Difference between revisions of "Directives for after Point Omega"
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== Introduction == | == Introduction == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' This paper was written at the request of Victor Koekkoek. Reading the other materials on this Wiki, he was missing a clear summary of what are the implications of all this novel information for those who carry responsibility for how society is ran and guided. | |
+ | In other words: What are the implications for the intelligent part of our leaders ? | ||
+ | And he was right. For most people the materials on this Wiki are too difficult to grasp. Most people are only capable of thinking what the majority of the herd is thinking. We are social animals after all. Most people are not curious enough and not intelligent enough to address the issues that really matter. And that holds a fortiori in this period of time, when much of the information, presented here, has not yet found its way to the pool of common knowledge and wisdom. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Therefore this paper is written as an aid for that part of our leaders that have the capacity to grasp the essence of the issues as presented on this Wiki and that have the gumption to think "out of the box", trying to figure out the best guidance for human society. | ||
+ | |||
+ | After discussing the implications for the different realms of society, this paper will end with a listing of suggested priorities for any persons who find themselves in positions of responsibility. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This chapter, "Directives for after Point Omega", is placed after "A guided tour through the Omega Research Wiki" and after "Why a Point Omega transition ?". | ||
The reason is that for understanding this way of summarizing of the situation of mankind, one needs to have understood the basics of several notions that these days are not yet part of our cultural heritage and common awareness, but that are nevertheless indispensable for assessing the most important dangers, options and opportunities that humanity is faced with these days. | The reason is that for understanding this way of summarizing of the situation of mankind, one needs to have understood the basics of several notions that these days are not yet part of our cultural heritage and common awareness, but that are nevertheless indispensable for assessing the most important dangers, options and opportunities that humanity is faced with these days. | ||
+ | Without knowing the facts, there is no useful assessment possible. | ||
− | + | In short, this Wiki communicates bits of information that already have each become available in different, specific circles of specialists, but that have not yet reached the status of common knowledge, but that we nevertheless consider here as indispensable for a proper understanding. | |
− | Some of the bits and pieces of information that we need here, have in previous years already been published separately in scientific papers, each of which is dealing with one of those specific fields of interest and research. In such cases it is indicated in the chapters in question. But these pieces of information are at best known to the limited circle of specialists in those specific scientific research fields, and not to the public at large. | + | Some of the bits and pieces of information that we need here, have in previous years already been published by ourselves, separately in scientific papers, each of which is dealing with one of those specific fields of interest and research. In such cases it is indicated in the chapters in question. But these pieces of information are at best known to the limited circle of specialists in those specific separate scientific research fields, and not to the public at large. |
− | Other pieces of information | + | Other pieces of information have not yet been published in scientific papers, but are nevertheless based on thorough research. |
− | Still other contributions consist of general discussions about combining various of such bits and pieces of information and about investigating what emerges from such a combining of different fields of research. | + | Still other contributions on this Wiki consist of general discussions about combining various of such bits and pieces of information and about investigating what emerges from such a combining of different fields of research. |
All these bits and pieces are needed in order to come to a comprehensible total picture of the present human situation. None of the presented issues can be missed, or the complete picture will fail to emerge. | All these bits and pieces are needed in order to come to a comprehensible total picture of the present human situation. None of the presented issues can be missed, or the complete picture will fail to emerge. | ||
− | For the above reasons it is indispensable to already have taken notice of most of these separate issues, dealt with in the various | + | For the above reasons it is indispensable to already have taken notice of most of these separate issues, dealt with in the various papers on this Wiki, in order to be able to grasp what led us to the conclusions and advices as formulated in the paragraphs below. |
− | In case a reader wishes to first take notice of the advices and the directives below, before having grasped all the different issues in question as | + | In case a reader wishes to first take notice of the advices and the directives below, before having grasped the details of all the different issues in question as dealt with in one of the other articles on this Wiki, we have added in the text below links to where for each separate issue additional explanation can be found. |
− | What the reader should at least be familiar with before continuing to read the below, is what is meant with the term "Point Omega transition" ([[Omega Research:About#Definitions of "Point Omega"|see e.g. here]] | + | What the reader should at least be familiar with before continuing to read the below, is what is meant with the term "Point Omega transition" ([[Omega Research:About#Definitions of "Point Omega"|see e.g. here]](*) and [[Self-blindness_in_humans_as_prerequisite_for_the_evolution_of_advanced_intelligence#Point_Omega|here]](*)). |
− | In case the reader has read and digested | + | In case the reader has read and digested the chapter "[[A guided tour through the Omega Research Wiki|A guided tour through the Omega Research Wiki(*)]]" and has taken notice of the underlying argumentation in the chapters referred to there, it should be possible to also grasp the message in the paragraphs below. |
== Lost perspectives, . . . . . what next ? == | == Lost perspectives, . . . . . what next ? == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' Right now, in the beginning of the 21st century AD, we are living in a period in which the greater ideological movements have lost most of their appeal. | |
All great religions suffer from believers moving towards a secularized position, stopping to behave like meek sheep. Disbelief and denial of superstition rule the day. | All great religions suffer from believers moving towards a secularized position, stopping to behave like meek sheep. Disbelief and denial of superstition rule the day. | ||
− | Not only the great religions lose their influence and control over their people, also the greater political idealistic systems encounter more and more critique and scepticism. The communist system has lost the cold war competition and thus lost most of its credibility. But also the capitalist system is encountering more and more scepticism from its citizens, who recognize the obvious shortcomings of blind capitalism that follows the basic principles of the survival of the fittest in an economic sense. Many feel that this competitive system does not support its people well enough and that in the capitalist societies, and not only there, the majority of "losers" in the competitive societal structure are locked into a more or less hopeless struggle for survival. They may survive, or at least many of them, but hardly with any hopes for a pleasant future. | + | Not only the great religions lose their influence and control over their people, also the greater political idealistic systems encounter more and more critique and scepticism. The communist system has lost the cold war competition and thus lost most of its credibility. But also the capitalist system is encountering more and more scepticism from its citizens, who recognize the obvious shortcomings of blind capitalism that follows the basic principles of the survival of the fittest in an economic sense. Many feel that this competitive system does not support its people well enough and that in the capitalist societies, and not only there, the majority of "losers" in the competitive societal structure are locked into a more or less hopeless struggle for survival. They may survive, or at least many of them, but hardly with any hopes for a pleasant future for themselves or at least for their offspring. |
More and more people resent society treating them like slaves without any prospect for liberation or an otherwise agreeable life. And that also holds for the western "democratic" and "enlightened" societies, not only for those "backward" societies elsewhere in the world, that are widely recognized as repressive, dictatorial and totalitarian, suffering from unpredictable arbitrariness and cruelty. | More and more people resent society treating them like slaves without any prospect for liberation or an otherwise agreeable life. And that also holds for the western "democratic" and "enlightened" societies, not only for those "backward" societies elsewhere in the world, that are widely recognized as repressive, dictatorial and totalitarian, suffering from unpredictable arbitrariness and cruelty. | ||
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This Wiki is dedicated to showing that, despite this ever more widely felt hopelessness, such a novel perspective is very well possible and in fact that the total of available data suggests that an enormous shift in human perspective is at hand, called here the [[Omega Research:About#Definitions of "Point Omega"|Point Omega transition.]] | This Wiki is dedicated to showing that, despite this ever more widely felt hopelessness, such a novel perspective is very well possible and in fact that the total of available data suggests that an enormous shift in human perspective is at hand, called here the [[Omega Research:About#Definitions of "Point Omega"|Point Omega transition.]] | ||
− | And that once the Point Omega transition has started, the sought after perspective will present itself automatically and unavoidably. This perspective will fill the gap and it will bring purpose where now hopelessness rules [[Self-blindness_in_humans_as_prerequisite_for_the_evolution_of_advanced_intelligence#Point_Omega|(see here for a description of the Point Omega concept)]]. | + | And that once the Point Omega transition has started, the sought after perspective will present itself automatically and unavoidably. This perspective will fill the gap and it will bring purpose where now hopelessness rules [[Self-blindness_in_humans_as_prerequisite_for_the_evolution_of_advanced_intelligence#Point_Omega|(see here'''(*)''' for a description of the Point Omega concept)]]. |
After Point Omega namely, humanity finds itself in a totally novel situation. We will have left the millennia long era in which consciousness has gradually been evolving up to this Point Omega and instead we will have entered the situation of "conscious evolution", the beginning of which is basically what Point Omega is all about. | After Point Omega namely, humanity finds itself in a totally novel situation. We will have left the millennia long era in which consciousness has gradually been evolving up to this Point Omega and instead we will have entered the situation of "conscious evolution", the beginning of which is basically what Point Omega is all about. | ||
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Having sorted out in this Wiki most theoretical issues that we need to know in order to assess our situation properly and correctly, we can now come to a listing of what is awaiting us, which options we do have and which options do not exist or otherwise are "no go" areas and what would be the most clever issues to work on, in order to make our coming transition as smooth as possible. | Having sorted out in this Wiki most theoretical issues that we need to know in order to assess our situation properly and correctly, we can now come to a listing of what is awaiting us, which options we do have and which options do not exist or otherwise are "no go" areas and what would be the most clever issues to work on, in order to make our coming transition as smooth as possible. | ||
− | Before starting with a listing of useful directives as given [[Directives_for_after_Point_Omega#Priorities_for_an_action_list|further below]], it seems useful to first rehearse the most important findings of the research reported elsewhere on this Wiki, findings that we will have to take into account when ruminating how our future will going to be shaped. With each of these findings a link is given to where on this Wiki more information | + | Before starting with a listing of useful directives as given [[Directives_for_after_Point_Omega#Priorities_for_an_action_list|further below]], it seems useful to first rehearse the most important findings of the research reported elsewhere on this Wiki, findings that we will have to take into account when ruminating how our future will going to be shaped. With each of these findings a link is given to where on this Wiki more information can be found about each specific issue. |
== New facts we need to take into account == | == New facts we need to take into account == | ||
− | + | '''(**)''' | |
+ | |||
* Human beings have strikingly little capacity to understand their own or each other's behaviour. As a consequence human beings behave essentially like other Apes behave, no matter their intellectual pretense. We can call this phenomenon [[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence|'''Self-Blindness''']](*). | * Human beings have strikingly little capacity to understand their own or each other's behaviour. As a consequence human beings behave essentially like other Apes behave, no matter their intellectual pretense. We can call this phenomenon [[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence|'''Self-Blindness''']](*). | ||
− | * At the cognitive level Human beings utilize an important tool to consolidate that Self-Blindness, which is the '''Good-Bad''' polarity. Good-Bad differences refer not to any real behavioural differences, although people tend to think that they do. But in reality good-bad differences refer to different likings or appreciations from the side of the onlooker or "judge" that serve to stabilize existing ideas (prejudices) of one person about the other. The Good-Bad dimension therefore stabilizes social relationships while preventing (effectively shielding off) any understanding of the real social mechanisms involved. It helps ascertain that human beings keep acting socially to a large extent like other Great Apes. And the latter is crucial for the continuation of procreation | + | * At the cognitive level Human beings utilize an important tool to consolidate that Self-Blindness, which is the '''Good-Bad''' polarity. Good-Bad differences refer not to any real behavioural differences, although people tend to think that they do. But in reality good-bad differences refer to different likings or appreciations from the side of the onlooker or "judge" that serve to stabilize existing ideas (prejudices) of one person about the other. The Good-Bad dimension therefore stabilizes social relationships while preventing (effectively shielding off) any understanding of the real social mechanisms involved. It helps ascertain that human beings keep acting socially to a large extent like other Great Apes. And the latter is crucial for the continuation of procreation and evolutionary success. Until this moment in our evolution this [[Eating_from_the_Forbidden_Fruit#The_illusory_aspects_of_the_Positive.2Fnegative_or_Good.2FBad_dimension|illusory Good-Bad tool]](**) was an indispensable attribute for mankind's survival. |
* '''Self-Blindness''' has evolved in Homo sapiens as a consequence of, or rather as '''[[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence|a condition for higher intelligence]]'''(*). | * '''Self-Blindness''' has evolved in Homo sapiens as a consequence of, or rather as '''[[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence|a condition for higher intelligence]]'''(*). | ||
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== From fact-finding to courses of action == | == From fact-finding to courses of action == | ||
− | + | '''(**)''' Thus we memorized above the most important novel facts that we have to take into account for understanding the present human situation properly. These facts, that were either unknown or that were out of the focus of our attention, we now do need to be aware of in order to be able to design our future course, for the options that we have, and for the actions that we may decide to take as a consequence. | |
− | These novel bits of extra information, the formerly unknown facts and the already known facts that were not in the focus of our attention, together with a number of generally well known facts that already were part of our cultural heritage, led us to the conclusion that we are at the brink of a major transition in the evolution of mankind, which transition point we labeled as Point Omega. | + | These novel bits of extra information, the formerly unknown facts and the already known facts that were not in the focus of our attention, together with a number of generally well known facts that already were part of our cultural heritage, [[Why a Point Omega transition ?|led us to the conclusion(*)]] that we are at the brink of a major transition in the evolution of mankind, in fact the largest revolutionary transition in the whole of Human Evolution, which transition point we labeled as Point Omega. |
Having become aware of the above mentioned novel bits of information, we can now start to discuss a number of issues that each will play a completely different role in our existence, once we will have moved from the pre-Point-Omega condition to the post-Point-Omega situation. For it is mankind's moving through the transition of Point Omega that will change the role and the importance of each of the discussed phenomena. Below, we will now first discuss a number of such key issues one by one, viewing each issue from both perspectives, the actual, pre-Point-Omega perspective and the coming post-Point-Omega perspective. | Having become aware of the above mentioned novel bits of information, we can now start to discuss a number of issues that each will play a completely different role in our existence, once we will have moved from the pre-Point-Omega condition to the post-Point-Omega situation. For it is mankind's moving through the transition of Point Omega that will change the role and the importance of each of the discussed phenomena. Below, we will now first discuss a number of such key issues one by one, viewing each issue from both perspectives, the actual, pre-Point-Omega perspective and the coming post-Point-Omega perspective. | ||
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One general consideration that we should keep in mind while trying to find our way, is that '''scientific thinking will replace traditional superstitions'''. But, that is what will happen at the surface. Below the surface, within ourselves, as part of our system of feelings, emotions and motivations, it is that '''curiosity will''' increasingly '''replace fear''' as the all-determining factor in our lives. That is what the over-all picture of the theory of Point Omega predicts. That is what can be derived from the detailed knowledge as is presented elsewhere on this Wiki. The all pervading neuroticising structure of the old society will more and more give way to the emergence of curiosity and creative impulses. And since those differences are very [[Energy_and_Strokes#10._.22Contagiousness.22_of_Interpersonal_Psychological_Skills_and_Adaptation|contagious]], those changes will happen with the increasing speed of a chain reaction and with an unexpected rapidness. | One general consideration that we should keep in mind while trying to find our way, is that '''scientific thinking will replace traditional superstitions'''. But, that is what will happen at the surface. Below the surface, within ourselves, as part of our system of feelings, emotions and motivations, it is that '''curiosity will''' increasingly '''replace fear''' as the all-determining factor in our lives. That is what the over-all picture of the theory of Point Omega predicts. That is what can be derived from the detailed knowledge as is presented elsewhere on this Wiki. The all pervading neuroticising structure of the old society will more and more give way to the emergence of curiosity and creative impulses. And since those differences are very [[Energy_and_Strokes#10._.22Contagiousness.22_of_Interpersonal_Psychological_Skills_and_Adaptation|contagious]], those changes will happen with the increasing speed of a chain reaction and with an unexpected rapidness. | ||
