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Most Humans Are Just DUMB

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posted on Oct, 19 2015 @ 01:59 PM
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a reply to: bw1000

'This sounds like a more disguised way of saying, actually just don't ask this question in the first place.'

I might have not been clear. Even as I think this is an essential question, I was attempting to encourage OP to not just accept his answer as 'the answer' but rather to continue to consider his answer as only one of a number of possible conclusions to the consideration.

---

'Otherwise, it can seem (though you may have got your reasoning mixed up, I suggest) you have desires to pretty noble ends. Not to hurt any sensitive souls out there through questioning society (hopefully me too). And, at the same time to enlighten our paths and prevent us becoming self inflated egotists, should we by some misfortune choose the wrong essential questions to consider. '

You have me well considered here BW, but for the final line. Again, it is not the asking of essential questions that I discourage, but rather the acceptance of a single conclusion to those questions. I think that this, and other essential questions may not even need conclusions but rather might be best left in a state of constant consideration. I think that the state of constant consideration of these conundrums might serve us better as individuals over the impulse to accept immediate answers that pop into our heads, plausible though they may be. The OPs conclusion is one that I find personally debilitating, in that it closes me down and alienates me from others. For me this was not acceptable.
---

'urely you don't mean what works for you, or what is necessary for you, should have to be for all? '

Surely not. Not should be for all, but rather could be, or might be. In that, as you have noted 'my noble intentions' motivate me to offer additional could bes and might bes.



posted on Oct, 20 2015 @ 06:26 PM
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OK. It can be a normal thing to a good discussion for someone who has personal beliefs about a certain subject to state simply, "If you ask that question with the attitude the OP has, I warn you from experience it is likely to cause all sorts of problems,".

This in itself may be natural and beneficial to a discussion and may not be stopping a discussion of a route to an answer either way. Also, this in itself may not quite be ensuring that there is only one answer "allowed" (which, if it happened, would question if the question were accepted fully or "allowed" as a question in the first place).

But it's just that other people did seem to be stopping open discussion, and I thought you too, Terry McGuire. You seemed to be getting personal with someone's question and their reason for asking it (which is kind of also their answer) and calling them a self-inflated egotist for their question / position. Alao then implying that asking the question necessarily makes him a distant snob. But even more than that, you perhaps strongly recommended that, to avoid being these terrible things, the questioner must not decide what he has decided, or at least not on its own. Another option must be there also. So in fact the questioner is advised that he shouldn't even decide anything, it seems.

An opinion's an opinion, I guess, fine. But it's a bit critical and snobby and distant and alienated itself - "you must think this", or " I'm sure you will find things this way so I tell you to think otherwise".

I'm in two minds.

Anyway, at the end of the day, the OP KNOWS, for God's sake, he is asking a distancing question. Of course he b***** well is. That's the point. The very nature of the question is all about CREATING a distance, CREATING an alienating space. Not for just the very sake of that itself, of course, but for to arrive at to hold blessed awareness, to be true to oneself and to honour truth itself. To arrive at real true vision and so, hopefully, a pure, honest consciousness.

The effect of the question MUST be to create an alienation - but where that is preferable rather than pretending in blindness that things are great and wise and you just fit in and have a smiley, expectable life. So it doesn't seem a bona-fide criticism to say "You can't have that attitude because it is alienating", when that's an obvious and necessary and so, intentional, part of indeed having that attitude.


Essentially it appears quite likely that the dumbness of modern day life in general is going to alienate the more odd souls who find time to question and honestly conclude that most of life is rather dumb. They must accept that, but they were not looking essentially to avoid alienation in the first place. There are other things which can be more important.

Don't you value the historical hermits in their wisdom at all??!?

On, sorry to have made the Hitler rant at you if you were just stating your opinion. I was a bit a miffed at suddenly being a self-inflated egotist, when it also seemed too harsh that not just Soul and I but anyone else who would take similar position had to be that same egotist too.


edit on 20-10-2015 by bw1000 because: (no reason given)

edit on 20-10-2015 by bw1000 because: (no reason given)



posted on Oct, 21 2015 @ 01:58 PM
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Anyway, back to the Hermitage for the real deal.

