in times of massive change, people vote for those who promise to take them to the past.
In times of massive change, people vote for those who promise to take them to the past.
... to expand a bit on this:
Humans adhere to paradigms, which can be explained as worldviews that we generally take for granted. Examples include that we divide the year into four seasons or a day into 24 hours. We take these as true without questioning them... similarly we think "to go to work is the right thing to do because otherwise I can't buy things and I'd starve = work is good" or "this paper with numbers on has value because if we think it doesn't, we're in trouble and our world collapse".
We don't want paradigms to change, we object to it. But they sometimes change anyway, because we always exchange symbols (such as words or sounds or pictures). Symbols are coded information, we take the information (not necessarily true or false, just information) and our brains process it for us, and there it turns into thoughts. As long as the exchange of symbols remain the same, paradigms usually do as well.
If we go back some 500 years ago, before most people could read, our exchange of symbols generally looked like this:
Individual <--symbols--- Priest
Sure, when we interacted with each other it was like it always has:
Individual <-----symbols------> Individual
But since the only outside influence, who had a greater set of symbols and more power to distribute those, the priest would also control that indvidual-to-individual interaction, as they had received their symbols not from reading and not from the press and not from (other than very selective God-loving) art.
Hence, God was God.
Then some weirdo thought it would be nice if people in general could also read because societies where becoming more complex and the need for other information than "God is God" were necessary. This meant new forms of symbol/information exchange:
Individual <--- Book saying God might not be God
Of course, as with every paradigm shift, there was a lot of resistance that later grow into chaos. As God was no longer (not always at least, this was a centuries long process) God, the King was no longer King, and the French revolution happened and created new paradigms, most of which still exist today (democracy is good, can't live without a parliament, the right-left political scale will always be with us and whatnot).
With the advent of telecommunications - TV, radio, phones, easier way of travelling - people in the 20s and 30s received another new way of exchanging (and receiving) symbols. Among other things, there were movies, and since Jews - who generally did not adopt Christian values and kept their own set of symbols - were pioneers in eg film making, the new set of symbols/information was kind of a culture shock for the current paradigm in a lot of European countries. For instance, things like sexuality were not as taboo in the Jewish community as they were in prudent Germany. Hence people got angry again, there was even this bloke (Hitler) who started a party for all of those who hated the new information and those who spread it. The old world was trying to resist the new. Eventually we reached acceptance that things like naked women, psychology and people with different skin colours actually would not kill us, and a new paradigm was created where these things were accepted (at least more than before).
In the last twenty years, yet again the exchange of symbols has changed in a remarkable manner and here we are in a crisis, not really knowing what to do with the world, we're not even quite sure who to blame, but lots of people sure know they feel uncomfortable in a world without norms and set paradigms, so they desperately try to go back.
The thing is that "nazism and/or racism will never rise again because..." is also a paradigm, and could also be changed if people receive symbols telling them that it is the way to go. Ultimately, racism is not evil by nature - nothing that won't kill us is - just like being nice to your mother isn't good by nature: there's no laws in universe controlling these things, the perception of what is good or bad are just human inventions - which also means they could change. Today we think robbery is bad, tomorrow - if the we receive enough symbols that incidate it - we could think robbery is good. "We'll never turn into nazis again" is a promise as strong as "We'll never lose our faith in a Christian God". It is easy to say, but there's nothing that supports those takes other than the current paradigm. The unfortunate reality is that our brains are merely computers made out of meat, and could be programmed with symbols/information.
Unfortunately, the new symbol exchange system (the Internet) stood and weighed for years between becoming a free symbol exchange, which would have been pretty cool, or mainly an exchange between what I call "superindividuals" (governments, religions and corporations) which do not behave as humans nor necessarily wants us to thrive, and as things turned out the latter model is winning, meaning we as individuals have a very low level of impact (comparable to when only priests could read and write) as the amount of symbols received from superindividuals (which are not rarely contradicting each other, creating a further crisis in the creation of new paradigms) exceeds the exchange of symbols between human individuals. What finally will be is not really in the hands of the many - for "good" or "bad", I suppose.
We'll land into... something... sooner or later. But for now it is a bumpy ride and people want to go back to when it wasn't all that bumpy.
... to expand a bit on this:
Humans adhere to paradigms, which can be explained as worldviews that we generally take for granted. Examples include that we divide the year into four seasons or a day into 24 hours. We take these as true without questioning them... similarly we think "to go to work is the right thing to do because otherwise I can't buy things and I'd starve = work is good" or "this paper with numbers on has value because if we think it doesn't, we're in trouble and our world collapse".
We don't want paradigms to change, we object to it. But they sometimes change anyway, because we always exchange symbols (such as words or sounds or pictures). Symbols are coded information, we take the information (not necessarily true or false, just information) and our brains process it for us, and there it turns into thoughts. As long as the exchange of symbols remain the same, paradigms usually do as well.