− | In the below, non exhaustive, listing, some issues are presented, in the form of rules that will apply, others in the form of well known, but until now badly understood or difficult to realize admonitions, each of which issues will get a completely new reality value in the new situation. Each consideration in this listing leads to a course of action. We will now present here in the below chapters 12 such courses of action. And at the end we will summarize the suggested courses of action in a listing of priorities. That may be an indication for us where we now had best put most of our attention and energy. | + | In the below, non exhaustive, listing, some issues are presented, in the form of rules that will apply, others in the form of well known, but until now badly understood or difficult to realize admonitions, each of which issues will get a completely new reality value in the new situation. Each consideration in this listing leads to a course of action. We will now present here in the below chapters 12 such courses of action. And at the end we will summarize the suggested courses of action in a listing of priorities. That listing may be an indication for us where we now had best put most of our attention and energy. |
12 considerations: | 12 considerations: | ||
− | - Democratization of education | + | - [[https://wiki.omega-research.org/Directives_for_after_Point_Omega#New_facts_we_need_to_take_into_account|Democratization of education]] |
− | - | + | -[[https://wiki.omega-research.org/Directives_for_after_Point_Omega#New_facts_we_need_to_take_into_account%7CDemocratization of Information|]] |
- Procreating consciously | - Procreating consciously | ||
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== Democratization of education == | == Democratization of education == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' The first issue is about the optimization of educational opportunities. | |
Power structures lean among other things on an information privilege. Youngsters from privileged classes enjoy more opportunities for study and for personal development than do youngsters from the working class. This situation does have a number of advantages for the structures in power. It stabilizes the position of power of the persons manning the power structure control positions, keeping control positions "in the family". Privileged wealth is one of the driving stimuli to keep this pattern going. | Power structures lean among other things on an information privilege. Youngsters from privileged classes enjoy more opportunities for study and for personal development than do youngsters from the working class. This situation does have a number of advantages for the structures in power. It stabilizes the position of power of the persons manning the power structure control positions, keeping control positions "in the family". Privileged wealth is one of the driving stimuli to keep this pattern going. | ||
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== Transparency == | == Transparency == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' The second issue is about transparency. | |
Transparency is a key issue in the transition to the post-Point-Omega world. Transparency combines with honesty, but not with counterfeit and fraud. Powerstructures heavily lean on information advantages and on keeping the ruled masses unaware of what is really going on. The more ignorant the subdued masses, the easier it is to keep exercising power over them. Power structures in general prefer to keep information privileges in place. Transparency often is poison to their power games and (hidden) ruling techniques. | Transparency is a key issue in the transition to the post-Point-Omega world. Transparency combines with honesty, but not with counterfeit and fraud. Powerstructures heavily lean on information advantages and on keeping the ruled masses unaware of what is really going on. The more ignorant the subdued masses, the easier it is to keep exercising power over them. Power structures in general prefer to keep information privileges in place. Transparency often is poison to their power games and (hidden) ruling techniques. | ||
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== Procreating consciously == | == Procreating consciously == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' The third issue is about procreation. | |
There is no need to receive children with handicaps, nor to produce them. Parents, and also governments with all their guidance potential, have a responsibility towards newborn life. '''Every newborn is entitled to be wished for and to be received with joy and love'''. This includes the parental care for the quality of the new life, also in the planning phase. Medical and biological knowledge and skills make suffering from innate defects large and by unnecessary from Point Omega on. | There is no need to receive children with handicaps, nor to produce them. Parents, and also governments with all their guidance potential, have a responsibility towards newborn life. '''Every newborn is entitled to be wished for and to be received with joy and love'''. This includes the parental care for the quality of the new life, also in the planning phase. Medical and biological knowledge and skills make suffering from innate defects large and by unnecessary from Point Omega on. | ||
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== Avoiding Good-Bad social reflexes == | == Avoiding Good-Bad social reflexes == | ||
− | + | '''(**)''' The fourth issue is dealing with our illusions about "Good" and "Bad". | |
The ability to avoid being trapped by the tendency to indulge in Positive versus Negative Evaluation is likely to be a prerequisite for manipulating [[The biological instability of social equilibria|population- and group-cycles]] at will. And since human population- and group-dynamics tend to be worked out nowadays at the level of economic strangling techniques, genocide and (nuclear) war, the skill of controlling such population-dynamic forces would seem to be a prerequisite for man's survival. | The ability to avoid being trapped by the tendency to indulge in Positive versus Negative Evaluation is likely to be a prerequisite for manipulating [[The biological instability of social equilibria|population- and group-cycles]] at will. And since human population- and group-dynamics tend to be worked out nowadays at the level of economic strangling techniques, genocide and (nuclear) war, the skill of controlling such population-dynamic forces would seem to be a prerequisite for man's survival. | ||
− | The positive-negative dimension, Good versus Bad, does not relate to actual behaviour. Still, people think it does. This phenomenon is one of the most striking examples of man's innate Blindness for the Self. The Good-Bad dimension is a very effective veil for hiding human behavioural reality from awareness. One of the mechanisms | + | The positive-negative dimension, Good versus Bad, does not relate to actual behaviour. Still, people think it does. This phenomenon is one of the most striking examples of man's innate Blindness for the Self. The Good-Bad dimension is a very effective veil for hiding human behavioural reality from awareness. One of the mechanisms is the built in time bomb within every social structure, making sure that the life span of any social structure is only limited and in the end causing catastrophic turn over events like break down through ossification, bankruptcies, revolutions, genocides, political collapse, etc. For the people involved these catastrophic events are highly unpleasant and problematic, but the (historical) biological and evolutionary advantages have been amply explained [[The biological instability of social equilibria|elsewhere on this Wiki.]](***) The evolutionary usefulness of these built in catastrophes is clear. |
The proximate mechanism fueling these cyclic selection mechanisms is the involuntary selection pressure within each organizational structure in favour of the genetic roots of docility, sociablity and adaptiveness and against innovative creativity and individualism. These forces of attraction and repulsion work out on the cognitive level through the illusory [[Good_and_Bad,_an_illusory_dimension_as_the_cornerstone_of_human_personality|notions of Good and Bad]]. The Good-Bad dimension thus motors the cyclic turn over mechanisms and the periodic emergence of social catastrophes. | The proximate mechanism fueling these cyclic selection mechanisms is the involuntary selection pressure within each organizational structure in favour of the genetic roots of docility, sociablity and adaptiveness and against innovative creativity and individualism. These forces of attraction and repulsion work out on the cognitive level through the illusory [[Good_and_Bad,_an_illusory_dimension_as_the_cornerstone_of_human_personality|notions of Good and Bad]]. The Good-Bad dimension thus motors the cyclic turn over mechanisms and the periodic emergence of social catastrophes. | ||
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== Dealing with other aspects of Self-Blindness == | == Dealing with other aspects of Self-Blindness == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' Self-Blindness has been a steady trait of Homo sapiens since a couple of million years, that is, from the time the intelligence of our ancestors started to rise. A high intelligence cannot be an ESS without a special provision that blocks the application of intelligent faculties to the own behaviour. The latter is the strong and striking Self-Blindness that is such a peculiar feature of our own species. | |
The above discussed compulsive human tendency to make use of Good-Bad differences in judgments is just one of the many forms in which Self-Blindness appears. | The above discussed compulsive human tendency to make use of Good-Bad differences in judgments is just one of the many forms in which Self-Blindness appears. | ||
In the psychological research literature one can find a vast amount of issues that show specific human blindnesses in certain (other) fields of functioning. | In the psychological research literature one can find a vast amount of issues that show specific human blindnesses in certain (other) fields of functioning. | ||
− | Even on Wikipedia one can find a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases list of cognitive biases], each of which biases is another expression of the striking Blindness for the Self of Homo sapiens (see also [[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence|here]](*) for a chapter on this Wiki that is dedicated to these Self-Blindness phenomena). | + | Even on Wikipedia one can find a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases list of cognitive biases](*), each of which biases is another expression of the striking Blindness for the Self of Homo sapiens (see also [[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence|here]](*) for a chapter on this Wiki that is dedicated to these Self-Blindness phenomena). |
− | Since Self-Blindness is one of the main ingredients for the structures that keep humanity bound in slavery and neuroticism, it is of great importance, and very urgent at that, that we collectively try as quickly and as effectively as we can, to come to grips with this typically human behavioural bias. If we wish to create a more agreeable world, we do have to take this hurdle. There is no escape from that necessity. In the above mentioned chapter on this Wiki it is argued that we should start a research discipline that is fully dedicated to create clarity and scientific insight in these aspects of Self-Blindness. In [[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence#Towards "Amathology" or the science of ignorance|that chapter]] it is suggested to label such a research discipline as "Amathology" or "the science of ignorance". | + | Since Self-Blindness is one of the main ingredients for the structures that keep humanity bound in slavery and neuroticism, it is of great importance, and very urgent at that, that we collectively try as quickly and as effectively as we can, to come to grips with this typically human behavioural bias. If we wish to create a more agreeable world, we do have to take this hurdle. There is no escape from that necessity. In the above mentioned chapter on this Wiki it is argued that we should start a research discipline that is fully dedicated to create clarity and scientific insight in these aspects of Self-Blindness. In [[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence#Towards "Amathology" or the science of ignorance|that chapter]](**) it is suggested to label such a research discipline as "Amathology" or "the science of ignorance". |
It may sound outrageous at first sight to advertise such a research discipline, but it is not meant as a joke. In fact this should be considered as one of the most important issues for putting extra energy, time and attention, if we wish to stimulate a smooth transition into the post-Point-Omega world. | It may sound outrageous at first sight to advertise such a research discipline, but it is not meant as a joke. In fact this should be considered as one of the most important issues for putting extra energy, time and attention, if we wish to stimulate a smooth transition into the post-Point-Omega world. | ||
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== What about Religion == | == What about Religion == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' The sixth issue to pay attention to here is religion. | |
− | Religion is one of the areas of life where great differences will occur between the pre-Point-Omega situation and the post-Point-Omega situation. In the realm of religions great changes will inescapably occur. One of the reasons is that religions deal with peoples attitude towards life and towards society and towards fellow citizens and at the same time religions play a major, and often hidden, role in keeping people under control. Apart from being a rescue and a life vest for the struggling populace, religions in general also play a major role as tools for power structures. This dual role contributes to the confusion that religiously oriented subjects tend to suffer from. And this confusion is one of the corner stones of power structures in charge for maintaining control. | + | Religion is one of the areas of life where great differences will occur between the pre-Point-Omega situation and the post-Point-Omega situation. In the realm of religions great changes will inescapably occur. One of the reasons is that religions deal with peoples attitude towards life and towards society and towards fellow citizens and at the same time religions play a major, and often hidden, role in keeping people under control. Apart from being a rescue and a life vest for the struggling populace, religions in general also play a major role as tools for power structures. This dual role contributes to the confusion that religiously oriented subjects tend to suffer from. And this confusion is one of the corner stones of power structures in charge, for maintaining control. |
Because of these central functions in human life, religions will change in appearance and in function once all major aspects of human life are changing with the Point Omega transition. | Because of these central functions in human life, religions will change in appearance and in function once all major aspects of human life are changing with the Point Omega transition. | ||
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3) Religions also serve as a sort of life vests for neurotic and fearful people. And since the vast majority of people falls in that class of people, the life-vest function of religion has always been, and still is, crucial. | 3) Religions also serve as a sort of life vests for neurotic and fearful people. And since the vast majority of people falls in that class of people, the life-vest function of religion has always been, and still is, crucial. | ||
− | 4) The above 3 functions may seem contradictory in many respects, and they are. Religions always seem to create inextricable tangles of | + | 4) The above 3 functions may seem contradictory in many respects, and basically, they are. Religions always seem to create inextricable tangles of inexplicable complexities, that nevertheless manage to bind people within their believe systems. The pictures of the world and of peoples own existence may seem inextricably complex, but as such these pictures and views, as provided by religious beliefs, represent an ESS structure ( Evolutionarily Stable Strategies) for the power structures in place. |
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From the above we may conclude to a number of focusing points for governments to pay attention to and to invest in, like: | From the above we may conclude to a number of focusing points for governments to pay attention to and to invest in, like: | ||
− | - Discourage superstitions that are blocking science or blocking truth | + | - Discourage superstitions that are blocking science or blocking truth. |
- No worldly power should be allotted to systems of fairy tales and superstitions. | - No worldly power should be allotted to systems of fairy tales and superstitions. | ||
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− | For deciding how to deal with the differences between religious affairs before Point Omega and religious affairs after Point Omega, it is useful to | + | For deciding how to deal with the differences between religious affairs before Point Omega and religious affairs after Point Omega, it is useful to take one step back and consider the evolutionary necessities that have formed these characteristics of human life and that determine and will keep determining our options, options in personal behaviour, options in political management, and options in philosophical and ideological attitudes, including religions. |
As explained in more detail in the [[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence|''article on this Wiki about human Self-Blindness'']](*), a higher intelligence could only evolve in humans by virtue of specific built in blindnesses for our own and each other's behaviours. Human evolution has been a competition between increasing intelligence and concomitantly needed Self-Blindness needed for preventing that evolving intelligence from biting in its own tail, blocking further successful procreation and spreading of a higher intelligence through the population. As pointed out above and in [[ Eating from the Forbidden Fruit|''other articles on this Wiki'']](**), religion is a major tool to keep sufficient Self-Blindness operational for allowing higher levels of freely applicable intelligence to evolve. | As explained in more detail in the [[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence|''article on this Wiki about human Self-Blindness'']](*), a higher intelligence could only evolve in humans by virtue of specific built in blindnesses for our own and each other's behaviours. Human evolution has been a competition between increasing intelligence and concomitantly needed Self-Blindness needed for preventing that evolving intelligence from biting in its own tail, blocking further successful procreation and spreading of a higher intelligence through the population. As pointed out above and in [[ Eating from the Forbidden Fruit|''other articles on this Wiki'']](**), religion is a major tool to keep sufficient Self-Blindness operational for allowing higher levels of freely applicable intelligence to evolve. | ||
− | |||