So, here's the lowdown:

Yeah, humans are real dumb, that's just how it goes usually.

In films of hard living, hard situations there's often a scarred or wizened older man or woman who tells the shocked, appalled or sensitive "newbie", " Get used to it".

People are dumb.
They will use and abuse you if they think you don't know that too.
Which doesn't mean that you ought to let that change you.
Hopefully, it's they who are dumb, not you.

My estimate is it IS better to be aware of this rather than blinkered, deceived, set up for bad disappointments.

At the same time, maybe you can't learn it without experiencing it.

And if you think you can and live that way, aren't you acting in bad faith - prejudging how people will act towards you, and so even maybe "bringing this on" yourself?

If people generally are dumb, though, as I suggest they are, all of that doesn't matter in as much as it doesn't change what is.

You can and should, though, still treat every situation and person specifically, or probably better - uniquely, without prejudging.

Maybe it's just the place. Maybe it's the time, or both together.
Maybe there's some unfortunate spell, a horrible blanket of dumbness cast by heinous witches over our whole planet or universe.
Which would mean its not the dumb peoples' fault. Possibly.
Or, possibly not the fault of all of them, in their varying dumb ways.
Or, possibly it is.
I never said that it was a dumb person's fault that they were dumb, necessarily.
The opposite can be very true, potentially - and that may be very important.
But still the question isn't in itself asking about fault.
It's asking about dumb, and a dumb person is a dumb person.
ACTUALLY - I don't exclude myself from this consideration. I may be dumb or very dumb also.
I may not know that, though. I may not ever even have the potential to know. Maybe dumb people can't know.

Am I dumb, essentially?
Sorry, no idea.


edit on 21-10-2015 by bw1000 because: (no reason given)

edit on 21-10-2015 by bw1000 because: (no reason given)



posted on Oct, 22 2015 @ 12:58 PM
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a reply to: bw1000

BW. Yes, that Hitler comparison did seem to be over the top. Thanks.
I have to keep going back and reading what I wrote to understand your obvious grievance.
You say

I was a bit a miffed at suddenly being a self-inflated egotist, when it also seemed too harsh that not just Soul and I but anyone else who would take similar position had to be that same egotist too.
My thought here is that you have personalized this.
What I said was this.

If we feel superior, more intelligent, more self and culturally aware, do we help these others by calling them names? Or do we find ways to not think lesser of them and so be able to make a difference by being a good example instead of appearing as a self inflated egotist.

I would like to break this down, as it seems a sticking point in our conversation. The first sentence here I thought was apropos as the OP hammered, yes hammered as is his privilege in a rant such as this the 99% of people who are not aware of situations he(or she) was elucidating.
Now, myself, when reading OP, do I take umbrage with the words? Do I include myself in the 99% of people who are dummies or do I think to myself that,'no not me, I'm of the 1% who are not dummies. If I wish to 'connect with' to take in and consider the words of the OP, I have been left little choice. Join the 99% or the 1%.

So, being a member of ATS, a place where people try to discuss everything under the sun from a position of awareness beyond the everyday mumble of popular consciousness, certainly I must consider myself to be so. At least to some degree. So here on ATS, I suppose most all of us would find it easier to associate with that 1 % of NON DUMMIES the OP had to offer. Myself included.However.

You will see that my admonishment was not with making those distinctions. It was not with feeling superior. And mostly it was NOT with asking those questions about the nature of humaity that from reading all of your posts I find that we are in near complete agreement about. NO, my point was in not making such a dramatic distinction between ourselves and those who can so easily be labeled 'dummy'. To my mind, easy labels such as this do little to promote our individual development. They are catagorical. They are pigeonholing. And from my experiences in life, pigeonholing others is not conducive to personal development.

Further, if you notice, in that quoted paragraph I suggested that if we wish to help those who OP had been so kind as to have relegated to that group he calls dumb, we might be defeating our own purpose by calling them names. IE dumb.

