Mankind is Awakening or has it already Awoken??

Hi ATS Members,

Just to pose a thought to you all...

The Awakening, something more and more members of ATS are becoming firmiliar with.
Probably going back 3 or 4 years the whole Awakening movement was scoffed at and had very little constructive input rather many people would laugh at the thought of Mankind awakening to some higher spiritual consciousness.

Today the Awakening has become an integral part of our spiritual growth.
Be it that we are awakening to the lies of the powers that be or to our birthright as spiritual beings on this planet.

My thought is that are we awakening or are we already awake and if we are not all already awake how long before we are?

Even your avarage man or woman has some ideas of area 51, the new world order, the illuminati, aliens, awakening, 2012....something 10 years ago many would have thought taboo to bring up.

My point is that yes we are awakening but how long before enough of us awaken so that real change can manifest in the world and we can begin moving away from destructive thinking and evil....??

Spirit

reply to post by spirit777child


We are changing to a different slighty from the last age. It does not mean higher or lower, this new age will just mean slightly different. Remember the earth goes round the center of the galaxy so the earth is going into this age like it has done plenty of times before.

there still be evil, and scum. But mankind will be slightly different.

Personally i think humans are all becoming more apathetic. Is that good, who knows.

i would not worry about 2012 too much as transitions last longer than one day lol. To do the cycle of the galaxy takes 20 plus thousand years. So mankind has been here before, it is not something new on the grand scale of time and the earth, but it is for our short lifes.

i feel like the Awakening basically equals the Internet. which eventually we don't even need because we'll realize the Internet is a reinvention of the Internet that's existed all along between life!

i feel that we still have a long hard road ahead of us and we are past the anitial "realization" and now we need to train our minds and bodys to become what we have waited for for so long. its not going to just happen we have to make it happen.

I find I can feel my spiritual/light body getting stronger. So many have been programmed to be basically on remote control in their lives and just move along from day to day just getting by. Energies may be subtly changing but they must get stronger to awaken those who don't take the time to really feel the possibilities of what we can be.

I keep hearing about this awakening, or waking up the masses.

Long story short, it's not going to happen for a few reasons:

1) To come to the conclusion that the government, or powers that be, aren't working in your favor and couldn't care less about you isn't waking up; it's finally pulling your head out of your....

I call it finally being honest with yourself, a trait of an adult.

2) Most don't want to wake up, rock the boat, or any other cute phrase for growing up. They have a vested, personal interest in being shallow-sighted and ignorant/neglectful.

If the people "woke up" then they would have to actually do something about the problems we face. That normally ends equally bad or worse than the situation people "woke up" from.

3) Intellectualism has never been, isn't, and will never be for the masses. We are just as silly and naive as humans have always been, only now we have clever legal devices and gadgets to do what we want to do.

4) Society is a fragile and tenuous thing. Be careful what you wish for, as we can degenerate into stupefying savages in the blink of an eye. Most of the populace is woefully unprepared for just such an event (another reason most don't want to see what's in front of their faces).

reply to post by KrazyJethro


All four of your points are right on target, once you wake up there is no turning back, the problem is too few have.

Originally posted by Aquarius1

All four of your points are right on target, once you wake up there is no turning back, the problem is too few have.

I appreciate your support, however I'm not sure you fully understood my point (apologies if I'm wrong).

I was making the case for why people have not and probably will not wake up, as well as my lack of wanting them to wake up. The problem is that people, generally stupid and rash, would be awakened to only a certain element of reality, thereby creating a mess as big or larger than the one they hoped to fix.

I also think that the Constitution would be thrown out the window by the modern day dullards that would take the mantel of leadership.

Is it any wonder that most non-researching news-watching conservatives actually see Sarah Palin as "a breath of fresh air"? She seems like a post-lobotomy Robert Bork to me.

This is the prime reason democracy is one of the most entertaining forms of government there is. Everyone can vote, no matter how stupid and uneducated they might be.

Keep in mind, we currently live in 200 years of social, political, and judicial evolution. I am not confident in the ability of my fellow countrymen.