== Co-evolution of High Intelligence and Self-Blindness, the example of the Jews == | == Co-evolution of High Intelligence and Self-Blindness, the example of the Jews == | ||
− | With respect to the above, which was the sixth issue we discuss here, it should be of interest to pay attention to one of the oldest grand religions on earth, the jewish believe system. That belief system already exists for over 3.000 years and has well survived until this day. That | + | '''(**)''' With respect to the above, which was the sixth issue we discuss here, it should be of interest to pay attention to one of the oldest grand religions on earth, the jewish believe system. That belief system already exists for over 3.000 years and has well survived until this day. That is a very exceptional feat. Most religions in the world have been in operation only locally and only for a limited period of time. In general such local religions were very ethnocentric and self-serving. |
What strikes the interested onlooker is that the jewish tribe enjoys a higher than usual average intelligence, while at the same time the religious prescriptions are more numerous and more restrictive for daily life, than is usually the case with other religions. What also strikes the attention is that the jewish race has survived quite a number of (forced) mass-migrations out of their home-territory and returning later, not loosing their ancestral religious culture. This cultural survival is not customary in most other religious systems. Tribes and races tend to disappear and or to dissolve in other peoples and tribes, their local belief systems disappearing with them. | What strikes the interested onlooker is that the jewish tribe enjoys a higher than usual average intelligence, while at the same time the religious prescriptions are more numerous and more restrictive for daily life, than is usually the case with other religions. What also strikes the attention is that the jewish race has survived quite a number of (forced) mass-migrations out of their home-territory and returning later, not loosing their ancestral religious culture. This cultural survival is not customary in most other religious systems. Tribes and races tend to disappear and or to dissolve in other peoples and tribes, their local belief systems disappearing with them. | ||
− | When investigating the relationship between the evolution of intelligence in the human species and the theoretical prerequisite of Self-Blindness | + | When investigating the relationship between the evolution of intelligence in the human species and the theoretical [[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence|prerequisite of Self-Blindness to make a high intelligence possible]](*), the case of the apparently successful jewish race could be utilized as a test example. |
− | There are a number of other striking features to the jewish people. We mention here the holocaust-like historical events, that have plagued the jews repeatedly, in fact for thousands of years, every time without the jews disappearing completely from the scene, as is more customary with other tribes and creeds in the world of Homo sapiens. Another feature of jewry is that they have moved through a number of population-cycle events as described in [[The biological instability of social equilibria|''another article on this Wiki(***), consisting of a paper that was also presented in 1987 in Jeruzalem at a conference of the ESS (European Sociobiological Society)'']]. The effects of genetic pollution and of extreme selection effects in favour of sociability and against creativity and innovation, as one would expect in most social structures, be it tribes, races or local cultures, evidently have been circumvented in the case of the jews, probably by how their history was shaped. | + | There are a number of other striking features to the jewish people. We mention here the holocaust-like historical events, that have plagued the jews repeatedly, in fact for thousands of years, every time without the jews disappearing completely from the scene, as is more customary with other tribes and creeds in the world of Homo sapiens. Another feature of jewry is that they have moved through a number of population-cycle events as described in [[The biological instability of social equilibria|''another article on this Wiki(***), consisting of a paper that was also presented in 1987 in Jeruzalem at a conference of the ESS (European Sociobiological Society)'']]. |
− | Irrespective of these latter considerations, the fact is that the jewish tribe or race combines a higher than average intelligence with a higher than average religious pressure on personal and social life. Also, it can easily be recognized that also theír religious system is an extra barrier to understanding of the own behaviour or of behaviour of human beings in general. | + | |
+ | The effects of genetic pollution and of extreme selection effects in favour of sociability and against creativity and innovation, as one would expect in most social structures, be it tribes, races or local cultures, evidently have been circumvented in the case of the jews, probably by how their history was shaped. In view of the theory in the above mentioned article the conflict between jews and palestinians is also determined to a high degree by the facts that the palestinians historically are a typical "residue"-population whereas the jews are typical migrated newcomers. Historically such relationships are a guarantee of disaster for or a complete disappearance of the "residue-population". In that light, it is remarkable and maybe a characteristic of this era, that the palestinian people are still present there and tolerated as a distinct population-entity. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Irrespective of these latter considerations, the fact is that the jewish tribe or race combines a higher than average intelligence with a higher than average religious pressure on personal and social life. Also, it can easily be recognized that also theír religious system, as any other religious system, is an extra barrier to understanding of the own behaviour or of understanding the behaviour of human beings in general. | ||
Looking at Jewry, just from the surface, it immediately strikes the eye that these people have just recently gone through an unbelievably harsh racist ordeal, losing literally millions of their kin at the hands of the Nazi nationalists. | Looking at Jewry, just from the surface, it immediately strikes the eye that these people have just recently gone through an unbelievably harsh racist ordeal, losing literally millions of their kin at the hands of the Nazi nationalists. | ||
− | We should not forget that the genocide that happened in the Third Reich was nothing more than what in earlier times of human history, and even before that, was what ordinarily happened between competing tribal entities. Genocidal and territorial "final solutions" were the rule rather than the exception. The Third Reich was just a larger scale and more "industrialized" version of an ancient pattern. Now, some 80 years later, we find that the Germans in general are deeply ashamed that "they", that theír folk, allowed such stark collective blindness to take the lead. The Nazi's considered the Jews as foreigners, as another tribe or race, which makes genocide easier, but history shows us that such a racial component is not even necessary for committing monstrous and massive killings of people, even of one's own kin. Carrying other than the preferred ideas or believes may be sufficient to be exterminated on a massive scale. We have seen that recently happen in quite a number of occasions, like e.g., the Stalinist purges, killing | + | We should not forget that the genocide that happened in the Third Reich was nothing more than what in earlier times of human history, and even before that, was what ordinarily happened between competing tribal entities. Genocidal and territorial "final solutions" were the rule rather than the exception. The Third Reich was just a larger scale and more "industrialized" version of an ancient pattern. Now, some 80 years later, we find that the Germans in general are deeply ashamed that "they", that theír folk, allowed such stark collective blindness to take the lead. The Nazi's considered the Jews as foreigners, as another tribe or race, which makes genocide easier, but history shows us that such a racial component is not even necessary for committing monstrous and massive killings of people, even of one's own kin. Carrying other than the preferred ideas or believes may be sufficient to be exterminated on a massive scale. We have seen that recently happen in quite a number of occasions, like e.g., the Stalinist purges, killing tens of millions of the Russian's own people, Mao Tse Tung's Great Leap Forward, costing the lives of also tens of millions of people, The Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, also taking the lifes of a high percentage of the own people, simply because they were suspected of not carrying the right political ideas and ideals, etc. |
So, ethnocentric aspects may facilitate massive killings, but they are in no way a condition for these atrocities to occur. They just make genocides and the like a little more probable. | So, ethnocentric aspects may facilitate massive killings, but they are in no way a condition for these atrocities to occur. They just make genocides and the like a little more probable. | ||
− | In the case of | + | In the case of the Jews, one would expect that, having suffered such an ordeal just recently, they themselves would nót fall for the automatisms of racism and ethnocentric territoriality. |
− | Present history shows us however that that expectation is far too optimistic. Even while a large part of the nations in the world are | + | Present history shows us however that that expectation is far too optimistic. Even while a large part of the nations in the world are questioning the Jewish territorial and ethnocentric internal aggression, against people who lived there first, the Israëli nevertheless still give the impression that they "stick to their guns" and that they carry on with the usurpation at hand. |
− | Taking another step back and looking at what is happening today in the "holy land", we cannot but be flabbergasted by the enormity of | + | Taking another step back and looking at what is happening today in the "holy land" through the eyes of an unprepared onlooker, we cannot but be flabbergasted by the enormity of what at the surface seems to appear as a jewish blindness for reality. |
− | We wish to point out here that this is a good example of | + | We wish to point out here that this is a good example of the [[Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence#Towards "Amathology" or the science of ignorance|evolutionary necessity of Self-Blindness in cases of an evolving higher intelligence]](**). |
− | No doubt that the Jews are one of the most intelligent tribes on earth. No doubt also, that hey demonstrate collective Self-Blindness in an incredibly clear and obvious way. The least we can say is that what happens to the Jews today, is in line with what is predicted from the pages of this Wiki. | + | No doubt that the Jews are one of the most intelligent tribes on earth. No doubt also, that hey demonstrate collective Self-Blindness in an incredibly clear and obvious way. The least we can say is that what happens to the Jews today, is alas in line with what is predicted from the pages of this Wiki. Viewed from the perspective of the [[The biological instability of social equilibria|above mentioned Jerusalem paper (1987)]](***) a newly arrived invading group (the jews from the diaspora) has to deal with a resident "residue" population (the palestinians) and naturally encounters difficulties in dealing with the in Homo sapiens customary tendencies of subjugation or genocide of the resident residue population. In view of the recent history of the jews themselves and of the complete world community looking over their shoulders, novel and "better" solutions are sought to solve the emerged political conflicts, but better (novel) solutions cannot easily be found. |
As a comment in the margin we could add here that we may hope that the Israëli will shortly manage to learn to keep thinking soberly in front of a mirror, the mirror e.g., of the opinion of the rest of the world. If they would manage to do just that, that would verily be a novelty. | As a comment in the margin we could add here that we may hope that the Israëli will shortly manage to learn to keep thinking soberly in front of a mirror, the mirror e.g., of the opinion of the rest of the world. If they would manage to do just that, that would verily be a novelty. | ||
Because ........................... | Because ........................... | ||
− | + | we outsiders may easily conclude that the jews in the "holy land" appear to be crazy racists, having lost their minds, but what the jews are showing there is the result of primordial social reflexes that are the endowment of us all, of all the people in the world. | |
Let's hope that they shortly learn how to keep their intellect working in front of the mirror, how to conquer the typical Blindness for the Self that has been the characteristic of us since Homo sapiens started to differ from its hominid ancestors. | Let's hope that they shortly learn how to keep their intellect working in front of the mirror, how to conquer the typical Blindness for the Self that has been the characteristic of us since Homo sapiens started to differ from its hominid ancestors. | ||
The Jews have not much time left. | The Jews have not much time left. | ||
The proliferation of nuclear weapons on both sides makes survival of a jewish ethnocentric and territorial state ever more unstable, if not impossible. It looks like time is running out. They either come to their senses quickly, or some competitor group might obtain nuclear weapons and wipe Israël off the map. | The proliferation of nuclear weapons on both sides makes survival of a jewish ethnocentric and territorial state ever more unstable, if not impossible. It looks like time is running out. They either come to their senses quickly, or some competitor group might obtain nuclear weapons and wipe Israël off the map. | ||
− | If that terrible thing would happen, that would no doubt be an extra impulse for the rest of the world to analyse what has happened and what are the basic mechanisms leading to such disasters. And that would facilitate and boost a rise in Self-awareness. And that in turn would facilitate the Point Omega transition. | + | If that terrible thing would happen, that would no doubt be an extra impulse for the rest of the world to analyse what has happened and what are the basic mechanisms leading to such types of disasters. And that would facilitate and boost a rise in Self-awareness, not only about what is happening to the Jews right now, but about how these mechanisms are working in literally all tribes and races on earth. And that in turn would facilitate the Point Omega transition. |
− | An alternative to such a disaster would be the Israëli coming to their senses, starting to understand themselves at last and explaining to the world how it all works. In that case they could take the lead in the coming explosion of awareness. That would fit in their self-assigned role of a "chosen People". | + | An alternative to such a disaster would be the Israëli coming to their senses, starting to understand themselves at last and explaining to the world how it all works. In that case they could take the lead in the coming explosion of (self-)awareness. That would fit in their self-assigned role of a "chosen People". |
For the world at large will learn from their mouths, or they will learn from their graves. | For the world at large will learn from their mouths, or they will learn from their graves. | ||
− | Let's hope that the first option will prevail. | + | Let's hope that the first option will prevail for the Israëli people. |
Time is almost up. | Time is almost up. | ||
− | |||
− | The Jewish ethnocentric creed can thus serve as an example illustrating the evolutionary need for Self-Blindness. | + | The Jewish (seemingly) ethnocentric creed can thus serve as an example illustrating the customary evolutionary need for Self-Blindness in our species. |
− | When considering and discussing governmental measures to be taken for the benefit of the human species for after Point Omega, it would therefore seem useful to also consider such measures in comparison with and in relationship with the jewish creed as an example. The history and the shaping of that tribe can serve as a reference point and bench mark. | + | When considering and discussing governmental measures to be taken for the benefit of the human species for after Point Omega, it would therefore seem useful to also consider such measures in comparison with and in relationship with the jewish creed as an example. The history and the shaping of that tribe can serve as a valuable reference point and bench mark. |
== Curbing destruction of the environment == | == Curbing destruction of the environment == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' The seventh issue is about biodiversity and our pretended stewardship. | |
As we have seen, present day human evolution is primarily determined by the survival struggle between meme level power structures. And these power structures are dragging the much slower gene level evolution of mankind along. | As we have seen, present day human evolution is primarily determined by the survival struggle between meme level power structures. And these power structures are dragging the much slower gene level evolution of mankind along. | ||
− | Competing power structures basically have no "interest" in the environment. They are only interested in spreading their software as well as possible among as many carriers as possible (us). The ecological environment is only important in as far as that environment should be able to keep the power structure's carriers alive. Of course there is no "intent" in the power structures, but from the outside, at the surface, it looks like that. The survival struggle looks like there is intent involved, but of course it just is an automatic process, the process of evolutionary changes. | + | Competing power structures basically have no "interest" in the environment. They are only interested in spreading their software as well as possible among as many carriers as possible (us). The ecological environment is only important in as far as that environment should be able to keep the power structure's carriers alive. Of course there is no conscious "intent" in the power structures, but from the outside, at the surface, it looks like that to us, onlookers. The survival struggle looks like there is intent involved, but of course it just is an automatic process, the process of evolutionary changes. |
So, for the power structures in charge ecological values and biodiversity are only interesting in as far as they enhance the more effective spreading of "their" culture, their memes among us humans. | So, for the power structures in charge ecological values and biodiversity are only interesting in as far as they enhance the more effective spreading of "their" culture, their memes among us humans. | ||
