What makes a human being civilized?

What country is that, if I may be so bold to ask? But by saying "capitalism must take responsability", is implying something else is better.

Thing is, the weakness of democrasy is the election campaings supported by big corps for selfish gain, Imo it's bribe of the worst messure, just that neither part would ever admit it. If it should be truly democratic such capaign money would be given to all parts, and not only 1 ..and specitally donated with only anomynusly!

I live in Norway.

The problem, as I see it, is that an attribute of capitalism is that it creates the oportunity to act without moral consideration, without being seen as immoral.

If our political and economical influence leaves a country in poverty we have a moral obligation to remedy the situation. Except that with capitalism we can document that it was nobody's fault, not even those who benefit infinitely indirectly from the exploitation of so many are not to blame.

Capitalism is a faceless monster, and it rules the world.

Seems you paint a unnuanced picture with a too big brush.

Maybe the system only needs a few changes, and it would be better. Don't think there are many other alternatives that are as stabil as capitalism, nor do it seems that you in Norway have great provety ..least not known to me.

No, we do not have great poverty in Norway. We only have the inevitable "relative poverty", and very little of it.

But I do realize that Norway wouldn't be so wealthy without capitalism. What I find unacceptable is that we have thousands of billions stashed away, so much money that if it was let out into the open market the whole system would crash, and we still contribute to the exploitation of the weaker economies.
I appreciate that capitalism is a good way to distribute resources and keep track of them, but it is no global governing system, even though it can be viewed as one big global economy.
That single fact removes moral responsibility, and that is the part I find unacceptable.

Norway has trillions stashed away? ..interesting?
It's far better than the rest of the world with a big hole in the goverment coffer, dude I don't quite get you, with your sporadic exaggeration, it seems you have some big delusional ideals which in your case ..just isn't healthy.

Some parts of the world are not civilized, we will become the most civilized when this stops.

I feel that the point you are trying to make in the ORIGINAL thread is that we are "more civilized than ever" because we use more rational to make decision then ever before, where kings and god used to make most of the decision for the rest.

to those that say we do bad things, a society will be "successfull" if most people, follow most of the rules, most of the time, most of the people will mostly be happy. few may steal, few may kill, even you, but as long as this is held a society is "civilized".

with us being disproportionately powerful with respect to some of the third world countries is because we are more atavistic than we actually think. As much as we think we are moral beings, we are, to give Americans credit for their delusion, "subconsciously" are trying to over power the other countries at all times. Of course, occasionally, some major companies will fund some rescue, or for some cause or research along side NGO's or other organizations, (even if the purpose is advertisement of their company, nonetheless they do it). Our instincts is to get whatever we can, as much as we can, for as long as we can: competition, diffidence, and glory. This is what's known as the "natural state" by a political philosopher named Thomas Hobbes.

a "state of war" is where people take what they can, whenever they can, for as long as they can, and be happy with it. this is the "barbaric", "war" state where we live in constant fear of each other, present in anarchy. By giving up some of our power, we earn safety; sure we can't kill people, or steal things whenever we want, but we can progress, advance, flourish as a society.

we like to think we are the latter example; the civilized society, but what lurks beneath this sweet talk is of course our natural tendency to over power others and take whatever we can which is apparent by the way we treat foreign land; invading, polluting, vandalizing, inhabiting, building, etc.

(part of the reason capitalism is so "stable" is because it speaks to our natural instincts. and is more appealing to insecure, fearful individuals that are trying frivolously to stay on top of other people, to be safe, and happy. )

but i think this is about to change; with more and more areas of the earth connected with internet and telephones, and humans being more aware of the situations on a global scale, this will stop, eventually. right?

when continents connected only with ships and land connected only with railroads, no body reallyknew what was going on on the other places, and just cared about our own well being at best. now, most of americans, and more and more of us are now seeing the full perspective, if not the adults, the children. and the US, Europe, Australia, Japan, Asia, etc. (the technologically advanced countries) maykeep harassing the weak, but they are also the ones that will not let this keep happening. the pure industrial age is over, money isn't everything, and more and more people are aware of this as institutions fail, corruption of companies are revealed, injustice over seas are broadcasted.

As you have said, we are civilized, we have come a long way from the "state of war," eventually, hopefully, with technology, more people will be more educated and eventually completely shed away neglect, ignorance, blindness, and unfairness.

lol that last sentence cracks me up.
that last sentence is so theoretical and such a "dream quote" in my era... which is sad.
i can only hope that the world my child lives in will be a little more better than when I was here...

p.s. most of the idea is a summary of what Thomas Hobbes have stated before, not I. so don't bash me on plagiarism or anything like that. I felt as if this was somewhat an appropriate to this discussion.

-55hikky

come on hex, ur better than that. someone of your caliber does not have to practice ad hominem to prove your point. be modest, for your own sake.

I have a couple of friends who live in Norway and asccording to them they're all well off and happy.