I do not WANT people to wake up, lest we have roaming groups of crazy people (i.e. Tea Party folks). The danger in awake fools is far greater than most who advocate "awakening" might imagine.

Originally posted by KrazyJethro
1) To come to the conclusion that the government, or powers that be, aren't working in your favor and couldn't care less about you isn't waking up; it's finally pulling your head out of your....

Nonetheless the sentiment is growing and becoming more predominant, to the point that many people are preparing for and expecting civil unrest/war here in the US, as well as other parts of the world.

But if enough people in the right places get wise to what's been going on for so long, and what will continue to go on until confronted, we will have people "awakened" to this dirty fact about government actually changing it from the inside out without needing war.

2) Most don't want to wake up, rock the boat, or any other cute phrase for growing up. They have a vested, personal interest in being shallow-sighted and ignorant/neglectful.

I disagree. There are plenty of reasons to "awaken," ie, realize any number of things and become a much more educated, caring and well-rounded person in general. We just have to let people know of these advantages that are possibilities for them, and in this day and age of mass communication, it's easier than ever.

If the people "woke up" then they would have to actually do something about the problems we face. That normally ends equally bad or worse than the situation people "woke up" from.

You're right, but as long as educational and information awareness increases, the chances of people being able to spoil our fun is going to decrease. It seems like whenever we are presented publicly with options, the worst one is always chosen. We need to learn ways to sleight this from happening, even if we have to use the same tactics as TPTB.

As a matter of fact, I think a lot of people are already sleighting TPTB at their own game. Just don't mention conspiracy theories, don't mention anything that doesn't seem credible to the least educated part of the target audience, just carry on like a totally credible "normal" person. And then these people slip into talk show hosting, the music business, military leadership, corporate leadership, sometimes even political positions, and start screwing our corrupt leaders over just as subtly as they screw us over.


I saw Madeline Albright on a comedy talk show recently (can't remember the name of the host unfortunately, I don't watch TV often enough ), and she was spewing all the typical crap about swine flu and terrorist leaders. But the host of the show managed to downplay and even dismiss every single one of her points without saying anything objectionable or even debatable. He was very clever in his words, and very honest and sincere. He made a lot of great points and used the opportunity extremely well, and Albright seemed somewhat dumbfounded but didn't have any room to get angry at anything he said. Then at the end of the interview, he shook her hand and turned and winked at the camera before the commercials came on. I laughed when I saw that. I think there are a lot of genuinely very smart and caring people seeping in through the cracks and sapping the power from these people, from all walks of life and all positions of importance, from media to military.

3) Intellectualism has never been, isn't, and will never be for the masses. We are just as silly and naive as humans have always been, only now we have clever legal devices and gadgets to do what we want to do.

Some will always be sharper than others, but you have to admit the general level of knowledge and understanding today is clearly much greater for most people than it was in the majority of other times and places in history, and we have a damned lot more people alive today.

There have already been multiple times of great illumination in the past when and where mass knowledge was available. The Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the times of Alexandria, and certain Greek schools of philosophy. I see no reason why it couldn't happen again today with the advent of the internet, and the internet covers a MUCH greater geographical area and has real potential to affect people all over the entire world. If it's even possible then we should do our best to encourage this, and protect free information exchange on the internet.

4) Society is a fragile and tenuous thing. Be careful what you wish for, as we can degenerate into stupefying savages in the blink of an eye.

I would argue much of the world still carries on like civilized savages, and that we don't have a whole lot to lose at this point.

reply to post by KrazyJethro


I do understand your point KrazyJethrol and agree it wouldn't be a good thing for everyone to wake, seems we are between a rock and a hard place..those of us who know what is going on just have to live with it since there isn't much we can do about it..

When you look at how much everyday life, sentiments and attitudes have changed only since the late 1800s, to the early 1900s, to the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and then on through to today, the changes have already been enormous.

