Superstitions

[dilophosaur]

The proepidemic movement or anti-GMO mumbo-jumbo for example, there are many thingys like these.

 

[Tajo]

The proepidemic movement or anti-GMO mumbo-jumbo for example, there are many thingys like these.

Oh look, a Monsanto pr agent.

 

[Rmi]

Play a game where the earth is flat. Make fun of the earth is a cylinder people....

 

[Thunderbrd]

Oh look, a Monsanto pr agent.

Sorry dilo, but I thought the same thing. IMO GMO is an extremely dangerous technology to be throwing around with so little caution and so much profit agenda driven bias as we currently do. The peril it's putting us in is as tremendous as the solutions it seems to offer at the least.

 

[dilophosaur]

Monsanto has patent rights for twenty-something or more "organic" crops, too. Do you have a dog? Do you like extreme colours of tulips/roses/etc.? Do you eat meat of domestic animals? Do you fancy goldfish/hamster pets? They ALL are GMOS (broadest meaning). Biological weapon no, but GMO like the golden rice - yes, insulin-producing bacteria - yes (they are also GMOs). Not every GMO is bad or harmful.

 

[raxo2222]

Sorry dilo, but I thought the same thing. IMO GMO is an extremely dangerous technology to be throwing around with so little caution and so much profit agenda driven bias as we currently do. The peril it's putting us in is as tremendous as the solutions it seems to offer at the least.

GMO and nuclear power will be completly harmless comparing to some future techs
What about weaponized AI/nanotechnology/antimatter?
Or using asteroids as nonradioactive nuclear bombs?
I guess some techs should give happines/health penalty in cities depending on their education level and goverment ethics representing fear and abuse of technology.

 

[dilophosaur]

I can agree with this. Especially antimatter and asteroids/meteors used as bombs or nanorobots destroying all they can find on their way.

 

[raxo2222]

Further in tech tree we have even more avesome techs like simulated reality, transhumanism, posthumanism, zeptotechnology, controlled vacuum collapse, brane manipulation and so on.
Yes, I know that past Nanotech stuff gets speculative...
It is like each era had 2x less idiots, but they became potentially 4x more dangerous per each era

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'm not saying ALL GMOs are bad. I'm saying we need to be about 1000x more careful than we're being. The potential for unanticipated side-effects are enormous and very difficult to trace the symptoms of system disruption to the source. We're achieving things we want but may well be ignoring a lot we're getting that we didn't want in the process. And I don't trust a corporation to care in the slightest about any of that except to cover up any harmful impact of their activities so as to avoid any costly legal backlash. Under this profit based system, only money matters. People, the planet, and its ecosystems can go to hell so long as more money is being made.

 

[dilophosaur]

Corpos are on one side, on another side are crowdfunding thingys and scientists, who want to save mankind (like in the case of the golden rice nade non-profit as it is). Agree about the "money thing". For some everything can vanish as long as the account is full in a foreign bank.

 

[tmv]

And I don't trust a corporation to care in the slightest about any of that except to cover up any harmful impact of their activities so as to avoid any costly legal backlash.

Agreed. As long as you can agree that politicians aren't any better about this. This is a downside to humans (or perhaps even life forms in general), not to corporations. As long as someone is not in your immediate "monkeysphere" (http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html), be careful about trusting someone completely.

 

[Toffer90]

Agreed. As long as you can agree that politicians aren't any better about this.

The degree depends on the political system/culture they belong to though, but you are right that most people no matter what environment they belong to will put themselves first in the line of priorities.

 

[raxo2222]

I guess money/power is hell of drug too

 

[dilophosaur]

They are thinking about their stomachs/wallets not about the country/ society they represent. Sad but true.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Agreed. As long as you can agree that politicians aren't any better about this. This is a downside to humans (or perhaps even life forms in general), not to corporations. As long as someone is not in your immediate "monkeysphere" (http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html), be careful about trusting someone completely.

I honestly believe that most politicians get into the game to make a difference and improve things and then gradually become corrupted by the pandering they need to do to big $ interests for campaign funding, after which they are on the hook to those powerful financial special interests to answer to them rather than the will and need of the people. Many then go on to say to themselves, I've only sold a part of my soul here and what I haven't sold off I can still do some good with. The deeper they get into the game, the more $ they need for their financing and the more they are getting accustomed to side perks and benefits and before you know it, once more, the corporations are controlling the show almost 100%.

