The state the world is in now. Our fault? Can it be helped?

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In my introduction I've already started this subject. Please follow the next link to get a visual of where i'm trying to go with this:

http://www.philosophyforum.com/forum/lounge/new-member-introductions/2868-my-name-p.html

I'm first of all trying to figure out why the world is in the state it is now and the state it has been in. You must agree with me that the world is not the way it should be. Corruption, poverty, war, etc. Therms that are very known to us all. We try to decrease it or prevent it. But I say that that will never happen unless you know the source of these problems. Like I suggested in my introduction, the world can only be bettered if we know what "the world" actually means. "Save the world". Is that the world as in planet Earth or the world as in the inhabitents of Earth. I said that I thought the latter was the case. In that case we should find out who is causing the problems. I suggested it was the human nature itself. If that's the case, trying to prevent poverty, for instance, by sending money would not work. The human nature does not change because of this. Look at Africa and the children that are helped there. Yes, they are helped, but why are there more and more children in need of help. Not because they are helpless, but because the humans in the society of Africa (I'm not trying to offend, keep that in mind) have not changed there nature. It is causing them to stay the way they are. They need to be thought first how they should handle their lives when you help them. giving help without a lesson does not help. If you have birds in a cage and lets say there is a electric fence in the cage, the birds die because they fly to that fence. The amount of death of birds is rising and you prevent it by helping the birds to stay alive by giving them food. No luck, because the birds still fly to the fence. (this is a weird example, I know, but I have a hard time finding another one at the moment)

This isn't only the case with Africa or other poverty situations, it accures in crime too. Or corruption. The people involved do not think about the state of the world, but are worsening it with everything they do. (no example here, else text too long)

We don't even think about this connection between almost all the problems of the world. We do not notice it. That's the problem. we are indiffrent and so continue to let our human nature hurt the world, without us knowing it.

I say the world must be made aware of the consequence of their actions and indiffrence. May that mean a creation of a culture for all the inhabitants of Earth(pity animals can't understand us and we can't understand them Laughing

), in which people have similarity in some aspects in their way of life, then so be it. keep in mind that i'm not suggesting to get rid of other cultures or religions, but suggesting a culture that binds us all togheter with all our diffrences. something like putting guidelines next to that of religions, but then for all the people in the world.

Bottomline and goal of this thread is: Do you agree with me? Got something to ad? If you don't agree what may then be the big reason of the state of the world worsening? What can be done to get rid of the problems?

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@pieceoftheworld,

Aha, reinforcements have finally arrived (from the Holy Motherland no less)

Pun aside, you are 100% correct. It is human nature that is the root cause behind almost all problems the world is facing right now. And contrary to popular misconception technology is not going to help us one bit. For every problem it solves it will add yet another new problem. This process will continue relentlessly culminating in the destruction of humanity unless we turn the tables and change ourselves.

If we continue to discriminate against anyone without the power to prevent that, we will in turn be discriminated against as soon as those same people turn the tables on us. It is happening right now. The western world will be eclipsed by the rest of the world and will soon be tasting the smelly end of the stick unless we manage to show some serious improvement in our moral standards.

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@sarek,

I think that it is very true that the dark side of human nature ( I will not subscribe to the idea that evil is the most fundamental thing about humans) is behind poverty in areas such as africa. However I would disagree as to exactly whose nature to blame. The africans themselves are caught up in bitter tribal and religious warfare all too often, and it partly that which hampers them. However it is also those in our own more wealthy nations who allow and participate in the economic exploitation of these nations who are responsible.

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@pieceoftheworld,

I'm not suggesting that the nature of people is evil perse. It is just who we are subconsciencely. It is not necessarily evil. It's obvious with kids. They will hit when they want something and they don't get it. They're not evil, but don't know any better.
The human nature is like this and it's no diffrent between kids and ourselves, for instance. Put one of us in an unknown environment in which the rules are diffrent.
So it's not like it's anyones fault, it's more like we got the rules for this environment wrong, which makes our human nature the one reacting in the wrong way. This can be helped by redirecting them like how you teach a kid not to hit to get something, but ask politely. I have to say I find this difficult to explain myself.

