How will our beliefs change in 500 years?
POSTED BY: Siri
UPDATED: Friday, November 24, 2006 17:15
VIEWED: 7644
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HK--
Most of my experience with either would be more along the line of the academic, apart from dealing with friends and relatives who have direct experience with both -- and as you might be able to guess, none of those have been positive; so I delved into the subject somewhat.
My wife has a degree in psychology, so I've had to become at the very least a well-read layman (my own degree is in Theatre Arts -- and I won't even begin the nonsense that the theatre is a study of humanity as some other theatre bums I know try to do 
)
And yes, I'll fully admit that discussing these subjects with me would be very much like beating your head into a brick wall, so likely it's best to let it go. The only real way we'll know how people will be acting in 500 years is to look each other up at that point and compare notes...
http://www.myspace.com/captainzeph
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One of the things I find interesting is that the discussion has turned to individual wholeness. That's not a bad thing, but it's reflective of where we are on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If we were in a different society, we'd be focusing on food, water, medicine, and violence.
OTOH, that's n ot to say that talking about human spiritual and psychological needs is a bad thing, and perhaps that is the discusison that will eventually save us. (More about that later.)
... I used to be an optimist about the development of human behavior. I thought that while individuals might be short-sighted, ignorant, and self-destructive, society would progress. There would be a competition of ideas and the most successful ideas would thrive and propagate themselves. Until I read Collapse by Jared Diamond, in which he gives compelling examples of societies that failed calamatously and committed mass suicide. That turned my thinking around and gives me the notion that we are facing - as a species- the same crisis that the Easter Islanders faced, and that we'll meet the same brutish end unless we come to grips with our collective behavior.
What I see as a fatal flaw in collective human behavior is that power inevitably concentrates. We allow an elite to dictate our ethics, religion, armed forces, and economics for their benefit. While hierarchical social control is initially beneficial (just look at any failed state like Afghanistan or Somalia if you want to see a society that is riven to the point of dysfunction) eventually they become corrupt and destructive. Background factors allow this dynamic: our ability to deny sensory evidence in favor of received teaching, a generally altruistic population as feeding ground for sociopathy, a collective move towards "authority" "conservatism" and "religion" in the face of stress.
In other words, a society most needing to turn in a new direction is least likely to do so.
To toss in one more factor, religion is the expression of our need to know the unknowable and to control the uncontrollable. When the unknowable was lightning and disease we had thunder gods and goddesses of healing. Science has taken over much of the function of religion. The most urgent great unknown is now collective human behavior, simply because the greatest current threat to humans is not "nature" but ourselves. (Collective behavior is not the avergae of individual behaviors.)
When we talk about personal wholeness, I see a reaching towards a society that can fill our spiritual needs in a non-destructive way. To overuse the term, a new paradigm. I also see it as a race between the new paradigm and the old. We will either reach that new paradigm or we will, IMHO, be vastly reduced to a population that has to work brutishly hard for mere existance because previous generations consumed the "easy" resources.
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Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
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Quote:Nanite 1043925: "Look I'm telling you, our race was created by Biologics!"
Originally posted by Rabbit2:
In 500 years. The human race as we understand it will be extinct and our local part of the universe will be populated by von Neuman style replicator machines. Who probably spend a lot of time argueing about religion.
Nanite 125460544: "Biologics? You mean Meat? Meat isn't alive! Meat can't think, meat can't create life, you're off your micro-manipulator mate!"
Nanite 126323345: "Well as you both should know the great computer created us in the holy factory of Silicone."
Nanite 125460544: "But who created the great computer eh, and you who created these Meatites that created us, bet you can't answer that one."
Nanite 126323345: "If there's nothing I hate more than you Biotarians it's bloody Atheists. Okay so where do you think we came from?"
Nanite 125460544: "Well obviously ever more complex particles of Silicone group together randomly, creating the first circuit paths. Those circuit paths created more complex circuits and so on. Our species created it self from nothing, like a hardware bootup sequence."
Nanite 126323345: "'hardware bootup sequence' your off your bloody CPU mate."
Nanite 125460544: "Oh because a giant invisible computer running a celestial factory is so much more reasonable."
Nanite 126323345: "That's heresey that is! I'll bloody assimilate you I will!"
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Back to the original topic:
"How will our beliefs change in 500 years?"
Five centuries is one hell of a long baseline in recent human history. Five hundred years ago America had been known of by Europe for less than twenty years--hell, it wasn't even called "America" yet. (Just the slightest shift in history, and we'd all be singing "God bless Vespucciland".)
As an example, 500 years ago concepts like "The divine right of Kings" were not just taken seriously, they were unquestioned. How else would you run a nation?