If we go back some 500 years ago, before most people could read, our exchange of symbols generally looked like this:
Individual <--symbols--- Priest
Sure, when we interacted with each other it was like it always has:
Individual <-----symbols------> Individual
But since the only outside influence, who had a greater set of symbols and more power to distribute those, the priest would also control that indvidual-to-individual interaction, as they had received their symbols not from reading and not from the press and not from (other than very selective God-loving) art.
Hence, God was God.
Then some weirdo thought it would be nice if people in general could also read because societies where becoming more complex and the need for other information than "God is God" were necessary. This meant new forms of symbol/information exchange:
Individual <--- Book saying God might not be God
Of course, as with every paradigm shift, there was a lot of resistance that later grow into chaos. As God was no longer (not always at least, this was a centuries long process) God, the King was no longer King, and the French revolution happened and created new paradigms, most of which still exist today (democracy is good, can't live without a parliament, the right-left political scale will always be with us and whatnot).
With the advent of telecommunications - TV, radio, phones, easier way of travelling - people in the 20s and 30s received another new way of exchanging (and receiving) symbols. Among other things, there were movies, and since Jews - who generally did not adopt Christian values and kept their own set of symbols - were pioneers in eg film making, the new set of symbols/information was kind of a culture shock for the current paradigm in a lot of European countries. For instance, things like sexuality were not as taboo in the Jewish community as they were in prudent Germany. Hence people got angry again, there was even this bloke (Hitler) who started a party for all of those who hated the new information and those who spread it. The old world was trying to resist the new. Eventually we reached acceptance that things like naked women, psychology and people with different skin colours actually would not kill us, and a new paradigm was created where these things were accepted (at least more than before).
In the last twenty years, yet again the exchange of symbols has changed in a remarkable manner and here we are in a crisis, not really knowing what to do with the world, we're not even quite sure who to blame, but lots of people sure know they feel uncomfortable in a world without norms and set paradigms, so they desperately try to go back.
The thing is that "nazism and/or racism will never rise again because..." is also a paradigm, and could also be changed if people receive symbols telling them that it is the way to go. Ultimately, racism is not evil by nature - nothing that won't kill us is - just like being nice to your mother isn't good by nature: there's no laws in universe controlling these things, the perception of what is good or bad are just human inventions - which also means they could change. Today we think robbery is bad, tomorrow - if the we receive enough symbols that incidate it - we could think robbery is good. "We'll never turn into nazis again" is a promise as strong as "We'll never lose our faith in a Christian God". It is easy to say, but there's nothing that supports those takes other than the current paradigm. The unfortunate reality is that our brains are merely computers made out of meat, and could be programmed with symbols/information.
Unfortunately, the new symbol exchange system (the Internet) stood and weighed for years between becoming a free symbol exchange, which would have been pretty cool, or mainly an exchange between what I call "superindividuals" (governments, religions and corporations) which do not behave as humans nor necessarily wants us to thrive, and as things turned out the latter model is winning, meaning we as individuals have a very low level of impact (comparable to when only priests could read and write) as the amount of symbols received from superindividuals (which are not rarely contradicting each other, creating a further crisis in the creation of new paradigms) exceeds the exchange of symbols between human individuals. What finally will be is not really in the hands of the many - for "good" or "bad", I suppose.
We'll land into... something... sooner or later. But for now it is a bumpy ride and people want to go back to when it wasn't all that bumpy.
tl : dr
Still JRM4PM?
Pardon
tl : dr
Still JRM4PM?
No idea what JRM4PM is
Pardon
I have expressed my opinion on another thread recently about the EU and from my part a certain amount of regret about voting to leave, but I wonder what many NSC Europhiles think about so many of the member states lurching so far to the right. Somehow I don't think Italy is the end of the story.
Europe is being over run by outsiders and the way of life , standard of living and general fiscal and proprietary well being are almost at a point of non recovery and yet still more foreigners arrive with hands outstretched.........some people will give them the shirt off their backs , the food from their plates or donate to the point where they are compromised themselves ......most will get the raging hump and vote for parties that promise to do something about it.
I got it.
In summary:
Whether they believe it or not, people are programmed by subliminal and conspicuous stimulation.
If something is in the headlines long enough it becomes a thing when it may not even be a thing.
NSC is an example. Someone starts a thread about something on here. It becomes a thing in folk's thinking. Multiply that millions of times over and it becomes a bad thing. When, in the grander scheme, it was probably never a thing in the first place.
And that is why folk talk about going back. Yet they forget that things were just as changeable then.
Some countries hate homosexuals for example. Why ? because they are taught it's a bad thing by their prompts and indoctrination
Sixty years ago we thought that too. But then the images changed. And now, mostly, we don't. And we can't understand why we did. That's because the brain doesn't register beyond it's current programming.
And that is how it works. There is no good or bad. Just perception.
That's quite scary because it means bad things (as we see them now) can quickly become good.
mm interesting viewpoint, wondered what swanny was saying. And that is how it works. There is no good or bad. Just perception. not sure about that bit though.
mm interesting viewpoint, wondered what swanny was saying. And that is how it works. There is no good or bad. Just perception. not sure about that bit though.
mm interesting viewpoint, wondered what swanny was saying. And that is how it works. There is no good or bad. Just perception. not sure about that bit though.