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@pieceoftheworld,

pieceoftheworld wrote:

I'm not suggesting that the nature of people is evil perse. It is just who we are subconsciencely. It is not necessarily evil. It's obvious with kids. They will hit when they want something and they don't get it. They're not evil, but don't know any better.
The human nature is like this and it's no diffrent between kids and ourselves, for instance. Put one of us in an unknown environment in which the rules are diffrent.
So it's not like it's anyones fault, it's more like we got the rules for this environment wrong, which makes our human nature the one reacting in the wrong way. This can be helped by redirecting them like how you teach a kid not to hit to get something, but ask politely. I have to say I find this difficult to explain myself.

Good does not have to be taught to the extent that you think. Most children don't hit people even before they have been taught anything. Good is a natural and untaught instinct, just like evil.

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@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7 wrote:

Good does not have to be taught to the extent that you think. Most children don't hit people even before they have been taught anything. Good is a natural and untaught instinct, just like evil.

Avatar6v7 my friend, would you please give an example of an evil, untaught, natural instinct of man.

Thanks,
William

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@William,

William wrote:

Avatar6v7 my friend, would you please give an example of an evil, untaught, natural instinct of man.

Thanks,
William

greed. It stems perhaps from our terriotrial nature- our desire for ownership, for excusive control over objects and space.

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@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7;36045 wrote:

Good does not have to be taught to the extent that you think. Most children don't hit people even before they have been taught anything. Good is a natural and untaught instinct, just like evil.
greed. It stems perhaps from our terriotrial nature- our desire for ownership, for excusive control over objects and space.

I gave an example of when a child does hit. It is true children don't always hit, but as you said, evil or good is an untaught instinct. What I'm trying to accomplish in this thread is not a fight over good or evil. For me those two are both needed. Yin Yang, etc.

We are getting off subject. I never really said that the human nature is evil nor good. I said it was, subconciencely, in the way of the development of the world. The example of the hitting child was to be interpreted diffrently. Don't judge if it is good or evil, but picture the situation. If you have a toy that the child does not want to share (and picture yourself as a child of the same age, because like avatar6v7 said, the child won't even dare hit a adult, thaught or unthaught)(out of personal experience with a lot of children, they do hit) he/she will get angry and wants it back (with or without force). And what I wanted you to picture is a situation where the kid does use force. You would not blame the kid, because you knew he/she didn't know better. It's not evil nor good. (I just realized avatar6v7 is from England, maybe that's why the picture didn't come through clear enough. I was speaking out of my own experience in my country. Seems it is not always the same. Sorry, I will try to keep my examples global.)Just in our nature, which can indeed differ from person to person.

To be a bit more rough, would you say your human nature is the same as Bin Laden, for example. (I hope) the answer is no. he was thought diffrently than you. You would say then that this has nothing to do with the human nature, but he followed his group (terrorist) while you followed yours. Isn't it also in the human nature to follow other humans. The human nature is not good nor evil, but the reason some things go wrong. It's no-one fault. We all just need a hint in the direction we need to be going. Imagine for the fun: if Bin Laden grew up with loving people, who don't blame America for their miserable situation, would he be the reason behind 9/11?

My point is that because of human nature there are people misguided and doing wrong things, sometimes unknowingly. Maybe even you are doing something wrong, like trowing a piece of paper on the street and not in a bin.(bad example, but bare with me)
Some people are to be pushed in the right direction. You can say that you then use the human nature right back at the downfall of the world to better it.

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@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7 wrote:

greed. It stems perhaps from our terriotrial nature- our desire for ownership, for excusive control over objects and space.

