not necessarily centered around artificial values as the ones that have been the center of Western Civilization. So I really believe that in the end it will turn out for the best, and the insanity created in the Victorian XIX century, propagated mercilessly through the mad XXth century will eventually end.

I'm glad that there are so many optimists.

I don't want to give the impression that i believe only bad things will happen.

But we will have to make huge steps.
To become the humanity fractal enchantment describes in this thread and in his call to all human beings, to become truly human, will be a huge challenge in the face of all that will be thrown at us.

The optimists are right: there never has been a better moment for a new paradigm than in the coming years.

But it's not like the right paradigm will come to us automatically. It will be a huge struggle.

We owe it to all future generations not to mess it up again. We no longer can afford that.

I think there exists a major difference between physical well-being and mental[spiritual] well being.
As far as the physical world is concerned, our optimists here seem to have reality painted rather well. I feel the greater danger is present for humanity's souls.

Even making such a statement is claiming my own views to be superior, but I think this community can understand where I am coming from (and indeed, most of this is old news.) Our species' progression from the natural struggle of life as experienced by our ancestors and every other species has left huge gaps in our daily lives. Though evolution can never be escaped, the modernization of our world has thrown a wrench in the cogs of natural selection. We no longer have to struggle for survival. Instead of surviving life, we aim to survive society. We hunger after acceptance more than food. Even the "failures" of our species can dig through trash to find enough cans to buy fast food and have money leftover for booze (Post-industrial nations).

We have lost our appreciation for life. The majority of the world is sleeping through existence, oblivious to the majesty surrounding us in every single moment. Instead, in our utter boredom, we turn to entertainment.... endless entertainment. We fill our lives with busyness and noise, ignoring the depths of our minds, afraid of what we might find there, as Buddhists put it. And all of society sings along, giving us an encouraging push into its frivolous "culture" as it continues to ignore the fact that it is ultimately nothing; it is fabricated nothingness. We are completely ingrained in our convenient, modern civilisation. We labor and stress over money so we can afford to be entertained and recuperate from the very stress we have created. It's a self perpetuated cycle, and as our population continues to swell, its effects become increasingly amplified. It seems that unless the physical framework of our world truly does degrade and fail, we have no reason to change our self-destructive habits.

That being said, I still find hope in the loving individuals I meet and in communities such as the Nexus. Not all of humanity is sleeping, and those who are awake desire nothing more than "the awakening" of our species. I think we can get some momentum going.

On top of that we have screwed the whole planet evolution and natural selection processes.

Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn comes to mind.

Western civilisation is to be commended for many many things, not least is its technological prowess and ability to construe a society which allows much individual freedom without degenerating into anarchy.It is lacking in balance for it by and large doesnt seem to value or nurture a spiritual dimension and the consequences of this can be seen in the malaise that afflicts the West.

Im not certain that the outlook is wholly bleak but I think its reasonable to regard a pessimist as simply an optimist who is aware of the facts!!

There are many good things about the west, but also these less positive aspects.

One of the things i like about our culture, wich i think many cultures lack, is our openess to criticism and our relative openess to other cultural influences.

I think the west does have the potential to change. That is also what gives me hope.

In my view, and this is also the view of the dalai lama, the confrontation between the tibetan budhist culture and western culture has been very positive for both cultures.

I think we could learn many more things if we embrace the rise in power of asian countries like india. Some say that the west is the west and the east is the east and that the two would never meet.
I think that's bullshit. We have a lot in common with india. We could realy learn from eachother.

We just should be willing to take that step. India will devellop anyway with or without our help, they don't need us. So we should be the ones taking that step.

I dont feel like wester society really leaves alot of space for personal freedom. I think they treat individuals like slaves.

Completely agree, there is no such thing as "freedom"!

And by your definition, can you name one productive, large scale society that doesn't? ( that's not an oppresive despotic tyranny...)

nope. But that was never my point. I dont find any real relevance in comparisons when it comes to this issue becasue its like saying one oppression is better than the other. What I want doesnt exist in the dead world anywhere. Society is sick and its a collective, global phenomenon..and I would much rather live off in the world of my creation than in the one we collectivly seem to agree exists.