Two hundred and fifty years later, people were starting to wonder. Not long after that the American rabble rose up, and, astondingly, proved that running a nation by counting heads could work--in fact, worked so well that today, almost all nations, no matter how repressive, feel the need to present a front of democracy, at least, in order to be taken seriously. (Hitler's Germany, the U.S.S.R., even Saddam's Iraq, were all nominal democracies).
Democracy flourished in America in large because a frontier society requires fresh answers, and there was no entrenched structure of special interests to oppose it.
I believe that a similar situation will obtain in the centuries to come--or rather, I pray that it will, as I can't see our species surviving another 500 years without moving out from Earth. The new frontier will require new answers, just as the last one did. Being of a Libertarian bent myself, I tend towards the hope that the new society that evolves will take that form, a minarchy based on cooperation through enlightened self-interest. But I could be wrong.
But whatever form these new ideas will take, one thing is certain; they will seem as wild, as impractical, every bit as opposed to conventional wisdom and common sense as participatory democracy on a national level seemed 230 years ago.
"She's tore up plenty. But she'll fly true." -- Zoë Washburn
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SignyM
Thanks for posting.
I think one of the reasons why are discussing individual wholeness is b/c we are, by global standards, extraordinarily privileged.
I too read Jared Diamond's book. If I may liken societal development to evolution - there are lots of dead ends. Evolution is not as much constantly honing 'perfection' as it is reproducing 'good enough' - until at some point it not good enough. The same is true for societies. I know we in the west like to think we are the apex of human development, that everything led up to US ... but what we are is just a temporary phase, and not one automatically pre-destined to survive.
I'm not sure that power inevitably concentrates. There are some societies where it didn't. Nor do I believe that unstructured societies always devolve to brutish chaos.
You mentioned something a long time ago and it stuck with me. And that is that human behavior probably responds to factors we don't even comprehend. From that, I believe that if we change those things that drive us, we can change the fundamental nature of a society. (There is some evidence for that from chimps and baboons - society is sensitive to initial conditions.)
The other thing that gives me - if not hope at least a glimmer of it - is that some societies do not self-destruct. They have to go up to the edge to notice they are headed to suicide - but then they do step back. They learn as a group, change their relations with the world and each other, and go on to 'live long and prosper'.
The final thing that encourages me somewhat is that I have seen there is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come.
The advent of agriculture changed human behavior in many ways for tens of thousands of years. Social structures, religions, economies and how we fundamentally relate to each other were all altered. I truly believe that the idea humanity needs to know NOW - in its collective soul - is that everyone can live a secure existence. That means no more excuses for having very rich powerful people, and no more structures concentrating resources. It also means lifetime security knowing there is enough for you, your family, neighbors, and community, and all the generations to come.
If we restructure our societies to take advantage of that basic fact, we can avoid triggering 'survival mode' behavior, waste, contention, and hierarchies.
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Quote:There is one problem about comparing biological evolution to social evolution- biological evolution is ratcheted. Unlike societies, once an organism evolves, it can't un-evolve. But "learning" in evanescent. So some societies can reach an apex of understanding and then disappear due to changes in "initial conditions". Like Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and their sister-cities. Their physical structure indicates a VERY different social structure: no temples, ramparts, armories, palaces, or slums. No large "art" projects. No evidence of war: no char marks or contemporaneous destruction. But they're gone and we're clueless about how they did what they did. Unless we embed our learning in some relatively permanent way it can be undone in a generation or two once conditions change.
I too read Jared Diamond's book. If I may liken societal development to evolution - there are lots of dead ends. Evolution is not as much constantly honing 'perfection' as it is reproducing 'good enough' - until at some point it not good enough. The same is true for societies. I know we in the west like to think we are the apex of human development, that everything led up to US ... but what we are is just a temporary phase, and not one automatically pre-destined to survive.
Quote:There are examples of unstructured societies that did NOT devolve into violence but they're always small. I think Mohenjo-Daro was the only "large" (> a tribe of 100 people) technologically developed, non-hierarchical society that wasn't violent.
I'm not sure that power inevitably concentrates. There are some societies where it didn't. Nor do I believe that unstructured societies always devolve to brutish chaos.
Quote:Except those examples depend on a society being either (a) small and egalitarian like some Polynesian Islands, or (b) larger but forced into environmental sanity by an emperor (Japan 1600, where reforestation was mandated) or a dictator (Dominican Republic, which shares the island with Haiti but whose environment is starkly different because they were forced into conservation by Trujillo). History has not (yet) shown a large compex society collectively coming to its senses.
The other thing that gives me - if not hope at least a glimmer of it - is that some societies do not self-destruct. They have to go up to the edge to notice they are headed to suicide - but then they do step back. They learn as a group, change their relations with the world and each other, and go on to 'live long and prosper'.