− | Before Point Omega, including the moment of "now", the real competition is between the power structures in charge. And money is power, so if more money can be made in a short time at the cost of some extra environmental damage, the environment is in bad shape. Even if good stewardship would render more long term profit, then still, higher short term profits are generally preferred, even if the long term environmental damage is high and thus the long term profits lower than would be possible with more rational methods. Because of the short term higher profits environmental destruction has been going on since mankind has learned to manipulate its environment. Agriculture has been reducing the carrying capacity of the environment consistently since almost 10.000 years. Some people may think that environmental damage is a recent phenomenon, but that is not the case. The damage may proceed faster these days then in earlier times, but for instance the process of desertification has already taken its toll since thousands of years. For instance, in some North African regions, that used to serve as granaries for the Roman empire, the desert is now practically reaching to the sea. Another example is the sorry ecological state of the löss plateau in China, the source region of the yellow river, This highly fertile löss area is where the Han Chinese originated from, but in recent centuries the area only could support a minor percentage of the people it could support in more ancient times. The reason has merely been short sighted short term profit making by conforming to habits of overgrazing and subsequently losing fertile soil. | + | Before Point Omega, including the moment of "now", the real competition for resources is between the power structures in charge. And money is power, so if more money can be made in a short time at the cost of some extra environmental damage, the environment is in bad shape. Even if good stewardship would render more long term profit, then still, higher short term profits are generally preferred, even if the long term environmental damage is high and thus the long term profits lower than would be possible with more rational methods. Because of the short term higher profits environmental destruction has been going on since mankind has learned to manipulate its environment. Agriculture has been reducing the carrying capacity of the environment consistently since almost 10.000 years. Some people may think that environmental damage is a recent phenomenon, but that is not the case. The damage may proceed faster these days then in earlier times, but for instance the process of desertification has already taken its toll since thousands of years. For instance, in some North African regions, that used to serve as granaries for the Roman empire, the desert is now practically reaching to the sea. Another example is the sorry ecological state of the löss plateau in China, the source region of the yellow river, This highly fertile löss area is where the Han Chinese originated from, but in recent centuries the area only could support a minor percentage of the people it could support in more ancient times. The reason has merely been short sighted short term profit making by conforming to habits of overgrazing and subsequently losing fertile soil. |
Similar agricultural mis-use of soils occurred everywhere in the world. In fact there is more man-made desert on this planet than there is agricultural land. | Similar agricultural mis-use of soils occurred everywhere in the world. In fact there is more man-made desert on this planet than there is agricultural land. | ||
− | Since the blind competition struggle between power structures was the leading factor in our evolution, the environmental price being paid locally did not play an important role. As long as the carriers of the power structures in question would not survive less than the carriers of competitor power structures, the environmental effects could safely be neglected and ignored. We can now formulate that even more precisely. As long as the struggle between power structures determines our lives, and that is still the case completely, it is practically impossible to prevent biodiversity from further dwindling away. | + | Since the blind competition struggle for resources between power structures was the leading factor in our evolution, the environmental price being paid locally did not play an important role. As long as the carriers of the power structures in question would not survive less than the carriers of competitor power structures, the environmental effects could safely be neglected and ignored. We can now formulate that even more precisely. As long as the struggle between power structures determines our lives, and that is still the case completely, it is practically impossible to prevent biodiversity from further dwindling away. |
After Point Omega however, we will enter the phase of conscious evolution, which will take the sting out of the all overruling influence of the power structures. The ancient penalties on the level of success and procreation, that had to be paid if one's own power structure would not win, do not apply any more. After Point Omega we will enjoy freedom from the old procreational dictates and laws, that used to make rebellion against the interests of the power structures a risky and often fatal affair. | After Point Omega however, we will enter the phase of conscious evolution, which will take the sting out of the all overruling influence of the power structures. The ancient penalties on the level of success and procreation, that had to be paid if one's own power structure would not win, do not apply any more. After Point Omega we will enjoy freedom from the old procreational dictates and laws, that used to make rebellion against the interests of the power structures a risky and often fatal affair. | ||
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Modern ecological methods that can replace the ancient agricultural habits, go by various names: "Permaculture", "Natuurbouw" (Nature construction), "Ecological Stewardship", "Sustainability", etc. | Modern ecological methods that can replace the ancient agricultural habits, go by various names: "Permaculture", "Natuurbouw" (Nature construction), "Ecological Stewardship", "Sustainability", etc. | ||
− | These more rational ecologically-friendly agricultural methods and land-management methods are nowadays spreading rapidly all over the world. | + | These more rational ecologically-friendly agricultural methods and land-management methods, methods of controlled landscaping, are nowadays spreading rapidly all over the world. |
Still, the all pervading influence of big money serves as a powerful engine for ecological destruction. Financially, it still pays off on the short term to continue to accept destruction as collateral damage of making more money in the short term. | Still, the all pervading influence of big money serves as a powerful engine for ecological destruction. Financially, it still pays off on the short term to continue to accept destruction as collateral damage of making more money in the short term. | ||
− | Until these days that destructive effect of the way power structures express themselves cannot easily be countered lastingly, because in the end the question is always which power structure was able to win from which other power structure, wielding its resources, including money, for spreading itself maximally. And the ecological collateral damage was always of minor importance in comparison to the survival of the power structure in charge. | + | Until these days that destructive effect of the way power structures express themselves cannot easily be countered lastingly, because in the end the question is always which power structure was able to win from which other power structure, wielding its resources, including money, for spreading itself maximally. And the ecological collateral damage was always of minor importance in comparison to the survival and supremacy of the power structure in charge. |
However, once we will have entered the phase of conscious evolution, the usual evolutionary penalties will lose their previously all pervading power and influence, making it possible for mankind to conscientiously choose its own course of action, which course of action then may very well be a course that optimizes biodiversity on earth instead of destroying it in the slipstream of the blind battle for survival between the impersonal powers structures. | However, once we will have entered the phase of conscious evolution, the usual evolutionary penalties will lose their previously all pervading power and influence, making it possible for mankind to conscientiously choose its own course of action, which course of action then may very well be a course that optimizes biodiversity on earth instead of destroying it in the slipstream of the blind battle for survival between the impersonal powers structures. | ||
− | What governments could do to speed up the turning around of ecological destruction is to wield taxes as a means to help steer the behaviour of their people in more environment-friendly and wholesome directions. After Point Omega governments will get increasingly more space to introduce such methods. And their populaces will simply demand it, being aware of what is at stake. | + | What governments could do for example to speed up the turning around of ecological destruction is to wield taxes as a means to help steer the behaviour of their people in more environment-friendly and wholesome directions. After Point Omega governments will get increasingly more space to introduce such methods. And their populaces will simply demand it, being aware of what is at stake. |
== Evolutionary Jet-lag & (Un)Happiness == | == Evolutionary Jet-lag & (Un)Happiness == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' The eighth issue is about happiness, illusory or not, or about what comes most close to it. | |
− | As described in other articles on this Wiki (see e.g. [[The_significance_of_the_Point_Omega_transition|here]]), lasting happiness is something people tend to strive after, but in reality it does not exist. As the Canadian philosofer Tennessen used to say: "happiness is for the pigs". And indeed, once a person starts to understand how our behaviour works, the illusion of the possibility to eventually reach a state of lasting and stable happiness will have vanished. The notion of happiness is a valid phenomenon in our own personal, day to day, minute to minute, system, in that it indicates a direction in which we wish to go at any one moment in time. The difference between happiness and unhappiness makes us move. And the items or situations that are thought to make us happy or unhappy, are the things we move away from (unhappiness) and things we move towards (happiness). We move from what we dislike towards what we do like. Any living being that is not a plant but a moving entity does have such perceptions or it would stop moving. | + | As described in other articles on this Wiki (see e.g. [[The_significance_of_the_Point_Omega_transition|here]]), lasting happiness is something people tend to strive after, but in reality it does not exist. As the Canadian philosofer Tennessen used to say: "happiness is for the pigs". And indeed, once a person starts to understand how our behaviour works, the illusion of the possibility to eventually reach a state of lasting and stable happiness will have vanished. The notion of happiness is a valid phenomenon in our own personal, day to day, minute to minute, system, in that it indicates a direction in which we wish to go at any one given moment in time. The difference between happiness and unhappiness makes us move. And the items or situations that are thought to make us happy or unhappy, are the things we move away from (unhappiness) and things we move towards (happiness). We move from what we dislike towards what we do like. Any living being that is not a plant but a moving entity does have such perceptions or it would stop moving. |
So, the feeling or sensation of happiness simply is implied by being an animal and not a plant. | So, the feeling or sensation of happiness simply is implied by being an animal and not a plant. | ||
− | But, even if some steady state of happiness does not exist in reality, it is pointed out [[The_evolutionary_stability_of_a_bi-stable_system_of_emotions_and_motivations_in_species_with_an_open-ended_capacity_for_learning#Behavioural_idiosyncrasies_and_the_dimension_of_.22self-actualization.22|elsewhere on this Wiki]] that it is nevertheless very well possible to reach states of well functioning and personal growth as opposed to states of disfunctioning and stagnant learning processes. Happiness may be illusory, but "well functioning" certainly is a real thing, that can be measured and that can be strived after and eventually be obtained successfully. | + | But, even if some steady state of happiness does not exist in reality, it is pointed out [[The_evolutionary_stability_of_a_bi-stable_system_of_emotions_and_motivations_in_species_with_an_open-ended_capacity_for_learning#Behavioural_idiosyncrasies_and_the_dimension_of_.22self-actualization.22|elsewhere on this Wiki]](***) that it is nevertheless very well possible to reach states of well functioning and personal growth as opposed to states of disfunctioning and stagnant learning processes. Happiness may be illusory, but "well functioning" certainly is a real thing, that can be measured and that can be strived after and eventually be obtained successfully. |
− | In the small Himalaya country Bhutan they do not have a ministry of economic affairs that is trying to maximize the gross national product, but they have instead a ministry that has the task to maximize the gross national happiness. | + | In the small Himalaya country of Bhutan they do not have a ministry of economic affairs that is trying to maximize the gross national product, but they have instead a ministry that has the task to maximize the gross national happiness. |
In the same vein most people in the world are striving continuously on a personal level to improve their situation and to seek happiness. | In the same vein most people in the world are striving continuously on a personal level to improve their situation and to seek happiness. | ||
− | Knowing what we know about our behaviour as laid down on this Wiki, we, Homo sapiens, can become aware that we are not plants, but animals, that we are `movers`, that we move from `A` to `B`, from unpleasant to pleasant, from unhappiness towards happiness. | + | Knowing what we now know about our behaviour as laid down on this Wiki, we, Homo sapiens, can become aware that we are not plants, but animals, that we are `movers`, that we move from `A` to `B`, from unpleasant to pleasant, from unhappiness towards happiness. |
Being constantly on the move, our awareness includes the point where we come from, `A` as much as the point we are moving towards, `B`. So, basically each person can be aware of both happiness and-or unhappiness, just depending on whether the attention is reaching forward or reaching backward. In principle it is technically speaking quite simple to make that switch from looking backward to looking forward, but nevertheless people in general feel either the pain of the situation to move away from, or the pleasure of the situation preferred, giving the illusion that one is either in state `A` or in state `B`, while in reality one is always connected to both, while moving. This very basic fact of human life can serve as an example of to what extent we are blind for our own behaviour. | Being constantly on the move, our awareness includes the point where we come from, `A` as much as the point we are moving towards, `B`. So, basically each person can be aware of both happiness and-or unhappiness, just depending on whether the attention is reaching forward or reaching backward. In principle it is technically speaking quite simple to make that switch from looking backward to looking forward, but nevertheless people in general feel either the pain of the situation to move away from, or the pleasure of the situation preferred, giving the illusion that one is either in state `A` or in state `B`, while in reality one is always connected to both, while moving. This very basic fact of human life can serve as an example of to what extent we are blind for our own behaviour. | ||
People mostly need so called `wise men` to be reminded of the above truth, instead of really understanding all that automatically right from the start. | People mostly need so called `wise men` to be reminded of the above truth, instead of really understanding all that automatically right from the start. | ||
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That is why on this Wiki we have paid attention to states of well-functioning versus states of mal-functioning, states of optimal development versus states of stagnation and neurotization. This distinction is not only very real, it is an important issue in the present day state of Homo sapiens. | That is why on this Wiki we have paid attention to states of well-functioning versus states of mal-functioning, states of optimal development versus states of stagnation and neurotization. This distinction is not only very real, it is an important issue in the present day state of Homo sapiens. | ||
− | [[Striving,_Playing_and_Learning#5.2_Growth_of_Skills_versus_Growth_of_Unskills|Elsewhere on this Wiki (see e.g., here)]], the basic mechanisms of learning and the processing of experiences is described. There the basic mechanisms of motivational end emotional reversals is discussed and the importance of a proper rhythm between the two is explained. | + | [[Striving,_Playing_and_Learning#5.2_Growth_of_Skills_versus_Growth_of_Unskills|Elsewhere on this Wiki (see e.g., here)]](*), the basic mechanisms of learning and the processing of experiences is described. There the basic mechanisms of motivational end emotional reversals is discussed and the importance of a proper rhythm between the two is explained. |
Since we are not plants but animals, we are "movers" and therefore switches between feeling happy and feeling unhappy alternate. That's what makes us move. | Since we are not plants but animals, we are "movers" and therefore switches between feeling happy and feeling unhappy alternate. That's what makes us move. | ||
In cases where the rhythm of telic / paratelic switches are optimal, also an optimal learning process will result. In cases where the telic /paratelic switches are far from optimal, usually with too few paratelic states, a cumulation of avoidance reflexes occurs and from that the formation of so called "negative COEX-systems" (a label introduced by Stanislas Grof; i.e. Systems of COndensed EXperience). | In cases where the rhythm of telic / paratelic switches are optimal, also an optimal learning process will result. In cases where the telic /paratelic switches are far from optimal, usually with too few paratelic states, a cumulation of avoidance reflexes occurs and from that the formation of so called "negative COEX-systems" (a label introduced by Stanislas Grof; i.e. Systems of COndensed EXperience). | ||
In the ideal case an optimal rhythm of telic and paratelic switches occurs and that results in the formation of many "positive COEX-systems". Such positive COEX-systems consist of areas of experience where the experiences in question have been processed sufficiently and have as a result been integrated in areas of "mastery". That route leads to the actualization of many potentials that were/are present in the person in question. A proper rhythm leads to Self-actualization and an improper rhythm leads to neuroticism and truncated behaviour patterns. | In the ideal case an optimal rhythm of telic and paratelic switches occurs and that results in the formation of many "positive COEX-systems". Such positive COEX-systems consist of areas of experience where the experiences in question have been processed sufficiently and have as a result been integrated in areas of "mastery". That route leads to the actualization of many potentials that were/are present in the person in question. A proper rhythm leads to Self-actualization and an improper rhythm leads to neuroticism and truncated behaviour patterns. | ||
− | + | ==== Evolutionary Jet-lag before Point Omega ==== | |
− | As explained in other articles (see [[Impersonal_Power_Structures_ruling_our_world|e.g. here]]) the power structures that have ruled human societies for almost 10.000 years now derive advantages from inducing to some degree neurotization in their carriers, us humans. They are in need of fearful compliance and that state can easier be induced in ailing neurotics than in well functioning self-actualizers. | + | '''(*)''' As explained in other articles (see [[Impersonal_Power_Structures_ruling_our_world|e.g. here]](*)) the power structures that have ruled human societies for almost 10.000 years now derive advantages from inducing to some degree neurotization in their carriers, us humans. They are in need of fearful compliance and that state can easier be induced in ailing neurotics than in well functioning self-actualizers. |
− | Another characteristic of the situation before Point Omega is the continuous and structural mismatch between P-feelings and N-demands (see [[Eating_from_the_Forbidden_Fruit#Friction_between_P-feelings_and_N-demands.3B_.22Primordial.22_versus_.22New.22_.28the_evolutionary_Jet-Lag.29|here]] for further explanation). And that mismatch in turn also does have a strongly neuroticizing effect. | + | Another characteristic of the situation before Point Omega is the continuous and structural mismatch between P-feelings and N-demands (see [[Eating_from_the_Forbidden_Fruit#Friction_between_P-feelings_and_N-demands.3B_.22Primordial.22_versus_.22New.22_.28the_evolutionary_Jet-Lag.29|here'''(**)''']] for further explanation). We labeled the source of that mismatch as "evolutionary Jet-Lag". And that mismatch in turn also does have a strongly neuroticizing effect. |
