What is wrong with our society and what can each of us do about it?

[Gregor]

Ever since the bailout of the banks, probably even before, I had a gut feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with our society. In my search for an answer I have collected a few videos and links that I have now put on my website. I hope at least someone will find this collection informative.

Basically I believe that how our society has developed was in many ways influenced by the way we issue money / credit. I believe that this rat race will not end until we reduce our reliance on money / credit that is issued this way. We may be forced to do that in any case due to a lack of natural resources, but maybe we can do it on individual level first?

How about you? Do you see any fundamental problems in our society? If so, are you doing anything about it?

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[kiba]

Money is evil. Blahblahblah.


The real problem is institutional incentives and lack of self-analysis. Our inability to critique ourselves mean that we are unable to change the incentives which drive us to our predicament.

What do we really want and how do we achieve it? It is these questions that human thoughout the ages don't ever ponder.

[kseistrup]

Do you see any fundamental problems in our society?

The fundamental problem is ego, the concept of me/I.  This is the root of all problems and conflicts.  For a beautiful illustration, please watch The Gods Must Be Crazy.  The first 10 minutes serves as an introduction, and the problem is shown clearly in the first few minutes of Part 2.  To do something radically about the problem, head over to Ruthless Truth — read more on the blog, engage in the battle in the arena.

Cheers,

[rand0mmm]

The modularity and anonymity of current money hides real things. So the ecology (system of things) is not well represented by the economy (system of names (of things)). Abstraction on abstraction, not evil, but evil made easy. I have been wondering if money has outgrown the individual, in the sense that the large pool of money, and the larger corporate scale essentially outclass the individual human in such a way that maybe it has just "transcended" utility in our scope. This would be a funny way for humanity to give up day-to-day money, let the corporates have it, as long as they are taking good care of certain human practicalities this would work well... less in my hair, and alot more efficiently, as we not need maintain a commodified overhead on every thing, thought, and handshake; who wants to log receipts anyway? The exposed transaction of BitCoinage makes it a better currency for this higher corporate purpose. So maybe we should work on that?

[benjamindees]

This thread is a joke, right?  You want me to list all of them?  Let's see...

Industrial Society (And Its Future)
The War Powers Act
The US Military in General
Birthright Citizenship
Corporate Personhood
The Income Tax
Nationalization of State Militias
Democracy
Corn Subsidies
Victimless Crimes
Lack of Import Tariffs
Social Security
Insurance in General
Religion
Corporate Media
The War on (Some) Drugs
State Media
The Federal Reserve
Processed Foods
Wage Slavery
Campaign Finance
Conscription
Pharmaceuticals
The ATF/FBI/CIA/DEA/Homeland Security Gestapo
Fossil Fuels
The Social Welfare State
Factory Farms
The PATRIOT Act
Unrestricted Immigration
Crony Capitalism

There are probably a few others...

[­­­Atlas_]

"...what can each of us do about it."

By acting in your own rational self-interest.

[PLATO]

The problem as I see it is that there's no underlying context tying all of these causes together. If every web site fighting for these issues agreed on a single, googleable context, chance would happen faster. Knowledge is power; people are simply distracted. Aligning all the efforts into one movement is all it would take to subvert the status quo. I want to set this system up; see subverse.info for the limited work I've done so far.

[Max Stirner]

First of all we need to get rid of the central banks with their fraudulent currencies.
If saving is punished and spending money is rewarded the time horizon of the people
will shrink. And this reduced time horizon also affects our social relationships and our society as a whole.
Will you build a house, or rent it? Will you marry or get laid?

Plato once said that lust is a good thing if you are looking for lust on the long term.

[Distribution]

I think everything that has been mentioned here can be summed up in this: http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/The_Law.pdf. The law is being used contrary to its purpose of protecting our rights and is being used to violate our rights. "When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law."

So all of this stuff is right, but it's all a symptom of the lack of morality.

I couldn't even begin to propose a solution to that.

[Gregor]

Kiba, money is a wonderful invention. But maybe there is a better form of money? Isn't that why most of us are here on a Bitcoin forum anyway?

Kseistrup, I agree with you. And I love that movie. I would like to hear your thoughts on this video on Higher consciousness.

Rand0mmm, I never thought about it that way. Don't really know what to make of it.

Benjamindees, have you read: E.C. Riegel - The New Approach to Freedom? To give you one quote from him: "THERE ARE three classes of socialists: the left-wing, or Marxist, group, who believe that the government should own and control everything; the middle-of-the-road socialists, who believe the government should own and operate public utilities; and the right-wing socialists, who believe that the government should control only the monetary system."

Atlas, I agree with you. Though sometimes it is not immediately apparent what actually is in our own rational self-interest.

PLATO, I think organizing a global unified movement to change our society is an admirable goal. I also believe current situation is not hopeless and that there are things each of us can do to free ourselves. By doing that we also serve as an example to others.

Max Stirner, maybe a first step could be for each of us to reduce our reliance on these currencies.

Distribution, maybe we don't like our options, still that doesn't mean we don't have any.

[BioMike]

"Thrust", that's wrong with society. Can you still thrust your bank after the financial crisis?

I switched to a sustainable bank when my own bank got in troubles (and had to be bought by the government to prevent a systemic collapse).
My new bank communicates back on how they use the money that I give them (savings and investment) and I really appreciate that. I found out that I own a part of a (environmental friendly) building in my village here. And that gives a confident, good feeling every time I walk past it.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sustainable_banking

[asdf]

Do you see any fundamental problems in our society?

