How do we build a sustainable society? Utopia

Stop indoctrinating people with harmful dogma and teach every child how to think for themselves.
 
JJJA said:
Stop indoctrinating people with harmful dogma and teach every child how to think for themselves.
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At first I thought you were saying this to me.
"Is this topic indoctrinating?!" "Oh"

Is that all it takes?
 
Depends on your definition of Utopia. You're take on perfection can be different from my own. Mine would the along the same lines as [MENTION=13855]JJJA[/MENTION] . I believe religion is harmful and knowledge is power. Less religion and more knowledge would be the stepping stones towards my Utopia. That being said the internet is slowly but surely snuffing out bat shit religions takes and regardless of the fraudulent knowledge it brings it is increasing knowledge all the same. So are we on our way to my Utopia? We're more realistically on our way to extinction however I do see things overall getting better.
 
[MENTION=10166]DonTaushMe[/MENTION], yes, it depends on the definitions and preferences in the so called Utopia. Despite I agree with you both (@JJJA) that there are certain dogmas that needs to be replaced with rational thinking, I am not so certain that knowledge alone would make a better society. There has to be something more.
 
It's impossible until everyone in the world sees that we are all the same; equal people. That won't happen as long as there are differences in culture, country, religion, socioeconomics, etc. and different people think theirs is better, enough to kill others to protect it. It is not possible to achieve because most everyone will not accept the belief that separate and different is still equal.

I have to admit, I recently witnessed a morbidly obese, uneducated, scantily clad, unbathed and unkempt woman screaming obscenities at a terrified infant in public. I did not see her as an equal.
 
Oscillation said:
At first I thought you were saying this to me.
"Is this topic indoctrinating?!" "Oh"

Is that all it takes?
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It's a viable first-step, but it hasn't and won't be achieved for some time. We humans often arrogantly assume that because some of our leading scientists have successfully acquired the means to continually advance technology, we are also advancing as a species in every other field. It's 2015, and a large portion of 'intelligent' humans on the planet still believe that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. The majority of humans on this planet still believe that a supernatural, sentient being with unlimited power and one to which nobody can physically see or have any proof of its existence creates and controls everything (and yet doesn't, which is where it gets rather contradictory).

This is just one tiny example of the ignorance to which our species has yet to extinguish, if we are to make real progress to a sustainable society.
 
Superlative said:
It's impossible until everyone in the world sees that we are all the same; equal people. That won't happen as long as there are differences in culture, country, religion, socioeconomics, etc. and different people think theirs is better, enough to kill others to protect it. It is not possible to achieve because most everyone will not accept the belief that separate and different is still equal.

I have to admit, I recently witnessed a morbidly obese, uneducated, scantily clad, unbathed and unkempt woman screaming obscenities at a terrified infant in public. I did not see her as an equal.
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An other way of adress the vast differences between people would be to put them in different sections, making thousands and thousands of mini-societies that each have their own sets of ideal. But how would that be different from the world we live in now? Hmmm.

Either way it seems like we often believe that we have to take away peoples freedom to get to Utopia, aren't we?
 
I think it would be a good idea to start off with what we mean when we talk about a sustainable society. Are we talking about an economically sustainable society, independent, sustainable for the environment or maybe a society with not as prominent class differences?

I'm ignoring the notation of utopia for now because I don't really see it as viable as a concept to this.
 
If we want something that is sustainable to the environment I think we as a people need to come to terms with our comfortable lies. I think we live at a standard that just isn't sustainable to the larger population. I agree with @JJJA that critical thinking is important, and to be able to challenge ideas to work things out.
 
Utopian thought, to me, is paradoxical because it inherently tries to limit and remove those natural elements we deem undesirable even if I too agree with some of those elements being removed.

The tolerance paradox arises when a tolerant person holds antagonistic views towards intolerance, and hence is intolerant of it. The tolerant individual would then be by definition intolerant of intolerance.
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Where these boundaries are and how they should be managed varies both by individual and society. Freedom of religion does not necessarily entail human sacrifice. So then, for every possibility we consider an appropriate response though it may not prevent whatever behavior from occurring in the first place.