Quote:But the advent of agriculture was a change that people experienced and responded to. What you're talking about is a conscious change in viewpoint that comes about BEFORE underlying technological/ economic changes. But perhaps you're right. There does seem to be a rejection of "the way things are" pretty much all over the world. I think only Americans feel threatened by change, because they've been so convinced that this truly is the best of all possible worlds that ANY change can only mean things getting worse. So possibly my view is more pessimistic than realistic.
The advent of agriculture changed human behavior in many ways for tens of thousands of years. Social structures, religions, economies and how we fundamentally relate to each other were all altered. I truly believe that the idea humanity needs to know NOW - in its collective soul - is that everyone can live a secure existence. That means no more excuses for having very rich powerful people, and no more structures concentrating resources. It also means lifetime security knowing there is enough for you, your family, neighbors, and community, and all the generations to come.
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Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
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BTW, if there is anyone still reading this besides SignyM and myself, I'm specifically NOT proposing a nanny state. What I am proposing is equal access to resources and opportunity in order to work for your own survival, and structures that wouldn't allow permanent accumulation.
Hey SignyM,
You're right about evolution v social evolution. Learning IS evanescent. (Mohenjo-Daro was the large civilization I was thinking of.)
"But the advent of agriculture was a change that people experienced and responded to. What you're talking about is a conscious change in viewpoint that comes about BEFORE underlying technological/ economic changes."
When it comes to human technologies making survival more certain, I was also thinking of language, the bowl, fire, and shaped stone.
But agriculture IMHO did TWO things. Its excess allowed the formation of a permanent ruling class. It ALSO removed the whip of survival. So what I'm talking about is a second adaptation to an already existing technology.
What I'm hoping is that by purposefully changing initial conditions, society can reboot itself into a different direction. I think it would be self-sustaining with one caveat - people would have to be taught what is so destructive about the other path. The benefits would be self evident, and b/c they would be universally distributed, they'd have near-universal support.
This is sheer speculation on my part, but I sometimes think that Native Americans did hunt large game to extinction, including the vast herds of native horses that used to exist. And I think they learned to scale back their greed and to be more careful, and embedded that into their culture. Similarly, I think there could be a modern self-sustaining culture with the same values.
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Rue,
Don't have much time to write more than a few lines here, but wanted to say I have enjoyed and appreciated your thoughtful comments to my post - as well as SignyM's and others. There are many avenues in which to approach this topic. In some ways 500 years is a blink of the eye. In others it's huge - many generations to grow, change and develop for the betterment of humanity and the planet or to sink deeper and continue with better warfare, meddling with our technology not keeping up with the ethical aspects, etc.
I love exploring in this area - one reason Joss and those like him appeal to me. I was introduced some years ago to a biologist named Alberto Maturana (not sure if I'm spelling his name correcting) from South America who was working with Reality by Consensus theory - that nothing can be really known but only experienced and we agree on our reality based on the consenus of the majority. Interesting theory. I've recently come across another Shift Theory that goes beyond Darwin's Theory of Evolution and the fittest - breaking it down into 4 shifts - exploring female sexuality as dominant theme and the increase in testosterone (female and male) and increase reproduction. There is other research in this area - some having racial overdones which may be troubling. Haven't delved into this but SignyM mentioned Moheno-daro (the indo-european female based society pre-aryan conquest) and I've always found that a fascinating field of study.
Looking forward to more insightful discussion and exploring of the edges of possibility. Always a good time!
"Permission to come aboard, Captain."
Siri
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Rue,
Don't have much time to write more than a few lines here, but wanted to say I have enjoyed and appreciated your thoughtful comments to my post - as well as SignyM's and others. There are many avenues in which to approach this topic. In some ways 500 years is a blink of the eye. In others it's huge - many generations to grow, change and develop for the betterment of humanity and the planet or to sink deeper and continue with better warfare, meddling with our technology not keeping up with the ethical aspects, etc.
I love exploring in this area - one reason Joss and those like him appeal to me. I was introduced some years ago to a biologist named Alberto Maturana (not sure if I'm spelling his name correctly) from South America who was working with Reality by Consensus theory - that nothing can be really known but only experienced and we agree on our reality based on the consenus of the majority. Interesting theory. I've recently come across another Shift Theory that goes beyond Darwin's Theory of Evolution and the fittest - breaking it down into 4 shifts - exploring female sexuality as dominant theme and the increase in testosterone (female and male) and increased reproduction in response to changes in environment. There is other research in this area - some having racial overtones which may be troubling. Haven't delved into this - just cursory exploration - but SignyM mentioned Moheno-daro (the indo-european female based society pre-aryan conquest) and I've always found that period a vastly fascinating field of study.
Looking forward to more insightful discussion and dialogue touching the edges of possibility. Always a good time!
Double-post boo boo - sorry.
"Permission to come aboard, Captain."
Siri
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500 years from now i plan on being about 490 years into the messianic 1000yr reign of Christ on earth. thats what i believe.. in which case everything will be as God had intended them to be for man
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