Boundaries have their place. Biology wouldn't be possible without membranes.

Mix all the colors of the rainbow and what do you get?
Not 49 new colors, but a single ugly shade of grey-brown.
That's not diversity.

As an artist, I know that blue and green can create a lovely aqua,
but the fusion of purple and yellow is a terrible mistake.

Compatibility & complementarity, that's all.
It applies to biology, it applies to color, and it applies to culture.
I didn't create these dynamics.
Blame Nature if it's a problem for you.

As a poor non-artist, i'd like to remind you the fact : all the rainbow colors is sun light.

I don't know why discussions like this tend to escalate so quickly. Given the world we live in today, i think we all for sure need to have these discussions. There's just too much going on, and we're all affected one way or another, just like we all play a part one way or another.

But maybe the problem is that words and ideas are actually very powerfull. If the pen realy ís mightier than a machine gun, then words and ideas actually cán be dangerous. And if that is so, then i can understand why we would Always want to read between the lines, looking for hidden intentions that could be threatening to us.

That's why i think it is so important to have at least some basic values that universally apply. Only when there can be no misunderstanding that we all have some basic sort of respect for eachother, as a human being, we can safely have these kind of discussions in the first place.
If not, then we will Always feel threatened by simple disagreements. And that would not even be irrational. It would rather be irrational, not to feel threatened.

Apparently that basic sense of certainty, to be assured that as a human being you will Always be granted at leats some basic, unalienable rights, is very much lacking in today's society.

Of course. That doesn't negate or contradict anything I said.

Likewise, all sound is frequency.
Some frequencies harmonize, others clash.

My approach: maximize harmony.
Your approach: let all frequencies mingle because separation is wrong.

Which one of us will fill the dancefloor?

It's the only way to get off this floating space rock and onto another, and it's mass coordination on a scale unseen but for entomological coordination.
I didn't mention anything of ideology, nor gender.
As for government, the queen of the ant people will be an artificial intelligence. I'd sooner follow a bot than any wetware no matter how enigmatic and charming they are. Because I myself are wetware and well aware of my flaws.



No battles to be fought for this one. A slow, methodical transformation is the ticket. Sexual selection first (caramelisation of the species), followed by sexual liberation, ease of communication (transition from tradition spoken word to text based), genetic manipulation (CRISPR) etc ect the novel practically writes itself.


I'm no evolutionary biologist, but equating homosapiens with an entire branch of the genetic tree irks me a little. I could be wrong though.

That's the beauty of ant-people, the ultimate unnaturalness of it.

..well said, and it seem's you're addressing your own question wisely, dragonrider..
and blue lunar night - sphorange is a mischievous elf, don't you know? lol


i think that the majority of human beings at the moment cannot actually think for themselves, and keep re-propagating simplistic and flawed idea-memes (thought forms) which lead to greater hate, war and suffering..

i’m truly feeling sorry for the majority of people of middle-eastern appearance in Europe at the moment…i know people of middle-eastern descent in the UK who have been feeling the hostility and anger directed at them simply for their appearance…women with their children..

now, i absolutely believe that it is because of the increased alienation, discrimination against anyone of ‘Islamic’ background, that an increasing number of these few unstable people carry out these acts of violence which really can only say one thing - ‘i feel alienated’, whatever hate-fuelled memes have influenced them..let’s go back to before the events of 2001, and the subsequent invasion of Iraq..
was there a terrorism problem, really? ..when everyone starts staring at you funny because you look a certain way, but you haven’t done anything wrong, how’s that going to boost your psychology?

look at how someone and something like the Norway massacre by Anders Behring Breivik is treated and responded to? …or your average ‘mass shooting’ in America..when it’s islamic it is treated differently in the language and simple idea constructions of the media, fuelled by ignorance and fear..
i don’t feel any more unsafe from or threatened by 'islamic' people than any other 'kind' of people!

the Catholic Church finally admitted to their ‘sins of the sword’ in South America recently, and have allowed pedophillia to thrive unchecked in places, had a pope who supported the nazis, and have murdered millions in the name of the Lord (which one though?) over the centuries…but i don’t ask for them to be driven out, because to tar all with the same brush is just wrong, flawed..there are ‘catholics’ who have quietly worshipped the Black Madonna (goddess), and there are visionaries like Teilhard de Chardin..

