I think one of the worst banes on mankind is its belief in things like original sin and being inherently corrupt.  A lot of the 'predictions' from the distant past by folks that had little enough wit and much less knowledge are another bane.  "Poverty will always exist", mankind is inherently evil (or has the seeds of evil).  Great.  There's a plan.  Such a belief system just makes people give up.  We have the potential to be something special, much better than we currently believe.  We are just deluded on a few things and, in one particular case, we are just not willing to face the truth.  We delude ourselves and it has to end.  We can be magnificent as a species once we shed all of the delusions and conditioning from our ancient ancestors.  Our admiration of our ancient ancestors is misplaced.  They knew little and made up stories to get them through the night.  It's up to us to rid ourselves of the nightmares rather than make up or reinforce stories explaining the nightmares.  The quote "we are just human" makes me shudder.  It is surrender to bullshit.  We are conditioned to believe that it is normal that we have whacked out people surrounding us, that a lunatic running a country is just the way it is,  that people need to be broken.  They don't.  Maybe the saddest for me, the one that causes me the most heartache, is the one  where someone convinces themselves that they are evil or dirtied when it has nothing to do with them but has to do with someone that has played mind-games with them.  My fury at that situation is hardly contained. Altogether, there is something that smells fishy and, yet, we are so used to the smell that we don't even notice.  It's annoying at best and infuriating at worst.  We have to understand that we are human, which can be something transcendent.  "Only human" catches us in a trap we have been in for thousands of years.

Whickwithy said:

I think one of the worst banes on mankind is its belief in things like original sin and being inherently corrupt....that people need to be broken.  They don't.  Maybe the saddest...is the one  where someone convinces themselves that they are evil or dirtied when it has nothing to do with them but has to do with someone that has played mind-games with them...

Whispered said: "It appalls me that it remains legal for adults to hit children as a form of "discipline" - a more blatant failure of self control and empathy is hard to imagine."  

I don't know why I bother to try to use this dysfunctional quote system.

Again, one of the most devastating songs I've ever heard is "What's the matter here" by 10,000 Maniacs.  It gets to the heart of the matter and brings tears and fury every time I hear it.

You won't get that. ( reverses out of conversation giggling)

The whole "race" thing is getting to me. It seems that this is increasingly being talked about as if it was an objective thing, rather than a social construct. "Which race is better at maths?", "Which race is most attractive?" "Why are white countries less corrupt?" are thing I have heard actual people actually say in recent weeks. This is part of the poison that the Faragists and the Trumps have injected into our consciousness.
I really am starting to fear that we will see fascists organising in the UK as openly as they are doing in the US.

Whickwithy said:

I truly don't understand how economists cannot prove what a disaster wealth inequality is and how bad it is, eventually, for economies.  It is repeated so often.  When the many lose wealth and the very, very few amass the overwhelming bulk of the wealth, the pressure cooker is, sooner or later, going to blow its top and the economies will suffer... Usually, it leads to war, as well...

Have you read Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine"? A thoroughly convincing analysis of how the super rich  - individuals and corporations - actively engineer crises in order to open up new opportunities for making money. Wars are great for tearing resources held in common (like common grazing land, forests, water supplies etc) out of the hands of the poor and into private ownership (the way Halliburton etc took over Iraqi assets after the Gulf Wars being only one example). She points out how this mimics the way that torturing an individual disorients then and causes them to lose their sense of self so that they can no longer resist and will agree to anything. I'd recommend it, even if it you end up disagreeing with her thesis.

whispered said:

Whickwithy said:

I truly don't understand how economists cannot prove what a disaster wealth inequality is and how bad it is, eventually, for economies.  It is repeated so often.  When the many lose wealth and the very, very few amass the overwhelming bulk of the wealth, the pressure cooker is, sooner or later, going to blow its top and the economies will suffer... Usually, it leads to war, as well...

Have you read Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine"? A thoroughly convincing analysis of how the super rich  - individuals and corporations - actively engineer crises in order to open up new opportunities for making money. Wars are great for tearing resources held in common (like common grazing land, forests, water supplies etc) out of the hands of the poor and into private ownership (the way Halliburton etc took over Iraqi assets after the Gulf Wars being only one example). She points out how this mimics the way that torturing an individual disorients then and causes them to lose their sense of self so that they can no longer resist and will agree to anything. I'd recommend it, even if it you end up disagreeing with her thesis.

The only thing I disagree with here is the concept that it is the super-rich that are the movers behind this.  Most of the super-rich have distanced themselves from the direct ruthlessness.  They are trying to show that while it was their rabid behaviour to become rich, it is in the past and that they are really good people.  Bill Gates always comes to mind when I think of this.  He is a robber baron.  But, now that he has his wealth, he wants to show everyone what a good guy he is.  He's still a robber baron at heart, in my mind.  No, it is the seekers of this status of super-wealth that are the problem.  The lackeys that are mesmerized by wealth and wish to attain that status at any cost are the problem.  The upper echelon of employees at such companies as Halliburton and uncountable more are the ones that are causing the havoc.  The super-rich just turn a blind eye to it while they increase their wealth.  Oh, I could go on for days on the complexities involved.  The worst part is that the super-rich create these rationales the justify what they are doing.  And, with their big money, they do a good job of brain-washing some portion of the world.  Once again, I give kudos to England for putting Fox News out of business by not watching.  That really is impressive.