Are humans as a species slowly going insane and heading for collapse?

a reply to: LDragonFire

Didn’t he also introduce a bill that prohibited any freed slaves from being allowed to remain in his state???

originally posted by: BlackIbanez
It's funny really, we have nutters these days channeling aliens, angels, smurfs and who knows what, it's generally treated as the joke that it is. But because some bloke did it a couple thousand years ago and made it all cryptic people are like ," oooh, can't wait for those trumpets and pestilent horses to bring Jesus back to judge all those heathens and build me a mansion on new earth 2..."

I think all those people need to get Red Wedding-ed.

Actually there have been a lot of threads on "Universe 25" over the years with some very good discussion on its methodology, conclusions etc. Just do a search and i think it was one in the philosophy forum where it was batted to and fro for a while but can't remember for sure which one/s.

You could even argue that we are already there - certainly in some places

a reply to: BomSquad

maybe all of the '___', taken in the 60s and 70s, so many molecules have escaped into the air that we all are still tripping!
freestone

a reply to: BomSquad



Humans as a species have ALWAYS been somewhat insane. What has happened is that technology has made it easier to express and facilitate that insanity, in often very destructive ways. Think about it, we have nuclear weapons pointed at each other in quantities that can exterminate most of humanity in seconds. Would a sane species do that?

a reply to: BomSquad

We are not slowly going insane, we are insane and have the hat and the balloon. LoL

Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results".

That's us in spades, and then some.

a reply to: johnb

Yes, there have been other discussions on this study... one by TEOTWAWKIAIFF springs to mind... here:

Universe 25 and The Beautiful Ones

And yes... overpopulation and it's coinciding devaluation of individuals, confinement to ugly urban prisons and degradation of natural environments all contribute to a general zeitgeist of hopelessness and despair in humanity.

And yes, this state of affairs is basically caused by a small number of ignorant, power hungry individuals who may be seen as running the experiment and a large number of ignorant, complacent enablers who may be seen as ... well, mice.

And of course we cannot forget the ones content to groom and look fabulous while the cage crumbles!

a reply to: BomSquad

I've been thinking about this a lot recently.

I think something is going on. The human race, like any given human being, can be seized by mental illness.

We went through a kind of nervous breakdown in the 1940s (WW2), when an astonishing amount of wickedness and atrocities were perpetrated right around the globe, not just Nazis in Germany.

I'm approaching 60 and I remember how laid back life was, right up to the Noughties...then something changed.

Now it's panic and mania, particularly in the workplace.

Change is forced all the time, nothing is allowed to sit still for 5 minutes.

I blame global warming.

And by the way, I don't blame human beings for the warming; contributors, certainly. But not the architects.

Something is happening with the sun that scientists don't really understand.

Who knows what effect this could have on the human psyche?

Humanity will never go extinct because it’s human thought that created this place. How things begin are how they end. Bravo on the well thought out post by the way. I really love your research, I do feel there is a lot of truth to it. A sobering truth because how many crazy mice are you speaking to on this forum? Lol. All the mice died because they all went crazy by losing their spirit in a controlled environment. We were born into a world of slavery as well just like those mice. There is no difference whatsoever. Tell people they aren’t slaves and they will believe it. The only difference is that a true human is the pinnacle of all creation and a mouse is still striving for that emotional capacity. We have Hope. I say a “true human” because mankind has not seen a man and woman as ONE....yet. We are still stuck in judgement.