now, the Nexus, while being majority ‘white’ (whatever the f that means), has a very diverse range of cultures and peoples here..including devout people of Islamic faith, who would read their religion in a very different way to conservative islam, and who are into entheogens…lets not forget the Sufis either (who are hated by ‘extremist’ muslims), and that in fact the european medieval notion of ‘chivalry’ was learned from crusaders who were astonished at how well the middle-easterners (at that time) treated their women..

the only hope is to reach out with care, sharing and intelligence..cultures do change, but only with strong and true ideas..


nature favours diversity yes (which is probably why when i was at high school, i recall the richer and blonder girls were, the more of a black guy fetish they had..just to be controversial for a moment), but really skin colour is hardly a good measure of diversity…culture perhaps, or even size, but skin colour is trivial and surface…’race’ does not exist in biological terms for humans…genetic diversity, in the hands of nature, is more the difference between trees and birds…also we should note that at periods in the distant past, the human species is believed to have been reduced to between 300 and a few thousand people, from which we are all descended..

but if we’re going to discriminate against multi-culturalism as a concept, then should we not start with the nexus? ..brown-skinned and indigenous nexians can form the Jim-Jam jungle DMT-Nexus, while those in S.E. Asia the Yellow dragon DMT Nexus, and the rest can form the Supreme White DMT-Nexus… ..will that improve things..?

we are a hybrid culture..diverse within our single purpose (‘Hyperspace’ or what have you)

seriously, though…yes there are some deeply human problems coming to the surface, 'disharmony' sure, and this is why we need reasoned, balanced (compassionate, fair), intelligent and new ideas or ways of communicating with other human beings..and blanket generalisations of any group are, to my mind, below a threshold of intelligence required for long term human survival as a species..

I hope we all learn what we need to.

It is plain to see and feel the tension in this world. It is hard to watch. It is hard to see people in pain. Hard to see people separate and divide themselves in so many ways.

This may sound odd but maybe this is what we all need. Sometimes you need to be what you are not enable to realize what you really are. Coming from me this is saying a lot. I am usually a very pessimistic person. The thing is when I look around in the world I see and feel this tension and pain, but I also see so many that are waking up with compassion and love. It is like the negative is waking them up. I accept it all and am really trying on a new hat of optimism.

The world is me and I am the world. So what responsibility do I have? I cannot change the world. I cannot take away the pain and tension from the world. I can only improve myself and choose to be positive as much as possible and accept the negative with as much grace as possible. I take personal responsibility for my addition of negativity into this world. I too feed the flames. I choose not to focus on the negative. That is not to say I ignore it. I acknowledge it is there. I even appreciate the lessons it can provide.

Manure is contributive to the sweet smell of the rose said Alan Watts. That is exactly as a I choose to see the shit in this world. Contributive to our evolution.

Critical mass of positivity, love, and compassion for everything on this planet can and will occur. More people are waking up. More and more people are choosing love instead of fear. People divide and fight because they fear. They choose it individually. Many do not take responsibility for themselves and their actions and create a world of fear for themselves and others.

Who will wake them? Who will point towards another way? Those of us who are awake have a responsibility. We are here and awake. We can choose to be compassionate and loving as much as we can in this world.

We must be the ones who change this world. We observe and we see. We can take action. We can do something and not take the role of victim. We all create this world we live in. The powers that be around the world would have you focus on the negative. Don't ignore the negative, accept it for what it is and move on to solutions. Create something beautiful!

As I stated this optimism hat is new for me. Feels odd to say something of this nature. Normally I would say the world is going to hell in a handbasket and can understand that sentiment all to well. I am truly hopeful that humanity will come out of this dark time better than ever before. I think we are witnessing the death throws of the old way of thinking. We are evolving. We are learning. We are a beautiful human race! I wish every single person on this planet could see this connection we all share. We are all one! I accept the whole!

Peace.

Mathematically-speaking, differentiation is the opposite of integration...

Just sayin'...

