Another reason to why civilization must come down very soon.
That article? It has no bearing on reality. Don’t let it scare you; it’s a chimera, a delusion. It’s just another (albeit deliciously campy!) product of civilization’s implicit propaganda machine. It’s bullshit, meant to make people feel inadequate and to scare them into working harder to serve dangerous and false cultural standards. Don’t buy into the hype. It’s not scary because it’s not true!
Here. Let me put it this way:
The article does NOT state any kind of verifiable fact. (Statements about the future are always conjecture!) What it’s really saying is:
“Be as attractive and successful as you can so that you can obtain an attractive and successful mate to breed with.” (whatever attractive and successful are supposed to mean … oh, I guess it’s all spelled out in the description of a “peak” human)
The whole thing makes me want to spew vomit out my ears (lies disgust me so!), and simultaneously, to laugh as one laughs at the absurd, but of all possible reactions, fear is the last on my list.
(Well, on second thought I guess the article does inspire fear after all. Psychos reign at the London School of Economics, and THAT is scary.)
ps - I submitted a comment (now under review) that is a modified version of my response here. If anyone else wants to chime in at the Daily Mail, be my guest.
On the other hand, it was a stupid article after all.
Throughout the history of civilization the majority of humans have always been subjected to slavery and submission, yet we aren’t so different when it comes to social classes (that is, in terms of biological makeup).
the road to homo magister has left 21 species in the dust, with homo sapiens not so far behind. They say Neanderthals just ‘magically’ disappeared 30,000 years ago. Where is homo habilis? Australopithicus?
The human evolution line has strayed and returned many times. How is economic geography any more difficult to traverse than physical geography? Many people face a mountain of genetic information, and many people, while they won’t be murdered in this society, will not make the climb with everyone else, and be left at the nadir of evolution.
I believe we have already halted natural selection, thanks to medicine and compassion. I believe people have already been sorting themselves out, and in millenia, why is it so hard to thnk that the species will diverge, as people with one eset of sexual values go into a new direction while others go in another?
Just because you can’t stand the smell of the hierarchy doesn’t mean the concepts aren’t worth discussing or acknowledging.
I think it would be beautiful if in 500,000 years there were HUNDREDS of homos out there 
Yes, but the premise of the “findings” is that civilization will continue to follow its current trajectory. How can it, from an ecological point of view?
I maintain that the article is just a desperate and demeaning attempt by civilization to ascribe distasteful destinies to any who question the status quo. The progenitors of this message believe they have much to gain if this propaganda is widely accepted.
you are absolutely right, as far as the article goes, it’s silly. but it’s not a far-off concept.
i think it’s more someone’s graduate or post-graduate thesis, more so than someone with something to gain, that is, unless the research had been funded by Loréal.
Either way (graduate thesis or Loreal stratagem 
), the piece was published in the Daily Mail and made into a show for Bravo TV. Somebody thinks they have something to gain from this. Newspapers and television only have so many resources and hours in the day, and they are for-profit; they have to decide which “products” will sell.
It has taken me a long time to get my head around the media. Anyone who is that effected by the media isn’t a leader, and no ideas that come to bear in society ever originate in the mind of a reporter.
The media is reflective of what the people are already doing to themselves. I get pulled back and forth in this chicken and egg argument.
In the end, though, people still have to ‘buy’, that is, vote with their dollars.
So, really, in the age of more information than one can read, it’s not like the consumer has to go to Walmart, or starve. There is more freedom of information than ever. So I think that people who only ‘trust’ the Big Three, that’s their own choice.
Trust no one, my great mentor Fox Mulder taught me. Trust is earned, it should never be handed out.
How do we teach more universal messages, that not only free people of civilization, but some of the more subtle contexts, like giving away your trust?
I have been thinking deeply on many subjects, now that the world has accepted me, and wants my ideas to come to fruition, I’m starting to reorganize and revitalize my core so that I am growing as a person, helping other people grow, and get out of the business of throwing water on every fire I happen by.
Which is why this article doesn’t scare me. You’re absolutely right; it reflects a cultural truth. I think that where you and I differ is that I believe this culture won’t endure much longer.
It’s as preposterous as civilization itself; preposterous as the idea that we can be totally safe, happy, and fulfilled if we domesticate the whole world.
How do we teach more universal messages, that not only free people of civilization, but some of the more subtle contexts, like giving away your trust?
Here’s what I have learned from the writings of psychologist Alice Miller:
Our inclination to trust is befuddled by the relationship that most of us have with our parents. Instinctually, we want to love them, because we begin as tiny, helpless babies who need to love and trust our parents. Many of us continue to feel deep love and devotion to our parents until the day we die because we cannot bear the pain of separation that would occur if we were to honestly face up to the way most of our parents treat us.