My truth though is that humanity can never be hopeless, but thoughts of hopelessness can be very real and damaging. All nature strives to be human. Pure thought lies below our impulse bodies, which is dualistic in nature. Our ego by nature judges good and bad, or this and that, or black and white. Our egos attempt at survival is merely an exercise in judgement of feelings; however it is our greatest gift. Black doesn’t exist without white just as good doesn’t exist without bad. So why judge it? Judgement of feeling denotes feelings of lack within the individual. That’s how we have formed our identities, but that’s only earthly evolution. It’s fear based. Our egos are based in feelings and all feelings are dualistic. Our brains have been conditioned into dualism making us highly prone to emotional manipulation. Emotion is static and unchanging, feelings are fleeting. For instance, happiness always meets itself in sadness. Two sides to the same coin. We chase happiness then we avoid the fullness of that emotion in sadness. It’s like a bubble to be popped. All feelings are rooted in emotion. This whole existence is emotional and then mental. Trust no one because a person would need to be born again below their impulsive self to be truly trustworthy. That’s why all the mice died, they couldn’t trust each other in an environment of artificial intelligence. It betrayed their hearts. Even the term artificial intelligence is contradictory. Artificial intelligence is defining itself, it’s not real. An intelligence that is artificial? What? It’s the edge of the coin where the strong will exist in time between two opposites of the ego. A full rectifying and bonding of the left and right brain. Some call it the red road, which is the narrow gate. Mother Nature is mans purest reflection and any isolation against it is denial and death. Without emotion, which is God, then we live like caged birds. Because we all share the same emotional body and God, it’s up to the individual to leap forth from it like a Phoenix. The only question is “how to transcend impulse”? I feel I have found that answer for myself. It’s nothing to escape it’s something to accept. Acceptance brings the mind into a state of reception and frees it from judgement. Essentially, in order to truly find life one must conquer the natural impulse to judge feeling. I do not believe mankind has witnessed this individual yet though; however each man and woman contains the image of perfection within them, and therefore; has potential. Without that, all hope is lost.

The big difference between human and mice is: Humans are able to transmit information from one generation to the next, without needing it to be encoded in our DNA. (Although some of our behavior is STILL based on DNA encoded instincts.)



Mice have a behavioral program of instincts that has been refined over thousands and even millions of years, for a set of environments that fall within a reasonably small range. ANY environment that they don't have instinctive programming for is going to set them off the rails. ( Unless they survive another 1000+ years long enough for a new instinct to emerge that is appropriate to it.)


Humans are partially like that, and partially not. We still depend somewhat on DNA encoded programmed instructions to tell us how to live our lives. However, we have the ability to ignore it if we want to, and use logic plus education to devise our own survival strategies.


The DNA part of how we think isn't going to evolve fast enough to save us.

But the Non-DNA part can.

The question is: how fast can humanity transition away from relying on the DNA part? And depending entirely on the non-DNA part.

a reply to: BomSquad

Only the " Dumb " ones who Forgot How to Adapt , the Rest will do Just Fine..........)

Humans were never sane in the first place. The whole human thing is insanity. Insanity has always been the only thing we're really good at.

Interesting experiment and it may have parallels to what will happen to our civilization. One big difference is unlike mice we have the mental capacity and dexterity to create a way out of the fabricated utopia. I think we as humans generally put ourselves outside of and above nature. We do not see ourselves as part of the animal kingdom. After all we are humans and they are animals destined to live out there lives in an instinctual prison without cognitive thought? Nature seems to have a way of designating what each individual life form on the planet does to exist. Are we above that? How much choice do we really have in our general behavior? How much is just in our nature? Although the experiment tells us what mice will do in that situation it does not necessarily tell us how humans would react in the same situation. JAT

a reply to: BomSquad

Since Calhoun's experiments it has been discovered that mice have highly complex communications in the ultrasound range. This sound carries very well. Is it possible that the breakdown was on the communication level with no escape from the cacophony of voices.

Infrasound is also a pervasive element in areas where significant vehicle traffic exists. This infrasound carries long distances and has distinct effects on how humans feel If you've been or lived in areas where this doesn't reach, you will know what I mean. In certain areas where hills are steep and valleys narrow, the long distance infrasound doesn't bend down into them. If there are few airline routes overhead, there will be a sense of peacefulness few humans have experienced. I don't think the mice were subject to infrasound, but humans are definitely effected by it.

Both low and high pitched sounds penetrate verey well(think fife and drum corp) Also, remember that elephants communicate over long distance with infrasound.

Perhaps the cellphone with it's psychology of constant intrusion is the most destructive element and the one that will make our future subject to a Rat Utopia like demise. Birthrates are declining precipitously in many developed world populations.

In the past, few societies have progress to the point of total extinction. Most have succumbed to external enemies when they became weak enough.

