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Some Things Never Change


Justin_Case001

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I wrote this about six weeks ago.  Just been sitting on it until today.

I've been enjoying a show on Netflix called Reign.  It's a historical drama about the royal French court in the middle ages.  I don't know how much of it is accurate and how much is made up.  It's certainly dramatized to be fun, but it's loosely based on real people and events.  I'd describe as being like Game of Thrones mixed with a soap opera.  It's kinda silly and melodramatic, but it's fun.  I like it.

But there's something that repeatedly jumps out at me as I watch the show, and that's just what an absolutely brutal world it was.  Again, I know the show probably isn't very historically accurate, but I also know that the world definitely was absolutely brutal in those days.  It was hell.  It was absolute carnage.  People are killed right and left on that show for no reason at all.  At any minute of any day or night, a posse from an opposing faith could ride into your village and burn it to the ground, or the king's guard could ride into your village and do the exact same thing on the king's orders.  People are assassinated right and left, people are imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and killed for talking back to the king, people are killed for believing in the wrong god, or for believing in the right god but not in the exact way as their neighbor, and people are sent off to die in needless, pointless wars of aggression.  There was even a scene where a ship of 200 people was blown up in a completely preventable accident, all for basically a publicity stunt, and no one really batted an eye.  I mean, they were outraged at first, but by the next day it was more or less forgotten and back to business as usual.

I just regularly find myself thinking--how on Earth did anybody live like that?!  How did they live amidst such constant, brutal carnage??  How were they okay with that?  How did they let it go on for so long?  It's just mind-boggling, right?  Then I loaded a youtube page and saw the endless videos on the recent Uvalde, Texas school shooting, and the Russia-Ukraine war, and I went, "Oh."  :sunny:

Yeah, I was setting up that punch line, in case you couldn't tell.  The fact is that we're living in the world of Reign, but with bullets and smartphones instead of swords and parchments.  Absolutely nothing has changed except for the technology.  We've increased firepower and connected the world with the internet, but we haven't grown up.  Nothing has changed.  Absolutely f*cking nothing.  We're still killing each other for no reason, we're still waging senseless, needless wars of aggression, we're still murdering each other for having a little too much melanin, or for loving someone who others don't think we should love, and we're still slaughtering each other for not worshiping exactly the right god in exactly the right way, but instead of riding into a village on horseback with swords and torches, we're using guns, bombs, and jumbo jets.  I often feel like the only thing that's been accomplished in the history of human civilization is that we've just created better, faster, and more efficient ways to kill each other.

Will it ever be enough?  Will anything ever change?  Will it ever get better?  I fear not.  It seems that this is just what humans are.  We can't be any better.  We're just murderous, savage beasts, and it fills me so utterly with despair that sometimes I just sit and stare for hours, or lay in my bed and pretend that I'm dead because I can't bear the weight of the world.  WhyWhy does it have to be like this?

 

This was an extremely depressing, pessimistic entry, and I hope I don't get in trouble for flirting with controversial topics.  I'm not debating religion, politics, or guns.  I'm not taking sides or arguing any controversial viewpoints, and I'll thank you to do the same.  I'm simply wondering why the world has to be an endless blood bath, and if there's anything we can ever do about it.

Edited by Justin_Case001

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This may be interesting to you:

 

People cannot change overnight. People are violent probably because of evolution as well (imagine a purely pacifist tribe 10000 years ago - they would quickly be killed by their more violent neighbors).

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You know this, but that is an over simplification, painted with broad brushes. I don't mean this as a criticism, but I mean it to try to point out a better point of view. If 1 person in 1,000 does something bad, it does not mean that all of society is bad. Perhaps the only thing we can do is do the best that we can do on an individual basis. There will never be a superman who will come in and fix it all. In fact, I would be very suspicious of someone who claims that they can. The world cannot be made perfect, but maybe it can be made better. Just handle what you can handle and don't try to take on a burden that is beyond you. 

Also, I'm not a fan of historical dramas, because I would confuse fact with fiction. I either want total fiction, or I would read a book.

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Gosh, I feel your pain. I'm incredibly sensitive so I tend to wince with sympathy for those who suffered.
You know, it was like a video game. The older ones were modern creations of their time! Revolutionary! But when you look back at it now... you're like "eww it's so jarring and jagged! Did I really have a crush on that PIXEL FACED CHARACTER?!" 

It's very depression, yes. And I'm sorry that this is something we all have to look back on in our history...

But at the same time... it is truly a testament to how far humans have come. Clearly we were not happy with those events! And what did we do? We strived for a better day. You are a product of your ancestors reaching for a new and better life.... So there's the silver lining and the sun behind the dark cloud for me.

And hey, don't feel bad about sharing your deep thoughts. I loved reading your feedback on the show.... and while I may be a tad bit too sensitive for it, I'm sure it's got a lot of philosophical and moral compasses to contemplate...:dash:

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I watched Heavy Metal 2000 recently. The hero says her people’s history was destroyed so that they could start fresh. Another character points out that forgetting history means you will repeat the problems of the past.

This mirrors the opposing philosophies of our real world. There is a belief that we, as a whole society, are forever guilty of the sins of the past. The insidiousness of this belief is that you, as an individual, are now forever guilty no matter what. The powers-that-be can invoke this original sin, and guilt you into doing things. They can also sub divide all of humanity into whatever convenient pieces they need, put you into that group, and customize your guilt.

An important part of this mind control is getting you to take on the duties of blaming yourself. You find things to be guilty for, all on your own. This is done by portraying X as bad and forever guilty. Where X is whatever sub group is relevant for the issue, and X defaults to “all of humanity” if there is no specific topic being considered in the moment.

This is an inherently self-destructive philosophy. As stated, this original sin can never be forgiven or reconciled. The powers-that-be want a Great Reset, which will ostensibly right all the wrongs of history. You will happily sacrifice whatever you have to pay for these sins, with the belief that you will finally be able to get on with your life, guilt free. Of course this is a scam. Your sins will never be forgiven. The next generation will continue to blame you for the sins of your ancestors. Your children will be required to pay reparations for sins committed hundreds of years before you were born. Your children’s children will be required to do the same, ad infinitum.

I submit to you that you are not guilty of things that happened hundreds of years before you were born.

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On 2022-07-16 at 9:02 AM, Patriotic Brony 42 said:

You know this, but that is an over simplification, painted with broad brushes.

Oh yeah, I know.  It was kinda meant to be.

On 2022-07-18 at 3:28 PM, Patriotic Brony 42 said:

I submit to you that you are not guilty of things that happened hundreds of years before you were born.

Yeah, total agreement there.  I wish everyone felt that way.

On 2022-07-15 at 8:36 PM, Pentium100 said:

This may be interesting to you:

Heh, I've already seen that one!  :laugh:  And yeah, it is encouraging, but it's nearly impossible for the discouragement from all of the carnage not to outweigh it.  I fully realize how our brains are constantly being gamed by violence and outrage in media.  I realize that bad news gets more clicks and more attention, and that a grizzly school shooting is extremely emotionally compelling, while at the same time, a bunch of numbers and statistics about how violence has declined over time isn't nearly as provocative.  The encouraging statistics don't capture and hold our attention the way images of grieving parents of dead school children does.  I realize that in order to function in life, we have to try to keep the bad news in perspective as much as we can, and try to remind ourselves of the logic of the encouraging statistics, but that's much easier said than done.  I'm a very empathetic person, and the violence and horror affects me very deeply.

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1 hour ago, Justin_Case001 said:

  I realize that bad news gets more clicks and more attention

Yes. There are no news in "plane takes off and goes to the destination with no problems" and "school xyz did not have anything bad happen in 10 years".

TV and especially the internet shrinks the world. Even 150 years ago, new traveled slow and 10000 years ago it was even slower. You basically only found out about something if it happened in your town or village or if it was something really significant. Our brains are evolved to handle this, not TV. However, now I can easily find out about events that happened 10000km away from me in a place that I'll probably never visit. Logically, I understand that, say, a school shooting in the US has zero relevance to my life and to the lives and safety of the people around me. However, it still feels like it happened "someplace near", maybe a school near me.

1 hour ago, Justin_Case001 said:

The encouraging statistics don't capture and hold our attention the way images of grieving parents of dead school children does.

Because it is much more important to remember that one member of your tribe got eaten by a bear in this forest than the fact that you and your tribe went to this forest thousands of times without meeting a bear or that more people were eaten in the past and actually the forest is getting safer. It does not matter - it is still dangerous.

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