Gaza Crisis: Are we morally wrong?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

...
I enjoy determinism as much as anyone. Martin, I understand your stance on human nature but I'm more hopeful than you. I believe that as a species determined by cultural change ---not genetic change--- it's possible for our species to change its accustomed habits. We can learn lessons from our past. If we can elect philosopher kings to be the politicians instead of the poor quality we usually get then that would do just fine. E.g. Zelenski, Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King, Marcus Aurelius, Clement Attlee.
Human nature is determined by its existence not any essential qualities, and it will not be known what human nature is until the last human is deceased. That will be 'Judgement Day' as religionists would phrase it poetically .

Is it times for a new axial age [<NOT MY COMMENT]
We glacially slowly advance culturally, at obscene cost. I fail to see any cultural advance, i.e. any social, political, economic advance that is independent of wealth, technology and population size. China has achieved the greatest utilitarian increase this century. India is following. But for highest quality you can't have a population over twenty million. Holland is about the limit. Human nature is 90% monkey (with a reptile ancestor) and 10% bee. And the turkey monkeys will always vote for Xmas. Always.

No significant human population will ever vote to free the land.

Only America can stop Israel. And even Trump won't stop the 'aid'. $18bn in the last 8 months. American weapons have killed over 50,000 innocent people in that time. Neither Israel nor America will pay any consequence. Impunity rules. Never 'morality'. War is far cheaper than peace. And makes warmongers rich. The American economy grew by a factor of 6 in 4 years of WW2.

I have absolutely no problem with your pointing out the facts of the matter, and am grateful for it for myself. The machine is no doubt more powerful than the moral and is too big for any individual to fight alone or as United Nations.
Is it times for a new axial age

Aye Belinda, our hands (the machine) have always been smarter than our heads (the moral), and always will be. And the axial age never ended. It moved north. Here we are.

[Belinda]

Is it times for a new axial age [<NOT MY COMMENT]
We glacially slowly advance culturally, at obscene cost. I fail to see any cultural advance, i.e. any social, political, economic advance that is independent of wealth, technology and population size. China has achieved the greatest utilitarian increase this century. India is following. But for highest quality you can't have a population over twenty million. Holland is about the limit. Human nature is 90% monkey (with a reptile ancestor) and 10% bee. And the turkey monkeys will always vote for Xmas. Always.

No significant human population will ever vote to free the land.

Only America can stop Israel. And even Trump won't stop the 'aid'. $18bn in the last 8 months. American weapons have killed over 50,000 innocent people in that time. Neither Israel nor America will pay any consequence. Impunity rules. Never 'morality'. War is far cheaper than peace. And makes warmongers rich. The American economy grew by a factor of 6 in 4 years of WW2.

I have absolutely no problem with your pointing out the facts of the matter, and am grateful for it for myself. The machine is no doubt more powerful than the moral and is too big for any individual to fight alone or as United Nations.
Is it times for a new axial age

Aye Belinda, our hands (the machine) have always been smarter than our heads (the moral), and always will be. And the axial age never ended. It moved north. Here we are.

Is that not a tad Eurocentric? If you are aware of Eurocentrism you can guard against it.

There is a natural force that makes an axial age a necessity. Climate change affects all regions of the Earth and knows no national or racial boundaries.

The solution may course may include fascism which will select who are obviously the most productive workers, in order to reduce the human ecological footprint. The Axial Age of around 500BC did not have a problem with too many people, only a problem with urbanisation of the number of people there were. However it seems to be the case that affluence correlates with fewer offspring and vice versa---see the Chinese experience of limiting number of offspring.

The spirituality and morality will not depend on enlarging loyalties out beyond family and tribe as in the earlier Axial Age, but enlarging loyalties to include other species and the biosphere itself.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

...
Is that not a tad Eurocentric? If you are aware of Eurocentrism you can guard against it.

There is a natural force that makes an axial age a necessity. Climate change affects all regions of the Earth and knows no national or racial boundaries.

The solution may course may include fascism which will select who are obviously the most productive workers, in order to reduce the human ecological footprint. The Axial Age of around 500BC did not have a problem with too many people, only a problem with urbanisation of the number of people there were. However it seems to be the case that affluence correlates with fewer offspring and vice versa---see the Chinese experience of limiting number of offspring.

The spirituality and morality will not depend on enlarging loyalties out beyond family and tribe as in the earlier Axial Age, but enlarging loyalties to include other species and the biosphere itself. Climate change affects inversely proportional to infrastructure.