In my view furthered progress is inevitable, to social heights we would have just as much trouble foreseeing as those in the 1800s had issues forecasting life today. We still have the same political corruption, but in the 1800s what happened in Washington stayed pretty damned close to Washington, when today people are even hacking email accounts and reading some of these scumbags' personal correspondences and publishing them for the world to read. We are much more aware of the problems, to put it one way.


There are a lot of people in power who are going to do their damnedest to limit the amount of knowledge and power the general populations are gaining, and re-assert their supreme dominance. The issue as I see it is how many strong souls will come forward to overwhelm these political forces and chase them back into the shadowy corners of history that they came from. If the majority of people know what they are doing and how they do it, they will no longer be able to do it anymore. But it takes an optimistic and informed person in the first place to fight for this cause, primarily through simply spreading this same message of optimism and increased informational awareness.


Society is like an organism, our corrupt leaders are like a cancerous tumor, and increased awareness and activism is like giant dose of cancer-killing medicine spreading through the organism. Just as they seek out deception and manipulation in every nook and cranny they can, so we will keep speaking out and keep bringing more and more independent information to people until the MSM is completely compromised and the facade is shattered by sheer public outcry to how ridiculous things have become today. It's reached a breaking point and both "sides" of this issue realize it to varying degrees.



Rockefeller says the internet is the biggest threat to national security facing the country right now.

Fortunately for us, millions of Americans disagree, and not even David Rockefeller can just go around yanking peoples' internet connections willy-nilly whenever he feels like it. They have to sit and think and plan ways to take it from us, to create the whole problem-reaction-solution scam.

[edit on 30-12-2009 by bsbray11]

The age of aquarius....

it is written so shall it be...

to think there will not be a great awakening is iggnorence at best.

people are becoming more and more clued up as to what is really taking place even your everyday layman has an incling as to whats up...

soon like a rolling ball gathering moss the weight and speed of the ball will be unstoppable.

I am not saying there will be total choas and destruction but more so change, reconstruction and redevelopment.

The old system no longer serves us it is outdated and we need transformation.

Spirit

Originally posted by bsbray11
Nonetheless the sentiment is growing and becoming more predominant, to the point that many people are preparing for and expecting civil unrest/war here in the US, as well as other parts of the world.

Agreed. There are also a fair number who desire this, which is more foolish than the soldier who desires combat.

But if enough people in the right places get wise to what's been going on for so long, and what will continue to go on until confronted, we will have people "awakened" to this dirty fact about government actually changing it from the inside out without needing war.

1) What is there to be awakened to exactly?
2) What is the remedy?
3) How would you suggest getting a massively bloated government (to be excessively kind), operated predominantly by workers you can't fire and obscenely over-billed contractors, and run by utterly corrupted men with inexhaustible amounts of money to suddenly change it's errant ways?

To preface your response, I'll add that America (having a tradition of consumption) has generated the most advanced marketing system in the world. Wouldn't it just be more cost effective to keep swaying them with silly empty words like "Hope"?

I disagree. There are plenty of reasons to "awaken," ie, realize any number of things and become a much more educated, caring and well-rounded person in general. We just have to let people know of these advantages that are possibilities for them, and in this day and age of mass communication, it's easier than ever.

You can disagree, but it doesn't seem terribly practical to.

What are the two things Americans should never talk about in social settings? The answer will certainly take time if you propose to make war on American culture itself.

There is no real national dialog about anything, and I'm not sure there ever really was one. What makes you think you can infuse European social influences on Americans?

You're right, but as long as educational and information awareness increases, the chances of people being able to spoil our fun is going to decrease. It seems like whenever we are presented publicly with options, the worst one is always chosen. We need to learn ways to sleight this from happening, even if we have to use the same tactics as TPTB.

There is no reason anyone shouldn't be educating themselves with the array of available resources. Yet obviously there is some kind of disconnect between learning and the people.

Some will always be sharper than others, but you have to admit the general level of knowledge and understanding today is clearly much greater for most people than it was in the majority of other times and places in history, and we have a damned lot more people alive today.

No offense, but this is garbage. And no, I don't have to admit it because I don't believe it's so.

