I don't mind. I think religion is not wrong if it teaches us to be accountable.

I see nothing wrong with believing in a God also based on the above.

It also aligns with the idea of free will.

Think of it this way, if you do something and it is good according to your observations, and if you don't stop it; then who ever controls you; is doing good thru you.

And if doing bad, you stop that, then you exercise free will.

Of course this will depend on your perception.

As for the idea of creation, I honestly don't know, but there must be a source. And I'd like to think, I think I've been influenced by reflexivity that, God is that which nothing is greater.

Did you mean provenance?

I have added sources from the United Nations and New York Times which expand upon the issue, you’re right that it’s good to examine the data from multiple sources. In this case, the data is reliable and you will be able to find it yourself from many more sources if you’re still in doubt.

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> Hardly ever is there a person who makes it their life goal to re-impoverish people.

It's basically the mission statement of many corporations. The IMF has austerity plans to "help" poor nations.

Nestle buying up the sources of water in order to resell water to poor people is an attempt to reimpoverish people, for profit.

No one explicitly has the aim to impoverish people but we set up systems to allow us to do it while obfuscating the guilty. And when we fail to obfuscate the guilt, we give charity! Charity was invented to relieve us of our guilt.

> Each brand of crazy has their own pejoratives they like to employ to identify themselves. "Conspiracy theory" and "election denier" are left wing terms. Given that we are currently living through a time where the left has total control of their side of the corporate media to the point where it's unsettling how in lock step they are and there are so few right wing news sources, the terms are nearly meaningless.

The shit quality of right wing sources is amazing - as dumb as leftist takes on it are, it's also kinda hard to blame them for their conclusions, all things considered.

> The difference between news and conspiracy theory seems to be about 6 months.

~True, and interesting.

> > > > A key element to the leftist news center is to push for this "one Earth" globalism. Certainly, at some point in the future, we need to have a winner in this culture war, but I doubt that will ever completely unite humanity. It is in our nature to be diverse, and in diversity there is conflict and competition. This is why I said "THIS" version of humanity.

The insistence on and denial of diversity (while simultaneously celebrating, that "which doesn't exist") is.....weird. But then, it perhaps shouldn't be too surprising either.

Some form of unity is possible, but figuring out the optimal parameters could be tricky. But if no one ever tries, it seems unlikely to succeed.

> We currently have only our subjective experiences and a great deal of skepticism as to the capacity of others to accurately report their subjective experiences of reality.

Not trying to improve on a situation doesn't help things.

> Political ideology often replaces individual morals, creating a situation where key indicators of the success or failure of society are tailor made to the strengths of that political ideology, instead of more universally accepted standards. This is why that one post of yours caused such great concern....

Mission accomplished then!

> ...because this disconnect with reality grows over time, more often than not, leading to a point where individuals feel that they must do something to "take back the power" from what the perceive are bad faith actors operating as a force of evil in the world.

Do you think these individuals have formed an incorrect belief?

> > > > Humanity takes a long time to evolve....

In some ways yes, in other ways no.

Consider how quickly beliefs can be normalized (to the degree that they are, in respective camps (usually two)) - COVID and the Ukraine war are fine examples.

> ...and it is our very nature that rallies against success, causing each great empire to rot from within in this ever divisive madness we create for ourselves.

Might the excess of bad prevent one from seeing the good though?

> The only way forward that I can see is to take the clear, concise arguments put forth by those who represent each side and have open, honest conversations about our motivations and goals.

It seems like a no brainer. Funny no one tries it eh?

(Note the PM I sent you.)

> Unfortunately, I see no clear, concise representatives from the far right or far left. I only see clowns and shills and actors exploiting the conflict for personal gain.

I see "good" candidates on a daily basis - I propose that we are surrounded by them, but cannot see.

Or not. But it’s up to someone to suggest an alternative and why it might work better bearing in mind what we know about people etc ( and indeed better than a reformed version of what is already there) and persuade people that is the case.

