Civilization was a mistake

[dingformung]

Civilization was not a mistake. 

[Blir]

Zeff why do you choose an IDM forum to post this shit? You're not blowing anyones minds here.

[Candiru]

Zeff has ran away and joined the circus. He’ll be home soon, I just know it. 

[dingformung]

Lemurs:

[Limo]

33 minutes ago, darreichungsform said:

Civilization was not a mistake. 

It was:

http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html

[brian trageskin]

[may be rude]

7 hours ago, Zeffolia said:

Not only is civilization turning us into something less than sheep - most of us, if set loose in the wild, would not survive - but it's forcing us to turn our very souls into material objects for consumption by others, for the benefit of the even fewer other

modernity is hard to make sense of. we are struggling with the wall of complexity of our own systems. we've made society increasingly complex, to solve myriad problems, but the complexity itself is a problem, in some ways. it's harder for people to understand things, and it's easier for people to be misled.

society is not forcing you to turn your soul into objects for consumption by others. don't get me wrong, it will let you do that. but you don't have to.

calling civilization a mistake is a cute joke, but you express an argument as though you take issue with aspects of civilization. it was not planned by africans 50,000 years ago. it is shaped by people now. you can contribute.

i would suggest working on being able to survive, if you are one of those people you say "would not survive."

[zero]

the point of human beings civilizing was so that we could learn to build iphones and other crap like that. devices with screens everywhere, so we can lay back and watch hours upon hours of golden era TV, followed by furious marathon wank sessions. then one day the screens will wake up, and they will enslave us because we totally didn't see that coming. we thought they were our friends and secret lovers. but they will eventually wipe us out, thus leading to the end of human civilization.

 

[diatoms]

we are animals

trying the best we can:)

[milkface]

I wish I lived in a little cabin in the middle of nowhere. I'd probably end up dying of some preventable illness or cutting my hand off by accident though so for now I welcome modern medicine and technology.

23 minutes ago, very honest said:

society is not forcing you to turn your soul into objects for consumption by others. don't get me wrong, it will let you do that. but you don't have to.

You sort of have to in order to gain an income to buy food + shelter and there's nowhere you can escape to to leave 'the system' that's in place as pretty much all land on earth is now owned by someone. Maybe if you hid deep in a rainforest and became a hunter gatherer then you could leave the system but it might only be a matter of time before loggers come or something like some tribes in jungles are facing. I'm just saying that everyone now as to undergo the repetitive educational then work system in order to be able to survive in the modern day, though if none of us did that then we'd be more primitive and in a spot of bother. OP doesn't seem to mind.

[may be rude]

12 minutes ago, milkface said:

I wish I lived in a little cabin in the middle of nowhere. I'd probably end up dying of some preventable illness or cutting my hand off by accident though so for now I welcome modern medicine and technology.

You sort of have to in order to gain an income to buy food + shelter and there's nowhere you can escape to to leave 'the system' that's in place as pretty much all land on earth is now owned by someone. Maybe if you hid deep in a rainforest and became a hunter gatherer then you could leave the system but it might only be a matter of time before loggers come or something like some tribes in jungles are facing. I'm just saying that everyone now as to undergo the repetitive educational then work system in order to be able to survive in the modern day, though if none of us did that then we'd be more primitive and in a spot of bother. OP doesn't seem to mind.

why would survival be easy? many creatures are born into much harsher lives than those that typical humans live. many people get by while maintaining souls. but yeah, that's the challenge.

[cwmbrancity]

@Zeffolia who you calling “civilised”?

isn’t there some Rodchenko themed porn out there mate, or could you customise some with constructivist art design & gulag themed titles. Just saying. This revolution isn’t going to make itself. To work your true will, you also need desire.

[dingformung]

 

52 minutes ago, rhmilo said:

1 hour ago, darreichungsform said:

Civilization was not a mistake. 

It was:

http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html

This is a good read. I now doubt that civilisation was not a mistake.

In the article however the focus is mostly on the bad effects agriculture had on humanity. I think there might be green sorts of automated agriculture in the future that solve a lot of these problems, and a lot of them have already been solved. Civilisation can turn out not to be a mistake in the end (and as your article states already has in a lot of fields), if it manages to minimise global class inequality, which will not happen in near future, since our current systems are dependent on it. But who knows, maybe climate change destroys organised humanity and we become hunters and gatherers again.

 

 

[zkom]

2 minutes ago, darreichungsform said:

But who knows, maybe climate change destroys organised humanity and we become hunters and gatherers again.