Historically-speaking, segregation is the opposite of integration.

i thought i detected a kindred button-pusher
you're a strange one sphorange, but i don't hold it against you

solid post nen. sorry for the long response, which i'll probably regret later.
but i'd like to address your characterization of the situation.



i sympathize with secular and christian middle-easterners who are unfairly profiled, and with muslims reformers who are risking their lives to bring some sanity to their culture.

i have real compassion for people born into Islamic ideology... not their fault.

true moderate muslims = westernized muslims.
secular humanist western culture is the mitigating factor.

the sunnis and shiites were bombing each other long before they had the opportunity to do it in the west.
the sufis should understand the sickness in Islam better than anyone, with all the persecution they've endured.

have you read the quran? it is bloodthirsty, tyrannical, and tribal in the worst possible sense.
Beheading in Islam (wikipedia)

'Islam' = 'Submission'.

sure there's nasty stuff in the old testament too, but these days you don't see baptists or orthodox jews setting off bombs in airports or driving trucks into crowds of people.

every 10 years a nutjob christian shoots a couple people at an abortion clinic, and is immediately condemned by all of western society.
muslim attacks in europe now seem to be happening on a weekly basis, and the muslim outcry is is distinctly tepid, and mostly limited to twitter hashtags.

just yesterday there was another axe attack on a german train, the guy was screaming 'Allahu Akbar!”

and today in france, a mother and her 2 daughters were stabbed by a moroccan migrant outside their apartment for being 'scantily clad' - in shorts and t-shirts.

do you know anything about the partition of india and pakistan?
massive brutal violence, on both sides, with up to a million hindus murdered by muslims during the separation.
hellish atrocity.

hindus tend to be pretty accepting of diversity – they're real big on the 'many paths to one source' idea, the 'everyone's an avatar' idea.

muslims, not so much.

don't even get me started about the massive arab slave trade, which dwarfed the european trade and continues to this day. which gave us the very word 'slave', from the captured Slavic peoples of central Europe, and raided villages as far away as the coasts of ireland and iceland.

most people in britain, germany and sweden started off 100% eager to help their poor middle eastern friends.
these countries are the #1 champions of multicultural society in Europe.

they constantly self-flagellate for sins of the past, and were mortified at the possibility of being thought racist (many are still mortified).
their capacity for self-criticism, and sense of collective responsibility for ancestral transgressions, is vastly more developed than it is in the islamic world.

if they are now treating these people with a measure of skepticism, don't you think there might be a reason other than the spiteful nature of spoiled, imperious Anglo-Saxons & Aryans?

is it possible that occurences such as:

---ongoing taharrush mass rape attacks in NYE cologne, multiple swedish music festivals etc - (response of german government: german women should dress modestly, not travel alone at night)

---rotherham scandal in uk - 1400 girls as young as 12 raped and tortured by muslim migrants for over a decade, police never did anything for fear appearing 'racist'

---constant demands from muslims to accomodate their culture - remove pork from lunch menu, special prayer breaks, burkas in public, etc etc.

---preference for sharia law among majority of muslims

---degraded status of women, gays, etc in muslim societies (despite being widely practiced, homosexuality gets the death penalty in ~10 Islamic countries, and 52% of British muslims think homosexuality should be ILLEGAL)
[as a gay man, i find this 'problematic'.
at least the Christian Right just wants to 'pray the gay away', not execute me.]

---skyrocketing crime rate

---multiple mass terror attacks in europe, hundreds of people brutally murdered by lunatics shouting "Allahu Akbar"

---pervasive and blatant double standards, endless shrill accusations of 'Islamophobia' for voicing legitimate concerns

---all of the above downplayed and covered up by mainstream media

etc etc etc

is it possible that such occurrences might make native, ethnic germans & swedes & brits & gauls & hungarians feel legitimate apprehension towards the millions of unskilled, undocumented people pouring into their countries?

most muslims may be decent people, but how many mass sex assaults and mass murders are western societies supposed to tolerate before they're allowed to express doubts about cultural compatibility without being called nazis, or "the extreme right"?

Can you identify a single net benefit to the European people brought by the arrival of muslims & their culture?

How is Europe in any way culturally enriched by these people?

and what about individuals like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born former Dutch parliament member who has articulated most eloquently regarding her experience with Islam?
is she a racist bigot?

i grew up in the state of missouri (now live in oregon).
missouri is a fairly conservative, traditional, patriotic, working-class place.
the last few years i was there, seeing burka'd women in the grocery store had become a regular occurrence.
it always gave me a visceral reaction, made me sick to my stomach.

burka women in missouri is akin to a woman walking the streets of Riyadh in a thong and nipple tassels.
in Riyadh, that woman would be killed right then and there in the street, but in the US we can't even express misgivings without being accused of racism.
what kind of double standard is that?