After all this discussion, i want to admit that in reality i am a catholic christian, and i think that God wants us to make this questions in order to make our faith stronger. I don't know what religion or system of belief do you practice, but i respect your opinion too and please, don't pretend to be smart by calling me an idiot who blindly believes, because i go against blindly believing.

As long as the measurement is consistent, it’s still a good measurement. If you think the threshold is too low, that makes it even more of an issue that 10% of the worlds population still falls below it, and our efforts should be focused on helping those who need help most first.

By the way, making $1000/year would put you in the top 20% in the world in income, further highlighting the need for increasing investment in global economic development. Development of strong market economies is the single biggest predictor of reducing poverty in a nation.

If you’d like to learn more about how the line is chosen and what we need to do to continue the fight against world poverty, I would encourage you to read this article: https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief

Not wrong. But I think we can have this thought experiment also.

If the thought is something positive, defined as what is good for you, you can let it be. Sure it may not be free will but we don't have to suffer by default.

But if the thought is bad, killing someone with no reason or basis, instead of doing it, we can hold ourself accountable and not do it.

This of course means the idea of good or bad is based on our own personal ideal or nature.

It's not surprising that people would guess wrong because their basis for what counts as extreme poverty is probably inflated.

Ask those same people if they would consider themselves impoverished on $1000/year and they'd probably almost all say yes. And they'd be wrong there, too, according to the "experts".

Edit: BTW, your link is funded by the libertarian Koch brothers, for whom the current system has been wildly beneficial. How convenient for them that so much progress has been made under the system that has also made them billionaires! The countenance of your sources is dubious, dude!

We are on the same page, then. I don't we've had a single actual disagreement yet.

That means that we should not do what we like, therefore going against our free will. Real example: this year i entered High school because i love to study the subjects there (in my country there are different types of High school). But since I should follow my free will, then i should change school and live a sad life with nothing i like. Ok, i realized that the reality Is that the concept of "free will is not real" is an illusion and that free will is real, but since we are really deep in it we can't see it anymore basically. We just discovered that free will is real and the lack of free will is an illusion. We humans are so limited to the point of denying ourselves.

I can buy that some billionaire philanthropy uses charity as a front for tax evasion, but I'm not convinced that's true for all of it. For example, as far as I know, money that gets put into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation can't just be taken back out and spent on a superyacht--it's not really Gates' money anymore, and there are rules regarding what he can do with it. Gates doesn't have to pay taxes on the money that he puts in, sure, but he's certainly not making any money for doing this (especially when the donated money is in the form of stock shares that he doesn't have to pay taxes on in the first place). Is the BMGF really turning a profit for Gates, and if so, can I have a source proving this?

Again, I'm not saying that there aren't charities out there that are just fronts for tax evasion--there very plausibly are--and I’m also not saying that billionaires are beyond criticism or that we shouldn't raise taxes on them, but I do think that a decent chunk of billionaire philanthropy is actually philanthropy. Plus, the BMGF is a very salient example of billionaire philanthropy, so if the BMGF isn't a tax evasion scheme I'd be wary of painting with as wide a brush as you are.

Hello, I’ll try. (while I was writing I noticed that I was talking more about existentialism in general, not only about the Absurd, hope you don't mind)

First, we have to consider when existentialism started being so strong and popular. It was after WW2. After all of the deaths, pointless suffering, gruesome, horrifying events. I mean… how can you just go on? How can you still think that God loves us, or that hope is a thing, or that with all of this … our lives do truly matter?

When you really start questioning (Do our lives matter? Why are we born? Why do we suffer, why do we die?), you can basically sum it up in one question:

Do things have a reason? (or rather… Is the Universe reasonable, and therefore not absurd?) Now, you might say “yes, there is a reason why things are happening, scientific, religious or of other kinds” but this philosophical system works with the thought that, no, there is not.

The Absurd is, I think, exactly that – it’s when you confront the absurdity, meaninglessness of the Universe, the lack of meaning behind all of this. Behind our lives. And you start to wonder then, why the heck do I live?

