Downplaying very serious topics, ignoring the protests of half of the population, and educating girls to be silent, obedient, and submissive possibly Downplaying very serious topics, ignoring the protests of half of the population, and educating girls to be silent, obedient, and submissive possibly isn´t what so called emancipated democracies should stand for in the 21st century.
Everyone forgets history and repeats it, any kind of social movements, anti slavery, women's rights, gay rights,… have been ridiculed with stupid, inhumane, conservative arguments, and it´s the same with race, gender, and all kinds of structural violence nowadays. It´s this toxic phantasmagoria of having reached the end of history, of living in an enlightened society, that leads people to think that the progressive critics and victims are just exaggerating the problem, that everyone is overreacting, that feminists are demonizing the poor male perpetrator, leading to the bizarre and mad situation that victims of harassment, abuse, rape, and physical violence have to explain themselves, get attacked and insulted after the trauma.
That women have to live with the fact that trying to find help and justice leads to more problems than letting the criminals get away to be able to stalk the next victim, that everyone from law to colleagues, family, and friends won´t logically stand behind them, but instead repeat the slut shaming, victim blaming, and a bit afterward hate crimeing to get the victims in line and silent again.
Sometimes, there seem to be even more concerns regarding the rights of the offenders if they are just harassing and are, still, no serial rapists, that their civil rights and privacy gets attacked, that they shouldn´t be stigmatized, that they should get a second chance. Not just downplaying the problem, but helping the dangerous predators afterward, that´s how society rolls.
Commercialization of everything, reifying of women for financial interests, plays in here too, but it´s nothing compared to the epigenetic factor of bro codes, fraternities, clubs, parties, organizations, anything promoting predatory male pack behavior. It´s everywhere, it´s accepted, it strangely doesn´t seem to change or really disturb anyone and whenever a woman complains, she is shouted down by the consensus of continuing the good, oldfashioned sexist way. That´s culture, tradition, at least each fourth up to each second woman having to deal with the danger of rape over her lifetime a small price to pay for cozy social gatherings, fun at the costs of others, and giving the torch of downplayed abuse to the next generation. Heck, these people behave like that in front of their kids, they condition them to mob, stalk, and intimidate their victims.
These are no minor crimes, the psychological consequences of trauma and abuse similar to PTSD, although the tradition of the legal systems deems anything higher than human lives and integrity, but it´s done as if it are trivialities, kind of boys are boys style for all males of all ages, leading to illogical and sick dogmas. Dirty old man sexually harassing: Do you hate old people? He doesn´t mean it that way. Group of young men making sexist comments. Don´t you like a compliment? Etc.
Imagine a guy would be groomed and groped, that would of course be absolutely unacceptable, but hey, as long as it´s just a woman… Just google victim blaming and slut shaming and look at the pictures, that´s the culture we´ve built.
External shame, Fremdschämen in German, is meanwhile one of my dominant emotions regarding mostly anything in connection with manly masculinity, culture, and traditional society in general.
It´s not enough to just one deem oneself no racist, it´s the action, self-reflecting, changing habits, thoughts, ideologies, and activism that mattersIt´s not enough to just one deem oneself no racist, it´s the action, self-reflecting, changing habits, thoughts, ideologies, and activism that matters.
Some of the main points: Showing that each ethnic group can be racist, not just white people. Defining the important term of anti racist instead of just being not racist, leading to active improvement instead of passive stagnation and thinking that just believing is enough. Rethinking many of the stereotypes and prejudices regarding how society deals with established norms. Trying to open new ways of thinking about race and identify. Integrating feminism and LGBTQ. Critical self reflection, introspection, self analysis, considering were the own blind spots may lie. The irony of white supremacy against other white people they don´t like.
Kendi is in a special position, he does amazing research, lives in a moment where many other, progressive authors spread positive ideas he can work with, and culminates it to some of the best writing about one of the crucial themes of the 21st century.
Some reviewers may mock that there are no real solutions offered, just well argued tips, personal experiences, and self-improvement manuals, but that´s unfair. I would rather say that there is, at the moment, just no real solution, it´s a question of time and cultural evolution. The people who would really have to read this work won´t and the readers that are already active and trying to do something can get better in their endeavors, but breeding new and better epigenetic traits just takes time.
The criticism is especially unfair too because Kendi offers much of himself, very personal and intimate details, to provide enough examples and illustrative material, and that´s always coming with the problem of the replication crisis. It worked well for one person, ok, but what about me? And the billions of others, what about them. But it´s meant as an example to show that everyone can be successful in self detecting potential racism bombs inside one´s mindset.
There is not much new under the sun, so most of the ideas have already been thought, but it´s Kendi´s enthusiasm and deep, honest belief in a real option for change that makes this book special. It´s also something for the more optimistic, emotional, humanities focused readers, because it doesn´t really focus on meta, but on the personal level.