Knowledge and understanding are very different. While there may be a greater amount of knowledge (who could say), there isn't any real metric on it's quality or relevance.

I propose you ask 10 random strangers 2 questions:

1) Name any 2 Amendments to the Constitution (barring the first two if you really want to make it hard) and what are they?

2) What was the last book of consequence (history, art, classic literature, political theory, economics, etc) you read and when did you read it?

There have already been multiple times of great illumination in the past when and where mass knowledge was available. The Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the times of Alexandria, and certain Greek schools of philosophy. I see no reason why it couldn't happen again today with the advent of the internet, and the internet covers a MUCH greater geographical area and has real potential to affect people all over the entire world. If it's even possible then we should do our best to encourage this, and protect free information exchange on the internet.

I wouldn't agree that those times were really as loaded with "mass knowledge" as you might think, but that's really besides the point.

As far as the internet goes, it really cuts both ways. While it has the ability to spread information out to billions, it also requires wading through loads of crap, half-truths, bald-faced lies, distortions, subterfuge, and quite a lot more that make up the goings on of humans.

I would argue much of the world still carries on like civilized savages, and that we don't have a whole lot to lose at this point.

This is patently false, bordering on starry-eyed. Serious civil unrest in any sizable geographic area would bring on food disruptions, massive lose of property, power disruption, theft, injury, and deaths.

This isn't a game, but a very dangerous edge we ride.

Originally posted by spirit777child
The age of aquarius....

it is written so shall it be...

What does this even mean?

to think there will not be a great awakening is ignorance at best.

How can it be ignorance if it stands in the future, which I always believed to generally be unknowable. Your logic is flawed at best.

people are becoming more and more clued up as to what is really taking place even your everyday layman has an incling as to whats up...

And what, exactly, will they do about it? There are as many avenues as there are people to be clued in.

soon like a rolling ball gathering moss the weight and speed of the ball will be unstoppable.

I think you have it backwards, it's "A rolling stone gathers no moss". Perhaps a snowball might be a better choice.

I am not saying there will be total choas and destruction but more so change, reconstruction and redevelopment.

The old system no longer serves us it is outdated and we need transformation.

Spirit

So what are you saying? What change? What reconstruction? What Redevelopment?

Why is the system outdated and what transformation are you proposing?

I think we are in a Transition period. I also think that it will get a whole lot worse before it gets better. As the old guard attempt hold on to and defend the old ideals and ways of thinking.

There will be chaos in the future, War, Famine and disease etc. When the dust settles on it. Mankind will have no choice but to face up to past mistakes and hearald in a new era of spirituality.

Either that or just repeat history one more time. I bet those who fought in the second world war would have thought that there could'nt be another one as horrific as that. Now i think they'll be getting a bit apprehensive.

Choose your poison. World war three, 2012, Pandemic. Something is going to push us over the limit and its going to get real nasty. If thats what it takes then so be it. Hopefully we'll come out better for it.

Originally posted by KrazyJethro
1) What is there to be awakened to exactly?

Nothing in particular, which is the funny part about this. It's like me trying to find the exact center point of a circle for you; you could always take it a decimal place further in accuracy. What I mean is no one can ever find a point where they can say, "Aha! I know it all now!" I don't know how to define at what point someone becomes aware of to what extent they can serve mankind, either, but there is a definitely a point where people complicit in the corruption of these crooks can realize their own voice and learn to cleverly subvert the corruption.

And I believe this does in fact happen, and crooked politics are thwarted from time to time. An example is the solider who disobeyed orders and did not load the nuclear warhead onto a plane headed for the Mid-East. Some people involved with that ended up dying in mysterious circumstances, but they still prevented a nuke from being loaded and still managed to even make it public attention before they could be reprimanded for disobeying. There are other examples, whistle-blowers for all various levels of corruption that are subject to house-cleaning now, so that we may have more clear ideas as to what all various agencies are actually up to and who to watch. The more and more widespread this information becomes, the harder it is for these people to operate illegally and to our harm.