Right on antrocles. I have been spending some time there also.

I feel that we, western civilization, are creating soo much chaos, we are destroying everything around us soo fast, what is to come? Singularity?

So many driven by greed, hatred, envy. So many more are enslaved and hungy for basic human needs.

And then there is the Holy War that is escalating. The Islamic Bomb is now a reality and it is only a matter of time before it is used against western civilization and when it happens Western governments controlled by the ultra wealthy will take this opportunity to react in a most horrendous manner.

The quickening has indeed come.

Mother Earth weeps.

It may not happen in my lifetime, but I believe it will happen in my grand childrens life time.

The end of civillization as we know it.

I'm guessing you're not 60.

Compare the west to the east. You'll see who is really treated like mindless drones. Think japanese businessmen driving off cliffs with their familys. They have a real fucked up corporate culture there, you must attend all work related functions and a lot of people sleep in their office because of the overtime and workload, your work becomes your entire life.

It's strange - we look back at the Industrial Revolution, WWII, the Age of Reason, and see massive, revolutionary changes of thinking and perspective on a societal scale. And everything seems to change, enormously. And yet, in my life time, the greatest revolution has happened - the connecting up of humanity.

I don't think things are getting worse - I reckon the Black Plague was a pretty rough patch - I think we're more aware of things. Global news, 24/7, and of course the web upon which we have built this community, connected across timezones and faultlines, connected by a shared experience.

The earthquakes and strikes and riots and crashes and coups and explosions - these are always happening, always have. The change is in the fact that we are becoming connected, like neurons in a global brain, and that will continue to be the single most important change of our age, what we will be remembered for.

Good points 88. Maybe 10-15 years ago you would only get your world news via the shitty news programs or newspapers once a day and they would miss a lot of important stuff or gloss over others. These days everyone gets it from the internet, unfiltered from as many sources and they care to look up. You can even get firsthand videos from witnesses to any major even within an hour or two. The world isn't any more dramatic or dangerous than it was in the past we are just wired into live worldwide news feeds 24/7.

Meh...

Too many Chicken Littles around here.

Now let the real flaming begin! I know how attached people can be to their doomsaying and it's associated pain and suffering, but I've got broad shoulders.


Pokey the Unwavering Optimist

Ice House- you say the Islamic Bomb is now a reality-care to elaborate on this?

My age has nothing to do with it. It's a simple mathematic principle:
The average life expectancy has risen dramatically for the past few decades, on itself a good thing. In most european countries, there are collective pensionsystems, unlike in america for instance, where you are responsible individually for your own pension.
These collective systems where based on the old ratio in (in this case the french) society between people below a certain age and people above a certain age, in this case 60. I don't need to explain that this ratio changes when people get older and when less babies are being born. Therefore the ratio between contribution to the collective system and it's total costs changes, resulting in a budget deficit for these pensionfunds.

I used this example to show that people have become so egotistic that they're even no longer willing to accept such a simple fact and adjust to it. It's a simple calculation and every 6 year old should be able to understand it. If the majority of the french people is not willing to face such a simple fact, it's because they're not willing to face any fact that's not directly beneficial for themselves...It's something like cigarette smokers who refute studies about longcancer and smoking.

And i don't want to bash the french. You see these sort of things everywhere....and i love france. Paris is my favorite city actually.

The U.S. government has something simmilar going on, that's even more concerning. I read an interview with a economist who's a senior adviser for the obama administration, and he said that the US government considers it's budget deficit not a problem, more or less because they think america, like a huge bank, is TOO BIG TO FAIL....

It's those kind of things that deeply worry me.

( p.s. i think ice house meant the nuclear arsenal of pakistan, a country in war with the taliban, who're paradoxically supported by people within the pakistani government itself. They've got their nuclear technology from holland btw)