There is a bit of a contradiction between Kendi´s other work Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... and this one.
Because the sheer description of the extent and causes of the dilemma seem so overwhelmingly daunting, it subjectively seems as if Kendi is trying to spread optimism and hope, although the current state of the affairs around the world is more than intimidating.
Old pessimist that I am, I prefer the direct in your face approach of books like 2 of the best current nonfiction describing the problems this book tries to solve. DiAngelo Robin´s White Fragility https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
They both show the not so obvious, hidden prejudices, resentments, and all the evil isms growing on this and similar ground, their mechanisms, and sad real life examples.
Not giving real hope, but sensitizing for forgotten, subconsciously working problems. Subjectively, I deem understanding the meta problems more important than personal growth (because just the ones willing to change will go through this difficult process), while a change in politics affects everyone, no matter what she/he thinks, but this also has to start at a point with each individual. And that´s where How to be an Antiracist shines.
I am absolutely not sure if this is ingenious or a bit overhyped, I simply don´t know enough about this extremely complex and new contexts, but everything enabling an open debate is worth it. The only problem and small criticism I have is that the true, great ideas of how to improve one´s mentality are mixed up with some unnecessary, possibly not standing the test of time, ideas, that are based on subjective opinion and own thesis. Especially the difference between white on black racism vs black on white racism, not to forget the hundreds of varieties not mentioned. Without that, it would have been better, because that´s still an open field of study, happening at the moment, involving statistics, sociology, psychology, politics, economics, and similar stuff, just far too complex and interwoven to come up with one solution or explanation and this could lead to confusion and misunderstandings and it could be used to criticize this amazing work.
Big History at its best, it´s showing the important connection between past atrocities and current systems, between old ideologies and their new, subtBig History at its best, it´s showing the important connection between past atrocities and current systems, between old ideologies and their new, subtle, dishonest disguises. Just because something isn´t easy to spot as a malady from the past doesn´t mean that it´s cured, that society is vaccinated, that it´s not a hidden plague still metastasizing, mutating to new forms, evolving to a more politically correct chimera level. Not just the weird ideology mixups of old and new extremist groups, but especially the ones who deem themselves sophisticated, enlightened, and mostly privileged people, who don´t get the whole picture and impede and delay real, substantial change by promoting a dysfunctional, deeply unfair system and having or simulating a blind eye for the cognitive dissonances inside their minds, political parties, and well meaning NGOs.
It´s telling that conventional history just keeps talking about the numbers, names, and obvious actions, but strangely and suspiciously avoids linking them to too hot, controversial, and thereby dangerously true, political, social, and especially economic topics and contemporary history. Would look too bad and open too many questions, not really correspond to what is usually talked about in history class, education prefers memorizing names, places, and numbers instead of reflecting, interpreting, and questioning how we came to where we are. But at least the bigotry is consequent, because the devastating results of this history of shame are concealed and downplayed in most media too.
Of course, schools can´t teach critical thinking, where could that end, instead they just keep helping to create underprivileged, poor white people´s prejudices by not detecting their racist ideas to keep them fighting against the minorities, blacks, anyone in bad, oldfashioned divide et impera style, and by not stopping to keep relativizing a horrible, disgusting past or at least preventing radicalization. Far too many implications and unwanted questions because of the parallels to the second half of the second millennium after whatever, the escalating current problems, the colonial system, world history, the real economic and ideological reason for the war on drugs, redlining, and all the other atrocities.
Openly admitting and explaining to the kids that government, media, and faith used, uses, and will use propaganda and psychological warfare elements to keep the population from rebelling isn´t what the Board of Education department for the promotion of functional illiterates barely able to decipher the fake sockpuppet candidates to actively participate in a dead democracy where all parties promote the same mad, exponential growth, no sustainability or distributive justice course, wants. Ever wondered why Big History seems to just be storming the bestselling lists, but no classrooms or curricula? They prefer the Hollywood fantasy happy go lucky endings of history where, as soon as some superficial laws, but not the underlying problems and missing wealth distribution, are changed, all is a democratic, equal, and fair wonderland.
That´s why such marvelously researched and fact based books with very modern approaches towards both arguing and opening new debates are essential, although they make much of the establishment, especially economics and politics, shiver in fear. Such a realistic, hard, and direct evaluation of both history and present day lets their common platitudes seem even more bizarre, wrong, and unscientific.
The approach of trying to make something as understandable as possible to reach the biggest audience, is often better than very good, but too detailed, specific, and complex bricks of books. In this rare case, there is the old, big, fat edition and the new, shiny, short one and I am not sure if I should still read his original Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... because I guess that most of the essential parts have been converted in this easier to read form for younger audiences. It was the only option before this new edition, now it´s certainly something for history nerds and I don´t know if it offers just more data or also more essential thesis that makes it worth reading.