Sikhs are now a significant immigrant population in the western world.
they are brown, wear large turbans, have a martial/warrior culture, and their religious imagery features a lot of swords and weapons.
mysteriously, 'Sikhophobia' is nonexistent.
occasionally an idiot might mistake one for a muslim, but otherwise western/euro/white people have nothing whatsoever against the Sikhs.
Why? because they integrate well, and don't make demands.
they often join the military of their adopted countries, and get nothing but respect from 'racist rightwingers'.
they also have their own unhappy history with the muslims.

so please stop pretending that muslims have no responsibility in all of this.
that kind of 'free pass' is exactly what enables characters like trump to rise to power.



what is your source for this?

chivalry as a concept first congealed in 12th century France, with roots in the holy roman empire / early middle ages of central europe.

true, it was later somewhat influenced by the Moors of Spain and southern France (European territory conquered by Muslims), but the indigenous Europeans absorbed the Arabic culture which had been imposed upon them, and were not, as you depict, barbaric crusaders shamed into good behavior by the civility of their victims.



race obviously has a genetic component.

even i sometimes find it uncomfortable to think about, but i don't deny the reality of its existence.

genetic diversity exists on a macro scale, like trees and birds, and also on a micro scale, in the nuances, the subspecies, strains, and varieties.

culture and genetics mutually explicate each other over many generations.

if ones accepts a concepts such as the 'morphogenic field' or 'cellular memory', then it seems at least probable that the cells & dna can hold culturally-generated energetic imprints and residues along with environmental & survival-based bio-chemical information.

i would probably rather live in a multi-racial society with one high-quality culture, than a mono-racial society with a thousand competing cultures,
and thus give priority to culture and the individual, over race.



very amusing notion, but interesting you how identify 'multi-culturalism', and then proceed to list 3 different races.

it illustrates how tightly interwoven they are in our minds.

A cultural division would look more like:
tribal/folk animism vs buddhist/yogic mysticism vs rational western secular humanism,
rather than brown-yellow-white.

the nexus works as a multiculture largely because it is a virtual space, anonymous, faceless.

it doesn't encounter the same problems as a real multiculture in the public 3d world.



some of the best and strongest cultures are hybrids, and probably all culture is hybrid to some degree.

but valuable aspects and elements can be lost, as much as gained.

so i'm for intelligent hybridisation, rather than hybridisation for its own sake.





100% agree with you here

..i probably should let sphorange speak for him/her (it?) self ..though i wish also i didn't feel compelled to have to speak on behalf of middle-eastern people, simply because i'm trying to defend the right of any broad culture not to face discrimination..

i'm not a Muslim, and in fact i've made some very strong criticisms of Mohammed (and the destruction of the feminine in arabic spirituality) here and elsewhere before...what i'm arguing against is the blanket generalised islamophobia...leading to people calling for curbs on immigration..this effectively becomes racism, and can only lead to greater division and trouble..

people like Idries Shah, the very late Rumi, and the Sufis are examples of deeply spiritual and non-violent Islam..and a small but growing womens' movement within Arab culture..
why should people of this ilk be discriminated against in terms of immigration, simply because they are 'islamic', blanket term? that, to me is bad for all cultures..i've read most of the quran, i respect it but chose not to be muslim, but those who do are not automatically violent..

if we are going to blanket-tar whole religions, then yes the old testament is a very violent book too..
if i'm hebrew i may make slaves of the philistines, kill those who worship the holy cow by pouring gold down their throats, and if i agree to murder my own son for this supposed 'god', then i'm doing well..
what has Christianity done for most peoples of the world, except destroy their cultures, steal their children, and support violent colonisation and land stealing? what has Judaism done for anyone except themselves? ..once we head down the generalisation path, many faults in arguments are found..
the Tamils will give you some good points against the blanket notion of Buddhism as a 'peaceful' religion..and personally i like Jesu of Nazareth (as opposed to the institution of the Roman church)

so, i don't hold Jewish people responsible for actions of the state of Israel, nor Islamic people responsible for the actions of extremists...

personally, i think a great bulk the troubles of the world are due to all the religions 'of the book' and the self-proclaimed patriarchs...i think we would be better entirely rid of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, as religions..
but, i believe in peaceful co-existing society, so i'm not going to attack anyone's personal religious belief, only their outward actions..