2) What is the remedy?
3) How would you suggest getting a massively bloated government (to be excessively kind), operated predominantly by workers you can't fire and obscenely over-billed contractors, and run by utterly corrupted men with inexhaustible amounts of money to suddenly change it's errant ways?

The remedy is what I just explained, making people more educated and aware and leaving them to their own personal devices and talents to do what needs to be done, but they must have the strength and courage to actually do it. A growing public sentiment desiring great change coupled with great leaps in public awareness tends to this. There is no one single answer to the giant mess of problems, but there are enough capable individuals who can take the knowledge necessary and do their own little part, and the more clever and well-timed their blows, just like clever politicians or the military, the more success they will have.

To preface your response, I'll add that America (having a tradition of consumption) has generated the most advanced marketing system in the world. Wouldn't it just be more cost effective to keep swaying them with silly empty words like "Hope"?

Maybe this exposes a "god-given" advantage of our dwindling economy, which I believe (and has been forecast Celente's Trend Research Institute, with a nice track record) will get much worse and put even more pressure on increasingly impoverished people to do bring about truly meaningful change.

What are the two things Americans should never talk about in social settings? The answer will certainly take time if you propose to make war on American culture itself.

There is no real national dialog about anything, and I'm not sure there ever really was one. What makes you think you can infuse European social influences on Americans?

I'm not sure what aspect of American culture or European influences you're referring to. I think Europe and all other developed nations also have a huge mess on their hands that they will have to learn to deal with simultaneously.

There is no reason anyone shouldn't be educating themselves with the array of available resources. Yet obviously there is some kind of disconnect between learning and the people.

I think the big "disconnect" is just time. Older generations that are most incompatible with adopting to new trends will slowly die out, and the upcoming generation is going to be even more techno-savvy and culturally radical than our own imo. As long as all the new information channels are kept open and free of censorship we should be able to easily stay on track here.

Knowledge and understanding are very different. While there may be a greater amount of knowledge (who could say), there isn't any real metric on it's quality or relevance.

I propose you ask 10 random strangers 2 questions:

1) Name any 2 Amendments to the Constitution (barring the first two if you really want to make it hard) and what are they?

2) What was the last book of consequence (history, art, classic literature, political theory, economics, etc) you read and when did you read it?

I'm not sure the number of people who are ignorant of this kind of information is any greater than it ever has been historically. But the quality of information we have today and the depth of our understanding of the working of nature is greater. We all know of electricity, and planets revolving around the Sun, and smatterings of other technical and social sciences and all number of things we take for granted that ancients had not even a conception of. Even psychology has had a huge impact on society within the past 100 years that no one previously even considered on such a level, but now in the West virtually everyone knows the word and the basic idea it represents, and why politicians and militaries would lie to us on a practical level.

As far as the internet goes, it really cuts both ways. While it has the ability to spread information out to billions, it also requires wading through loads of crap, half-truths, bald-faced lies, distortions, subterfuge, and quite a lot more that make up the goings on of humans.

That's a learning process unto itself. So it's one and the same to me.

This is patently false, bordering on starry-eyed. Serious civil unrest in any sizable geographic area would bring on food disruptions, massive lose of property, power disruption, theft, injury, and deaths.

This isn't a game, but a very dangerous edge we ride.

I am actually already prepared for the things you mention, and have been preparing for years.

Even ATS has a forum dedicated solely to survival topics.

For everyone who is not prepared, and dies in the process, maybe they are a necessary loss, and I am prepared for that as well. I never said it was going to be easy. I am simply optimistic of the general balance.

At least for myself and everyone else who survives the next decade.

[edit on 30-12-2009 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by Algebra
Choose your poison. World war three, 2012, Pandemic. Something is going to push us over the limit and its going to get real nasty. If thats what it takes then so be it. Hopefully we'll come out better for it.

That is exactly what I think, that everything will hit the fan but we will come out the better for it when it's all said and done.

There is a new light dawning and not everyone can see it yet, but it doesn't matter because they will soon enough, or else they stand a great chance of physical death as I see it.

The pieces are lining up on both sides for a very interesting game of chess right about now.

I believe this is happening in stages.