The fundamental problem is ego, the concept of me/I.  This is the root of all problems and conflicts.  For a beautiful illustration, please watch The Gods Must Be Crazy.  The first 10 minutes serves as an introduction, and the problem is shown clearly in the first few minutes of Part 2.  To do something radically about the problem, head over to Ruthless Truth — read more on the blog, engage in the battle in the arena.

Cheers,

This.

If you really want to get "fundamental", it's the ego illusion that humanity holds which is the cause of all problems. When you understand that I is only a concept, it becomes clear that all is one and we are just expressions of god/tao. Our problems are only abstract in nature; imagined.

As soon as you catch hold of the thought I am, you build a whole belief system upon it and make decisions based on this belief structure. Try to think of a belief that doesn't depend on I. Most conflict or "problems" with humanity is due to people following their beliefs and I'm not just talking about religion.

e.g Bernanke: "I believe I must print money for the good of the economy." - Who must print money, Ben? you don't exist! You is just an idea floating around in awareness. see how that works?

When I try to explain this to people it usually goes over their heads; no one will admit that their identity is "made up". But that's cool.

What can we do about it? only what we're doing now. Who believes it's a problem? It's only a problem for me, you see...

[kiba]

Just because Ego is an illusion doesn't mean it isn't a useful concept.

[bitlotto]

Imagine a monkey with a slightly bigger frontal cortex. That's our problem. We are NOT rational machines. Our brains are guessing engines and pattern seekers. We make mistakes and we try to rationalize the irrational.

[draaglom]

The existence of the ego is only illusory in the same sense that cows and houses are illusory... and destroying that "illusion" is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, "I" think.


The biggest problem I see in the world today is the existence of nations.

[kiba]

Imagine a monkey with a slightly bigger frontal cortex. That's our problem. We are NOT rational machines. Our brains are guessing engines and pattern seekers. We make mistakes and we try to rationalize the irrational.

I can live with the fact that I am a robot.

[asdf]

The existence of the ego is only illusory in the same sense that cows and houses are illusory... and destroying that "illusion" is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, "I" think.

The biggest problem I see in the world today is the existence of nations.

But the baby is apart of the illusion!

These guys don't seem to have a problem dealing with no ego:
adyashanti
alan watts
mooji
echart tolle

Back to "reality": So what's the problem with nations?

I think that if you're going to have governments, they should be as decentralized as possible, pushing scope to the lowest level that makes sense. Putting all responsibility at the highest level of government, currently "the nation", is certainly a destructive tendency.

[draaglom]

But the baby is apart of the illusion!

It being an illusion only bothers you because there is a you to bother

These guys don't seem to have a problem dealing with no ego:
adyashanti
alan watts
mooji
echart tolle

I have no idea who these people are (and even if I did - would it matter?)

Back to "reality": So what's the problem with nations?

Well, what's not the problem with nations?

They appear to be groupings of individuals with nothing substantial in common with each other, indeed of such a size that it is impossible to comprehend the number of people in the group (let alone form any meaningful link with them). These groupings don't seem to achieve much apart from warfare and the maintenance of power structures

I think that if you're going to have governments, they should be as decentralized as possible, pushing scope to the lowest level that makes sense. Putting all responsibility at the highest level of government, currently "the nation", is certainly a destructive tendency.

Agreed.

[FooDSt4mP]

But the baby is apart of the illusion!

It being an illusion only bothers you because there is a you to bother

These guys don't seem to have a problem dealing with no ego:
adyashanti
alan watts
mooji
echart tolle

I have no idea who these people are (and even if I did - would it matter?)

Back to "reality": So what's the problem with nations?

Well, what's not the problem with nations?

They appear to be groupings of individuals with nothing substantial in common with each other, indeed of such a size that it is impossible to comprehend the number of people in the group (let alone form any meaningful link with them). These groupings don't seem to achieve much apart from warfare and the maintenance of power structures

I think that if you're going to have governments, they should be as decentralized as possible, pushing scope to the lowest level that makes sense. Putting all responsibility at the highest level of government, currently "the nation", is certainly a destructive tendency.

Agreed.

I do know who most of those people are.  Like many others with "no ego", those people face few problems because they allow themselves to be worshiped.  They don't have to worry about "me" because there are all of "you" taking care of their needs.  Sure, they lose control of their lives, but it doesn't bother them because they have no responsibility either.  Sure, they have to hear about everyone else's problems and even empathize with them, but in the end they are not responsible for resolving anything, just giving advice.  A real guru recognizes the ego and trains it.  He/She doesn't destroy it.  It is far too valuable when properly channeled.  Ego just needs its (numerous and durable) rough edges smoothed out.  It's not easy, and it's something most other people can not help you with, but I believe it is something we should all seriously consider at least once.

[Gregor]

Regardless if we believe that "free will" exists or not we will still act like it does.

Regardless if we believe that "I/self" exists or not we will still act like it does.

What I find useful is to think about it this way: "I don't know what I am, but I do believe I'm not my thoughts and/or my feelings." I think it is practical to have some distance from your thoughts and feelings, not deriving your whole identity out of them.

Conversation from future: "Let me get that straight: people were discriminating against others based on some imaginary lines around the places where they were born?"