..well, it's not that long ago that 'christians' ('catholics' in fact) were bombing and killing 'English' people (remember the IRA?) ..how is that any different? but the English didn't respond by carpet bombing northern ireland, or banning irish immigration, probably largely because it is people of the same skin colour and ethnic roots..
Arab terrorism starts in the 20s/30s, largely as a response to the British colonisation and for instance policy of taking almost all the revenue of oil from Iran (where later together with the US they engineered a coup against the first democratically elected president of Iran, a moderate, because the Iranians wanted to own their own oil industry) ..
and we should also remember that, after the UK started curbing Jewish immigration (as the nazis were at the height of their final solution), a group of Jewish terrorists started bombing hotels in the middle-east...or were they 'freedom fighters'?.. [an analysis is given in: https://www.washingtonpo...-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html ]
and then there was the orthodox Jew who assassinated an Israeli PM for trying to make peace settlements with palestinians..every race/culture has it's violent, intolerant extremists..like the extremist Hindus who murder christians..

why has all this increased immigration happened? ..largely due to the displacement of millions of people after 'we' bombed their countries and created wars..i mean, lets see..if there was ever a hornets nest of dark violent suppression and intolerance, i would nominate Saudi Arabia...almost all the 9/11 perpetrators were saudi..but 'we' bomb Afghans and Iraqis..because the saudi's are too economically important..instead 'we' give them weapons to continue their oppression..
'we' (and i generalise 'us', the west, as part of my point)..we can't try and play world-master, and not expect blowback..especially from such poorly thought out endeavours as the Iraq war, the consequences of which (100,000 civilian deaths, massive displacement and immigration) were completely predicted by the UK Labour minister who resigned over it...google Robin Cook's resignation speech..something in 'our' culture allowed such disastrous decisions to be made, and i sense some of the current reactions to issues follow similarly flawed thinking..the attacks you describe are at a peak now with increased alienation due to massive factors and displacements beyond most peoples' control..

this is too big an issue to really get into at length..
but a major point i would make is that, when we look at culture in few hundred year cycles, there's different groups displaying violent intolerant behaviour at different times..it's only a hundred or 2 years ago that it was perfectly fine for English people to turn up in Australia, poison and massacre inhabitants, destroy their culture, steal their land, and take children away from families to make them 'good christians'..and similarly, if we go back further in history, there was a time when much of Europe could be considered backwardly brutal and repressive compared to much the middle-east..





..originally it was book on the history of chivalry on my late dear grandmother's shelf, but if you google 'chivalry crusades origin'+'saracens' or similar, you will find a range of treatments dealing with this topic..it's pretty well established by many historians that the 'saracen' society was in many ways more progressive than Europe at the time, and that many important ideas were brought back...there'd be no Renaissance likely if arabs hadn't preserved the classical ancient Greek texts destroyed by christians..
certainly, various factors have changed much of arabic society (i think for the worse), but this is why it needs ideas and compassion, not fear and segregation...

most middle-eastern women wear headscarves (many like this, as it keeps some distance from 'putting out' and sexing up, if you're married)
.. but the (face covering) Burka is not in the quran...or much of old islamic history..
again, let's look at Saudi Arabia again (home of Wahabism) ..now, if you want a target (of a few) for what i think you and many are disturbed by (including me) then i suggest start there, but not with the whole of 'Islam'..
yes these extremists hate and persecute Sufis...
but does saying we won't let these sufi's immigrate either display any fairness or solution? tar with the same brush..



haha..well i'm equally 'animist/tribal' as 'yogic/vedic' (in life and writing), as i am equally white and black...so which one do i join..? divisions are never so simple...and can be very limiting..
i've met plenty of nexians of quite different cultures, and all get along...in many places i've gone to i see very multi racial or cultural people bonding with a core theme of entheogens and spiritualism...
i'm a lot more optimistic than you blue lunar night, i think...
i think if we have something to bring us together, and open our minds, we largely get along peacefully, and cross-fertilise ideas, differences and all...

the reason i think the jeudo-christian-islamic type religions should go is because they are the most divisive, with philosophies of division, and apocalyptic dualism, and fervent colonisation ideologies..
but hey...there's some good points too ..like Rumi, or Francis of Assisi...

i think finding common ground, not points of division, is how we can both change and find greater peace and abundance for the majority of people..
like it or not, we are one globe now..
.

Om, let there be peace amongst us,
let us not mutually dispute or have hatred amongst us,
Om, shanti shanti shanti

if they're skilled literate people with proof of identity and want to contribute something positive to the country they're living in - or if they're being persecuted by a muslim state apparatus, like the noble & long-suffering Kurds - i say sure let 'em in.

i want extreme discernment in the immigration process. applicants should be able to demonstrate skill and intelligence, have documentation, and be able to pass health, background, and cultural compatibility evaluations.
we need to refine the filter.
which takes lots of time and resources.

and because muslims commit 99% of terrorist attacks, if you don't want to expend the time and resources, then you keep everyone out, good and bad, until the situation improves.

the other option is to try and appease them so they don't attack you anymore.



you don't have to tell me. they don't get a free pass.
in fact i often use the term 'juchrislam' because they're so similar.
and i know all about buddhist bloodshed, hindu horror, shamanic savagery etc.
but islam of the present world is quite apparently the most virulent and lethal strain operating.