− | These two effects together result in Homo "sapiens" nowadays functioning quite sub-optimally. We are on average neurotic, truncated, fear-driven failures as compared with "what could have been". | + | These two effects together result in Homo "sapiens" nowadays functioning quite sub-optimally. We are on average neurotic, truncated, fear-driven failures as compared with "what every individual could have been". |
− | The evolution of "memes" is running on a different time scale | + | The evolution of "memes" is running on a different time scale than does the biological DNA-based evolution. Since both memes and genes have us humans as their carriers, we humans are the ones who suffer from the Jet-Lag between the gene-evolution and the meme-evolution. |
All in all this emotional friction from that Jet-Lag brings us mainly pain and bad feelings. | All in all this emotional friction from that Jet-Lag brings us mainly pain and bad feelings. | ||
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Humanity is in a very bad state for already many thousands of years, but as individuals we have no clue as to this situation. We cannot see. For us, this horrible state is "normalcy". | Humanity is in a very bad state for already many thousands of years, but as individuals we have no clue as to this situation. We cannot see. For us, this horrible state is "normalcy". | ||
− | + | ==== Evolutionary Jet-lag after Point Omega ==== | |
− | After Point Omega Humanity will resort to conscious evolution and that will result in taking the sting out of that evolutionary mismatch between P-feelings and N-demands. We will more and more direct the N-demands ourselves and create matches between the consciously designed N-demands and our primordial P-feelings. | + | '''(*)''' After Point Omega Humanity will resort to conscious evolution and that will inter alii result in taking the sting out of that evolutionary mismatch between P-feelings and N-demands. We will more and more direct the N-demands ourselves and create matches between the consciously designed N-demands and our primordial P-feelings. |
− | Until this moment in time, this phase in our evolution, there would be a high penalty on not yielding to current, traditional, N-demands. | + | Until this moment in time, this phase in our evolution, there would be a high penalty on not yielding to current, traditional, N-demands. However, that evolutionary penalty will be suspended by the introduction of conscious evolution. |
So, what will happen after Point Omega is this: Conscious Evolution ---> Consciously dealing (and successfully) with evolutionary Jet-Lag ---> less pressure from N-demands that are not fitting with our primordial P-feelings ---> more Self-Actualization ---> more "happiness" in an objective way, i.e. more Well-Functioning (but this does not imply a higher level of subjective happiness, because that is a technical impossibility). | So, what will happen after Point Omega is this: Conscious Evolution ---> Consciously dealing (and successfully) with evolutionary Jet-Lag ---> less pressure from N-demands that are not fitting with our primordial P-feelings ---> more Self-Actualization ---> more "happiness" in an objective way, i.e. more Well-Functioning (but this does not imply a higher level of subjective happiness, because that is a technical impossibility). | ||
+ | |||
+ | The mechanisms described here offer distinct options for governments to ease the escape from the all influential control over us by the power structures in charge. Governments may choose to help spread awareness of the unpleasantness of the demands by the power structures. That would make it easier for people to gather the necessary courage to make a stand and choose more wholesome courses of action, increasing their psychological health and well-being structurally. And, apart from that, governments can choose to actively take a host of other measures for reducing mass neuroticism, now that they understand the working of the underlying mechanisms. And that will result in freeing enormous quantities of human energy and resources. It does not need much further explanation to understand that such developments will result in a chain reaction of mass-self-actualization, fueling and speeding up the Point Omega transition at large. | ||
== Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself == | == Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself == | ||
− | + | '''(**)''' The ninth issue is about how we behave towards one another. | |
As pointed out in the article [[The_evolutionary_stability_of_a_bi-stable_system_of_emotions_and_motivations_in_species_with_an_open-ended_capacity_for_learning|about Reversal Theory on this Wiki(***)]], that is dealing with the antagonist motivational states Telic and Paratelic and the alternations between the two, our behavioural system is designed to make optimum use of acquired experiences and to make us automatically search for those experiences that would optimally fit as a useful addition to already acquired experiences and skills. That way the system makes optimal use of any surplus of energy, investing it automatically in exactly those places and situations that fit best to expand the systems of condensed experience [[The_evolutionary_stability_of_a_bi-stable_system_of_emotions_and_motivations_in_species_with_an_open-ended_capacity_for_learning#Positive_and_negative_clusters_of_COndensed_EXperience|(COEX systems)(***)]] that have already been acquired and already are available. On the one hand this mechanism results in better chances to successfully expand the behavioural repertoire in cases where the individual in question has already learned quite a bit and is on average well balanced. This is a positive feed back system within the individual behavioural system. The more skills already acquired, the easier it is to acquire further growth. | As pointed out in the article [[The_evolutionary_stability_of_a_bi-stable_system_of_emotions_and_motivations_in_species_with_an_open-ended_capacity_for_learning|about Reversal Theory on this Wiki(***)]], that is dealing with the antagonist motivational states Telic and Paratelic and the alternations between the two, our behavioural system is designed to make optimum use of acquired experiences and to make us automatically search for those experiences that would optimally fit as a useful addition to already acquired experiences and skills. That way the system makes optimal use of any surplus of energy, investing it automatically in exactly those places and situations that fit best to expand the systems of condensed experience [[The_evolutionary_stability_of_a_bi-stable_system_of_emotions_and_motivations_in_species_with_an_open-ended_capacity_for_learning#Positive_and_negative_clusters_of_COndensed_EXperience|(COEX systems)(***)]] that have already been acquired and already are available. On the one hand this mechanism results in better chances to successfully expand the behavioural repertoire in cases where the individual in question has already learned quite a bit and is on average well balanced. This is a positive feed back system within the individual behavioural system. The more skills already acquired, the easier it is to acquire further growth. | ||
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Every time a civilization would crumble down under the pressures of resumed natural selection mechanisms, times would be hard again on all inhabitants and disaster, mayhem, wholesale rape, economic strangling techniques and other misery, up to and including genocide would reign again for some period of time. Such periods of time would allow for selection pressures to recoup lost terrain again and also typically would enhance a reshuffling of gene pools, causing hybrid vigour to help boost the genetic quality of the left over populations surviving the period of disasters. ([[The_effects_of_genetic_pollution_on_political_structures_and_human_history|See here for more explanation about the effects of genetic load.]](***) | Every time a civilization would crumble down under the pressures of resumed natural selection mechanisms, times would be hard again on all inhabitants and disaster, mayhem, wholesale rape, economic strangling techniques and other misery, up to and including genocide would reign again for some period of time. Such periods of time would allow for selection pressures to recoup lost terrain again and also typically would enhance a reshuffling of gene pools, causing hybrid vigour to help boost the genetic quality of the left over populations surviving the period of disasters. ([[The_effects_of_genetic_pollution_on_political_structures_and_human_history|See here for more explanation about the effects of genetic load.]](***) | ||
− | ''' | + | '''Compassion after Point Omega''' |
− | However, after Point Omega the blind forces of the evolutionary laws that rule all life, including our own, will be enriched in the case of Homo sapiens by "conscious evolution". In fact, by introducing conscious evolution, humanity can take the sting out of the customary selection pressures that until this moment in time always have made "fair and just" societies intrinsically unstable. | + | '''(**)''' However, after Point Omega the blind forces of the evolutionary laws that rule all life, including our own, will be enriched in the case of Homo sapiens by "conscious evolution". In fact, by introducing conscious evolution, humanity can take the sting out of the customary selection pressures that until this moment in time always have made "fair and just" societies intrinsically unstable. |
What this means is that after Point Omega finally the above mentioned ideal of "treat others as you would like to be treated yourself" can be introduced to stay. The usual danger of becoming unstable after a limited amount of time, because of genetic deterioration, can now be countered by "conscious evolution". | What this means is that after Point Omega finally the above mentioned ideal of "treat others as you would like to be treated yourself" can be introduced to stay. The usual danger of becoming unstable after a limited amount of time, because of genetic deterioration, can now be countered by "conscious evolution". | ||
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== How to deal with hopeless cases ? == | == How to deal with hopeless cases ? == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' The tenth issue is about how to deal with the complete failures, the people that fill us with disgust and hate. | |
From the previous paragraph it follows that it is a good advice to treat others as one would like to be treated oneself. As stated, this is the old christian admonition, that also can be found in numerous other widely spread cultures and traditions. It can be considered a useful prop to enhance the emergence or rather catalysation of the Point Omega transition. | From the previous paragraph it follows that it is a good advice to treat others as one would like to be treated oneself. As stated, this is the old christian admonition, that also can be found in numerous other widely spread cultures and traditions. It can be considered a useful prop to enhance the emergence or rather catalysation of the Point Omega transition. | ||
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That is because once the above is the official attitude, every individual "knows" that he will be accepted "as he/she is". And that awareness will stop most of the basic fears as ordinarily used to be, and still are, installed by the ruling power structures. | That is because once the above is the official attitude, every individual "knows" that he will be accepted "as he/she is". And that awareness will stop most of the basic fears as ordinarily used to be, and still are, installed by the ruling power structures. | ||
− | And that new, novel situation will stop the internal personal feed back loops that always were stabilizing neuroticism. It can be calculated that this is a relatively cheap and easy to install change of course. And the beneficial effects at the social | + | And that new, novel situation will stop the internal personal feed back loops that always were stabilizing neuroticism. It can be calculated that this is a relatively cheap and easy way to install change of course. And the beneficial effects at the social level will simply be tremendous. A very stable and thorough relaxation will enter the minds and hearts of such "hopeless" persons. And that will have enormous effects on the citizens around, because of the great contagiousness of relaxation and paratelic states. |
The advice to governments should therefore be to assume responsibility for making clear that all people, simply because they were born, are entitled to acceptance and support if needed, of course within reasonable boundaries. | The advice to governments should therefore be to assume responsibility for making clear that all people, simply because they were born, are entitled to acceptance and support if needed, of course within reasonable boundaries. | ||
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In other words: social stress, competition, struggle and suffering are needed to exert enough selection pressure on the population to realize some degree of selection pressure enabling the power structures in question to not loose its carriers in the competition for survival. | In other words: social stress, competition, struggle and suffering are needed to exert enough selection pressure on the population to realize some degree of selection pressure enabling the power structures in question to not loose its carriers in the competition for survival. | ||
− | However, in the after Point Omega situation we will have conscious evolution replacing the natural struggle between power structures over the backs of their carriers, us people. Conscious evolution takes care of preventing genetic (over-)load, of preventing the ordinary social selection cycles and other mechanisms with which mother nature always kept our innate qualities at the required level. The "natural" methods of mother nature invariably come with struggle and | + | However, in the "after Point Omega" situation we will have conscious evolution replacing the natural struggle between power structures over the backs of their carriers, us people. Conscious evolution takes care of preventing genetic (over-)load, of preventing the ordinary social selection cycles and other mechanisms with which mother nature always kept our innate qualities at the required level. The "natural" methods of mother nature invariably come with struggle and strife and pain for the individuals in question. Circumventing that misery always was self-defeating because of the basic demands from the inescapable laws of evolution. |
But, once conscious evolution is in place, the usual penalties are suspended and society can safely install the luxury of accepting every human being born, thus removing all serious basic fears. | But, once conscious evolution is in place, the usual penalties are suspended and society can safely install the luxury of accepting every human being born, thus removing all serious basic fears. | ||
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== Assuming responsibility for every human being in existence == | == Assuming responsibility for every human being in existence == | ||
− | + | '''(**)''' The eleventh issue is about a new foundation for human social relationships. | |
− | One of the basic characteristics for after Point Omega is that every human being should be guaranteed a relatively stress-free life. Such a situation is already the ideal of many societies and political systems. However, more often than not, such striving appears to be quite difficult to bring into practice, especially | + | One of the basic characteristics for after Point Omega is that every human being should be guaranteed a relatively stress-free life. Such a situation is already the ideal of many societies and political systems. However, more often than not, such striving appears to be quite difficult to bring into practice, especially for the long term. And besides, many societies do not embrace such a principle at all. |
Until this moment in history principles of "survival of the fittest" and the "struggle for life" have dominated the situation. And such principles were very necessary in order to maintain a certain required level of genetic selection pressure. Without such selection pressures genetic pollution and degeneration would quickly put an end to any societies' survival. | Until this moment in history principles of "survival of the fittest" and the "struggle for life" have dominated the situation. And such principles were very necessary in order to maintain a certain required level of genetic selection pressure. Without such selection pressures genetic pollution and degeneration would quickly put an end to any societies' survival. | ||
After Point Omega however, "conscious evolution" will have taken over and therefore the stress of selection struggles will have become superfluous. The consequence of this change in evolutionary demands is that there finally will be (evolutionary) space for fair and just societies to be continued without end. Genetic pollution and social selection cycles can be countered with ease and the usual life span limitations of social structures can be by-passed. | After Point Omega however, "conscious evolution" will have taken over and therefore the stress of selection struggles will have become superfluous. The consequence of this change in evolutionary demands is that there finally will be (evolutionary) space for fair and just societies to be continued without end. Genetic pollution and social selection cycles can be countered with ease and the usual life span limitations of social structures can be by-passed. | ||
− | The implication of such a novel situation is that we may set aside and overcome primordial reflexes of attraction and repulsion without in the end suffering the thereby speeded up life cycle end and the total collapse of the social structures in question. And that in turn implies that our very strong tendency to indulge in black/white or bad/good thinking regarding other people, will have lost its evolutionary "usefulness". We can now safely open our eyes to reality, to how we are put together, to how we have evolved, to what our options are, and which traditional options have become "no-go areas". | + | The implication of such a novel situation is that we may set aside and overcome primordial reflexes of attraction and repulsion without in the end suffering the thereby speeded up life cycle end, and the total collapse of the social structures in question. And that in turn implies that our very strong tendency to indulge in black/white or bad/good thinking regarding other people, will have lost its evolutionary "usefulness". We can now safely open our eyes to reality, to how we are put together, to how we have evolved, to what our options are, and which traditional options have become superfluous "no-go areas". |
Having bypassed the ordinary needs for evolutionary selection pressures in our society and our social relations, we can at last safely refrain from denouncing adversaries, from scapegoating, from black/white thinking, etc. We can safely "love our neighbor like ourselves" without paying in the end the concomitant evolutionary penalty for it. | Having bypassed the ordinary needs for evolutionary selection pressures in our society and our social relations, we can at last safely refrain from denouncing adversaries, from scapegoating, from black/white thinking, etc. We can safely "love our neighbor like ourselves" without paying in the end the concomitant evolutionary penalty for it. | ||
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Conscious evolution has not yet been started up and it will probably take quite a number of generations before that state of affairs will have been consolidated. | Conscious evolution has not yet been started up and it will probably take quite a number of generations before that state of affairs will have been consolidated. | ||