The good ones that don't take the $ stay above it but rarely get elected. Crowdfunding and informed voting is the only antidote. But then those of us that believe in this start getting labeled purists who are responsible for the unashamedly completely corrupt guy from the other party winning.

If we could clean up our system first and remove the ability for $ to influence policy then we could begin to repair these issues. Of course, you'll have to get people into power that aren't swayed by financial gain to do it. Either that or we're headed for innevitable system collapse and revolt after tremendous damage has been caused in the name of profit first. Given how it has become it's own interlocking issue with incredible powers of self preservation, it's probable that we're doomed instead.

However, many researchers are also idealists and will gladly take the fall to blow the whistle on major health and ecological disasters taking place... but then they are also silenced quickly by those same $ powers who have strings of control in media and the ability to buy out or shut up those voices that could cost them more.

So in the meantime, we must personally take some responsibility to simply not support these giant institutions as much as we can financially afford to resist and take our business elsewhere. Sadly, many of us don't have that kind of financial power. hmm... I wonder why.

 

[tmv]

I honestly believe that most politicians get into the game to make a difference and improve things

I'm sorry but I don't buy that. There are - unfortunately - people out there with the strong desire to rule over other people, and politics is the way to do that (especially if you have no other "quality" to get ahead, including - but certainly not limited to - an inheritance). The "western" system is very "good" in making sure that these people (who are unscrupulous to begin with) get every chance to get ahead. It's almost as if the "desire to rule" is seen as something positive with the fact that pretty much every election is followed by asking the elected person if they accept the election - making sure that someone without this desire is not elected even by chance (I know that this is a formality and I haven't heard of any case of someone refusing, but why bother with this question at all?)

Here is an interesting quote from Aristotle:

For example, the appointment of magistrates by lot is thought to be democratical, and the election of them oligarchical

(Source: https://classicalwisdom.com/greek_books/politics-by-aristotle-book-iv/3/) Could it be that the ancient philosophers knew something that we have forgotten?

Edit: A (hopefully) good example for what I mean is the following: In Germany we have (mostly) proportional representation, which has a few advantages (less gerrymandering, more than two parties in parliament) and a few drawbacks (less accountability because of coalitions). Coalitions are pretty much the key here to gain power, and often parties declare their intent to rule together before an election, or they rule out potential coalitions with other (often extremist) parties. In some cases - if the "intended" partner did not get enough seats to form a majority together, new coalitions are created on the spot, and in some cases a coalition is formed that was ruled out previously. There is no corporate influence at work here, merely the strong desire of the politicians to be in charge.

Sometimes you can even get a bit of sophistry, where the "dirty" partner doesn't enter a formal coalition but merely "tolerates" the new government, doesn't get secretary positions but can pick and choose to vote with or against the government.

 

[Thunderbrd]

So in the course of the last 2 posts, you've expressed that human beings that seek leadership simply seek to glorify ego and that nobody even CAN care about anyone who they don't personally know.

A rather jaded view of people. I find that such jaded views are justifications for personally feeling these ways and are an attempt to validate selfish egoism through the excuse that 'everyone is like this'.

While many ARE and DO express these kinds of moral flaws and failings, I have NOT, in my experiences, found that ALL people exhibit these human emotional flaws, at least not to a heavily influential degree. Largely, this is exactly the sort of thing that becomes a struggle inside that separates those who enable themselves to be corrupted from those who do not.

Sure, maybe we all battle with pride and greed and self-absorption, but we cannot go around believing that all people fail in all of these struggles with their 'inner demons' all of the time. If that were the case, then concepts such as idealism and honest justice would fail to exist at all. Sure, we have our weaknesses, but under it all, I believe very strongly that we all wish to be decent folks who leave the world a better place for our being here. We just tend to get wrapped up in the day to day emotions that pull us from this place of center and sometimes we fail to see how or why that happens.

And that's the problem. It's not like people don't have a 'desire to lead'. Sure they do and they should, particularly when that desire is founded on the will to 'do it better' for the people than those in charge now are doing it. I don't think you can argue that most start off feeling like they can. There are few people in the world with such sociopathy that they purely seek authority so as to prove their own superiority and while those are out there to contend with and are often those who fight the hardest for it, they are actually the exception to the rule rather than the norm.

