Meat on a Monday

[honey the codewitch]

I won't weigh in on other countries and cultures but here in the US I think some of that we got saddled with by way of the Puritans. Forgive me because I have to mention religion here, but none of this is intended to weigh in on religion or a specific religion. This is about groups of people and the way they treated others: The Puritans did not flee England because of religious persecution as the popular yarn goes. The reality is they were chased out of England because they insisted everyone had to live like they do and so they made a lot of enemies. Everyone wanted them gone. Although nobody here calls themselves a Puritan anymore they have plenty of ideological descendants in the states today. They brought with them the notion that if you're prosperous, it's because you are righteous. That's a big seller in the US even today. It's a funny thing, because their religion almost says the opposite, but here we are.

Real programmers use butterflies

[dandy72]

I was just listening to one of Neil deGrasse Tyson's podcasts yesterday. His guest pointed out (and rightly so) that we've had plagues before, that wiped out large percentages of the human population. We've never gone extinct, but we just need one sufficient large rock to take care of that. And George Carlin is absolutely right in his [earth plus plastic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c) skit, the earth has survived much worse than we as puny humans could throw at it even if we tried our best.

[BernardIE5317]

Greetings Kind Regards Looking over the history of our species is it not clear we are becoming more peaceful except of course for the occasional fascist and communist . The brutality of our ancestors was incredible to wit i.e. e.g. we no longer rip out the intestines of convicted criminals for public display , I am thinking of the Mel Gibson movie "Braveheart" . For another judges impose the death sentence on convicted criminals less frequently . For another slavery is of course a thing of the past except again as practiced by the occasional fascist and communist . I conclude we are slowly becoming civilized - Cheerio "I once put instant coffee into the microwave and went back in time." - Steven Wright "Shut up and calculate" - apparently N. David Mermin possibly Richard Feynman My sympathies to the SPAM moderator “I want to sing, I want to cry, I want to laugh. Everything together. And jump and dance. The day has arrive — yippee!” - Desmond Tutu “When the green flag drops the bullshit stops!” "It is cheaper to save the world than it is to ruin it."

[RobertSF]

Indeed, the Puritans were Calvinists, and Calvinism had a deep influence in American society. The logic goes like this. Since God is all-wise and all-powerful, if you are rich, it can only be because he sees that you're a good person and he's made you rich. You must be a morally upstanding person if you're rich because, if you were not good, God would send bad things your way to punish you. Then you would be poor. And yes, the poor are poor because they're lazy, vice-ridden fornicators. If only they worked hard and followed the straight and narrow, God would make them rich. It's so easy, and yet they don't do it. That's because the poor are bad on purpose. They're just no good. And since God has decreed that the poor are not good people, then it stands to reason that helping the poor is tantamount to undermining God's punishment. Now you can see what informs America's attitudes about welfare.

[honey the codewitch]

Yep. And it's awful. Human beings will pervert any message to justify their own selfishness.

Real programmers use butterflies

[honey the codewitch]

We're becoming more civilized. It just means we've gotten better at domesticating ourselves. But that domestication is fragile. It's easy for people to go feral. Look at the US today, and we're not even looking at a localized societal collapse. A good 1/3 of humans will kill the other 1/3 while 1/3 watches. It's only the act of self-domestication that prevents it. And that goes south pretty quickly, for example when a social sickness like fascism (which is not ideology) infects democracies. Self-domestication doesn't change our nature. It just trains us to do better, but that's not permanent. Adding: Don't get me started on slavery, which we still practice. We just retired chattel slavery. It wasn't economically viable. In todays labor market you need to maintain flexibility, so it's more cost effective to lease your slaves - especially offshore - than it is to buy them outright.

Real programmers use butterflies

[honey the codewitch]

I agree, and even the rock won't get us without a fight, which is why I don't bet against us. :)

Real programmers use butterflies

[Jacquers]

My view (I'm religious): Sin is what's wrong with humanity. It's because of sin that humans are estranged from God and why they are like that and why all the bad things happen.

[honey the codewitch]

What I'm saying about us is a secular read of an interpretation of Genesis. I'm *not* religious, but the Torah, and by extension, the old testament is profoundly useful if you know how to use it. It's ancient sociology - shows us how we work, both individually and collectively. I wasn't raised with it, so I'll only ever get so much out of it compared to someone that studied it since childhood. But regardless, I am pretty confident in my eschatology (if you want to call it that) which draws largely from the fall of man story in genesis, and an interpretation of what the curse in the exile from the garden is, and how we transcend it in the end. As Noah did in part with his invention of the plow, easing the curse of toil. This is precisely what "God wants" - metaphor here - (although I don't anthropomorphize God in that way, just trying to convey a concept) I won't go deeper here, because I don't want to start a deep dive on this topic here, especially with someone who is religious (no offense) simply because I don't want to veer into religious territory. But what I wrote is informed in part by abrahamic scripture.

Real programmers use butterflies

[Member_15510360]

You said it right and no matter how much we'll try but because of the other factors in our life we tend to come back to the same position of being selfish, short tempered and eager to get everything for ourself. There no way we can escape from this. We never know what other person is thinking of us but we want to show ourself foolish by caring extra about others.