I would like to put in one interesting experience that i had, in vietnam.

everyone there is relatively "happy".

even though only a handful of people have cars, and most only have a motorcycle, and most only make a bear living, they are all... satisfied...

i spoke to a few people concerning their view of ho chi minh, communism, and their social standards.

they all stated that ho chi minh is a great person; he unified the north and south, kicked the french and americans out, and brought the people together. he has more power than obama because he can do whatever he wants.

Of course, as a US citizen, i can write books on how every aspect of that is false, but I took it as is and nodded.

of course there are some coercion, denial, etc. involved in that statement, but looking at the facts (anyone who even asks who ho chi minh is bears a risk of being killed on the spot due to disrespect), it was true, regardless of what they believed in; most people were happy with that.

this experience, along your statement about Norway brings me to think that perhaps the amount of freedom America is given may actually be too much... we praise choice, opinion, option, and "free will"... but is that really a good thing??

sure not enough may be bad too, like vietnam or norway, but aren't they just as happy us us?

we americans are not that happy either, sure we think we are happy; party, girls, sex, work, golf, cars, shoes, clothes, food, music... so many things to make us happy, but only because the government limits our education and bombards us with uncontrollable amounts of entertainment, delusion (money = happiness, school = success), etc. that we are sort of forced to go after the specific kind of happiness we are taught to seek, without really knowing what happiness is. so we aren't really free as much as we would like to think either. so we really don't have the right to say anything to people in norway or vietnam, or any other communist and socialist countries...

isn't this a bit extreme, in the same degree, but the opposite of say a communist and socialist country?

whether you are under democracy, or communism, we are both blind regardless, some of us are aware of it if we have enough cognitive capacity to step away from our daily assumptions of life we have built throughout our life.
eventually, hopefully, we all will find a balanced government system, where people have enough free will to have their own voice heard, while not being over hypnotized by what the society says to do.

sorry about the long threads, i'm sure no one reads any of this =b

55hikky

Hex
What if it is the ideals that selfishness and the aquisition of wealth is the best way to live that are the delusions?
Today altruism is practically considered the exception from the rule. Why not the other way around? What if our value system is founded on delusional ideals?

I am not saying that this is so, but I find your urge to ridicule me for asking if it may be the case a bit ridiculous. Certainly not an attitude that benefits anyone interested in doing a little philosophy, in my opinion.

Your problem is clearly "overthinking things", I myself have been in such state, not seeing things clearly, also when I'v escapted such state of mind I'v met many "overthinkers" who were trapped in a delusional set of belives, but ecaped it too by getting their ass to a job where they would realize that their thoughts were nothing but empty rethorics.

Please do share this clarity of yours
I wouldn't wanna waste precious brain power on overthinking when I can use it to pretend there's nothing wrong instead.

Unfortunaly I can offer no single set of recipe, but merely some rules of thump.

By having a relevant job, you will get more input to your thesis/belive ..or whatever, thus having more options/input to your equation-problem.

With time, your hormon lvl will drop and allow you to see things more clearly, least it did in my case. It's notorious that people with too high hormorn lvls has poor preception of emotion, logic ..etc.

Nothing of relevance to reply to in your post. I am sorry, I mistook you for a creative, thinking being.

You demand perfection, therefore you are very fustrated and your search will be endless. You need to realize the concept of ideal and optimal.

yea cyracuz, i agree with hex. stop exploring life, there's just so much more life that's worth living for. like how that one dude said, soccerties? a life unexplored is well worth living. get a job and stop thinking.

You are obsessed with principles that are totally out of proportion, you are mentally fucked. You have tryed to get justification for your whacked ways or farfetched inspiration that just doesn't exist.

You really should go to a shrink and get your head straight.

Hex

I AM NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR SUBJECTIVE OPINIONS ABOUT MY MENTAL CONDITION!

Are you missing the point on purpose or are you stupid?
Unless you have something to say about my ideas please shut up.
Your continued attempts to diagnose the mind that thought them up is just ridiculous; the topic isn't what you think about me. But you probably do not have the guts to share your own ideas, or is it that you lack the creativity to think them up?

And now I see that you are searching up old threads of mine only to comment in the same childish and indoctrinated way.

I am not saying that my ideas are neccesarily the truth. But what is the truth is that you cannot know the value of your ideas unless you are willing to examine alternatives. If you believe what you do without examining the integrity of those beliefs, what is the difference between you and the stereotype of a mindless consumption junkie?

Dude, 1 of the reasons I havn't put you on ignore, as I don't like to waste my time, is because you are actually intelligent, just have a weird fixation. The topic "charity evil" is something that no one in old PF.com could realize (all but me), where they were obsessed with the idea of unselfish donation.

And you SHOULD really heed my advice, it's not about rubbing your face in the dirt, it's about kicking ur ass to realize your own folly.
Right now you sit like a loser, jobless and whiney about the tragic evil world ..where you could become a wealthy buisness man and with your power and wealth make a difference, crush evil organisations and pave your own roads.