The only way the world will change and manifest into what we want is when we stop staring at the growing monster, as well as fearing it, and think about what we want.

Just my opinion. I don't pay attention to the garbage anymore. Just things of interest. Even some talk radio used to amuse me with the ranting, but now I simply shut if off. Those people don't see the big picture anyways.

Scumbags in everyday life aren't worth your attention, what makes other scumbags any different?

Originally posted by bsbray11

Nothing in particular, which is the funny part about this. It's like me trying to find the exact center point of a circle for you...

You reading the question incorrectly, perhaps it could be better worded. I was really looking for what subject will people be awakening to?.

The remedy is what I just explained, making people more educated and aware and leaving them to their own personal devices and talents to do what needs to be done, but they must have the strength and courage to actually do it. A growing public sentiment desiring great change coupled with great leaps in public awareness tends to this. There is no one single answer to the giant mess of problems, but there are enough capable individuals who can take the knowledge necessary and do their own little part, and the more clever and well-timed their blows, just like clever politicians or the military, the more success they will have.

You have more faith in people than I think history supports. Growing public sentiment does not just bring out the Good Guys, but also snake oil salesmen, Moral Crusaders, and charlatans with even a fair gift for speaking.

I'd also suggest that there is next to nothing that would increase public education as our society stands today. They may get angry, they may get desperate, and they may, even, get violent. What they won't get, is any closer to books.

Maybe this exposes a "god-given" advantage of our dwindling economy, which I believe (and has been forecast Celente's Trend Research Institute, with a nice track record) will get much worse and put even more pressure on increasingly impoverished people to do bring about truly meaningful change.

To reference what I said above, poor people and/or people becoming poor do not generally tend towards learning as a route out. They become angry, violent, and generally unstable. Any study of mass movements (Hoffer is an interesting read in this respect, 'The True Believer' for example) will generate understanding of the way large groups of people tend to make matters worse rather than better.

They actually stand as the antithesis to increased knowledge and understanding rather than the example of such.

I'm not sure what aspect of American culture or European influences you're referring to. I think Europe and all other developed nations also have a huge mess on their hands that they will have to learn to deal with simultaneously.

True, Europe has large problems on it's hands as well, but culturally they are more accustomed to political upheaval and small-scale public discourse than American's are.

I think the big "disconnect" is just time. Older generations that are most incompatible with adopting to new trends will slowly die out, and the upcoming generation is going to be even more techno-savvy and culturally radical than our own imo. As long as all the new information channels are kept open and free of censorship we should be able to easily stay on track here.

Knowledge isn't always improved or increased, but in large part is simply replaced.

I'm not sure the number of people who are ignorant of this kind of information is any greater than it ever has been historically.

My point precisely. Knowledge and understanding of the major underpinnings of our government, political theory, etc has never been widely held.

But the quality of information we have today and the depth of our understanding of the working of nature is greater. We all know of electricity, and planets revolving around the Sun, and smatterings of other technical and social sciences and all number of things we take for granted that ancients had not even a conception of. Even psychology has had a huge impact on society within the past 100 years that no one previously even considered on such a level, but now in the West virtually everyone knows the word and the basic idea it represents, and why politicians and militaries would lie to us on a practical level.

I disagree that the quality of knowledge is really all that great. Perhaps people know or have heard of some things, but few understand practically any part of them.

I am actually already prepared for the things you mention, and have been preparing for years.

Even ATS has a forum dedicated solely to survival topics.

For everyone who is not prepared, and dies in the process, maybe they are a necessary loss, and I am prepared for that as well. I never said it was going to be easy. I am simply optimistic of the general balance.

At least for myself and everyone else who survives the next decade.

I find that the balance is almost always maintained in the end, as the prepared are successful as often as the brutal and forceful are.

Originally posted by KrazyJethro
You reading the question incorrectly, perhaps it could be better worded. I was really looking for what subject will people be awakening to?.