As the US is a European colony gone rogue, yeah it's Eurocentric. Power is. And yes I've read and totally agree with Graeber & Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything. Civilization is an oxymoron. The Axial Age was the first flowering of the continuous, post-Bronze Age collapse, civilization of which we are the leading edge. The Axial Age is the problem. It invented money. Debt. And it stole the land. Art *, including philosophy, needs class, i.e. social injustice, privilege, patronage. A pyramid of increasing power. Less 'civilized' societies couldn't compete. We bled them to death in every way including of their superior thinking. They had better morality in the main. Especially in the Americas. We have no idea how good they were in Africa as we destroyed African civilization from the C15th. Then the Caribbean. Do you know how Columbus celebrated Easter? You really don't want to if you don't know. Then Meso and South American. North American too till the C20th, over 300 years. Civilization is the most utilitarian phenomenon however. As long as you don't look at the obscene cost.

The solution is post-scarcity economics. ... When will that be achieved for South Korea, let alone the Democratic People's Republic of Korea? I imagine India is the world's average. It's about half way. Wherever you are normally is. So India, might achieve it in 3,000 years. Best case a thousand. The Thar desert, greened by paving with solar cells, sending high frequency DC across the subcontinent, up in to Pakistan, Afghanistan. With a regional space elevator in the Maldives. If only.

* In a civilized society, the poor don't have time or space to produce Lascaux cave paintings. The urban poor can't even create folk music.

[Belinda]

...
Is that not a tad Eurocentric? If you are aware of Eurocentrism you can guard against it.

There is a natural force that makes an axial age a necessity. Climate change affects all regions of the Earth and knows no national or racial boundaries.

The solution may course may include fascism which will select who are obviously the most productive workers, in order to reduce the human ecological footprint. The Axial Age of around 500BC did not have a problem with too many people, only a problem with urbanisation of the number of people there were. However it seems to be the case that affluence correlates with fewer offspring and vice versa---see the Chinese experience of limiting number of offspring.

The spirituality and morality will not depend on enlarging loyalties out beyond family and tribe as in the earlier Axial Age, but enlarging loyalties to include other species and the biosphere itself. Climate change affects inversely proportional to infrastructure.

As the US is a European colony gone rogue, yeah it's Eurocentric. Power is. And yes I've read and totally agree with Graeber & Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything. Civilization is an oxymoron. The Axial Age was the first flowering of the continuous, post-Bronze Age collapse, civilization of which we are the leading edge. The Axial Age is the problem. It invented money. Debt. And it stole the land. Art *, including philosophy, needs class, i.e. social injustice, privilege, patronage. A pyramid of increasing power. Less 'civilized' societies couldn't compete. We bled them to death in every way including of their superior thinking. They had better morality in the main. Especially in the Americas. We have no idea how good they were in Africa as we destroyed African civilization from the C15th. Then the Caribbean. Do you know how Columbus celebrated Easter? You really don't want to if you don't know. Then Meso and South American. North American too till the C20th, over 300 years. Civilization is the most utilitarian phenomenon however. As long as you don't look at the obscene cost.

The solution is post-scarcity economics. ... When will that be achieved for South Korea, let alone the Democratic People's Republic of Korea? I imagine India is the world's average. It's about half way. Wherever you are normally is. So India, might achieve it in 3,000 years. Best case a thousand. The Thar desert, greened by paving with solar cells, sending high frequency DC across the subcontinent, up in to Pakistan, Afghanistan. With a regional space elevator in the Maldives. If only.

* In a civilized society, the poor don't have time or space to produce Lascaux cave paintings. The urban poor can't even create folk music.

I confess I have been biased towards Axial Age morality. Morality is a practical response to social conditions. With urbanisation the family and the tribe were mostly defunct social units , and the Axial Age moralists invented new moral systems which were largely comparable with each other. There really had to be social change if people were to live.

The poor are fighting back against the evils you describe. I am too old and too lazy to enjoy popular culture but it seems to flourish independently of commercialisation of it. If there were anything I could turn my hand to to support popular culture then I would.

Popular culture flourishes under liberal regimes.

The urban poor can't even create folk music.

Tell me about it ! she said sardonically.

I'd dearly like some counter examples of quality 2025 folk music .

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Paraphrasing Churchill, civilization is the worst form of mass social organization, apart from all others.

[Belinda]

Paraphrasing Churchill, civilization is the worst form of mass social organization, apart from all others.