− | In the mean time however we can already get used to thinking along those | + | In the mean time however we can already get used to thinking along those lines. That will help to support individuals that have problems in functioning smoothly and properly. Many of such problem-people may need to be firmly controlled or even locked up in order to avoid them causing harm to other people, but if we remember that we all together are responsible for their very existence, it is easier to maintain a supportive attitude. As argued [[Energy and Strokes|in the article about "strokes"(***)]], handing out "strokes" is the best medicine to help people regain proper rhythms of telic/paratelic reversals and thus regain growth towards fulfillment of their best innate capacities. Self-actualizers are more pleasant company than overstressed neurotics. And every "stroke" helps to bring that better option about. |
Ultimately, increasingly more strokes will come back to us in a process of social interaction which is, from a technical point of view, basically a process of positive feed back loops. And because of the technical characteristics of positive feed back loops, this will cause a chain reaction of strongly increasing mutual social support. And that, in turn, will diminish neuroticizing structures beyond a critical point, making space for a more broadly occurring actualization of human potentials to an unprecedented extent. And, because of the technical consequences of the positive feed back loops involved, these changes will increasingly gain speed until the majority of mankind wil all of a sudden be "taken by surprise" (but in a positive sense). | Ultimately, increasingly more strokes will come back to us in a process of social interaction which is, from a technical point of view, basically a process of positive feed back loops. And because of the technical characteristics of positive feed back loops, this will cause a chain reaction of strongly increasing mutual social support. And that, in turn, will diminish neuroticizing structures beyond a critical point, making space for a more broadly occurring actualization of human potentials to an unprecedented extent. And, because of the technical consequences of the positive feed back loops involved, these changes will increasingly gain speed until the majority of mankind wil all of a sudden be "taken by surprise" (but in a positive sense). | ||
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This new attitude of accepting responsibility for and giving support to also the less privileged of our fellow human beings, up and including "the hopeless cases", the hardened criminals, and the plain idiots and simpletons, that attitude is an emotional cornerstone of the post-Point Omega world order. | This new attitude of accepting responsibility for and giving support to also the less privileged of our fellow human beings, up and including "the hopeless cases", the hardened criminals, and the plain idiots and simpletons, that attitude is an emotional cornerstone of the post-Point Omega world order. | ||
Before Point Omega we hardly could afford such an attitude, because of the evolutionary penalties involved, but from now on that attitude will fully pay off on all levels and that to an unprecedented degree. | Before Point Omega we hardly could afford such an attitude, because of the evolutionary penalties involved, but from now on that attitude will fully pay off on all levels and that to an unprecedented degree. | ||
+ | The classical evolutionary penalties and disadvantages of "being soft" on misfits and other hopeless cases will cease to exert their disruptive effects. These disadvantages will be bypassed effectively by "conscious evolution". | ||
== Competition and Work; how to deal with it in a different way == | == Competition and Work; how to deal with it in a different way == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' The twelfth and final issue to be addressed here is about our attitude to "work". | |
Our relationship with work is another area of human life where great changes can be expected with the Point Omega transition. | Our relationship with work is another area of human life where great changes can be expected with the Point Omega transition. | ||
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In principle, society could start to utilize other, different, ways to win the competition with other power structures. After Point Omega the playing field changes thoroughly and more agreeable methods can become the winning formulae. | In principle, society could start to utilize other, different, ways to win the competition with other power structures. After Point Omega the playing field changes thoroughly and more agreeable methods can become the winning formulae. | ||
− | ''' | + | '''Work after Point Omega''' |
− | After Point Omega the percentage of neurotics will decrease, making it more difficult for power structures to utilize the age old methods to rule by fear. It becomes increasingly more viable to seduce people to do useful things by being transparent and by simply paying more for unpleasant jobs. If fear doesn't work any more, the remuneration needs to go up in case it is different from work that is intrinsically pleasant to do. | + | '''(*)''' After Point Omega the percentage of neurotics will decrease, making it more difficult for power structures to utilize the age old methods to rule by fear. It becomes increasingly more viable to seduce people to do useful things by being transparent and by simply paying more for unpleasant jobs. If fear doesn't work any more, the remuneration needs to go up in case it is different from work that is intrinsically pleasant to do. |
After Point Omega the balance between telic and paratelic states and their alternations will improve, with a higher frequency of paratelic states, in turn resulting in better growth and development of the individuals, which in turn results in a higher percentage of Self-actualizers. | After Point Omega the balance between telic and paratelic states and their alternations will improve, with a higher frequency of paratelic states, in turn resulting in better growth and development of the individuals, which in turn results in a higher percentage of Self-actualizers. | ||
− | Point Omega basically is the run away increase in optimal telic-paratelic reversal frequencies. The contagiousness of proper personal growth will fuel the typical Point Omega changes leading, among other things, to a radically different work attitude. | + | Point Omega basically is the "run away" increase in optimal telic-paratelic reversal frequencies. The contagiousness of proper personal growth will fuel the typical Point Omega changes leading, among other things, to a radically different work attitude. |
People will more often stop accepting slave positions and will more and more demand "meaningful" work. And "meaningful" is in principle more in line with our [[Eating_from_the_Forbidden_Fruit#Friction_between_P-feelings_and_N-demands.3B_.22Primordial.22_versus_.22New.22_.28the_evolutionary_Jet-Lag.29|P-feelings]](**). | People will more often stop accepting slave positions and will more and more demand "meaningful" work. And "meaningful" is in principle more in line with our [[Eating_from_the_Forbidden_Fruit#Friction_between_P-feelings_and_N-demands.3B_.22Primordial.22_versus_.22New.22_.28the_evolutionary_Jet-Lag.29|P-feelings]](**). | ||
So, the evolutionary Jet-Lag will stop to make our work situations miserable. The dirty, boring, tedious, heavy, difficult work that cannot be done by some efficient machinery, simply will have to be paid better in order to be in balance with the new situation. | So, the evolutionary Jet-Lag will stop to make our work situations miserable. The dirty, boring, tedious, heavy, difficult work that cannot be done by some efficient machinery, simply will have to be paid better in order to be in balance with the new situation. | ||
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Evolution works through competition between conspecifics. We humans have to compete with fellow human beings, either within our own group or tribe or competing with other people in a more far away group or society. Evolution proceeds because the winners contribute more to the next generation than do the losers, losers in whichever sense of the word. Men may theorize about fair societal structures in which aggressive competition is harnessed and cooperative friendliness reigns. But, as we mentioned above, civilization can in a sense be regarded as a conspiracy against evolution. No matter how clever a fair and just society had been designed, sooner or later such a society would collapse and selection pressures would recover lost terrain by launching the citizens of the former fair society into chaos, turmoil and destruction. | Evolution works through competition between conspecifics. We humans have to compete with fellow human beings, either within our own group or tribe or competing with other people in a more far away group or society. Evolution proceeds because the winners contribute more to the next generation than do the losers, losers in whichever sense of the word. Men may theorize about fair societal structures in which aggressive competition is harnessed and cooperative friendliness reigns. But, as we mentioned above, civilization can in a sense be regarded as a conspiracy against evolution. No matter how clever a fair and just society had been designed, sooner or later such a society would collapse and selection pressures would recover lost terrain by launching the citizens of the former fair society into chaos, turmoil and destruction. | ||
Competition as we know it in our societies can be hard, in the sense that one's life depends on the outcome, but also it can take the form of a rather "sportive" competition. In such cases winning the competition is striven after, but one's life does not directly depend on the outcome. | Competition as we know it in our societies can be hard, in the sense that one's life depends on the outcome, but also it can take the form of a rather "sportive" competition. In such cases winning the competition is striven after, but one's life does not directly depend on the outcome. | ||
− | In such cases it is rather like in sport. One works hard to win, but basically it | + | In such cases it is rather like in sport. One works hard to win, but basically it remains a game. |
What we may expect after Point Omega is that competition will not disappear from work and social life, but that the ongoing competitions get a more "sportive" flavour. | What we may expect after Point Omega is that competition will not disappear from work and social life, but that the ongoing competitions get a more "sportive" flavour. | ||
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Work and play will be better compatible and pleasure in work will become the rule, rather than the exception. And as pointed out above, if, in such a fear-free society the dirty, hard or unpleasant work is refused by most people, a better pay for the jobs in question will do the trick. | Work and play will be better compatible and pleasure in work will become the rule, rather than the exception. And as pointed out above, if, in such a fear-free society the dirty, hard or unpleasant work is refused by most people, a better pay for the jobs in question will do the trick. | ||
− | + | This development will be amplified by the advance of technology. Ever more necessary work is delegated to machinery and robots. People can enjoy more leisure. This will stimulate the "pro-active" working attitude over the traditional "re-active" attitudes. For an eloquent discourse on this development, refer e.g., to [[Further_reading#Livingston2016|Livingston (2016)]]. | |
− | + | == Priorities for an action list == | |
+ | '''(*)''' | ||
After the above 12 paragraphs we may draw the conclusion that: | After the above 12 paragraphs we may draw the conclusion that: | ||
- After Point Omega many issues and many problems will have to be treated in a different way than before. | - After Point Omega many issues and many problems will have to be treated in a different way than before. | ||
− | - Some of these changes in attitude will follow suit automatically and involuntarily. In those cases no extra pressure is needed to steer the changes in the right direction. Such changes therefore do not need to be put high on the list of priorities, that is, the priority list of where we should invest extra attention, energy and time. These changes may in some cases be quite crucial for mankind in the new situation and they may play a central role in the shifting towards the Past-Point-Omega state of affairs. But still, these issues end up low on the priority list, because they will also come about without extra purposeful action from our side or from the side of the authorities. | + | 1. - Some of these changes in attitude will follow suit automatically and involuntarily. In those cases no extra pressure is needed to steer the changes in the right direction. Such changes therefore do not need to be put high on the list of priorities, that is, the priority list of where we should invest extra attention, energy and time. These changes may in some cases be quite crucial for mankind in the new situation and they may play a central role in the shifting towards the Past-Point-Omega state of affairs. But still, these issues end up low on the priority list, because they will also come about without extra purposeful action from our side or from the side of the authorities. |
− | - Some changes can be boosted and sped up from outside rather easily. Where that is the case, it pays off for that reason to give these changes an extra "boost" and the issue may for that reason be put higher on the priority list. There, extra effort will pay off. | + | 2. - Some changes can be boosted and sped up from outside rather easily. Where that is the case, it pays off for that reason to give these changes an extra "boost" and the issue may for that reason be put higher on the priority list. There, extra effort will pay off. |
− | - Some of the changes, related to the emergence of Point Omega, are already on the list, in the sense that people already pay attention and try to spread the changes in question as broadly as they can. An example is "freedom of speech". In many parts of the modern world the importance of this change is recognized, but in many other countries freedom of speech is still a utopian dream. These issues are certainly of importance. Still, they do not need to be put high on this priority list, because, evidently, they already are getting attention, time and energy. | + | 3. - Some of the changes, related to the emergence of Point Omega, are already on the list, in the sense that people already pay attention and try to spread the changes in question as broadly as they can. An example is "freedom of speech". In many parts of the modern world the importance of this change is recognized, but in many other countries freedom of speech is still a utopian dream. These issues are certainly of importance. Still, they do not need to be put high on this priority list, because, evidently, they already are getting attention, time and energy. |
With these three criteria in mind we now can, as examples, order a non-exhaustive listing of priorities and recommended actions for governments and individuals. With every item, every change, we will give an indication of why the item has been put higher or lower on our list of priorities. | With these three criteria in mind we now can, as examples, order a non-exhaustive listing of priorities and recommended actions for governments and individuals. With every item, every change, we will give an indication of why the item has been put higher or lower on our list of priorities. | ||
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Since this issue is likely to be taken seriously too late, and because of the price humanity would have to pay for the sorry consequences, this issue is also put high on this priority list. | Since this issue is likely to be taken seriously too late, and because of the price humanity would have to pay for the sorry consequences, this issue is also put high on this priority list. | ||
− | + | These days there are quite a number of political states of whom we would not like to know nuclear hitting power in their hands. Examples from the recent past or the present are for instance: ISIS, North Korea, the Ayatolla state in Iran, Zimbabwe, Ruanda's genocide, Pol Pot in Cambodia, etc., etc., etc. | |
'''6) UN-power guaranteeing the right to political self-determination for all populations and sub-populations'''. | '''6) UN-power guaranteeing the right to political self-determination for all populations and sub-populations'''. | ||
Self-determination will come about for all people in the world without any doubt at some point in time. Developments that can be expected after Point Omega will bring that about inevitably. | Self-determination will come about for all people in the world without any doubt at some point in time. Developments that can be expected after Point Omega will bring that about inevitably. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Until this moment in time, until this moment in our evolution, differential procreation of tribes and races and other (sub-)populations was inevitable and necessary for the gradual evolution of novel characteristics of Homo sapiens, for the progress of evolution. And selection processes on that level of operation come with genocide, large scale war, economic strangling techniques and other misery producing events. These events may always have been unpleasant, or rather terrible, properties of human life, but they were basically and in principle unavoidable because of the evolutionary dictates of differential fitness of different tribes, races or genetic sub-groups of people. | ||
+ | Only when the ordinary automatic evolutionary pressures have been bypassed by a different (and more effective) mechanisms, can we hope to have conquered the above mentioned eternal sources of human misery and pain, pains that are basically the same as the pains of any species in evolution, but that in the case of Homo sapiens tend to occur at a larger scale and more at distinct intervals (wars) instead of continuously. | ||
+ | |||
+ | After the introduction of "conscious evolution", after Point Omega, the evolutionary forces leading to all those forms of suffering will be bypassed and principles of self-determination will become a possibility that is not unstable any more. So, after Point Omega we may expect that principles of self-determination will automatically become the rule rather than the temporary exceptions. | ||
However, it pays off to put extra energy and attention in this development and speed that process up where possible, because of the dangers for mankind stemming from the present situation in many countries, where self-determination is still a far away dream and violent revolutions are lurking below the surface. The sooner we can install a generally applicable right to self-determination, the sooner those - really great - dangers will be brought under control. | However, it pays off to put extra energy and attention in this development and speed that process up where possible, because of the dangers for mankind stemming from the present situation in many countries, where self-determination is still a far away dream and violent revolutions are lurking below the surface. The sooner we can install a generally applicable right to self-determination, the sooner those - really great - dangers will be brought under control. | ||
In the new situation every local population will be entitled to collectively decide how much autonomy is preferred against which decrease of efficiency of size or decrease of governmental expertise. | In the new situation every local population will be entitled to collectively decide how much autonomy is preferred against which decrease of efficiency of size or decrease of governmental expertise. | ||
− | Recent examples of where such issues are under discussion or, less ideal, should be under discussion, are for instance: Scotland versus the UK; the UK versus the EU; the Krim versus Ukraina or Russia; East Ukraina versus Ukraina or Russia; East-Timor versus Indonesia; Papua New Guinea versus Indonesia; Catalunia versus Spain; Western Sahara versus Marocco; Southern Sudan versus Sudan; Darfur versus Sudan; etc.; etc. | + | Recent examples of where such issues are under discussion or, less ideal, should be under discussion, are for instance: Scotland versus the UK; the UK versus the EU; the Krim versus Ukraina or Russia; East Ukraina versus Ukraina or Russia; East-Timor versus Indonesia; Papua New Guinea versus Indonesia; Catalunia versus Spain; Western Sahara versus Marocco; Southern Sudan versus Sudan; Darfur versus Sudan; etc.; etc.; etc., almost without end. |