Going from that idea, I think the following:
Our befuddled instincts are the reason why so many people can’t think critically about which messages to trust. Being in civilization themselves, our parents feed us b.s. messages, neglect our needs, or even abuse us, all in the name of “normalizing” or “domesticating” us to civ, and the little befuddled babies inside of us can’t stand to realize that these messages could be anything less than ultimate truth, because they come from our parents.
Alice Miller’s website is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in psychological freedom from civ (even if she doesn’t talk in terms of anarcho-primitivism and escape from civilization). I don’t have the URL offhand, but you can Google it.
I have been thinking about the charges levied against this culture, but I still don’t see a culture. I don’t even see a culture of No-Culture, as many have reasoned.
I think at the point of refrigeration and electricity, we ceased to be a culture, at all.
What is a culture? Not what the dictionary says, but what we mean when we hear ‘culture’, or use the word ‘culture’?
We are referring to what people living together do for each other, how they interact, and what the rules are.
There are no rules on how we are to interact. There are negative rules, what we aren’t supposed to do to each other, which is the LEAST a culture would do for it’s individuals.
There are no guidelines for positive interaction. Any deviation from the negative rules results in loss of rights, or supplies.
So really, there is no culture, that is why absurd ideas like ‘multiculturalism’ can even be considered. Equally absurd, is the idea of a culture of No Culture, or Nihilists.
So, I believe there is no ‘our’ culture, but certainly, I have found cultures in friends, and certainly, I have participated with positive rules of interaction.
SO, to avoid indulging in ‘apocalyptic narrative’, My ideas of positive cultural interaction aren’t based on hope I’m still around when the dust settles. In fact, the only thing I can say for sure is that we as a species, will change or die.
What can I do right now, as someone who wants to be more of a ‘wild’ human being, to cultivate culture?
We need to deconstruct our concepts of what ‘culture’ is. It’s not media, it’s not brands, it’s not really even our ‘look’.
It’s how we spend our time.
How do we get people outside? How do we get people living ‘out there’ instead of ‘in here’. I think what happens outside will be much closer to what ‘culture’ is.
In a way, cosmically, spiritually, it’s like we’ve taken a break to re-evaluate. It’s hard to get up, but once you get going…
Potentially, they could go even further; modifying DNA and genes to create anything they want; to the point of the creation of anything the elite desires. Human beings could be genetically molded with behavioral traits that allow us to be happy to be dumb slaves.
This is one of the things that makes me feel technological civilization should be opposed on intrinsic grounds.
Well, if that is how you feel about my use of the word culture, then I used the wrong choice of word for you.
What if instead of culture I said, “a set of expectations or ideals based on widely accepted, abstract articles of faith.” Blind faith being placed in religious messages, the sciences, economics, the nuclear family as something atomized (pardon the pun) from the rest of society, etc. All abstract, not experiential. I think you could say that people who live in our “system” of living are linked together by those things, and they could constitute culture, although a pretty weak one.
How is it that you couldn’t get past the first three sentences of my post? That seems like pretty irrational behavior … just sayin’. What do you think of the ideas of Alice Miller (& my interpretation)?
[quote=“ulcerite, post:12, topic:478”]Potentially, they could go even further; modifying DNA and genes to create anything they want; to the point of the creation of anything the elite desires. Human beings could be genetically molded with behavioral traits that allow us to be happy to be dumb slaves.
This is one of the things that makes me feel technological civilization should be opposed on intrinsic grounds. [/quote]
Yikes. It’s like social conditioning raised to the nth power.
Perhaps people (er, “people”) will colonize space after all. Aliens? Naw. Just genetically modified human time travelers from the future! 
Flying by on a historical tour … quite literally historical. ;D Just what was life on earth like before we f’ed it up?
I’m wondering if that’s more sad than funny… my attempt at humor that is.
Very short-sighted and devoid of real consideration. Our ability to use our tools to overcome our genetic faults allows them to propogate more extensively, not to diminish. Our abilities are triggering our devolution presently, as would logically follow from the practice of ensuring the survival of all offspring, as we are currently doing our best to accomplish. We are weeding out only the MOST fatal, the MOST fiercely malformed. I would say it is more likely that the average person will have more inferior genes in the future than we do today, unless we manage to “perfect” genetic manipulation. The notion that we are somehow still eveolving toward greater fitness is foolish. What we are doing is masking a reduction in genetic deterioration through good diet and medical treatments.
Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sound like I was talking past you. I don’t have the Alice Miller context, so perhaps I missed why those things were significant, like why they have a powerful resonance for you. It would be to more than my benefit if you shared more.
Quite honestly, I think they have resonance for just about everybody in civilization (and that’s not projection). I am not trying to turn this forum into a group therapy session; I am sharing what I know and presenting an idea for discussion.
“Civilizing” a young person means finding ways to suppress their natural instincts. Usually the only way it can be done is by coercion or neglect.
Example:
So many little kids supposedly have ADD. I think a lot of us would agree that the vast majority of ADD “cases” would be nonexistent in a primitive society. Kids - hell, people - need to live and learn by experience far more than they need to live and learn by schooling. There are two ways of forcing a misbehaving kid to behave in school - 1. abuse (verbal/physical), and 2. neglect of his/her needs, instead substituting Ritalin to smooth over the “problem”.
Parents are the people our society counts on (more than teachers, etc.) for civilizing their children. Even if you were never hit or spanked by your parents (I never was), chances are your parents used some means of trickery, deception, bargaining, or coercion to “adjust” you to society. Or you learned from them by example to deny your needs. Deep down, I’d claim most parents have an attitude of dominance over their children. This attitude manifests itself in the smallest of body language, and it is something we pick up on from the time we are born.
As I said, we have a natural inclination to love these people, because our first experiences are of dependence on them.
What I’m saying is that this early relationship modeling/establishment of authority is the primary reason why the majority of people in civlization find it psychically impossible to reverse their civilization.
I’m not sure how I fit into your theory. Granted, there were the usual indoctrinations, like being sent to school, but my parents did encourage me at a young age to do what I wanted. I think, as my mom told me later, that they had to come to that, because I was going to do whatever I wanted anyway, so it was better to have their blessing than not. When I was sent to space camp, I wasn’t expected to come home and start becoming an astronaut.
I think you have to individually buy into the concept that more is better, greed is good, and I didn’t come from a family that was terribly pushy in these areas. Sure, my grandmother wanted us to go to church, but it was Catholic Church, or as I like to think of it, pagan-lite.
Without a serious social study, and maybe Alice Walker has done this, which has allowed you to speak from the place of ‘most’, I don’t buy that ‘most’ people are indoctrinated. I can think of ‘many’ who were also accepting of things as they are. But I grew up poor, so despite my father’s failing business, we weren’t pretending we could ‘rise up’ form the middle class, and into the upper class. Having grown up in this kind of environment, I could see where the ‘pulling down’ of the poor is a similiar pressure to the ‘pushing up’ pressure of the middle class, but hardly, do I use it to rationalize the choice of individuals.
I think, if you found a society that was free from any post-modern semblances of ‘dominance’ I would send you a penny (cause I don’t even have a dollar). I’m willing to bet my last penny, though, on this very fact that humans have symbolized and analyzed way ahead of culture’s ability to adapt.
Expecting it to adapt, and then calling it a failure for not adapting at a desired pace, reminds me of the cruelty of other social ‘revolution’ programs.
I really don’t see parents as the instigator, I really don’t see them as the soruce. Honestly, my perspective and my experience tells me the greatest challenge we face is the consolidation of resources. When one person has 500 times the resources than another, they tend to set the bar for what person ‘should’ have. But as we know, that would take 500 planets, and 499 robots for each person for all of us to live the lifestyle of Warren Buffet.
It is those who are willing to take so much that I believe contribute to the worst aspects of our society. Those who have adeptly stole the labor of others ‘set a bar’ that I think, is much more powerful than whether or not you were spanked as a child.
As poor white trash growing up in a black (or should I say b-word?) neighborhood, I always felt those who did commited the most violence were not my erratic retaliator comrades, or my belt-wielding father, but those who crush people like my father by buying contracts below cost to become the single bathroom contractor in Indianapolis. That to me trumps any other little psychological damage. People who have that kind of power, to buy contracts below cost for the sake of putting small business owers like my father out of business, are the people, to me, who are spliting the human race in two. Not only are they exploiting labor to create above-wages profit, but they are leveraging that same ‘cheated’ labor to cheat more people out of their labor.
I guess, when you grow up expecting life to suck, and expecting to get into a fight on a regular basis, it the people who control life and death itself, capital I belive some call it, without regards to anything but profit (that is, leveraged wages), are who perpetuate this thing we refer to as ‘civilization’.
Forums are group therapy. We do the work of ‘saving the world’ at home, in cyberspace, we get and give support for those actions.