Anyhow it would be a good idea for other, progressive, critical authors, citizen journalists, social critics, whistleblowers,.. to shorten and simplify their works to be more appealing for younger audiences, especially cutting out anecdotes, unnecessary complicated academic language that is promoting the author´s ego, and wordiness about numbers, names, and places, and possibly cooperating with professional fiction authors who know how to write thrilling and suspenseful. That could open the gates for the exponentiation of readers both important, but self blocking, authors and audiences could benefit from, not to forget society.
It´s often the case that 52 pages of condensed intelligence have more solutions, ideas, and concrete plans to fight grievances than unrealistic, over the top, counterproductive, conservative, camouflaged racist, homophobic, misogynic, etc., so called government plans and concepts, all pathetic displays of the many different stages of outdated societal, democratic, government, and economic models, depending on the country, but omnipresent in close to all of them.
How authors like her show the bigotry and madness of our system is amazing, talking about topics Western media likes to ignore, helping to understand the link between stupid neoliberal, neocolonial, neoconservative politics and economics dominating Western democracies, leading to all problems in the Southern hemisphere and directly helping any kind of stone age dictatorship theocracy to stay established as long as possible. Because the companies controlling any aspect of the US and EU get better deals with them than with emancipated, stable democracies that aren´t so easy to exploit.
The problem is not just the direct violence, conditions close to slavery, and oppression women have to deal with in many countries promoting such policies, it´s the poverty and global lack of distributive justice that makes the difference between the best places to live, the Northern European countries following the Nordic model with ecosocial Keynesian models and failing states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_...
Because white, rich men (sorry for being so stereotypical and discriminating this poor group) want to get richer, just some emancipated women, a tiny fraction of the world's population (when looking at child abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse, etc. in so called enlightened democracies and the states incompetence to help the victims, punish the perpetrators, or change the oldfashioned education systems to something not producing offenders and rapist, that can be sure to get no real punishment when grown up and active) can live a peaceful life in one country while the other states are closer to medieval times than to the 21st century or, in some cases, if the state is rich but an authoritarian theocracy, a bizarre mixture of modern technology and tribe culture.
I find it highly irritating that many don´t seem to understand that the conditions described in the astonishing novel and series The handmaid's tale and similar Sci-Fi and horror dystopian uchronia works is reality for the majority of the female world population. That the nightmare is just ending for those privileged to just having to push the button to stop watching or to stop reading and never have to face being dominated deluded humans.
It´s not just the God Pan and humans closeness and relationship to nature that were killed with institutionalized stupidity thousands of years ago, it was the destruction of a sustainable and fair matriarchy necessary to facilitate the patriarchic reign of terror that let to all the political and economic madnesses called human history, not to talk of total destruction of nature.
One of the quickest ways might be to go the way of activism, alternative political parties, online activism,… in the Western countries to get a fundamental change to a progressive post scarcity political model started to force the dictatorships to change their societal model.
It´s not impossible, clever minds already made all the concepts, they are still just unwanted by the elite, because one of the nastiest elements of the Nordic model is a fair tax system and transparent government making large scale corruption and lobbyism tricky to impossible. Absolutely unthinkable, as these are the only things that could shock those people, not worldwide suffering, just losing cash.
Of course, there are still enough problems in the emancipated countries, as progress takes its time to accelerate, and there are many grievances and problems to solve, but all of this is nothing compared to the real suffering and it´s a privilege to be allowed talking about feminism without the fear of stoning, acid attacks, or lynch mobs.
Something that often seems to be forgotten in tradition of First world problems is that it aren´t unsolvable errors intrinsic to the system and insolvable without a radical change, but corrections mainly to solve by breeding the next generation of emancipated men, as the old and young sexists, machos, and chauvinists won´t change, no matter what country. That´s what they sadly have in common with all other extremist mindsets with very improbable chances of recovering, as the once infected and indoctrinated mind tends to see the madness as a crucial part of its identity and the personality constructed out of rotten components.
The practical manifesto of one of the founding fathers of DIY, ecology, sustainability, alternative education, economy, and democracy, independence frThe practical manifesto of one of the founding fathers of DIY, ecology, sustainability, alternative education, economy, and democracy, independence from Big money, abundance, and a better, brighter, fairer future.
To have the smallest ecological footprint by producing most of the essential things needed for living alone or in cooperation with others in sharing economies was always a big thing, it´s how humankind rolled for tens of thousands of years, before agriculture and cities brought the absurd idea that some owned all land and enslaved the people this way by having to work for them because of taxes, interests, debt, or simply torturing them to death if they refused.