Sure, humanity has some evolving to do, but it's not as much biological evolving, imo, as it is sharing and expanding our awarenesses of how we conquer these challenges of slipping into more basal thought and behavior patterns with each other and mastering this inner crusade and becoming brutally honest with ourselves in the effort to do so that will help bring us into an improved essence of being. Many people ARE practicing this kind of self improvement because they recognize that the only real worth they ever had was how much better they made things for others. Usually it's the folks who hit a rock bottom at some point, you know... those ones the rest of us all call pathetic losers when we see the skeletons in their closets that don't often look much different than our own? Those are the ones that have broken through to realize that society is only going to get better if we recognize that everyone has value and that the good we do for others, the more we give over what we take, and more humble we can be, the more this world will improve and be worth living for us all. Once this begins to be more accepted truth than the idea that we're all in this for ourselves we'll naturally start shifting things in a better direction for all of us.

In the meantime, thankfully, we just have to figure out which people stepping up and saying they are ready and willing to lead have that kind of mentality in mind. They aren't hard to spot, they call people and situations out for their bull and humbly respond when it's called out against them. Nobody is perfect, but that's not to say some aren't better than others. If you can back those who aren't there for the greed, that's a very good start.

 

[tmv]

you've expressed that human beings that seek leadership simply seek to glorify ego and that nobody even CAN care about anyone who they don't personally know.

To the former point: Yes (mostly), but please note that the key word here is seek - I think a good politician would have to consider a position of power a burden, not a glory. Of course, some people can fake even that, but at least you wouldn't exclude good people on principle. To the latter point: No, they can care, but they can also fake caring. So trust, but don't even think of removing "checks and balances". And remember: Any power you invest in a political office will stay there, even when someone else occupies that position. And now you might think about the Woody Alley quote ("It would be good… if [President Obama] could be dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly,") and what it would mean right now ...

A rather jaded view of people.

I would rather say that politicians are the same kind of "homo sapiens" as entrepreneurs are. If you think corporations (led by people) can do certain things, then governments (consisting of people) can do the same.

particularly when that desire is founded on the will to 'do it better' for the people than those in charge now are doing it.

With no regards to competence, accountability or participation? Perhaps it's my catholic upbringing but I don't think we should place such strong temptations in anyone's path. Aside from other things, power has been called a drug. And regarding competence, modern historians think that King George really wanted to 'do it better' than his predecessors, to say nothing of King Louis XVI of France.

they are actually the exception to the rule rather than the norm.

Of course they are the exception. But we have no way of knowing for sure, and these terrible sociopaths are the main problem, not just a failed solution. If you think about it, every mass murder with more deaths than 9/11 was committed by a government. We cannot go for trial and error anymore, not after World War II. Not in a world with nuclear weapons. We must be careful.

If you can back those who aren't there for the greed, that's a very good start.

You forgot fanaticism. You absolutely need to rule both out.

 

[IronClaymore]

I'm not saying ALL GMOs are bad. I'm saying we need to be about 1000x more careful than we're being. The potential for unanticipated side-effects are enormous and very difficult to trace the symptoms of system disruption to the source. We're achieving things we want but may well be ignoring a lot we're getting that we didn't want in the process. And I don't trust a corporation to care in the slightest about any of that except to cover up any harmful impact of their activities so as to avoid any costly legal backlash. Under this profit based system, only money matters. People, the planet, and its ecosystems can go to hell so long as more money is being made.

That's an excellent idea for foreign-pushed superstitions!

Increasing suspicion of various corporations could be one of the activities a civ could perpetrate on another, similar to the KGB-AIDS thing mentioned previously. The Lawyer unit can already remove corporations from your own city, why not use a spy/entertainer type unit to stir up superstition to remove corporations from a rival city? Getting them all anti-GMO or pro-organic might make them push out a corp like Cereal Mills, or it could do something else like make the city unable to access the Fertilizers resource, or remove the effects granted by various technology-based food increases, which might just be enough (combined with other efforts) to push them into starvation. Even better, get enough cities to hate the corporation and it might move its headquarters to YOUR city (with or without the Realistic Corporations game option).

Other options could be a state pushing anti-vax propaganda (not saying this happens or doesn't happen IRL, just that it could happen) in preparation for an assault using biological weapons. If you've developed a weapon based off the measles virus for example, getting your intended enemy to reduce their use of the vaccine prior to the attack will be essential. At the very least you'll be making your rival unhealthy without even having to deploy a single bomb! Merely a few bloggers.

All the irritating, dangerous, and terrible conspiracy theories, superstitions and quackery that exist nowadays are bad enough on their own. Imagine what they'd be like if someone gave them a bit of serious help using the resources and manpower available to an entire intelligence agency and propaganda network?

Just ideas to add to our current armament of spies and criminals to weaken a rival you're not necessarily at war with...