The mythic story of the Judgement of Paris uses some of this symbolism in how Eris, the goddess of discord, was not invited to the marriage banquet which ended up precipitating the Trojan War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_of_Paris

Critical thinking is inherently more discordant than blind obedience and it does not lead to any clear agreement, but illustrates differences in thought.

In computability theory and computational complexity theory, an undecidable problem is a decision problem for which it is known to be impossible to construct a single algorithm that always leads to a correct yes-or-no answer.
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Oscillation said:
An other way of adress the vast differences between people would be to put them in different sections, making thousands and thousands of mini-societies that each have their own sets of ideal. But how would that be different from the world we live in now? Hmmm.

Either way it seems like we often believe that we have to take away peoples freedom to get to Utopia, aren't we?
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If the people get to choose which section, it won't work. Also, who will be the Philosopher Kings who decide who lives with whom?
 
Elis said:
If we want something that is sustainable to the environment I think we as a people need to come to terms with our comfortable lies. I think we live at a standard that just isn't sustainable to the larger population. I agree with @JJJA that critical thinking is important, and to be able to challenge ideas to work things out.
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I think I misunderstood what the op was saying. I thought he was saying sustainable was utopia and vice versa.
 
People need to stop worshipping the intellect above all and balance it with the heart
 
Superlative said:
I think I misunderstood what the op was saying. I thought he was saying sustainable was utopia and vice versa.
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I have already realized my mistake putting the word "Utopia" in the label. I just don't know enough about it to use the word, and I should have put a questionmark behind it anyway.

So if it helps the discussion, we may as well ignore the word Utopia!

Please, continue!
 
muir said:
People need to stop worshipping the intellect above all and balance it with the heart
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This made me think about an other subject I would like to talk about. Just give me a moment and I'll start a new thread (about intellect vs. heart). I'll be right back!
 
muir said:
People need to stop worshipping the intellect above all and balance it with the heart
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Oscillation said:
This made me think about an other subject I would like to talk about. Just give me a moment and I'll start a new thread (about intellect vs. heart). I'll be right back!
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This is really the key

The heart actually communicates with the brain

Some people are locked down in their left brain hemisphere and their thinking becomes very imbalanced

They confuse 'intellectualism' with 'intelligence'

They'll make a you a very good nuclear bomb because they have the intellectual power to do so but they lack the intelligence to know that it is not very sustainable behaviour
 
JJJA said:
The majority of humans on this planet still believe that a supernatural, sentient being with unlimited power and one to which nobody can physically see or have any proof of its existence creates and controls everything (and yet doesn't, which is where it gets rather contradictory).
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The majority of humans on this planet are not studied in philosophy of religion or science. I agree that education is sorely lacking, but I do not think it is because of religion. I see people of science that are just as closed minded as the stereotypical Sunday going, front row sitting, church stiff. Don't get me wrong, those educated in science are perfectly willing to entertain alternative hypothesis...so long as they fit into their predetermined framework. For example, how many engineers do you know that scoff at the concept of ghosts simply because ghosts can't possibly exist? That's hardly scientific. That is not a fault of religion or science, but a fault of the human mind. We need to evolve in the way we perceive things, not in the approach we use to perceive. We are almost as limited today as we were in the dark ages. Only now we get nice tools that point us in better directions.
Further, the contradiction you speak of in religion has several possible solutions debated in philosophy of religion, but I won't get into details now. A nice simple answer is that (assuming determinism) in intentionally creating the universe, such a creator has control of that universe. Remember time is of our universe, and does not necessarily exist "outside" the universe. Controlling what is happening in the universe is to form the universe while observing its inevitable end. We live linearly, so we would not be aware of any changes. Like I said, this is one solutions. No evidence of course, but still worth considering to demonstrate the limitations of a strictly evidence based conclusion.
 
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