By not being part of a self-destructive, illogical, endless exponential growth consumerism cycle, people don´t only find independence by owning land, not lose money by paying rents after the mortgage is acquitted, but find sense and inner meaning by doing things they love, that keep them going, and activate their flow systems. After realizing that close to all products that aren´t reasonable for basic needs, work, creativity, knowledge, or entertainment, are trash, independent communities are closer than ever before to becoming autarchic.
Tribes didn´t have much fancy tech when they wandered through the ice- and warm ages, but the knowledge of the elder, given to the next generation, now lost forever and getting lost each second as the last torchbearers die and indigenous people are forced to leave the stolen land they lived on for thousands of years and vegetate in slums. Hippies and alternative communities of the last century had the one or other technical advantage, but with 3D printers, nano- and biotechnology, and computer science, software, and the internet, the dawn of a new age has begun. Imagine what all that enlightened young specialists will build together and without stupid restrictions and limitations of outdated economic, political, and democratic models.
It speaks for itself that the idea of holism (and publications like the Whole Earth Catalogue) are so extremely underrepresented and ignored, as they show that close to all of our current societal models are bonkers. Talking and thinking too much about it would lead to too many unwanted realizations, understanding interconnections, and finally the truth of the necessity of a post scarcity economy.
Finding freedom from consumerism and opportunism in harmony with nature.
The principle of living in harmony with nature has been a topic for a long timFinding freedom from consumerism and opportunism in harmony with nature.
The principle of living in harmony with nature has been a topic for a long time until civilization alienated people from their original homeland. However, especially this opens up the possibility for introspection and reflection with the help of the simple life before apparently essential things like consumption, status and power lose their appeal.
Thoreau shows how a needless life can be filled with happiness and meaning by getting satisfaction from oneself, one's creativity and the people and nature around and not by the eternal hunt for the imposed, changing ideals of society. Such as "Go into the cave of the enemies and kill them all with a club, so that you can have fun in the hereafter with your comrades who have fallen in battle and massively amounts of willing women and whatever drug we allow you to consume."
Alternatively, "Learn stupidly from senseless, non-creatively applicable knowledge to make you highly specialized until up into old age." "Consume with accumulated capital and build up your righteous free time for ritualized buying decisions. "Neglect family and friends and ignore the state of the planet that is so friendly to allow you to live on it. "
Unfortunately, the utopian approaches have too often been negatively connoted and presented as impossible. After the dictate that such a world would not be possible. Wars are possible. Fiat money is no problem. But distributive justice with an education system that makes children responsible and happy citizens with environmental awareness? Better not.
Nonviolent education was another cornerstone of Thoreau's ideology. At a time when everyone was considered weak, who did not beat children to the bone until blood came out. According to standard doctrine, you had to form these empty shells with black pedagogy until they became, understandably, freaking lunatic religious extremists and fascists. Forcefully forge them like a glowing lump of metal with hammers without love to the instruments one needed to nourish the future generation with pain and cruelty.
This educational mentality could have had a not inconsiderable influence on inhumanity at all times, especially with extreme ideologies that gain more access when the majority of the population is from childhood on severely traumatized. When you do evil to innocent beings, teach cruelty and force them to lose all emotions to defend and protect themselves, you get the wished result.
The questioning of authorities was and is a stepchild of human behavior. Therefore, Thoreau warned that, even in democracies, one should never bow submissively to majority decisions without questioning them critically. He allowed people the right to protest against bad decisions and to not be forced into a silent consensus. In addition to a pioneer of environmental protection and non-violent pedagogy, he can, therefore, be seen as an icon of the civil rights movement, passive resistance and civil disobedience.
His inspirational ideas have influenced icons of freedom movement over the centuries and in the explosive current world situation, they show their visionary power and the potential for the full development of humanist ideas. If everyone lived that way, sustainable existence and peaceful coexistence with nature would be easily possible. The satisfaction with the most essential and the inward turn, rather than longing for ephemeral, mundane consumerism.
So how could it happen that even not within a generation all humans have been transformed into smombies and what happens when someone stops getting peSo how could it happen that even not within a generation all humans have been transformed into smombies and what happens when someone stops getting permanent outer input and listening to all inner voices and soliloquies? Cleaning silence, awareness for each moment or, ta-da, mindfulness.
One must imagine what the extremely slight context to other topics of all this information dump does to brain, logic and mind. The focus that originates from reading a book, working, writing, thinking, etc. doesn´t come in these cases at the cost of real effort, but with easy and sweet intermittent positive reinforcement. Emotional, funny, shocking and, most important, frightening news flashes, tweets, burning hot latest news, kitten and food porn. And similar kind of as I heard a friend of a friend recently talk about.