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Whereas in the future there will be no doubt more space, time and room for mothers to care for their newborns in an optimal way, we still need to emphasize here the usefulness of paying more attention to these long term developmental effects of good maternal care. On the one hand there will be created more and more opportunity for mothers to give their birthlings an optimal start. On the other hand, we can catalyze these changes tremendously by putting still more attention and energy in these changes. | Whereas in the future there will be no doubt more space, time and room for mothers to care for their newborns in an optimal way, we still need to emphasize here the usefulness of paying more attention to these long term developmental effects of good maternal care. On the one hand there will be created more and more opportunity for mothers to give their birthlings an optimal start. On the other hand, we can catalyze these changes tremendously by putting still more attention and energy in these changes. | ||
− | Therefore this issue should get relatively much priority. It will happen anyway, but events can be much optimized by now already speeding up this particular change as much as possible. (A scientific analysis of these effects can for instance be found | + | Therefore this issue should get relatively much priority. It will happen anyway, but events can be much optimized by now already speeding up this particular change as much as possible. (A scientific analysis of these effects can for instance be found in the work of [[Further_reading#Bowlby1969|Bowlby]](1969) and of [[Further_reading#Bettelheim1969|Bruno Bettelheim]](1969), where he describes the large scale failures in 20th century kibbutses regarding the early upbringing of babies.) |
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'''11) Make biological fathers pay for their offspring'''. | '''11) Make biological fathers pay for their offspring'''. | ||
As a pair to the above item is the priority of making men pay for the offspring they have sired in a biological sense. Medical techniques to assess fatherhood without a doubt are now available everywhere and they will increasingly be applied to back up claims of young mothers to share the burden of parenthood with the biological fathers. This tendency is already on the increase in most places of the world. That we still mention it here is because this will put a break on the tendency of men to "knock up" women with child without coming up with marital assistance. | As a pair to the above item is the priority of making men pay for the offspring they have sired in a biological sense. Medical techniques to assess fatherhood without a doubt are now available everywhere and they will increasingly be applied to back up claims of young mothers to share the burden of parenthood with the biological fathers. This tendency is already on the increase in most places of the world. That we still mention it here is because this will put a break on the tendency of men to "knock up" women with child without coming up with marital assistance. | ||
− | And that shift will be in favour of fathers who are capable of giving parental support and this shift will be an increasing hindrance to the fatherhood of incompetents. Making biological fathers pay their fair share in parental efforts is an extra brake on genetic pollution and moreover it helps to provide newborns with a good start. | + | And that shift will be in favour of fathers who are capable of giving parental support and this shift will be an increasing hindrance to the fatherhood of incompetents. Making biological fathers pay their fair share in parental efforts is an extra brake on genetic pollution and moreover it helps to provide newborns with a good start. And that will improve the likelihood of positive learning cycles and optimal courses of development with all the resulting positive spin offs involved. And that, in turn, will help to make the Point Omega transition more likely to occurr. |
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A movement that already is gaining more and more influence at the level of ecological values, is "Permaculture". The Permaculture methodology guides land owners in the direction of producing useful goods, foods and raw materials, while at the same time improving and not exhausting the local ecological carrying capacity. This new method about how to deal with our world originated in Australia and has since its beginning kept spreading over the world at an ever expanding pace. | A movement that already is gaining more and more influence at the level of ecological values, is "Permaculture". The Permaculture methodology guides land owners in the direction of producing useful goods, foods and raw materials, while at the same time improving and not exhausting the local ecological carrying capacity. This new method about how to deal with our world originated in Australia and has since its beginning kept spreading over the world at an ever expanding pace. | ||
− | A similar striving is included in what we call the "Sicirec Formula", applied in plantation forestry, but equally well applicable in any other exploitation of land for whichever purpose, be it forestry, agriculture, industry or urban planning. That formula emphasizes that crucial for preserving biodiversity is the strategy to keep a certain percentage of the land involved in a state of its climax vegetation, together with its climax animal life, spatially intertwined with areas for rational productivity. The latter may refer to forms of Permaculture, but less ideal patterns of utilization will also work out well within the Sicirec Formula. | + | A similar striving is included in what we call the "Sicirec Formula", a form of "controlled landscaping" applied in plantation forestry, but equally well applicable in any other exploitation of land for whichever purpose, be it forestry, agriculture, industry or urban planning. That formula emphasizes that crucial for preserving biodiversity is the strategy to keep a certain percentage of the land involved in a state of its climax vegetation, together with its climax animal life, spatially intertwined with areas for rational productivity. The latter may refer to forms of Permaculture, but less ideal patterns of utilization will also work out well within the Sicirec Formula. |
Boosting the world wide utilization of these new ecological principles, can and will have a tremendous impact of the well being of the world as a whole and thus on our own well being. | Boosting the world wide utilization of these new ecological principles, can and will have a tremendous impact of the well being of the world as a whole and thus on our own well being. | ||
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== Relax .......... we can afford it now == | == Relax .......... we can afford it now == | ||
− | + | '''(*)''' The main tenet on this Wiki is that we are now entering the shift of human society into Point Omega, and beyond. | |
Indications are that humanity has already entered the accelerating phase in this transition and that we are already beyond the "point of no return". | Indications are that humanity has already entered the accelerating phase in this transition and that we are already beyond the "point of no return". | ||
− | What is certain, according to the information on this Wiki, is that Point Omega will happen, sooner or later, automatically and unavoidably, simply because that is how human behaviour has been organized and has evolved up to this point. And yes, we think that we already have entered the predicted accelerating phase. That this is not generally recognized already is mainly due to the fact that human awareness very strongly is hindered by myopic effects, making it almost impossible for humans to see the broad and complete picture. Our personal horizons are very narrow indeed, for both genetic and cultural reasons. | + | What is certain, according to the information on this Wiki, is that Point Omega will happen, sooner or later, automatically and unavoidably, simply because that is how human behaviour has been organized and has evolved up to this point. And yes, we think that we already have entered the predicted accelerating phase. That this is not generally recognized already is mainly due to the fact that human awareness very strongly is hindered by myopic effects, making it almost impossible for humans to see the broad and complete picture. Our personal horizons are very narrow indeed, for both genetic (genes .....)and cultural reasons (memes .....). |
From the contributions on this Wiki one might deduce that this Omega Transition, being of more influence and importance than the agricultural revolution, and bringing untold changes and advantages to the whole of mankind, is very much worth fighting for. And of course, this is very much true. Of all possible targets and goals, helping Point Omega to proceed appears to be the most useful possible, rightly deserving all our best efforts. | From the contributions on this Wiki one might deduce that this Omega Transition, being of more influence and importance than the agricultural revolution, and bringing untold changes and advantages to the whole of mankind, is very much worth fighting for. And of course, this is very much true. Of all possible targets and goals, helping Point Omega to proceed appears to be the most useful possible, rightly deserving all our best efforts. |
Latest revision as of 18:14, 4 August 2022
Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Lost perspectives, . . . . . what next ?
- 3 New facts we need to take into account
- 4 From fact-finding to courses of action
- 5 Democratization of education
- 6 Transparency
- 7 Procreating consciously
- 8 Avoiding Good-Bad social reflexes
- 9 Dealing with other aspects of Self-Blindness
- 10 What about Religion
- 11 Co-evolution of High Intelligence and Self-Blindness, the example of the Jews
- 12 Curbing destruction of the environment
- 13 Evolutionary Jet-lag & (Un)Happiness
- 14 Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself
- 15 How to deal with hopeless cases ?
- 16 Assuming responsibility for every human being in existence
- 17 Competition and Work; how to deal with it in a different way
- 18 Priorities for an action list
- 19 Relax .......... we can afford it now
Introduction
(*) This paper was written at the request of Victor Koekkoek. Reading the other materials on this Wiki, he was missing a clear summary of what are the implications of all this novel information for those who carry responsibility for how society is ran and guided. In other words: What are the implications for the intelligent part of our leaders ? And he was right. For most people the materials on this Wiki are too difficult to grasp. Most people are only capable of thinking what the majority of the herd is thinking. We are social animals after all. Most people are not curious enough and not intelligent enough to address the issues that really matter. And that holds a fortiori in this period of time, when much of the information, presented here, has not yet found its way to the pool of common knowledge and wisdom.
Therefore this paper is written as an aid for that part of our leaders that have the capacity to grasp the essence of the issues as presented on this Wiki and that have the gumption to think "out of the box", trying to figure out the best guidance for human society.
After discussing the implications for the different realms of society, this paper will end with a listing of suggested priorities for any persons who find themselves in positions of responsibility.
This chapter, "Directives for after Point Omega", is placed after "A guided tour through the Omega Research Wiki" and after "Why a Point Omega transition ?". The reason is that for understanding this way of summarizing of the situation of mankind, one needs to have understood the basics of several notions that these days are not yet part of our cultural heritage and common awareness, but that are nevertheless indispensable for assessing the most important dangers, options and opportunities that humanity is faced with these days. Without knowing the facts, there is no useful assessment possible.
In short, this Wiki communicates bits of information that already have each become available in different, specific circles of specialists, but that have not yet reached the status of common knowledge, but that we nevertheless consider here as indispensable for a proper understanding.
Some of the bits and pieces of information that we need here, have in previous years already been published by ourselves, separately in scientific papers, each of which is dealing with one of those specific fields of interest and research. In such cases it is indicated in the chapters in question. But these pieces of information are at best known to the limited circle of specialists in those specific separate scientific research fields, and not to the public at large.
Other pieces of information have not yet been published in scientific papers, but are nevertheless based on thorough research.
Still other contributions on this Wiki consist of general discussions about combining various of such bits and pieces of information and about investigating what emerges from such a combining of different fields of research. All these bits and pieces are needed in order to come to a comprehensible total picture of the present human situation. None of the presented issues can be missed, or the complete picture will fail to emerge.
For the above reasons it is indispensable to already have taken notice of most of these separate issues, dealt with in the various papers on this Wiki, in order to be able to grasp what led us to the conclusions and advices as formulated in the paragraphs below.
In case a reader wishes to first take notice of the advices and the directives below, before having grasped the details of all the different issues in question as dealt with in one of the other articles on this Wiki, we have added in the text below links to where for each separate issue additional explanation can be found.
What the reader should at least be familiar with before continuing to read the below, is what is meant with the term "Point Omega transition" (see e.g. here(*) and here(*)).
In case the reader has read and digested the chapter "A guided tour through the Omega Research Wiki(*)" and has taken notice of the underlying argumentation in the chapters referred to there, it should be possible to also grasp the message in the paragraphs below.
Lost perspectives, . . . . . what next ?
(*) Right now, in the beginning of the 21st century AD, we are living in a period in which the greater ideological movements have lost most of their appeal.
All great religions suffer from believers moving towards a secularized position, stopping to behave like meek sheep. Disbelief and denial of superstition rule the day.
Not only the great religions lose their influence and control over their people, also the greater political idealistic systems encounter more and more critique and scepticism. The communist system has lost the cold war competition and thus lost most of its credibility. But also the capitalist system is encountering more and more scepticism from its citizens, who recognize the obvious shortcomings of blind capitalism that follows the basic principles of the survival of the fittest in an economic sense. Many feel that this competitive system does not support its people well enough and that in the capitalist societies, and not only there, the majority of "losers" in the competitive societal structure are locked into a more or less hopeless struggle for survival. They may survive, or at least many of them, but hardly with any hopes for a pleasant future for themselves or at least for their offspring.
More and more people resent society treating them like slaves without any prospect for liberation or an otherwise agreeable life. And that also holds for the western "democratic" and "enlightened" societies, not only for those "backward" societies elsewhere in the world, that are widely recognized as repressive, dictatorial and totalitarian, suffering from unpredictable arbitrariness and cruelty. People in modern society apparently have lost their perspective for a better, future, society. This makes a sense of ever more openly confessed hopelessness gradually spread among the populations of the civilized world. The fairy tales are being exposed as such and nothing comes forward to fill the gap.
There seems to be a growing need for a perspective that can give hope for a brighter future, a perspective that can survive the scrutiny of seasoned disbelievers, a perspective that cannot be put aside as another fairy tale, a perspective that is not anchored in badly tested political ideals or in superstitions, but a perspective that is firmly anchored in scientific knowledge. Such a perspective is increasingly sought after, but it is generally felt that it is alas nowhere in sight.
This Wiki is dedicated to showing that, despite this ever more widely felt hopelessness, such a novel perspective is very well possible and in fact that the total of available data suggests that an enormous shift in human perspective is at hand, called here the Point Omega transition. And that once the Point Omega transition has started, the sought after perspective will present itself automatically and unavoidably. This perspective will fill the gap and it will bring purpose where now hopelessness rules (see here(*) for a description of the Point Omega concept).
After Point Omega namely, humanity finds itself in a totally novel situation. We will have left the millennia long era in which consciousness has gradually been evolving up to this Point Omega and instead we will have entered the situation of "conscious evolution", the beginning of which is basically what Point Omega is all about. Many of the rules and laws, regulating societies before Point Omega, will become superfluous or counter-productive and will vanish as a consequence. Most of these limiting rules and laws, needed in the customary societal situation(s), dictating our behavioural possibilities and impossibilities, will lose their function and their necessity.
This reduction of repressive forces will release enormous amounts of energy in all participants, energy that can forthwith be spent on more useful, more creative and more productive goals than merely keeping each other in check, or winning all sorts of - now dysfunctional and obsolete - competitions for survival.
The bottom line is that, according to us, there is now a new perspective emerging, a perspective that will be firmly anchored in scientific research and a perspective that perfectly makes sense in view of everything we scientifically know for sure, a perspective that also will help us overcome the neuroticizing and utterly unpleasant power structures that have ruled the existence of Homo sapiens for about 10.000 years. Those crippling and utterly unpleasant power structures have ruled our existence for all that time and that situation is now coming to an end. Homo sapiens will take over the lead over its own existence and over its own evolution as well. Once these new options and possibilities will start spreading, human society will gradually absorb this new perspective and in the end there will not be any lack of "purpose" left.
Having sorted out in this Wiki most theoretical issues that we need to know in order to assess our situation properly and correctly, we can now come to a listing of what is awaiting us, which options we do have and which options do not exist or otherwise are "no go" areas and what would be the most clever issues to work on, in order to make our coming transition as smooth as possible.
Before starting with a listing of useful directives as given further below, it seems useful to first rehearse the most important findings of the research reported elsewhere on this Wiki, findings that we will have to take into account when ruminating how our future will going to be shaped. With each of these findings a link is given to where on this Wiki more information can be found about each specific issue.
New facts we need to take into account
(**)
- Human beings have strikingly little capacity to understand their own or each other's behaviour. As a consequence human beings behave essentially like other Apes behave, no matter their intellectual pretense. We can call this phenomenon Self-Blindness(*).