Avatar, I am glad you selected that particular symbol of "evil" and in that respect I agree with you. What prevents me from believing it is innate and part of the program that is "mankind" is that instills in the mind of man a "helplessness" in combating it. IMO. Personally, I feel what we constitute as evil is a "creation" of man himself. In other words evil didn't exist prior to our existence. We created it and we can eliminate it. In the beginning it was out of ignorance and it is that same ignorance that drives it today. The only difference is now it is more malicious. When one "knows" what is good, but does the opposite, that is evil. IMO. That is the war between good and evil or more appropriately, the haves and the have nots. As I mentioned in another thread Victor Hugo's "LES MISERABLES" is an excellent depiction of what I am saying. There is nothing greedy about a human being resorting to his "survival techniques" to survive. The evil is the acquiescence to that reality that maintains that unjust environment. That's evil and there is nothing "natural" about it.

We are territorial out of necessity and fear. IMO. One can get all confused in his search for truth when he associates man's existence to that of an "animal". But I will agree with you, Greed is at the root of all that has ever plagued our existence and the inequity that has caused. Man is not evil, he was force to be that way by those who have "more" and use that as leverage to control those who have less.

My opinion,

William

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@William,

William;36101 wrote:

Avatar, I am glad you selected that particular symbol of "evil" and in that respect I agree with you. What prevents me from believing it is innate and part of the program that is "mankind" is that instills in the mind of man a "helplessness" in combating it. IMO. Personally, I feel what we constitute as evil is a "creation" of man himself. In other words evil didn't exist prior to our existence. We created it and we can eliminate it. In the beginning it was out of ignorance and it is that same ignorance that drives it today. The only difference is now it is more malicious. When one "knows" what is good, but does the opposite, that is evil. IMO. That is the war between good and evil or more appropriately, the haves and the have nots. As I mentioned in another thread Victor Hugo's "LES MISERABLES" is an excellent depiction of what I am saying. There is nothing greedy about a human being resorting to his "survival techniques" to survive. The evil is the acquiescence to that reality that maintains that unjust environment. That's evil and there is nothing "natural" about it.

We are territorial out of necessity and fear. IMO. One can get all confused in his search for truth when he associates man's existence to that of an "animal". But I will agree with you, Greed is at the root of all that has ever plagued our existence and the inequity that has caused. Man is not evil, he was force to be that way by those who have "more" and use that as leverage to control those who have less.

My opinion,

William

Agreed. Well put.

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@pieceoftheworld,

Hey I noticed something today that fits to what I mean by although the world is being helped, the world ain't getting any better. ( I did not say this literally, but I think it sums up my story.)
I saw a commercial for a environment-friendly car (I think it was the Renault Eco 2 or something), but I thought to myself: "Nice, but that has got to be very expansive because it is environment-friendly."
Then it struck me (maybe late, but ok): Why help keeping Earth clean by putting such products on the market, but put a high prize on it. Sure, it costs a lot to build these cars or other products, but this really does not help if almost, say, 100000 people buy this product (because they can afford it), while the other millions of people use the "environmental-challenging" products. This does not solve the problem, but just slows down the speed of the problem just a very little bit.
What to do about this? Well, even I have to say that it is economically speaking impossible. But then again nothing is impossible.
Why write about it, if you know solutions are difficult to find for this problem? I just wondered about the logic in the statements shown in the commercial of world saving. Just real commercial stunts I find them. Feels like your lied to everytime they say you'll save the world if you go along with their proposals.
Then again, there are always exception, I always say. not everything or everyone is lying or wrong.

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@pieceoftheworld,

Quote:

Why write about it, if you know solutions are difficult to find for this problem? I just wondered about the logic in the statements shown in the commercial of world saving. Just real commercial stunts I find them. Feels like your lied to everytime they say you'll save the world if you go along with their proposals.

The Edifying Thoughts of a Tobacco Smoker - so many people find trinkets or treasures on their way and take inspiration in an innovative, evolving perceptive philosophy. Who could say this is ever straying from societal 'truth' - although corrupted and deviant, delusionary and deceptive, there becomes within an individual/collective these 'changes'.

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The state the world is in now. Our fault? Can it be helped?

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