There is pretty much capacity for getting lost in the social network dragnets controlled by ominous spiders and the desire to acquire some of those precious, pretty products and to fear some of those gritty, evil immigrant communist terrorist leftist,... grows. Again, a huge real-life experiment in how messed up brains get in as less time as possible, especially including VR, AR and more and more realistic video game graphics.
This book has a more philosophical approach than "Digital Minimalism, How to break up with your phone, etc." It´s about digging deeper, probably asking: "Hm, who could benefit from this development of tailored filter bubbles and news brought to each device." Even people who know that newspapers, TV news channels, etc. aren´t really trustworthy, tend to believe their personalized newsfeed. I mean, it comes from friends, family and is related to hobbies and all such feel-good stuff, so it can´t be that bad. Except for turning one in a permanent passive, easy to manipulate recipient of permanent mind spam that eats away lifetime.
As a solution, the author presents bioregionalism, less consumerism, more decentralization and the average suspects for a better world, but as long as humans don´t realize the grade and sophistication of media and news manipulation, those noble ideas and ideals are chanceless against glittering, glamorous gamification and shopaholism. An untrained mind is not just like a monkey, it is an easy to trick one that; OMG, I need that product I didn´t even know about now!; eats each shiny banana given by a stranger, no matter how poisonous and filled with psychoactive indoctrination drugs it might be. Now please go and click the banana like button under this objective and true review if you want more yellow enjoyment.
A description of how adults and parents can awake the fascination, love and interest for nature in kids and how mindfulness and sustainability can be A description of how adults and parents can awake the fascination, love and interest for nature in kids and how mindfulness and sustainability can be taught to the smallest that will grow to the decision-makers of the future.
As I like to say, this is a positive example of "Give them to us when they are young and they belong to us forever." and what lies closer, what is more logical, natural and self-explaining than to go outside in the wilderness and just be, examine, walk, hike, wander and absorb all those impressions, smells and unique panoramas and settings. Go, in contrast, in anything manmade, clinical, cold and empty and there is nothing, just the space filled with inanimate objects.
The research of the future will show how strong and important the environments we used to live in since just a few hundred years ago were for our health and how the lack of nature around us influences our mind, body, soul and evolution, what senses we lose and which one we might get. For kids, who are much more sensitive and openminded and live in the ever bigger and faster-growing cities, it might have consequences we don´t even consider yet. We already know much about the general health benefits and the ones for recovering patients, but nothing about the long term health and mental effects of a lack of nature, besides allergies and a much higher rate of psychological problems in cities.
Greening cities, new city planning concepts that include vast amounts of trees and bushes to fight overheating, air pollution and other consequences of climate change, is a great step in the right direction. Could be combined with including animals in those areas and an infrastructure and net of more conservation areas, national parks and city parks so that nature doesn´t have to stay an abstract something one has to drive hours to for a short visit or a holiday, but something omnipresent referring to the fact that we came from there and are nothing without out.
And it hasn´t to be focused just on kids, nobody is too old to learn to love the planet and each individuum whose mind has been opened is a strengthening of the civil society that has to promote a change to an eco-social focus in all regards.
Well, there are certainly many fine, proofed long time (impossible, except they have secret time travel) alternatives, defined in detail by the opponeWell, there are certainly many fine, proofed long time (impossible, except they have secret time travel) alternatives, defined in detail by the opponents of the universal basic income. If not, it would be once again the same irresponsibility by the government as with...Oh, I understand.
Let´s start with a quick history lesson. Once upon a time, all the people worked on farms. A few specialists, but not really worth mentioning. Then the rising of the primitive form of industrial work, before the revolution started. So away from the field and into the city and factories. Those got better and more and more automated, but the service industries, retail, etc. developed. And here we are.
The most hilarious argument is to say, that new work will come. Quite kind of the contrast to a Malthusian catastrophe, instead of shouting starvation, everyone is repeating the mantra "full job security by new jobs" forever. Those new jobs can and will get automated too, can just be done by a very small part of the population because the needed skills are immense and one programmer or mechanic can do the work of hundreds or thousands of unemployed people. Many people, especially men, simply won´t want to or are able to learn new skills and work in new, soft, social jobs, as many studies show. Badass cowboy men with their archaic role models don´t fit the new requirements.
Then there is the point of the dignity of jobs and the taxation system. If all gets more and more automated, the lost taxes on human labor will certainly be adapted to what the machines produce. I mean, if not, this would lead to an unfair immense accumulation of power in the hands of,... Hey, cheers, Marx, my man! So we have the option of a total dystopia or to simply tax machines and give every human being enough money to survive with minimal convenience.
Or to let the system run as long as possible, even if no human work is needed or even economic anymore. To let hundred of millions or even billions of people work in frustrating, very low paid jobs instead of letting machines, androids and AIs do their work. I believe that this point could come sooner than expected, because we don´t know what is in the development pipeline of companies and military and that it could be less expensive for the elite to keep paying loans instead of fully automating everything and that the state will subsidize the senseless work of most of the population as long as possible to keep people from thinking too much in too much spare time. Digital social credits, human capitalism, time banking or dystopia, that are the 2 options on the table.
What sets us apart from the past is the unstoppable fourth industrial revolution. It's so surreal that it's easier to imagine it as a joke or science fiction or mumbo jumbo. And the critical difference is that the elite no longer needs the exploitation of physical and mental work to get even richer. They could confidently let their sheep run around freely. It would be economic suicide to use incompetent people instead of perfect machines.
The social system is currently affected by this factor, this error of human labor. And those involved do not want to cut it out of the equation for selfish reasons and replace it with machine work. The bureaucrats and politicians are, as an essential requirement of their profession, stubborn, conservative and confronted with one of the most significant upheavals in human history. What should they do? Inform themselves about the new developments and think? Lol
But since the collapse of all systems and a dystopia that has become real are not in the interest of the state or the systems, they will not allow it, despite their incompetence. Just as war has overtaken itself as a model, so too will the previous model of capitalism pass itself. Dead people do not consume for the sake of the old industries. Dead bodies do not produce data and movement profiles for the new industries. And an utterly impoverished population does not buy.
Indeed the means of production will forever remain in the hands of the rich. But thanks to genetic engineering, nanotechnology, computer technology, 3D printers, etc., a reasonable minimum standard for all people will be possible. So this is not as serious as in the past with revolutions and stuff, but the social gaps and injustices will certainly deepen before, immediately in front of the abys of civil unrest and societal collapse, a few, ridiculous crumbs of the immense wealth will be given to everyone.
Discriminating half of your population is a crime against humanity of such immense stupidity that hardly any words can be found to describe it. Next tDiscriminating half of your population is a crime against humanity of such immense stupidity that hardly any words can be found to describe it. Next to the social and millionfold individual suffering, the scientific and economic damage is immense and countries lead by such deluded conservatives are immensely weakened. In a modern, equitable country simply everything would collapse if overnight a suddenly appearing dictatorship would disenfranchise all women.
There is often the old belief in talent and gender, but it is talent, hard work, and perseverance, independent of the gender. The argument of conservative sexists gets really ridiculous if one takes people born in bodies with genders they don´t identify with, among others all variants of LGBTs, as examples. In these cases, the vindications lose any logical and comprehensible semblance and can be seen as the pure shenanigans that they are. Cause it shows, that the human, person and character are the facts that count and not the body, genitals, hormones, self-concept or something. Instead, other arbitrary arguments such as height, weight or some kind of descendant of eugenics could be taken to show the absurdity.
As seen in statistics, boys get outstripped and owned by girls as kids already in early childhood and adolescence in a fair society and in most western, democratic countries most problems with addiction, inability of adaption to new circumstances, stress resistance, let's say it, nearly every flaw, is a male problem. The only thing men are really good at is getting megalomaniac and destroying the planet. This is perfectly shown in the reports of sociologists and psychologists that compare kids in schools as following: Males never stop with stupid hierarchical and physical fights, have nearly all the learning problems, disturb the lessons, are more prone to any addictive substance and abuse it much more often, can´t multitask, aren´t as diligent as girls and have very low social skills.
The only sexist argument that makes men look good are the higher achievements in the MINT areas. This is definitively just a consequence of sexism, telling little girls that evil maths, physics, etc. is too difficult for their cute little heads (jovial, condescending patting) and that they should do something less manly that fits to their lesser skills. If a girl is well educated by modern parents and the enthusiasm awakened at an early age, she wipes the floor with a boy with the same starting conditions.
It´s not as if I am so schizophrenic to be a misandrist, but there are so many negative aspects of my gender that one could really point at any past, actual or future problem and show that it is purely manmade. We are tribal, archaic, easy to manipulate, violent, hateful and totally asocial and totally ruthless regarding the consequences of our actions. Be it wars in the past or the economic mayhem in the present, I simply don´t believe that women in power would act so stupid, against the interest of humanity and especially against the interest of their own children. And for what do manly men do this stuff? Money and power to get even hairier chests, larger harems and more ultimate powaaaa, emperor Palpatine style.
I know that I have all those tendencies inside myself and can say that is a daily struggle not to be a ...., because it is the easy, fast and comfortable way to be an egoistic, manipulative, power-hungry, evil, hateful, cold, career-obsessed and brutal tyrant and demagogue instead of helping others, being social, unselfish, self- sacrificing, listening, caring and a better human.
A good education has to begin with the youngest boys, cause as soon as a certain age is reached, the elder ones are lost trough indoctrination with BS and unable to change at a terrifyingly young age and would rather kill or die than to adapt to better alternatives.