No, my answer is the same. What subject? ALL of them, and more. You're here posting on the psychology, philosophy and metaphysics forum, I would do some philosophical reading if you want an in-depth answer to this question, as to what "subject" it is that "wakes people up" to reality, because there is not a simple answer. That would make things easy, wouldn't it? Every single man-made subject is simply an attempt to understand the single underlying mystery that is "reality" or the "universe," both singular terms that represent the whole of existence. RAW's "Quantum Psychology" in my sig below is a good read. So is "Prometheus Rising." All of them are, really, but RAW has a knack for the modern reader.

You have more faith in people than I think history supports. Growing public sentiment does not just bring out the Good Guys, but also snake oil salesmen, Moral Crusaders, and charlatans with even a fair gift for speaking.

What this just boils down to, is you keep looking for the bad things people do, and I keep looking to the good things. I'm fine with that, it's just a reflection of attitude more than anything else. If you think today is really so bad, what other time period would you rather live in and why?

I'd also suggest that there is next to nothing that would increase public education as our society stands today. They may get angry, they may get desperate, and they may, even, get violent. What they won't get, is any closer to books.

Books are not education. The internet is what is increasing education more than anything else today, and it's working. People eventually get tired of blogging about mundane things and tweeting about their bad day at work eventually, especially when people such as myself and most others on this forum are constantly posting things such as what's on these forums, instant messaging similar links to friends, bringing all this up in face to face conversation as I'm sure most people that frequent this forum's discussions do, etc. There is something about human nature that will eventually attract even the most stubborn mind to higher awareness.

To reference what I said above, poor people and/or people becoming poor do not generally tend towards learning as a route out. They become angry, violent, and generally unstable. Any study of mass movements (Hoffer is an interesting read in this respect, 'The True Believer' for example) will generate understanding of the way large groups of people tend to make matters worse rather than better.

Mass amounts of angry people were also responsible for winning the American Revolution, French Revolution, and every other successful revolution in the history of the world, none of which would have been successful without critical thinkers such as your Paines and Jeffersons and Voltaires. Again, you seem to always seek to look to the pessimistic position here, so if you think I am still wrong then you are entitled to your opinion and I won't contradict you. I am simply saying if you turn your head to a different perspective, you will see what I see, it's only a positive vs. a negative attitude regarding humanity, and when you interact with society your attitude towards it will determine the exchanges. If I only wanted to look for the bad things people do, I know as well as you do I would have no shortage of material. But there is also no shortage of positive things we can focus our consciousness on. Which do you think is healthier? It isn't just a matter of facts either because you also know facts are always spun 10 different directions depending on who is wielding them, without changing the facts themselves. The glass is either half empty, or half full. Or 50% its maximum capacity. There is no logical argument that will appeal to any of these attitudes; they are all equally right and simply reflect the intention/attitude of the observer.

Knowledge isn't always improved or increased, but in large part is simply replaced.

Not always, but what times and places in history would you say were more educated and knowledgeable of the universe than people are today and why?

I'm not sure the number of people who are ignorant of this kind of information is any greater than it ever has been historically.

My point precisely. Knowledge and understanding of the major underpinnings of our government, political theory, etc has never been widely held.

So when I say ignorance is not any greater today than it has been, and you agree, how are you still trying to make the point that knowledge is limited and too many people are ignorant today to do something? You know there is no logical argument anyone can make that will change an attitude (mental habit) unless one decides to change it for their own self.

I disagree that the quality of knowledge is really all that great. Perhaps people know or have heard of some things, but few understand practically any part of them.

I also think that is just your attitude and not a realistic reflection of what the average man knows today compared to what the average man knew in 1900, 1800, 1700, 1600, etc. You might make it a common mental habit to internally criticize others for appearing less intelligent than yourself, as opposed to admiring those who have achieved great things, no?

I find that the balance is almost always maintained in the end, as the prepared are successful as often as the brutal and forceful are.

Balance is always maintained, yes, and it has been in their favor long enough for the balance to swing again and reset itself, just as it did a couple hundred years ago. That is my position. It's their position that they have not had power long enough. And you agree with "them," right?

[edit on 30-12-2009 by bsbray11]