100% agree.



of course of course, nobody's limited to just one.
i participate in the 3 cultures i listed, and more.
and as terence said, 'culture is your enemy' (maybe it's more like a 'frenemy' )
i was just making the point that it's easy for people to conflate race and culture, even when, as with both of us, there is a conscious preference to emphasize culture and downplay race.


probably



of course... things are never all black and white.

anyways i'll try to shut up now. i just love these controversial topics

<~~~ positive energy to all ~~~>

i was going to go quiet like most, but having thought about the original OP, i think this is a devastatingly important issue, and want to close my part in the thread, for the historical document at this time, with this post..which i hope also offers hope..

_________

dragonrider wrote: [OP]


i do think that many of the current thought memes and un-researched ideas which are building in an atmosphere of media and political driven fear, are so dangerous in their potentially destructive outcomes (for all), that if they aren’t addressed seriously, there could be implications for another hundred years..or more
as i said earlier, i think there are similar elements of what i believe is flawed thought in western society at the moment, which echo the flawed thinking of recently past wars , of which the very implications of are some of the problems we are facing today..which often suit very short-sighted and self-interested ends..

i should firstly be careful not to fall into ‘blanketing’ my self, and clarify that i refer earlier to elements and power structures in Saudi Arabia, who are repressive of much of the population..and i referred to philosophies within Islam which can be understood in the current context…but they (e.g. ‘Wahabism’, which itself could be argued has been twisted) are not ‘Islam’ as a concept..we can criticise these belief systems, but Islam is as broad as most religions..

and i want to address an issue which seemed to be coming up in a couple past thread posts..namely the reason of violence being given in the islamic immigration debate..it really needs (imo) to be left out of the debate..

this disquiet has been building and going on for over a decade..it was what similarly fuelled the invasion of Iraq..the same kind of thinking..but if we look at what the FBI has to say on Terrorism
https://www.fbi.gov/stat...ions/terrorism-2002-2005

- Between 1980-2005 94% of Terrorist attacks in the United States were by Non-Muslims.

now, i haven’t had time to tally the stats for the past five years, but the ratio hasn’t changed too much, and of course it is also a matter of public or popular concepts of ‘terrorism’, which seem now habitually linked with a certain religion or enthic background..i believe that the increasingly intolerant and stereotyping rhetoric of the West (along with military interventions) has fuelled any increase in ‘middle-eastern’ terrorist acts against the west (which is still not really huge, in global terms)
the FBI report above gives a pretty clear and accurate picture of Terrorists in the USA..and the world really...it exemplifies an understanding of the diversity culturally of violence...
if anyone is still skeptical on recent stats, check for your self..

and, as is often pointed out, what is the difference between a large number of these recent ‘muslim terrorist attacks’ in Europe, and some ‘mass-shooting’, where a teenager or army veteran or basically mentally unstable person goes nuts? ..a lot of these so-called terrorist acts are not organised (like al-qaeda) …any more than someone going crazy with their gun in an American mall because, well basically, they’re a nut-case ?
this is media and eventually large numbers of people in serious racism, or discrimination, as far as i can can make out from the sense of definitions within language..and such frenzies are not unlike the atmosphere in the rise of the Third Reich in the 1930s..

yes, there might be some cultural integration and aggression problems for some recent immigrants, who’ve come from their war torn, oppressed and traumatised countries…the only hope is to reach out, for mutual understanding and education..
on a post mentioning ‘screening for literacy etc’, in immigration, the majority of what i would call ‘real terrorists’ (9/11 etc, not individual nut-jobs) within middle eastern, are educated, literate, and often partly the products of Euro-western society..i think we need to look at what we are threatened by with greater scrutiny

________

now i’ll try and contribute positively, in terms of approaches, to this philosophical question of multi-culturalism..