Of course, there are exceptions, but they are rare and the funny thing is that the most successful and rich man go the way of hard work, are often introverts, do feminine things like reading and beeing immune to stupid group dynamics that normally steal the time to do meaningful work.
The danger of inequality for the whole state can be seen in history with multiple examples since the beginning of historiography. A population that is divided and not emancipated has less defensive, production and offensive capabilities, is more susceptible to agitators from enemy states who simply have to spread the facts about the grievances and has to keep its own population monitored by a terror secret police to keep it from uprising. An army can have shieldmaidens that are more dangerous than any man, because they won´t fear death just because of the option to go to Valhalla, but because they will die to defend their children, something man probably won´t do in each case or the army, as always in history, simply sucks because it is a mixture of conscripted and slave soldiers, mercenaries and incompetent officers and general staff.
Slavery is another prime example of how a state may accumulate immense wealth as long as the times are primitive, but as soon as industrialization sets in, it becomes an immense inner danger. Oppression is just a softer kind of slavery without direct possession certificates and many once-mighty empires had this self-destruction button integrated into their system, with examples as the Qing dynasty, the Romans, the Umayyad dynasty, the British empire, the Yuan dynasty, the Caliphate, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of.... If one builds his society and a stupid model, one should not wonder if his global empire perishes.
If any of those states would have been a democracy, the rest of the world would have been doomed, because while the others would have kept fighting with each other and against the behemoth, the inner stability would have been the key to success in the path to world domination.
Each high developed country depends on emancipation and justice, as seen on statistics on the best places to live. A limitation of the rights and possibilities of half of the population is a sign of so massive wretchedness and madness at the same time because it causes immense harm and reduces competitiveness. As if nothing could be learned out of the many deterrent examples out of the past and actual failing states that castrate themselves by overestimating their primary sexual characteristics.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real-life outside books:
The peaceful and important protest against a mass extinction couldn´t be shown more disproportionate in mass media.
What extinction rebellion does andThe peaceful and important protest against a mass extinction couldn´t be shown more disproportionate in mass media.
What extinction rebellion does and wants: In contrast to WWF, Greenpeace, Fridays for future, etc., who mainly deal with general environmental and climate change topics, the very dark and depressing facts are brought to a broader audience by extinction rebellion. Things that are not going to happen as the worst-case scenarios for climate change, but have already happened and are happening just right now and.... once again a species extinct. There are no numbers, as no politician cares to create enough jobs for biologists to do fieldwork, so we don´t even know how many we exterminate. So or so many millions, but basically indifferent, because it happens anyway.
Think a moment about how much one hears about oilsand, rainforest destruction, mass extinction, biodiversity loss, etc. in contrast to climate change. The large problem of the instrumentalization of the climate change topic by governments is that they use it to avoid other topics and to a certain extent each NGO has to deal with the problem that people get conditioned to forget the other topics about this omnipresent "Oh my god, the poor polar bear." It´s quite handy for a political party to talk about long-time goals and ignore the problems that could, but shouldn´t, be solved today.
Mass media and governments would never dare to criticize Gandhi, Martin Luther King,... but against a new movement with exactly the same principle to nonviolent, civil disobedience, they dare to use each unfair rhetorical and psychological trick to make the population believe that they are chaotic extremists, close to real criminals.
If there would be any kind of intelligent, sustainable public transport system instead of roads with cars, there would be no such evil possibility as to bring the whole system to a hold for a short amount of time and to be denunciated as anarchistic, dangerous lunatics cause one doesn´t like that nearly all life will die out.
Cause I already mentioned Gandhi, I will add the quote. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
No matter if it is the occupy Wall Street movement, Fridays for future, alternative political parties or anything just a little bit progressive, it gets flamed, hatetrolled and overaggressively attacked by certain pitiful people. History will show them as embarrassing footnotes before a brighter age began.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this, yuck, ugh, boo, completely overrated real-life outside books:
As other examples like collaborative learning, cataloging, creative commons, sharing economy,... collaborative consumption leads the way to a fairer pAs other examples like collaborative learning, cataloging, creative commons, sharing economy,... collaborative consumption leads the way to a fairer post-scarcity economy.
By enabling each human to become a sharer, host, producer, worker, gardener,... and, most importantly, connected with all kind of people who can do things one can´t do, the fruits of the labor don´t go to the ones who do nothing and just own, inherit or steal. As the taxi industry is confronted with Uber and hotels with Airbnb, banks with social lending, the building sector with independent technicians, credit ratings with a social reputation system based on competence and friendliness, the food industry with self supporters... more and more branches get confronted with a wonderful problem. The people who worked for low wages become independent, share their own homes and cars and help others for a fair price if they have craftsmen or educational skills.