And that’s when existentialism really starts to kick in.

Now, you were born, you probably didn’t ask for it, but here you are in this world. You’re a human, you have will and you can make decisions. And decision, oh you will make. You have to, actually, that’s the price you pay for being alive, having will and thinking. But don’t worry, existentialists know how much making decisions can be overwhelming and how it can make people anxious (trying to pick an ice-cream in a shop with thousands of flavours that all look good can be literal hell for some people). (Un)fortunately it also means you have a responsibility for your actions. We are not given our fate, we create it. Thus, we could say, we create our own meaning in the Universe. We just have to note that this meaning 100% personal and not objective.

This could all make us super sad. We could lose ourselves in despair. But … should we?

Heck no! No, we should enjoy life! We should carry our boulder, even though we know it’s utterly pointless and it doesn’t have a reason. And yes, we are going to suffer, quite a lot, actually, but still. Why not make enjoying life our reason to live? Wouldn’t that make sense?

When one confronts the lack of meaning in the Universe, the Absurd, there are many ways they can deal with it. One of them being the approach of existentialism.

(I know that there are probably some mistakes in this text, but I hope it helps.)

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> There’s certainly lots to be improved in capitalism but whether it can be improved on is yet to be demonstrated.

Probably the same was said of every economic system. It can't be bettered until it is.

Criticism of capitalism is very compatible with Nazi ideology

I absolutely agree.

But I think it’s hard work persuading people they are wrong or misled and takes time - much easier to complain about them being ‘sheep’ and feel righteous? But I ( being not at all an expert) have a theory that ideologues become authoritarians because “people just won’t make the obviously right choices so must be made to for their own good’.

Though I wonder if ( on the two ends of a horse shoe principle) there is a link between right/left ( I use the words vaguely) ideologies , authoritarianism , and underlying Hobbes/Rousseau social beliefs. That is the right think people are inherently crap and need whipping into shape right from the start - while the left think people are inherently perfect … and need punishing and controlling when they inevitably disappoint. Just a random thought.

It's hard to practice. We think, then not do. At least for me, for now. I need to work on it.

Atleast based on this experiment. Free will is the act of not doing what you thought to do first. I mean it's the easiest way to stop doing something.

It makes me idle and then pause to think what should I do right now.

Thanks for clarifying! I’m wondering though, if in an ideal or non-innate sense they are separate ideas (these physical and mental restrictions on creativity), does that still make Heidegger’s problem here a problem of capitalism or something greater? I guess I’ve just been trying to say that I’m seeing things from an angle that this problem will still present itself to us even in a socialist world. Perhaps in the sort of “enlightened” sociality that full-on communism could bring us, we will not have such an alienated relationship to use-value, but until we reach that “ideal” social and mental state amongst each other I think even in a petty socialist society with no laws restricting creativity we would still have this problem.

So I suppose I agree with you that the question of capitalism becomes relevant in working on this problem in todays context, but I don’t think addressing capitalism will get us closer to solving the problem, just getting another obstacle out of the way. Besides, illegality never stopped anyone from imagining better futures anyways 😉

Changing our economic system is obviously possible. We can become more authoritarian and less capitalistic. But we have never been able to create a non oppressive economic system. Creating such a system through democracy without having your movement co-opted by dictators may very well be unrealistic.

This also proves free will, because you can separate the actions of your body from the actions of your mind. Now, many people say that mind and brain are the same thing, while they aren't at all. For example: an old man who became foolish and ignorant because of Alzheimer's still keeps his tastes, even though he doesn't know what does he like anymore.

“Perhaps if companies -and the users of their products and services- were required to pay for ALL the consequences of their operations…”

Fixed it for you.

But what I mean is, there's a difference between imposing something over people's heads on the mere convenient assumption they're too brainwashed, and aiming to unbrainwash them and letting them join the calls and action for change. Mostly those wanting systemic change aren't even assuming it's possible, or remotely logical -those with more power are not the ones likeliest to dismantle their own power-, to impose top down like that.