when we look at nature as model, we find Symbiosis as a core principle…between very different kinds of organisms…which appears to maintain a balance

generally speaking no animal in nature (except maybe some chimps) kills out of abstract thought forms (or ‘viruses’) like hate or prejudice, it’s either to eat or defend from predators..or it’s between males of a species over competition for a mate..you would think with our vast human ‘intelligence’ which we praise in secular society, we can build a successful model to deal with all of these factors for the shared good..it can be argued that our very mode of the past few thousand years risks the homeostasis of planet and species, hence ourselves in the end..ultimately, if there’s an imbalance, adaptation is required..


i’ll now invoke real tribal spiritual tradition and ‘law’, from life experience of some old ways, and say that the ‘pantheon’ if you like of Australian Indigenous ‘Dreamtime’ stories depict a system of mutual respect, co-operation, and balance (of forces), of which nature is the ‘living library’..the philosophy is one of mutual respect of all kinds and species, which is the ‘Law’ which they adhere to, which is both ‘spiritual’/heart and ‘secular’/empirical..ultimately it is a concept of balance/symbiosis..

the apparent result of such a ‘system’ was that, despite wide differences in individual objectifications of spiritual belief (e.g. some tribes were matrilineal, others patrilineal) and ‘ethnicity’ (australian indigenous peoples generally classify themselves as a number of races, and this is reflected in a wide range of skin tone, or hair type, within fully ‘indigenous’ tribes)..despite differences, for at least 40,000 this system resulted in a continent which did not over-populate, over-use resources, or conduct ‘total’ war, meaning there were no large scale wars were whole tribes or groups were killed or targeted..in fact the concept of war usually amounted to a one on one duel between two individuals of different tribes with some dispute (usually over women)..this is bourn out by both oral history and archeological evidence..while there were not as wide-a-differences as an international scale, a common philosophy of mutual respect and care and symbiosis was essentially ‘multi-cultural’ in it’s outlook, acknowledging difference and similarity..with the goal of working together for balance..not living in fear of the ‘other’..there’s two kind of people really in that view - ‘good’ individuals (most people, usually) and ‘bad’ (violent, hateful, greedy, selfish etc - which seem to be be generally fairly collectively (humanity wise) subjective things to avoid, for the common good), and all people have both tendencies, and with education, ethical philosophy, purpose, and inclusion, the majority when the peaceful side of balance most of the time..
the age of kings, and now politicians, has brought many 'pyramidical' power imbalances in society..

it should also be known that the ‘Eora’ people of what is now Sydney actually welcomed the first white people, and gave them a sacred place to camp..it was only after observing the penal settlement English, and being astonished at ‘how cruel the english were to each other’ (as recorded by early sympathetic English diaries) , that the Eora realised they were in trouble..they perceived the English/European culture after observing as 'selfish' within itself in approach..a culture which has learned an abberant form of behaviour, resulting in unbalance destruction..
we need to unlearn..

..........

i believe that without a ‘multi-cultural’ approach, and increasingly powerful technology, we are doomed to a bleak future as a species..and it seems to me that, in terms of history and looking at different ideas factually or their comprehension (in order to form an opinion), many people in the world, of every culture and race, need better education…ironic in the ‘information’ age of the internet..

let’s apply that old school symbio-spiritual (or rational)-philosophy to the entheogenic (as this is a collective here), particularly the DMT experience, of which we now have a lot of collective subjective observations..
entheogens can indeed (used in methodological ways) be tools for opening up observation of mind, thought process, connection between pattern, etc…now, if we go into such an experience with an attitude or mental focus (even background) of hate, or fear, or isolationism, i would say we will generally have an increasingly unpleasant time, leading to our own greater suffering and eventually those around us..sometimes something or an aspect of one’s mind intervenes and shines light on such negative places, and sometimes there are things which need be rejected or banished, but generally the very mental compulsions of hate, fear, greed lead to or are a ‘bad trip’, in my opinion..there are colours of ‘good trips’, and ‘connectiveness’ along with diversity is a common example of one..

and difference can be celebrated too..
in celebrating and understanding every aspect of nature/diversity, we celebrate ourselves..

often solutions were found long ago, it’s one approach…let’s hope to evolve..
.

peace unto all of you

There are many different behavior paradigms (BPs) that a group of humans could adopt. The question is this: Is there an optimal BP (BP = culture)? I believe that there is indeed an optimal BP, and so an ideal society is not "multicultural": Everyone in an ideal society acts according to the optimal BP. On the other hand, the typical method of finding an optimal BP consists of pitting multiple BPs against each other. By making BPs compete, the optimal BP can be found. So, when I look over the human species, I see many cultures competing with each other. The culture that results in the most success for its followers will survive while the less-successful cultures will die out...