Yet, from what you have said you think that I was calling him, you, and any others who feel as he does and apparently you do, self inflated egotists. Certainly this is the impression you have given me as you not only mention it a couple of times in previous posts but in fact point it out twice in that quoted section above.

So, BW. If you are considering me enough of an intelligent conversationalist to continue with this conversation thus far, do you suppose that I would make a case for not calling names and then immediately turn around in the very next sentence and to that very thing?

I attempted to point this out earlier but must have blundered it. You will notice I said 'appearing as a self inflated egotist. Again, OP set the set the classifications. the 1% and the 99%. My suggestion was to not call the 99% dummies because if indeed they are 'dummies' would they like it? Would they say, 'oh my, look at me, I'm a dummy and need to believe all the things the OP is saying so I to can be a 'non-dummy'? No I don't think so. They would say (askl;rh0) and go to hell you self inflated egotist. Calling names only serves to cause ( in an old biblical term) a hardening of hearts.

I can see now how I might better have phrased that one sentence. I might have been clearer by saying this.

Or do we find ways to not think lesser of them and so be able to make a difference by being a good example instead of appearing [TO THEM] as a self inflated egotist.


Otherwise, I find that much of what you say is valuable, the position of alienation arrived at by these existential questions, if we are to continue as individuals set upon a course of development in hopes of growing beyond this cesspool that humanity gives an appearance of being. Here again I say 'gives an appearance'. We can appear in many ways, at different times in different places to different people. The 'appearance' of this place as a cesspool is one I am very familiar with and which I have found to not be an advantageous posture to assume for more than a short period of time.

But back to that first reply of mine. It is my position that for most of our species time in development on this planet, we have not been so much individual, but rather collective. That this thought of individualism is a recent occurrence. And when I say recent I mean a few thousands of years as juxtaposed with hundreds of thousands of years of cellular and neural development. For those who believe themselves to have emerged from this collectivity into a state of individual consciousness to not condemn those who may have not done so as something lesser, something unaccomplished, as dumb.

Finally, you, as well as OP, may have a very different understanding of the word dumb than do I. I guess that that word must have been a term my father used for me when I was just being myself. I guess, who knows. Don't matter I guess.

I have been enjoying this conversation. As you present your thoughts, I find myself being carried along as if I am in a river of thought. A river that I am familiar with in my own head but seldom am swept up in while listening to others, and for that I thank you. Especially there at the end of the post just above this one. That last two paragraphs. I have found that stance, that consideration of 'not knowing' to be very relieving, But dumb? Not dumb, just, not knowing.



posted on Nov, 2 2015 @ 03:05 PM
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a reply to: TerryMcGuire

I feel certainly that I was not wrong in what I thought after your last comment, and I'm somewhat concerned that I offered you an apology now for making a comparison to Hitler.

You sound like a psychologist with a seriously dodgy mandate or agenda, which you feel should apply to anybody but the psychologist with a dodgy mandate or agenda. "Personalised" the questioned? I have, we have? Rather than you?

Yet again, it is you who bring up and repeat the so-called divide between 99% and 1% (or whatever or divide you may prefer) of people with regard to dumbness. I didn't, and the OP didn't, certainly. I feel we wouldn't - it's unrelated to our arguments simply - certainly mine, and I estimate Soul's also.

You are therefore inventing something which you pretend is then a valid criticism of someone else's argument. But it came from you. You're criticising yourself, pretending that other people are saying something only you really said.

Maybe I couldn't even really respond further in this exchange, it doesn't seem like there'd be much point, possibly. (Maybe that would be my fault - as I said, I may be dumb - people are generally!)

--

But something is interesting:

"It is my position that for most of our species time in development on this planet, we have not been so much individual, but rather collective. That this thought of individualism is a recent occurrence. "

How does this relate to dumbness or otherwise?

Just going back to a particular perspective, were Nazis more individualistic or collectivistic, do you think? (I have visions of uncountable numbers of arms raised all over a country, moving to much of a continent with hopes they had for the globe.)

