Yea, working on my real life communities for the most part.

I am actually trying to influence the world in what I consider to be a positive direction, maybe this isn't a great place to be spending my time and energy

I'm reading your response like you chose to interpret what I said in a controversial way so that you might have a reason to disagree with me. Regardless - I agree with you, I think that what you call 'corruption' is a consequence of what I call 'bloat'.

I also think that governance is a useful & necessary tool to getting human beings to work together... I have just never seen it scale past a city-state level without starting to collapse in on itself.

Re: establishing common ground, finding agreement is what makes the difference between this website being a platform being an excuse to get into arguments on the internet versus a place where free speech can be used as a tool to bring disparate groups into alignment so that we can talk about things like "how do we learn to self-govern and create systems that work for everyone rather than only the wealthy?"

Question: what do you think about digitalized democracy? It seems to be a way to create a "belevolent dictator" that is resistant to some of the corrupting influences that humans fall victim to.

I don't have the time to watch a documentary, but it seems like you're on the same page as Wahaha and smallpond in the opinion that corrupt governments are creating problems for the common population and not acting with citizen's interests in mind.

Mind giving me the thesis of Planet Of The Humans?

Okay, while I don't know if we see democracy the same way (I think that what we refer to democracy is actually oligarchy wearing a funny hat), I definitely agree that we need to do away with systems that divide populations that need to stand together and fight for common goals - the net survival & prosperity of as much life on this planet as possible is what I'm after. What banner do you want to see people unifying under?

It's a rock in space that somehow underwent abiogenesis to bring about living organisms. Separating the substrate of life from the things that grow out of it is like separating the laws of thermodynamics from the fact that the self-replication of life itself is a force that actively fights against entropy.

Also, we have no idea what creates consciousness, but we are far from the only example of interconnected neurons and synapses on the planet. Did you know that trees send signals to one-another through fungal networks that connect their roots to one another? Maybe they know something about interdimensional travel.

good, record labels suck (value and creativity from artists and turn it into private profit)

let's get back to buying merch and buying tix for live shows

One of the great things about a website like this is that it offers a bridge between people who live in different realities. We live in a post-truth world, which means that what is 'true' for you is not necessarily 'true' for someone else. What we can do is establish common ground between people who carry different views than us by finding things that we agree on and building on that as a foundation.

Seems like everyone in this thread agrees that national politics and governance systems are overly bloated and unhelpful towards solving the problems that we face on a personal scale, anybody disagree with that? /u/Wahaha /u/takeheart

Watch what you project onto the people around you - even if they're internet avatars. Pity is not a helpful sentiment :(

You may not destroy natural systems but you are more than likely complicit in their destruction, by supporting businesses and systems that are extractive in nature.

Overpopulation is not a problem (yet), poor allocation of resources is the problem. However, there is truth in what OP says about the lack of sustainability in our strategies.

Is your belief in 'the inevitability of heat death' based in the same type of scientific understanding that climate scientists base their work off of? Choosing to cherrypick scientific knowledge to reinforce one's own beliefs and ignoring the rest of the data is not very scientific at all.

The Earth is probably about as fine as you and I are - which is to say not fine and actually struggling to cope with the state of modern society... unless you're actually totally fine with how everything is going?

The earth is a living being in a rather careful homeostatic balance, and saying that the only consequence of a warmer climate is like saying the only consequence of a fever (i.e. when our internal climate gets a few degrees warmer) is not needing a coat. Fevers happen when our bodies need to kill off something inside of them... and humans would be the cause and the target.

If your going strategy is to extract the resources from this planet so that we can leave and find other planets where we can do the same, I would like to point towards viral propagation and ask if that is the form of (not) life that humans need to be taking inspiration from.

Don't give into apathy, you can make a difference in the world around you!

I think it would be great if we can avoid namecalling, saying that someone is "brainwashed" is essentially an excuse to de-legitimize their viewpoint rather than considering it in depth

It was caused by farmers using unnatural and extractive resource management. Not saying this is the same deal, just considering that we don't know how ~lasers~ might affect the soil & ecosystems. Hopefully it doesn't and we learned from our past!

Please don't conflate the ways that climate change is coerced into a political platform with the actuality of climate change itself - they're different beasts and the reason why people's needs aren't satisfied is because the extractive resource practices that our society rely on need people with unmet needs (largely social needs) to function. What do you need?

this is "the end is near" rapture ideology in peak form. I'm sorry that the sense of impending change is getting to you, but even if we do build a space ark to colonize other planets - you're not getting a golden ticket.

Don't give into apathy, it's never too late.

Any opinions on Citadel vs Mailinabox? I'm using the latter but having a lot of trouble sending mail to anyone on Gmail or similar servers.

Yea, it seems like a pretty huge paradigm shift from where we're at right now. I'm assuming it's not an either/or solution, hopefully we find some solution where both can be used concurrently.

I like it! I hope it doesn't cause some 21st century version of the Dust Bowl though

that's an impressive flex - thanks for doing good stuff with your powers