So anyways, I think the point of "multicultural society" is to narrow down the cultural options for the human species. I don't think that there is virtue in valuing all cultures equally: The sub-optimal cultures should be identified and allowed to die out (for the betterment of the human species).

That's good thinking imo. But I'd call it the BP rather cultural programming. Functional and dysfunctional code. I'd call violence, greed, fear, mistrust dysfunctional code. It serves nobody and groups with that code will soon fall apart. In contrast to functional code like kindness, understanding, compassion, selflessness.

I mean you can easily identify functional code. Groups that share common values are way more efficient than quarreling, mistrusting groups. Buddha and Jesus were good cultural programmers - except for the idea of rejecting material ideas imo, because a rich (=! decadent) society is not only loving and caring, but it doesn't suffer hunger, illness or boredom as well. That's why communism is a good idea at the core but the practical socialism never was successful. And I doubt communism can be installed top down, but only bottom up. People have to see the advantage for themselves, you don't have to sell a good idea with a gun.

So I concur that groups with dysfunctional code will die out sooner or later and a single culture with local quirks will emerge.

That's a reasonable expectation. I think we have an instinctive desire for 'efficient paradigms'. Of all the paradigms available, we tend to go for the most efficient ones. But the efficiency of a paradigm is often determined by environmental factors, including the paradigms used by most people at the time.

Rather than a proces of selection, i think a proces of mutation will occur. We will end up with even better paradigms that are a mixture of several different old paradigms.

At least, this is so when you look at this from a game-theory kind of perspective. You can have several nash-equilibria, of wich some are just better than others. But once agents are allowed to copy the strategy's of other agents, and to mix them, you get even more possible equilibria.

Efficient social/moral strategy's will Always be a refinement of "treat others as you would like to be treated yourself, but retaliate if others don't act according to this paradigm", wich is a mixture of "play nice" and "retaliate". This strategy can be refined in endless ways, with the addition of many, many other strategy's.

But i think it's easy to see (hard to prove though) that this strategy, or variations of it, are Always the most efficient ones in terms of utility gains.

Surely an optimal behaviour paradigm which everyone adheres to would require logic. And humans are not and probably never will be logical.



Can you name any society,past or present, rich or poor that has had no hunger, illness or boredom in it? Also most "developed" and rich societies have got to that point by being the opposite of loving and caring to other societies (and probably parts of their own population).

In Western societies you don't suffer hunger anymore and the live expectancy is rising. But I was speaking more of a future coming society, that distributes food and work evenly (the world already produces enough for all), puts medical research above military research and keep the people entertained and in a fulfilling job without the fear of getting kicked out by a competitor (Basic income?) And since everybody needs are being addressed, there's no need to be greedy or jealous of others. Sounds like utopia, but once people are getting more enlightened and see the benefits of cooperation, all this utopic stuff will get implemented, I'm very sure.

Cognitive researchers tooby and cosmides have shown that humans tend to be very good at solving logical problems, as long as these logical problems are abstractions of actual social situations. It's abstracting, that we humans have problems with, not the actual reasoning itself, according to this research. This indicates that our logical reasoning abilities are an evolutionary byproduct of our social nature.

This and other findings suggest that we are evolutionarily programmed to constantly filter out the 'behavioral paradigm' that best fits our situation.

Thankyou dragonrider. I think that i will and need to read up on evolutionary psychology as it looks very interesting but don't the conclusions that Tooby and Cosmides come to in that we are good at logic when it comes to abstractions of social situations imply that we are crap at logic when these situations are real and affect us in an emotional way?

It seems to me that many human interactions defy logic. Does logic come about from intellect. Are intellect and emotion easy bedfellows? Doesn't logic require a certain amount of objectivity? Arn't social interactions almost entirely subjective? And would'nt that make an individual's definition of what logic is, and how they relate socially, a subjective concept that is defined by the individuals upbringing? And wouldn't that in turn make the term logic (in relation to social relationships), at the very best, a woolly term.

I actually quite like logic. It's a great way to try and work stuff out.

ps . regarding your question in the locked Feminism thread about whether pornography is a bad influence on young people, in short my answer is that pornography is a fiction and i believe that it can give young people unrealistic ideas of what sex is about. I would like to see porn that involved men that had small dicks, couldnt get it up and suffered from premature ejaculation with pear shaped women that get really angry when their co stars accidentally ejaculate in their mouths.