That was quite recent. Do you think it's very different from say the Roman Empire, or more ancient "civilizations"?

Do you see collectivism as good or bad, and individualism as good or bad? Or if that's simplistic, which is preferable, or more true? And why? And what would you say about which you choose in relation to dumbness?
edit on 2-11-2015 by bw1000 because: (no reason given)

edit on 2-11-2015 by bw1000 because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 2 2015 @ 03:44 PM
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a reply to: TerryMcGuire

"For those who believe themselves to have emerged from this collectivity into a state of individual consciousness to not condemn those who may have not done so as something lesser, something unaccomplished, as dumb. "

No, no - this is not about "condemning", you misunderstand. Not at all. It's about being true, seeking the truth, whatever it is. As doing otherwise or avoiding that would seem itself to be something which can condemn you.

I'm not at all trying to or being reckless about condemning people or laughing at them or anything like that.

When I myself say people are dumb, I usually mean there's a delusion attached to them from arrogance or vindictiveness or indifference which causes harm. Thus being dumb is at least about not caring (when there is an obligation to - Kant's Categorical Imperative is a good guide). Rather than, for example caring about if someone is condemned unfairly.

---


"Finally, you, as well as OP, may have a very different understanding of the word dumb than do I. I guess that that word must have been a term my father used for me when I was just being myself. I guess, who knows. Don't matter I guess. "

---

Now I feel foolish and more foolish again for having expressed 2nd thoughts at my apology over making a reference to Hitler.

I don't even know how to respond but in saying that we've all been foolish and "in for it" if we don't define pretty much exactly what we're arguing about - what dumb actually means.

I guess the OP just chimed with something I had in my head at the time, but may have struck you as having a different meaning. From what you've said, I can estimate that you associate a meaning of dumb with that you accept there are expectations - maybe social and personal - upon you, maybe from culture and society, and dumb means falling short of expectations.

I've never meant that. While what I do mean probably often was much closer to NOT falling short of prevalent social and cultural expectations. !!! (Probably, I reckon. But the ones I was thinking of, I have to say or my reply may seem ridiculous. Of course it may). Could you have guessed that or is it a major surprise?



But in any case, it's not about condemning essentially. This is not a people's court or even a Kafa-esque underground one (I hope, I really do). I've indicated before that my definition of stupid for myself, my own definition (where we know it's not what everyone means), in this context, is likely to be inextricably linked to the meaning of evil. I'm not simply talking about getting things wrong from time to time and displeasing the benevolent or sympathetically well-meaning moral authority.

I have to say, I may feel more foolish than I'm letting on to myself currently - especially over the Hitler reference. As I'm feeling your argument may have more merit than I was able to cope with or see. I don't know.

---
"I guess that that word must have been a term my father used for me when I was just being myself. I guess, who knows. Don't matter I guess. "

It does matter.

edit on 2-11-2015 by bw1000 because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 3 2015 @ 10:41 AM
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a reply to: bw1000

BW. You say "As I'm feeling your argument may have more merit than I was able to cope with or see"
I say, maybe, that is if one wishes to take my statements as arguments. I, myself, do not like arguing and now much more often than not tend to at least avoid them in presenting my positions.

Here though, as in the word 'dumb' I guess there are varied connotations in the word. Argument. I think this can be just a straight forward presentation of position. "here is my argument". More often though, 'argument' is a heated hammering over the head of one assailant upon another and vs versa. I don't like to argue. I like to discuss.

The duel potentiality of 'argue', for me here, is important. In both cases it implies opposing positions. One where one position would over-ride the other. I prefer a 'discussion'. For me, in a discussion, there is no presumed separation between voices but rather a unity of stated positions in attempting to focus each position to the point where both positions can be more clearly defined which hopefully can bring about an opening into a 'third' position that both previous positions might not have been able to perceive prior to the discussion.