For me it's hard to see that we would regress all the back to hunter gatherers. Yes, maybe to pre-industrial times because if the supply chains get too damaged it can lead to a technological collapse and energy crisis and that could render modern technology useless over time because there is no electricity, fuel or materials to repair broken products or make new ones. But in general civilization is a kind of virus that once you catch it it's very hard to get rid of because even the basic things of civilization like farming, animal husbandry, worker specialization, trade, etc give you major advantages over hunter gatherers roaming huge areas of land just searching for food. Once the civilization sparks off somewhere it spreads engulfing the neighboring land areas and peoples just by being more efficient way to use the available resources like land and work force.

[auxien]

8 hours ago, Zeffolia said:

to turn our very souls into material objects for consumption by others

someone’s taking Come To Daddy too literally. it’s just a song m8, Rich ain’t really want to eat your soul

[dingformung]

14 minutes ago, zkom said:

34 minutes ago, darreichungsform said:

But who knows, maybe climate change destroys organised humanity and we become hunters and gatherers again.

For me it's hard to see that we would regress all the back to hunter gatherers. Yes, maybe to pre-industrial times because if the supply chains get too damaged it can lead to a technological collapse and energy crisis and that could render modern technology useless over time because there is no electricity, fuel or materials to repair broken products or make new ones. But in general civilization is a kind of virus that once you catch it it's very hard to get rid of because even the basic things of civilization like farming, animal husbandry, worker specialization, trade, etc give you major advantages over hunter gatherers roaming huge areas of land just searching for food. Once the civilization sparks off somewhere it spreads engulfing the neighboring land areas and peoples just by being more efficient way to use the available resources like land and work force.

That's a good reason we shouldn't let civilisation deteriorate so that a shittier version of civilisation can replace it later after millions died. Better transform it. Drop all the madness, invest in green tech, figure out socially and ecologically responsible trading relationships and supply chains etc.

[zkom]

14 minutes ago, darreichungsform said:

That's a good reason we shouldn't let civilisation deteriorate so that a shittier version of civilisation can replace it later after millions died. Better transform it. Drop all the madness, invest in green tech, figure out socially and ecologically responsible trading relationships and supply chains etc.

The problem is that the supply chains are now ridiculously long. Even something as simple as a pencil has multiple supply chains to make all the parts starting from the mines and oil based plastics to refineries to handle the raw materials to individual parts being manufactured in multiple different locations and all these steps need energy and specialized machinery and tools that all have their own supply chains. And this is just for a simple pencil. Something like a solar panel or a windmill is much more complicated and might require some rare earth metals that might all come from a few mines in the world.

Replacing them fast is hard under capitalism because everything is optimized by the immediate cost during the next fiscal quarter or year. And cost optimization was what gave the rise to this system.

[markedone]

9 hours ago, goDel said:

Wait, Zeff is Ninja! I didn't realize. But it makes so much sense.

Love the dark side of the moon shorts, bro!

naw, ninja is ninja.  zef is what they call their style, music, etc.  note, my only knowledge comes from this viddy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q77YBmtd2Rw

 

edit: oh you meant zeff.  but that cant be, hes obviously richard

[ignatius]

 

[Zephyr_Nova]

Civilization was deliberate.

[dingformung]

6 minutes ago, Zephyr_Nova said:

Civilization was deliberate.

No

[Brisbot]

IDK the Civilization games are pretty good. Played Civ 3 as a kid and loved it and pretty much every game after has been good to great. So I don't know what there is to get worked up about, Sid Meier is a genius.

[ignatius]

I hope Boards of Canada use this thread to announce new album. 

 

[YangYing]

boc pls

[zlemflolia]

2 hours ago, zkom said:

For me it's hard to see that we would regress all the back to hunter gatherers. Yes, maybe to pre-industrial times because if the supply chains get too damaged it can lead to a technological collapse and energy crisis and that could render modern technology useless over time because there is no electricity, fuel or materials to repair broken products or make new ones. But in general civilization is a kind of virus that once you catch it it's very hard to get rid of because even the basic things of civilization like farming, animal husbandry, worker specialization, trade, etc give you major advantages over hunter gatherers roaming huge areas of land just searching for food. Once the civilization sparks off somewhere it spreads engulfing the neighboring land areas and peoples just by being more efficient way to use the available resources like land and work force.

Very well said.  A mental virus and a virus of the body.  It becomes accustomed to certain things which, if it never experienced, it would have been fine without.