Certainly, there is a huge problem of companies exploiting many autonomous, one person company workers and precarious working conditions are often reported, but that are examples of the old model in new clothes. Cause the platforms offering the services depend on pleased costumers, they need a non-exploitative, sustainable business model. The ones with that change the world for the better and I seldom say something like that about a corporation.
The only thing the state, controlled by lobbies, can do, is to try to delay the development with chicanery and ridiculous laws, but it´s unstoppable. It might get pretty impossible to try to prohibit people to drive their car, rent out a room in their apartment or work with their hands or minds. Of course, the government tries it, as it sabotages all good approaches, but come on, what can they do?
Tax terror for everyone who dares to do that, yes, but no more in a stable democrazy, sorry democracy, of course, that would just match if we would be ruled by... Oh wait, yes. Probably they try to reintroduce a new red scare tactic by telling that sharing a drill, snowblower, chainsaw,... is just one step from Stalin style hardcore communism.
In the farther future, even more sophisticated machines may be produced by independent creative workers, engineers and an increasing number of fab labs. As 3D printing and technology in general advances, more and more will be produced under a free license and without planned obsolescence. Don´t forget aquaponic, producing food, greenhouses and that all powered by sustainable energy, especially biogas, biofuel and other commodities produced in fermenters and bioreactors.
What might seem utopic could be far spread in just 10 to 20 years from now as tech developments tends to accelerate and costs sink rapidly and it opens up one perspective. As soon as a community of enough skilled people comes together to produce everything they need by themselves and sell it to and share it with the rest of the world, this whole endless growth economic circle comes to an abrupt end.
Or all business models and platforms are bought by the existing leviathans and all is business as usual, except that it is probably a bit more humane and motivating inside another kind of hamster wheel with more space to play and be social together and connect, share, unicorns and stuff like that under the brand of a multinational conglomerate that is mightier than anything ever created by humans.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this, yuck, ugh, boo, completely overrated real-life outside books:
A Cascade effect: excessive meat consumption, vast pasturages, monocultures, oil to keep the machine running, environmental degradation, climate changA Cascade effect: excessive meat consumption, vast pasturages, monocultures, oil to keep the machine running, environmental degradation, climate change.
It's not just eating the meat. Only the health disadvantages and ethical aspects. That heavily processed red meat is now being compared to asbestos by the WHO. The unfortunate chain ends in the stomach of a carnivore, but it begins elsewhere.
It is beyond question, how despicable factory farming is. Just the topics relating to huge stables, antibiotic resistance, environmental contamination, spillovers,... are worrying. Concerning climate change, cow farts are the smaller problem. Rather, the amount of CO2 that is released during the entire meat processing process. From breeding, farms to slaughterhouses, the food industry, distribution, logistics and electricity for the refrigerated counters.
To fatten all the tormented souls, one needs the largest monocultures of all time. No matter where, be it in increasingly compressed, over-fertilized, for desertification and desertification predestined areas or in the rainforest. And the food has to be transported by fleets of huge ships.
These ships must be built and maintained, which consumes raw materials. And they drink oil, much of it. From politically unstable regions, which are instrumentalized and even more destabilized. Or from oil and tar sands depletion, maybe soon from the drilling of the untapped spouters at the poles.
It is virtually impossible to eat meat without potentiating this process. Even if one reduces meat consumption and practices self-deceit with the schizophrenic argument of killing only very few animals to calm one's conscience. It is unrealistic that people exercise such self-control. Much worse, the West has no legitimacy to criticize the coming explosion of meat consumption in other countries. That would be the same bigotry as with emissions. And as more and more people consume more and more dead animals globally through cheaper and cheaper meat, it will be no longer hundreds of millions of people consuming meat. But billions with corresponding CO2 footprint.
A silver lining is the progress made in the production of artificial meat. Be it by breeding it in the laboratory or making life-like replicas with the same consistency so that one feels no difference while chewing it. There is also immense potential in insects. And if one has the moral issue between consuming intelligent mammals and critters, the answer should not be, "Yuck, I'm not eating mealworms!". That would be too infantile to stay stubborn with a mentality of just eating what one knows. Not to forget the irony of all the chemicals and food ingredients that are consumed without any protest. And a few little, friendly grasshoppers won´t be such a big deal for model adults. "Eat your maggots kids, or you won´t get dessert." If it would be that drastic, ok, but one even doesn´t recognize the difference, cause it´s in the food.
Foer's emotional and stirring style portrays the subject on a personal level. This methodology already made his novel "Eating Animals" a memorable experience.
PS: It's just about the influence of food. And alone this footprint is so immense. Things like consumerism, energy waste, and generally unsustainable economic models are even worse by dimensions. The masses of literature showing alternatives make hope and motivate to get active.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this, yuck, ugh, boo, completely overrated real-life outside books:
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