So as you point out, yes, we quite possibly have been been running with different associations with the word 'dumb'

It has been my sense of things here at ATS that quite often members feel free to be derogatory to one another, indeed to be derogatory to huge swaths of people. The word 'dumb' is tossed about casually as an insult. However I did not take our OP's statement in this manner, though the potential to do so was present within the word itself.
I applaud OP's questing, as I think you have, into fuller understandings of his own as well as humanities state of being.
And as well as I think I can understand, from my own questing, his realizations at that time, my original words, vague as they might have been, were intended merely to suggest that OP might not want to settle on one definition of the word dumb.

I call my dog dumb, as in ' dumb animal'. Here I use the word dumb as I think you have described you associations with the word. Dumb. No negative connotations, no judgments, no nothing, just, dumb. But with that word, as we are considering it, there is also the potential to accept with it the derogatory connotations that are all to often present in it's usage.

You say

But something is interesting:

"It is my position that for most of our species time in development on this planet, we have not been so much individual, but rather collective. That this thought of individualism is a recent occurrence. "

How does this relate to dumbness or otherwise?


Here, OP emphatically distinguishes between his impression of 1% who are not dumb and 99% who are. He states.

I am more concerned with the 99% of you that continue to let it happen.
Here, his own distinction of himself as an individual as opposed to the masses of people he has defined as the 99% who are dumb sets him, in his own mind, apart from the collective dumbness of the rest.

My point here being that I think that the collective mentality of humans for most of our historical time here is still here to a high degree. That each of those 'individuals' within that 99%, (by his account) are not so much dumb as just still most completely embedded within that collective, seeing and understanding reality only from within the prevailing contexts OF those masses. Of those collectives.

If we wish to consider that humans as a collective are 'dumb' then ok. We are. We have arisen from ancient tribal origins to considering ourselves to be the 'crown of creation' and in so doing are turning our little paradise here into a hell hole. Almost at every turn, the things we invent only dig our hole deeper, causing more problems than the ones intended to be solved by those inventions. To me it's like with hindsight we continually turn around and say, 'well we didn't know about those side effects'. But that is another discussion.

Lastly, to repeat your words again" As I'm feeling your argument may have more merit than I was able to cope with or see. I don't know."
As I have taken your words to have (merit) throughout. I am thinking that the possible schizm in our joined understanding is and has been due to words of vague value and a lack of physical presence. Without body language and facial gestures, and an ability to concur or question immediately as the conversation progresses we . all of us, are severely hampered in our attempts to communicate.



posted on Nov, 3 2015 @ 12:48 PM
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originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: bw1000

My point here being that I think that the collective mentality of humans for most of our historical time here is still here to a high degree. That each of those 'individuals' within that 99%, (by his account) are not so much dumb as just still most completely embedded within that collective, seeing and understanding reality only from within the prevailing contexts OF those masses. Of those collectives.

If we wish to consider that humans as a collective are 'dumb' then ok. We are. We have arisen from ancient tribal origins to considering ourselves to be the 'crown of creation' and in so doing are turning our little paradise here into a hell hole. Almost at every turn, the things we invent only dig our hole deeper, causing more problems than the ones intended to be solved by those inventions. To me it's like with hindsight we continually turn around and say, 'well we didn't know about those side effects'. But that is another discussion.



This is interesting. These are parts of what I would see as dumbness certainly tribalness itself which is associated with thoughts of being 'the crown of creation' at the same time. (Which need not perhaps extend into being stupid, meaning tending towards 'evil - stupid', but also very well could, very much take a form of being something within that.)