He said something the same about democracy too. It's so much easier to see evils than to see goods.

[Belinda]

To be morally right would be to offer a refuge for a Palestinian family who chose to leave. There is no provision under immigration regulations for me to do so. I will write to my MP.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

To be morally right would be to offer a refuge for a Palestinian family who chose to leave. There is no provision under immigration regulations for me to do so. I will write to my MP.

Well, they're not necessarily morally wrong. But claiming that they're morally right...

[Martin Peter Clarke]

...
Is that not a tad Eurocentric? If you are aware of Eurocentrism you can guard against it.

There is a natural force that makes an axial age a necessity. Climate change affects all regions of the Earth and knows no national or racial boundaries.

The solution may course may include fascism which will select who are obviously the most productive workers, in order to reduce the human ecological footprint. The Axial Age of around 500BC did not have a problem with too many people, only a problem with urbanisation of the number of people there were. However it seems to be the case that affluence correlates with fewer offspring and vice versa---see the Chinese experience of limiting number of offspring.

The spirituality and morality will not depend on enlarging loyalties out beyond family and tribe as in the earlier Axial Age, but enlarging loyalties to include other species and the biosphere itself. Climate change affects inversely proportional to infrastructure.

As the US is a European colony gone rogue, yeah it's Eurocentric. Power is. And yes I've read and totally agree with Graeber & Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything. Civilization is an oxymoron. The Axial Age was the first flowering of the continuous, post-Bronze Age collapse, civilization of which we are the leading edge. The Axial Age is the problem. It invented money. Debt. And it stole the land. Art *, including philosophy, needs class, i.e. social injustice, privilege, patronage. A pyramid of increasing power. Less 'civilized' societies couldn't compete. We bled them to death in every way including of their superior thinking. They had better morality in the main. Especially in the Americas. We have no idea how good they were in Africa as we destroyed African civilization from the C15th. Then the Caribbean. Do you know how Columbus celebrated Easter? You really don't want to if you don't know. Then Meso and South American. North American too till the C20th, over 300 years. Civilization is the most utilitarian phenomenon however. As long as you don't look at the obscene cost.

The solution is post-scarcity economics. ... When will that be achieved for South Korea, let alone the Democratic People's Republic of Korea? I imagine India is the world's average. It's about half way. Wherever you are normally is. So India, might achieve it in 3,000 years. Best case a thousand. The Thar desert, greened by paving with solar cells, sending high frequency DC across the subcontinent, up in to Pakistan, Afghanistan. With a regional space elevator in the Maldives. If only.

* In a civilized society, the poor don't have time or space to produce Lascaux cave paintings. The urban poor can't even create folk music.

I confess I have been biased towards Axial Age morality. Morality is a practical response to social conditions. With urbanisation the family and the tribe were mostly defunct social units , and the Axial Age moralists invented new moral systems which were largely comparable with each other. There really had to be social change if people were to live.

The poor are fighting back against the evils you describe. I am too old and too lazy to enjoy popular culture but it seems to flourish independently of commercialisation of it. If there were anything I could turn my hand to to support popular culture then I would.

Popular culture flourishes under liberal regimes.

The urban poor can't even create folk music.

Tell me about it ! she said sardonically.

I'd dearly like some counter examples of quality 2025 folk music .

Where are the poor fighting back against the evils put upon them democratically?

I don't know any popular culture that isn't fully commercialized, commodified.

[Belinda]

To be morally right would be to offer a refuge for a Palestinian family who chose to leave. There is no provision under immigration regulations for me to do so. I will write to my MP.

Well, they're not necessarily morally wrong. But claiming that they're morally right...

My action is not about who is right and who is wrong.

[Belinda]

As the US is a European colony gone rogue, yeah it's Eurocentric. Power is. And yes I've read and totally agree with Graeber & Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything. Civilization is an oxymoron. The Axial Age was the first flowering of the continuous, post-Bronze Age collapse, civilization of which we are the leading edge. The Axial Age is the problem. It invented money. Debt. And it stole the land. Art *, including philosophy, needs class, i.e. social injustice, privilege, patronage. A pyramid of increasing power. Less 'civilized' societies couldn't compete. We bled them to death in every way including of their superior thinking. They had better morality in the main. Especially in the Americas. We have no idea how good they were in Africa as we destroyed African civilization from the C15th. Then the Caribbean. Do you know how Columbus celebrated Easter? You really don't want to if you don't know. Then Meso and South American. North American too till the C20th, over 300 years. Civilization is the most utilitarian phenomenon however. As long as you don't look at the obscene cost.