Very good points concerning sound. Hearing is an interesting sense because it functions in two ways. I believe when there is an overload of sound, which confuses the senses, then humans have the rare ability to sink into the solitude of the soul. Mice do not have this ability. We can achieve pure silence on the inside despite circumstance, however; we can never neutralize sound by trying to hear. I feel inner hearing would be more appropriately called listening, and outer listening would be hearing. Hearing is the first sense to develop in the womb, therefore; it must be vibration that stimulates our bodies to begin growing in an environment. We must protect our listening abilities from the overwhelming cacophony of sounds in this world.

a reply to: BomSquad

Great thread!
Commenting to follow..

originally posted by: JustJohnny

originally posted by: Vroomfondel
a reply to: carewemust

That might be good from an "I told you so" point of view. But I don't think a lot of people are eager to see that particular prophecy fulfilled. I'm not anyway.

That entire concept is silly..

Per capita human suffering has only fallen..


What percentage was lost every winter in cave man days??

Imagine life pre-dental surgery lol..

Life pre global communication..


I really find that whole “the kings divine right to rule” BS off puting..


Science has fighters out the more we mix and evolve the stronger the species gets..


It wasn’t stringer in the ancient past.

You say per capita human suffering has only fallen and technology has made life better. That is one perspective, but reality does not support that conclusion.

In a subjective wellbeing study, it was determined that people from what we would consider third world countries, the poorest of the poor, on a subjective wellbeing scale are just as happy in their daily lives as the technologically advanced are in theirs. People in the poorest parts of the Philipines, per subjective well being, are just as happy and satisfied in their daily lives as people in the US even though the average person in the US uses 37 times more energy annually than a person in the Philipines. Remarkably, some in the Pphilipines are more satisfied with their daily lives than their US counterparts. The poorest of the poor do not have a "keep up with the Jones's" attitude. They do not see someone else's success as their own failure. How many times have we heard someone in the US say, "Why couldn' that happen to me? What makes him so special? How did he get that job/wife/car/house/whatever?" The poorest of the poor, grateful just for another day on this Earth, celebrate these successes in others. They do not feel inadequate for not having achieved the same successes themselves.

originally posted by: Artemis12
a reply to: BlackIbanez

If it happens, can i smoke a j and laugh at you? (or with if you change your mind before Jesus arrives on his white horse to piss on his enemies).

It's your imagination, you can do whatever you want with it.
Like sometimes, I like to pretend that I'm the Antichrist, and that *spoiler alert* Jesus is my psycho little half brother (same mum, different dad's)and that we like to smoke joints and laugh at all the witless mouth breathers(or "all day suckers" as J likes to call 'em) losing thier fake grace and humility when they find out the apocalypse has been cancelled due to lack of interest.

Another possibility is that animal instinct is slightly more sinister than we have imagined.

Each creature seeks to supplant all others and totally dominate the ecosystem.

So if there is abundant food for you, then there is also abundant food for all of your competitors. This makes is really hard to size up your competitors.

With no clear idea of what they are up against in their struggle for dominance, the mice don't know which competitive action to undertake, so they get caught in a cycle.

It's like if you're a very rich and powerful nation, and you go to war against another very rich and powerful nation. You're both equally rich, so neither of you really has a competitive advantage.

Neither of you is operating anywhere near the limits of your economic resources, so it is impossible for either side to determine how strong the other is. Which just leaves both of you in a state of debilitating uncertainty.

Analyzing this closer, - I think the experiment informs us more than it appears to on the surface.


So why aren't they reproducing? Which gender is making that decision?

It looks like it's the females.

So why are the females not choosing mates?

My guess would be that that their programmed selection is to search for a male who is faring exceptionally well in his environment compared to the others. Just that.

Well, which male is going to be faring exceptionally well if the environment is so pristine that nobody fares poorly?




The males, for their part, are just trying to figure out how to impress the females. (Who are all holding off and waiting for "Mr. Right".)







So: what I'm learning from this is, if you want women to be attracted to you, try and appear to be doing exceptionally well in your environment. Smile a lot. Relax. Don't be unhappy that you can't get everything you want in life. Pretend what you achieved was what you wanted.

She won't know what makes you seem so well adapted to your situation. She'll just assume you must be the guy with the best adaptive traits.