Why do you think your dog is dumb?
Does he /she pain you?
How do you know the dog is dumb? What are the signs?
You know he / she doesn't speak your language, but that is because he / she is a dog, and not a human.
If dogs are dumb per se, why aren't they called dumbs, instead of dogs?
Your dog can never become an electro-physicist, so is it that which makes you think he / she is dumb?
If so, why? Dogs are dogs. Is anyone who cannot become an electro-physicist dumb? Or at least anyone who cannot perform things to a certain standard?
(And what would the standard be, if so?)


edit on 3-11-2015 by bw1000 because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 3 2015 @ 12:53 PM
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a reply to: soulpowertothendegree

They're also disgusting.



posted on Nov, 3 2015 @ 12:57 PM
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a reply to: randyvs

Absolutely ridiculous. Most people are decent, it is the small percentage who are not.
...unless of course your perception is skewed due to living in a crappy place or something.



posted on Nov, 3 2015 @ 01:14 PM
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a reply to: grainofsand

Oh so living in a crapy place causes a skewed observation?

No my good member, living well to do is false and disgusting.



posted on Nov, 3 2015 @ 01:26 PM
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a reply to: randyvs

Lol, okay, think whatever you like about most humans, but I don't think 'most' are disgusting.
Perhaps you have been dealt a lousy hand of cards in life, you have my sympathy.



posted on Nov, 3 2015 @ 01:34 PM
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a reply to: grainofsand

Nah, that's not it at all. I have been delt a lousy hand
but I'm really good at poker. I do see most of humanity
as disgusting because they don't understand what a lousy
hand actually is. Not including yourself that is.
edit on Rpm110315v35201500000021 by randyvs because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 3 2015 @ 01:38 PM
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originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: grainofsand

Nah, that's not it at all. I have been delt a lousy hand
but I'm really good at poker. I do see most of humanity
as disgusting because they don't understand what a lousy
hand actually is. Not including yourself that is.


www.youtube.com...



posted on Nov, 3 2015 @ 01:44 PM
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a reply to: olaru12

I love4 you man. lol


For a taste of your whiskey
I'd give you some advice.
So I handed him my bottle
and as he drank down my last swallow
he crushed out my cigarette and faded off to sleep. lmao
edit on Rpm110315v16201500000022 by randyvs because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 4 2015 @ 12:47 PM
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a reply to: bw1000

"Why do you think your dog is dumb?"

I don't. I was just using that phrase generically. As in a general take on animals that is so prevalent. I call him dumb because he will not be offended whereas people, indeed I think most people. would or do take offense at that name. In the case of my dog, it is a toss away phrase, one of exasperation as you might say, when he just doesn't get it, An order, or what it is that is my intent that he is not figuring out. So I call him dumb. With affection, for what good would it do to call him dumb in a derogatory manner. None, he's, well, dumb. Here I use the word as I think you have been associating with the word, it is just that with a different mental structure which humans are capable of , the word can be taken so easily as being a slight.



posted on Nov, 5 2015 @ 05:01 PM
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a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Maybe you would love him less if you took your dog to a trainer who would exactly ensure that he figured out your orders well. No more exasperation.

Maybe you prefer to love him more - he's better for you the way he is.

Maybe it's irrelevant, but I'm just wondering if things could be similar for you regarding the two legged, clothes wearing beasts. You have a nostalgic fondness for them in their dumbness perhaps?

You do admit dumbness in or coming from collectivisim, and digging deeper holes which doesn't seem to be helping in the end, just making more problems maybe. But do you think you see them like this, yet find it hard to use this label 'dumb' (which you don't want them to hear, as they're more sensitive than your dog), because you prefer them like this? Cuddly, dumb, beings to be stroked gently, nostaligicly, but treated as if they shouldn't be assumed to be anything too worthy of taking that seriously anyway.

If so - 1. You might be right, anyway;
2. Maybe you're not fully respecting the true potential or essence of every being. And so your own decisions about people may be more about you and what you feel is comfortable than anything else.

I am feeling appreciative to you for opening up this area of insight for me.
edit on 5-11-2015 by bw1000 because: (no reason given)

edit on 5-11-2015 by bw1000 because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 5 2015 @ 05:08 PM
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originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: bw1000

for what good would it do to call him dumb in a derogatory manner. None, he's, well, dumb. Here I use the word as I think you have been associating with the word, it is just that with a different mental structure which humans are capable of , the word can be taken so easily as being a slight.



Hahahaha. I see in the humour in this now.




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