Reservations against humanity

in #philosophy7 years ago

While my topic may seem to be pretty general, I want to talk/write about humanity's progress as a whole throughout the centuries and where we are held back. This is my general observation based on "trends" throughout the human civilization.

There is only one source of progress in this world - human beings. Sadly, even the source of regress is just one - human beings.

Whenever, humanity has attempted progress, the one thing that has always held said progress back is humanity itself. This fact is so real and easy to notice that you can find this everywhere around you.

Let me provide an example. Since you people are using steemit, I will assume that most of you are aware of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin was an extremely noble and scientific concept that was supposed to bring in a new era of human evolution. While that is still possible, this concept was misused to the chagrin of millions of people. Scammers and opportunists have blatantly exploited the whole concept in order to acquire millions of dollars.

This is just a latest example from the times we live in and goes all the way back to the birth of civilization. Terrorism has been predominant throughout centuries, scams, frauds, you name it. But these are not the worst that have held back humanity, the worst is society itself.

It is common knowledge that geniuses like Galileo and Aristocrat were frowned upon and punished by society. The reason was simple - the fear of not understanding and/or believing. And hence people of the world decided to punish and demean other people who saw the world as it was. Majority of people are scared of the truth and that remains to this day. Their fear will demean you, hurt you or straight up kill the wave in your heart.

When Galileo's age passed, people accepted science. As da Vinci or Picasso's s time passed, people accepted art. But did they evolve? No. You will always be held back by 'other' guy's level of understanding.

You may say that the simple solution is being your own, ignoring norms of society or even keeping yourself above everyone else. But that does not solve this issue. Treating yourself differently or adopting a steely mindset does not change the fact that human beings are what hold human evolution from prospering. So it has been, so it will be.

Had humans not held back humans from progressing, we would have been travelling in space now (probably). Which leads to the question - why is this so? Is 4th dimension really a thing and have we been designed in a manner such that we always hold each other back?

We are our own enemies. He or she may be better or worse than you, but what gives you the right to judge others? Did you create your gods to mask your jealousy, the real devil?

But we feel from our heart is that it is imperative to judge others, be it their crime or their success. Why should not we? Have not we been judged and criticised and discussed at our worst and best moments? Did not we enjoy and hate those moments? Why should we spare others?

You don't have to. Just embrace what you don't understand. Think. Rationalize. Look forward. Accept. Criticize. But do not judge those who see and feel the world differently. You don't have to love them, but we don't need to hate them either.

Don't be an enemy to yourself, because at the end of the day, you are your world. And you are human.

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All of the universe is a fractal. That means cyclical patterns, with repeats within the repeats. As above, so below.

As we each see in our own individual lives, we only make "progress" when we learn a more productive way to deal with the reality of the universe. Our success is directly proportional to how well our conception of the universe approximates the reality of the universe.

The universe is designed around systems, specifically feedback systems. This is the biggest limitation to human advancement, our inability to think systematically. We instead tend to think linearly, but that is not the reality we live in. Our reality is cyclical, based on feedback loops, and Hegel's dialectic attempted to describe this, although it is such a difficult subject to nail down that many misunderstand this.

The cyclical and system nature of the universe means that design dictates success. System designs that allow movement of their components and allow systems to reach their own equilibria are those that are successful. Unfortunately, many well meaning folks do not understand this, and take onto themselves and also society the sisyphean task of improving society by blocking feedback loops and preventing choices from reaching consequences. This is foolish and doomed to fail. You cannot build a stable system upon a system design where the feedback loops have been excised. That is unbalanced.

Balance means that freedom must be paired with responsibility, with the two kept directly in proportion to each other.

Along those lines, human relations have feedback loops, called voluntary cooperation. If both parties benefit, the relationship continues. If both parties don't benefit, the relationship needs to be terminated. But here's the rub -- if the relationship isn't terminated peacefully, then it eventually gets terminated through force. A healthy society is a society that understands this necessity, and allows society to balance itself through the peaceful termination of unhealthy relationships. Terminating unhealthy relationships is how each of us citizens steadily weed the garden of our society. Many well meaning, but misguided, individuals propose to improve society by terminating feedback loops and imposing top down behavioral standards on society members. But this approach is doomed to fail, because it presumes that society is a static system when in fact it is dynamic and adjusts to every change imposed upon it.

So in the end, humans will progress when we learn how to deal with the cyclical, systematic nature of reality by designing societies that depend upon this self balancing aspect of society. But, periods of decay or retrenchment are useful as well, because it is often during this period of time that society relearns what it needs to know in order to progress.

Spring and summer are wonderful. Periods of great growth. But fall and winter are useful too, because fall and winter are when weak growth and parasites are trimmed off, which prepares things for another burst of growth. Can't have one without the other ;-)

Humans will never learn. My post is actually pretty pointless from a practical pov.

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