I listen to this every day and it's not jazz

[voxo]

listen to this every day and its not jazz .,.,.,

[Strat-itis]

Zzz.. Nice, relaxing, and faithful to the spirit.

What percent of the pop do you think actually wants the virtues in that oration?

[ragman1]

Well, it's not politics, anyway :-)

[Cunamara]

Zzz.. Nice, relaxing, and faithful to the spirit.

What percent of the pop do you think actually wants the virtues in that oration?

From the Buddhist perspective, all sentient beings merit those virtues as everything has the Buddha nature. Unfortunately, not all of us appreciate or want to embody them. Yet, anyway.

To reduce the suffering in the world, we have to reduce our own suffering and stop contributing to the suffering of those around us. Unfortunately, the path to power and wealth is all too often built upon the suffering of others.

[Strat-itis]

From the Buddhist perspective, all sentient beings merit those virtues as everything has the Buddha nature. Unfortunately, not all of us appreciate or want to embody them. Yet, anyway.

I was kind of thinking this also, while not having read it from the Buddhist perspective. It's like the goodness is latent in people, but is still possible, even if the prospect of it can be bleak in many.

To reduce the suffering in the world, we have to reduce our own suffering and stop contributing to the suffering of those around us. Unfortunately, the path to power and wealth is all too often built upon the suffering of others.

Yep. Well evil doesn't only come from corrupt self interest. It can also come from weakness, or ignorance.

[Mick-7]

Well, Christ said, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

However, if you've never found your soul, you won't mind losing it.

[Strat-itis]

^ That's the problem lol! Society is a bunch of people like that running around. No promise for good.

[Mick-7]

I've always been an optimist but lately I'm starting to think that the human experiment is not going to work out. I mean, Gurdjieff used to say, "most people are asleep," but the number of sleep-walkers seems to be increasing rapidly.

[Strat-itis]

Lol! I think that too. I even question what God was doing with humanity.

[dconeill]

I've always been an optimist but lately I'm starting to think that the human experiment is not going to work out. I mean, Gurdjieff used to say, "most people are asleep," but the number of sleep-walkers seems to be increasing rapidly. ...

I've never been an optimist. I'd like to think I'm a realist, but in the USA that makes me a pessimist. The "human experiment" will "work out" about the same as it has for all other species over time. The main difference is that humans are much more destructive than, say, rats.

A possible solution to Fermi's Paradox is looking at us from the mirror.

[cmajor9]

I think the chances for human survival are higher now than they’ve been in a long time, but unfortunately we first have to go through a difficult transition in which the old systems we’ve been living in finish falling apart.

[Christian Miller]

I aspire to be an optimist. Optimism is not about ignoring reality and saying everything always great. That's delusion.

Real optimism contains within it an acknowledgement and evaluation of pessimistic perspectives. It doesn't mean dismissing negative outcomes out of hand because they don't fit with one's preconceived notions. (I think many of us struggle with that to one extent or another.)

A lot of people who say they are optimists are just in denial.

Real optimists OTOH are quite rare and precious.

[Christian Miller]

As I understand it the odds of human extinction are actually now very low.

There's also a wide spectrum of possible outcomes between 'everyone died' and 'everything's fantastic.' Things can get worse, as well as better.

[Mick-7]

As I understand it the odds of human extinction are actually now very low.

You may be a closet optimist, Christian -- Doomsday Clock - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

[Christian Miller]

You may be a closet optimist, Christian -- Doomsday Clock - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Including that, apparently.

Pay attention to my exact wording.

This may not be an optimistic take exactly by any reasonable metric. But it is interesting.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tal_175]

A pessimist would view continuation of human species ultimately as existence of net pointless suffering by a big margin and consider it undesirable.
An optimist would find something ultimately good and meaningful about existence of human species.
A realist would have a non-normative, naturalistic view of the big picture of human existence. Human existence being a good or bad thing is a construct of human mind and a product of its evolution. If humans cease to exist, that notion would also cease to exist. Until of course, the emergence of the 10th homo species perhaps a million years from now.

[Flat]

...lately I'm starting to think that the human experiment is not going to work out...

Cheery thought: It's estimated that over 99.9% of all species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct.