Imagine it’s 7500bce… Most humans are still hunter gatherers but in a few places people have started banding together to form cities. The world is savage, hard, and dangerous. Life is short and cheap, and just like chimpanzees today don’t feel any moral qualms about murdering rival troop members, humans hadn’t really evolved socially to the point of thinking of all humans as inherently “special” or worthy of life… Some could say we still haven’t all evolved to this point.

In that context what we were left with was a bunch of sociopaths. And no wonder. Most people would be somewhat sociopathic if their siblings died in infancy or were carried off to be slaves or eaten by wolves, their parents were murdered in front of them, their village was slaughtered and burned, etc. So these city people, and soon the surrounding people’s, saw sociopathic behavior as normal and even something to be worshipped. (Again, some of us still do)

Sociopaths don’t hesitate to harm other people to increase their own power and wealth, even when they don’t really need anything more to live comfortably. In a world where might makes right, this was a huge advantage and the most horrible and brutal sociopaths rose to become kings of their city states.

There is some evidence that hunter gatherers groups would occasionally get a sociopath among them, but more often than not that person would be shunned and banished from the family. It was only when cities became a thing that there were tons of people from many families, so even if you’re family kicked you out, you could just find other sociopaths who had been kicked out, and together you could just kill anyone who denied you.

There’s also the fact that as soon as people started settling down and using agriculture to create excess food, the hunter gatherers around them started trying to take that food because hey, free food. So then you need to start defending your food stores, and again sociopaths rise to the top because they are the most ruthless “defenders”.

Those sociopathic traits continued in the ruling class throughout all of human pre history and history. Right down to today where people continue to worship the sociopaths like Musk, Trump, or even Hillary. It’s a childish thought process of “my dad can beat up your dad”, which makes me feel safer, even if sometimes my dad also beats me.

Edit: just to add that the only reason we can even have this conversation is because, for the first time in human history, large swaths of the human population HAVE socially evolved to the point of recognizing innate human value, and thus can also recognize sociopathic behavior

What if we glorify horrible contemporary people because we’re taught to glorify sociopathic behavior through how we’re taught about historical horrible people?

Does your mom or sister have legal custody of you?

Don’t get married before you’re 25

Around 30 years old your body stops healing, injuries are just things you live with forever now, and old injuries you thought had healed come back as forever pain… just keep that in mind when doing stupid shit… This includes injuries to your lungs and mind from things like smoking and drugs.

If you want to help people in any way, get rich first. No one will pay you enough to live off of for helping people… Better to bring your own wealth to the table and hopefully be able to help people for real with it.

If you don’t already know how, learn to code asap… In 20 years, programming will be one of the few jobs left… Maybe

Democrats=liberals and they aren’t “left”, they are only left of conservatives, and even then, only on social issues. Dems/libs are conservatives when it comes to fiscal/economic stuff. Which is why the true left has no representation in the US when it comes to the economy, and the 2 capitalist conservative parties will never allow them to have any.

Fear… At the bottom of it is always fear

Mental health crisis clinician: dementia is not considered a “mental health” issue

Also, we can’t force people to get help just because they are acting wildly “crazy”… Even if it’s clearly psychosis, mania, etc. Even if the cops are getting called everyday because the person keeps trashing stores or harassing people. (And, in my state, the cops aren’t allowed to arrest them either, BECAUSE the behavior is due to mental illness).

There’s some serious issues with our mental health system in the US.

?

Technically the choice exists for them… But if they’re never introduced to it can they be expected to know it exists? If every single person in their lives… Their parents, teachers, preachers, everyone they see on TV… Only ever feed them the same crap, and any dissent is not just discouraged, but dangerous. I’m not sure they really CAN choose you know? Now, there is a lot of willful ignorance as well… Don’t get me wrong. And obviously there’s a difference between not knowing you have a choice, and actually not having a choice.

Yeah…I guess I just meant that average liberals tend to blame average conservatives instead of the rich (while average conservatives basically blame everyone who doesn’t conform to their exact ideals instead of the rich).

Not sure I agree that conservatives can both “choose” to be like they are, and also be the victims of their upbringing in a toxic system. These 2 points you made seem to be contradictory.

I agree many liberals fail to see that the average conservative is also a victim of this system, and that conservatives are brainwashed to think what they believe is a good thing.

I don’t think I made the comparison you’re saying I made. I’m sorry it came across that way. Calling out asshole conservatives for being assholes is fine as long as it’s with the understanding that they don’t know any better because the rich have them so brainwashed. And then follow it up by trying to convince them that the rich are the problem, not the immigrants etc. But to stop at blaming average conservatives, without recognizing the rich as the fundamental problem, I think, has the same end result as conservatives blaming everyone that’s even slightly different than them… No one points at the rich.

That’s a big part of it… For me the smoking gun is building 7

That’s certainly a part of it

Yeah… The official theory from the Bush administration= a conspiracy theory… It defies logic and physics. Check it out if you’re interested

The official 9/11 conspiracy theory… Literally would need to change the laws of physics for it to be true

And on the liberal side they do the same thing except conservatives are the scape goat. Super frustrating.

Maybe we just need a mental competency exam of some kind… Like, I think Bernie is still thinking pretty clearly, but Trump, Boebert and Greene? Literally mentally ill… And not just to pick on Republicans; Biden is clearly senile, Clinton is clearly a sociopath

Should make voting a week long thing so people have more time to go. The last day should be a national holiday.

And have to live in section 8 housing while in DC

I would also say he’d need to make sure those subsidies actually went to innovation and growth and not just in fat cat’s pockets.

That’s my understanding too… I meant OP personally. What level of UBI do you support?