The solution is post-scarcity economics. ... When will that be achieved for South Korea, let alone the Democratic People's Republic of Korea? I imagine India is the world's average. It's about half way. Wherever you are normally is. So India, might achieve it in 3,000 years. Best case a thousand. The Thar desert, greened by paving with solar cells, sending high frequency DC across the subcontinent, up in to Pakistan, Afghanistan. With a regional space elevator in the Maldives. If only.

* In a civilized society, the poor don't have time or space to produce Lascaux cave paintings. The urban poor can't even create folk music.

I confess I have been biased towards Axial Age morality. Morality is a practical response to social conditions. With urbanisation the family and the tribe were mostly defunct social units , and the Axial Age moralists invented new moral systems which were largely comparable with each other. There really had to be social change if people were to live.

The poor are fighting back against the evils you describe. I am too old and too lazy to enjoy popular culture but it seems to flourish independently of commercialisation of it. If there were anything I could turn my hand to to support popular culture then I would.

Popular culture flourishes under liberal regimes.

The urban poor can't even create folk music.

Tell me about it ! she said sardonically.

I'd dearly like some counter examples of quality 2025 folk music .

Where are the poor fighting back against the evils put upon them democratically?

I don't know any popular culture that isn't fully commercialized, commodified.

Neighbourhood pub free house. Local Breadmakers' club. Romanian dogs' rescuers' group. The House of Windsor interest group or whatever it calls itself.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

To be morally right would be to offer a refuge for a Palestinian family who chose to leave. There is no provision under immigration regulations for me to do so. I will write to my MP.

Well, they're not necessarily morally wrong. But claiming that they're morally right...

My action is not about who is right and who is wrong.

Sorry Belinda, I don't get the connection?

And I was being brutal about moral claims. Immigration is the biggest issue in the first world, warping politics worse than taxation. Until our population becomes totally unmanageably infirm, in need of care, much worse than now, it cannot happen. And even then. The population would have to crash. And even then.

[Age]

Well, they're not necessarily morally wrong. But claiming that they're morally right...

My action is not about who is right and who is wrong.

Sorry Belinda, I don't get the connection?

And I was being brutal about moral claims. Immigration is the biggest issue in the first world, warping politics worse than taxation.

Are you making this claim in relation to every country in the so-called 'first world'?

Until our population becomes totally unmanageably infirm, in need of care, much worse than now, it cannot happen. And even then. The population would have to crash. And even then.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

I confess I have been biased towards Axial Age morality. Morality is a practical response to social conditions. With urbanisation the family and the tribe were mostly defunct social units , and the Axial Age moralists invented new moral systems which were largely comparable with each other. There really had to be social change if people were to live.

The poor are fighting back against the evils you describe. I am too old and too lazy to enjoy popular culture but it seems to flourish independently of commercialisation of it. If there were anything I could turn my hand to to support popular culture then I would.

Popular culture flourishes under liberal regimes.


Tell me about it ! she said sardonically.

I'd dearly like some counter examples of quality 2025 folk music .

Where are the poor fighting back against the evils put upon them democratically?

I don't know any popular culture that isn't fully commercialized, commodified.

Neighbourhood pub free house. Local Breadmakers' club. Romanian dogs' rescuers' group. The House of Windsor interest group or whatever it calls itself.

All very bourgeois, niche. Not mass. Not telly, football, social media, McDonald's (eating out...), pop music, newspapers.

[Belinda]

Well, they're not necessarily morally wrong. But claiming that they're morally right...

My action is not about who is right and who is wrong.

Sorry Belinda, I don't get the connection?

And I was being brutal about moral claims. Immigration is the biggest issue in the first world, warping politics worse than taxation. Until our population becomes totally unmanageably infirm, in need of care, much worse than now, it cannot happen. And even then. The population would have to crash. And even then.

The connection is I wrote to my Labour MP and offered accommodation in my house to a family of three. My personal comfort is a small thing compared with a baby starving to death. During the last war a Polish tank regiment descended upon the small town where we lived and people there accommodated officers, men, and convoys of tanks one way and another.

Old people like me will just have to jolly well die when we become insupportable either to ourselves or to others. I see no other way either practically or morally. There are even moral precedents for voluntary suicide. The will to live generally is far stronger in the mother of a baby than it ever can be in an old person.