- At the cognitive level Human beings utilize an important tool to consolidate that Self-Blindness, which is the Good-Bad polarity. Good-Bad differences refer not to any real behavioural differences, although people tend to think that they do. But in reality good-bad differences refer to different likings or appreciations from the side of the onlooker or "judge" that serve to stabilize existing ideas (prejudices) of one person about the other. The Good-Bad dimension therefore stabilizes social relationships while preventing (effectively shielding off) any understanding of the real social mechanisms involved. It helps ascertain that human beings keep acting socially to a large extent like other Great Apes. And the latter is crucial for the continuation of procreation and evolutionary success. Until this moment in our evolution this illusory Good-Bad tool(**) was an indispensable attribute for mankind's survival.
- Self-Blindness has evolved in Homo sapiens as a consequence of, or rather as a condition for higher intelligence(*).
- Much later, beginning with the agricultural revolution, since the period of 10.000 years ago till 5.000 years ago, Human evolution was taken over by an evolution on the level of "memes" or of "software". The latter evolution moves at a much higher speed than the traditional level of DNA or "hardware" evolution. The evolution of the hardware (Genes, DNA-based) is therefore lagging behind as compared to the evolution of the "software" (Memes, Culture). But, since we humans are carriers of both genes ánd memes, this causes motivational friction in individuals of Homo sapiens, which friction is structural. We call this friction the "Evolutionary Jet Lag"(**).
- Agriculture needs power structures at the cultural level (software-level). As mentioned above, these power structures in fact have taken over the lead in Human evolution. As carriers of the power structure "memes"(**), human individuals tend to be pushed into a state of mild or harsh slavery, as compared to their primordial natural tendencies.
- Power structures have evolved in such a way, that they developed a myriad of tricks to subdue and control their carriers. One of the most elementary tricks is to neuroticize their human carriers(*). Whereas this customary neurotization strongly reduces the capacity of human individuals for realizing their full innate behavioural repertoires, it improves their maleability and adaptation to slavery. Power structures need large masses of malleable work slaves and military ("cannon fodder" these days). Power structures compete with one another at such levels, and that determines the direction of our evolution.
- Self-Blindness has always prevented humanity to understand the most basic elements of the fundamentals of our behaviour, to the extent that we even do not have daily used words for the most essential basic elements of our own behaviour. That way the mechanisms of emotional and motivational reversals`(***) have for instance always escaped our attention and stayed hidden, in spite of the fact that these mechanisms are the very cornerstones of any behaviour in species with an open ended capacity for learning, and therefore in particular in us humans.
- Repair of the Blindness(*) for our own emotional and motivational reversals(***) harbours untold opportunities to open completely novel and more mature and wholesome avenues of regulation and support of us human beings. It opens up the road for intelligently looking at ourselves as well as looking at each other.
- Behavioural differences between individuals in socially living species are partly based on genetics. One of these congenital personality dimensions is "differences in adaptiveness versus creative innovation", also to be labeled as "Social versus Self-Willed". Involuntary and automatic selection forces within social structures(**) are causing automatic shifts in average genetic make up of the group members. That results in a limited life span of any social structure of socially living mammals, including in human societies and other social human structures. Depending on the level of social organization that mechanism leads to turn-over catastrophes like e.g. in rodents periodic migration waves and e.g. in us humans "bankruptcy", "revolution", "genocide" and similar phenomena. Whereas this mechanism throughout the ages always has made any stable social structure in also human societies impossible, the mechanism doesn't need to cause much concern at this moment in time. Once Conscious Evolution has been started up, the sting can be taken out of this primordial mechanism and it can consciously be replaced by more agreeable mechanisms.
- Another mechanism with a genetic basis that until now has always been kept hidden from awareness, by means of taboo-structures, is genetic pollution(**). That mechanism in itself has always already been enough to make any stable social organization impossible to survive for long. Genetic pollution has always been a sufficient extra reason to make (peaceful) social organizations collapse in due time. For thousands of years it has been one of the main reasons why complex civilizations would only have limited life spans and would invariably end in catastrophical collapse. But also this mechanism does not need to fill us with much concern. Even while this mechanism is still beyond our collective awareness at this moment in time and still keeps triggering the collapse of all large civilizational structures in the usual way, the start of Conscious Evolution will easily and automatically make this problem of genetic pollution(**) be tackled successfully in the slipstream of events.
From fact-finding to courses of action
(**) Thus we memorized above the most important novel facts that we have to take into account for understanding the present human situation properly. These facts, that were either unknown or that were out of the focus of our attention, we now do need to be aware of in order to be able to design our future course, for the options that we have, and for the actions that we may decide to take as a consequence. These novel bits of extra information, the formerly unknown facts and the already known facts that were not in the focus of our attention, together with a number of generally well known facts that already were part of our cultural heritage, led us to the conclusion(*) that we are at the brink of a major transition in the evolution of mankind, in fact the largest revolutionary transition in the whole of Human Evolution, which transition point we labeled as Point Omega.
Having become aware of the above mentioned novel bits of information, we can now start to discuss a number of issues that each will play a completely different role in our existence, once we will have moved from the pre-Point-Omega condition to the post-Point-Omega situation. For it is mankind's moving through the transition of Point Omega that will change the role and the importance of each of the discussed phenomena. Below, we will now first discuss a number of such key issues one by one, viewing each issue from both perspectives, the actual, pre-Point-Omega perspective and the coming post-Point-Omega perspective.
One general consideration that we should keep in mind while trying to find our way, is that scientific thinking will replace traditional superstitions. But, that is what will happen at the surface. Below the surface, within ourselves, as part of our system of feelings, emotions and motivations, it is that curiosity will increasingly replace fear as the all-determining factor in our lives. That is what the over-all picture of the theory of Point Omega predicts. That is what can be derived from the detailed knowledge as is presented elsewhere on this Wiki. The all pervading neuroticising structure of the old society will more and more give way to the emergence of curiosity and creative impulses. And since those differences are very contagious, those changes will happen with the increasing speed of a chain reaction and with an unexpected rapidness.
In the below, non exhaustive, listing, some issues are presented, in the form of rules that will apply, others in the form of well known, but until now badly understood or difficult to realize admonitions, each of which issues will get a completely new reality value in the new situation. Each consideration in this listing leads to a course of action. We will now present here in the below chapters 12 such courses of action. And at the end we will summarize the suggested courses of action in a listing of priorities. That listing may be an indication for us where we now had best put most of our attention and energy.
12 considerations:
- [of education]
- Procreating consciously
- Avoiding Good-Bad social reflexes
- Dealing with other aspects of Self-Blindness
- What about Religion
- Curbing destruction of the environment
- Competition and Work; how to deal with it in a different way
- Evolutionary Jet-lag & (Un)Happiness
- Treating others as you would like to be treated yourself
- How to deal with hopeless cases ?
- Assuming responsibility for every human being in existence
Democratization of education
(*) The first issue is about the optimization of educational opportunities.
Power structures lean among other things on an information privilege. Youngsters from privileged classes enjoy more opportunities for study and for personal development than do youngsters from the working class. This situation does have a number of advantages for the structures in power. It stabilizes the position of power of the persons manning the power structure control positions, keeping control positions "in the family". Privileged wealth is one of the driving stimuli to keep this pattern going.
For society as a whole there is however also a strong disadvantage to this education privilege. That is that enormous quantities of talent are continuously being wasted, because stemming from the working and other lower classes of society. A society can potentially win vast advantages when exploiting all potential to the full, which can be achieved by making education levels just depend on individual potential and talent and not on the incidental wealth of the family of the persons in question.
In some countries the availability of education for those who are capable is to some extent democratized. In those countries, now still a minority, the learning potential of the population is exploited to a much higher degree than what is usually the case. After Point Omega we may expect that this tendency to democratize education will further be perfected world wide. The results will be two-fold. First of all expensive education resources will not any more be wasted on stupid or less gifted members of the privileged classes. Those resources can then be utilized more effectively. In the second place almost all innate potential in the whole population can be utilized, where now only a fraction of that potential is coming to bloom.
Comparing the percentage of potential until now being realized world wide with what would potentially be realized afterPointOmega, leads to the conclusion that this education issue will be one of the major power sources for a stabilization of Point Omega developments. Just this one of the many basic changes around Point Omega does in itself already have the potential to change our world beyond recognition.
Transparency
(*) The second issue is about transparency.
Transparency is a key issue in the transition to the post-Point-Omega world. Transparency combines with honesty, but not with counterfeit and fraud. Powerstructures heavily lean on information advantages and on keeping the ruled masses unaware of what is really going on. The more ignorant the subdued masses, the easier it is to keep exercising power over them. Power structures in general prefer to keep information privileges in place. Transparency often is poison to their power games and (hidden) ruling techniques.
However, these days, because of technical developments, we are experiencing an information explosion and with that an explosion of accessibility of information. One of the implications is that it is becoming increasingly more difficult for power structures to maintain their information privileges and communication advantages. Knowledge is democraticized unstoppably and the customary information privileges are crumbling down.
In the old days, up till this moment in time, information privileges were the "normal" state of affairs. Everybody is used to it and customarily takes it for granted. In the new era however, transparency will be valued more than the holding upright of the power structures of the day. People will prefer to do away with all that.
There is also another, different side to this coin. That is the side of "privacy". People in general are very much attached to their privacy. People in general fear "thought control" by the powers in charge and wish to defend their last areas of privacy left to them. People wish to keep their most personal thoughts and feelings hidden from other people. They want to defend their freedom of thinking and feeling differently from what they perceive as the "ideal" that society is trying to impose. The result is that people do not wish transparency regarding their personal selves. They do not wish that other people can read their thoughts.
However, these are reactions and reflexes that are anchored firmly in the old situation. The old situation is a situation of struggle and strife. A situation where competition is present in every corner and fold of society. No matter how far a human society has advanced in establishing a "just" and "fair" societal structure, every societal structure before Point Omega needed to harbor a certain degree of "survival of the fittest" principles in order not to loose the quality of its carriers, us humans, too rapidly by genetic pollution and random drift. These are principles that never have been articulated clearly, in fact they were in general "taboo", but nevertheless in reality they always have been a prerequisite and a strict condition, because of the demands of the struggle for survival between the different competing power structures in the human world.
Therefore, in practice, only societal structures that kept incorporated certain degrees of competition and "survival of the fittest" within their population and within their structures, could win in the evolutionary battle for survival, a battle basically carried out on software level. But that battle clearly was / is felt in the personal lives of us, individual carriers, also. And that hurts !
In the new situation however, the old evolutionary requirements will have been replaced by the new principles of "conscious evolution". And these new principles make the primordial requirements of competition and strife superfluous. That holds not only for the evolutionary survival struggle between the different power structures, but also for the evolutionary struggle and competition between individuals within the same power structure or culture, between the carriers of the same power structure, between neighbours, between even family. No need for competition any more after Point Omega. Its evolutionary usefulness and necessity will have become obsolete. That also implies that the need for secrecy, for cheating and for fraud is large and by becoming obsolete.
The struggle for survival by all sorts of competition used to lean heavily on the cleverness of individuals, on their capacity to be just a little more clever than their individual competitors. In the old structures huge seas of energy and effort used to be invested in attempts to be more "clever" than the other, and unavoidably that always implied attempts for cheating and fraud, especially if not detected. This principle is so basic to human society, that we don't notice how much these mechanisms rule our lives and how much energy they take. Of course it is true that any society, small or large, is anchored in regulations about which behaviours are permitted and which are not and in more or less effective measures to force its citizens to stick to those rules and laws. Still, within such law systems, people try to outflank each other in "cleverness" and they naturally search for the boundaries of what they can socially and legally get away with.
In short, in the old system the individuals cannot help but be subjected to the all-overruling demand to compete and to excel in comparison with their fellow citizens and unavoidably also often would try to cheat and defraud the others if they could get away with it. One needed to be almost "holy" to no fall for such pressures. And holiness was rare by definition. In practice, one could simply not avoid to join in those aspects of the rat race. A liking for transparency did not fit in those situations.
After Point Omega the situation is however quite different, also in that respect. If the deeply felt need for being better at cheating and defrauding falls away because the need for it has become obsolete, incredibly vast amount of energy and attention are spared and can be invested in more agreeable and more pleasant issues. In fact, we are talking here about the major part of all our energy spent.
After Point Omega there will be felt much less need for privacy and secrecy, because the danger of being unmasked and the need for winning in such competitions of cheating and fraud doesn't play such an important role any longer. That has become irrelevant. People will not be concerned any longer if others can look into their inner thoughts and feelings. They don't fear to lose important competitions by too much "transparency" any longer. They couldn't care less.
This does have important implications for governments and other leaders of society. Transparency can safely be a basic target and goal with less concern for unwanted transparency in the feelings and likings of the individuals. They don't have much to hide any longer anyway.
Transparency ? Yes !
Privacy ? Who cares any longer ? And for what obsolete reasons ?
One of the results of transparency is that power structures are losing their information privileges and thus lose an important tool for keeping their citizens / carriers subdued and in slavery, mild or harsh. That relaxation of repression tools will diminish also the selection pressures in favour of sociability and compliance and against individualism, self-will and creativity. As explained in detail elsewhere on this Wiki(***), the relaxation of that selection pressure will take the power away from the cyclic processes that cause turn-overs, bankruptcies, revolutions and genocides.
Social selection cycles and social catastrophes will as a consequence become easier to handle and can be redirected. This side effect of transparency should provide an extra reason for governments and other authorities to stimulate such transparency where possible.
Procreating consciously
(*) The third issue is about procreation.
There is no need to receive children with handicaps, nor to produce them. Parents, and also governments with all their guidance potential, have a responsibility towards newborn life. Every newborn is entitled to be wished for and to be received with joy and love. This includes the parental care for the quality of the new life, also in the planning phase. Medical and biological knowledge and skills make suffering from innate defects large and by unnecessary from Point Omega on.
This principle will automatically put an end to overpopulation. Statistics show that the percentage of children, born unwanted, is such that if that category will end, numbers will rapidly decrease. In a not too far future after Point Omega it will be difficult to imagine for the people from that time, that in the past our present overpopulation was such a grand problem and that people were quite prepared to live with a couple of thousand people per square kilometer. What we today consider as "usual" population densities will then be regarded as a nightmare from the past.
Technically speaking, there will be no need to restrict the number of children, permitted per parent, by force. Chinese methods are, or will soon be, superfluous. Helping parents to avoid unwished for children, will already be enough to reduce the average reproduction rate to below 2,0 per woman. Governments had better spend their energy in counter-effecting the tendency of "the most stupid people reproducing fastest".
Whereas knowledge about the effects of genetic pollution is not at the core of our present day cultural heritage, it used to be a more common concern just a couple of generations ago. Among other things by the misdemeanour of the Nazis these notions have been put away in taboo sections of our present day culture. The above considerations as derived from the information presented on this Wiki (see for instance here (#5)(**)) lead however to the conclusion that, in spite of the Nazi-inspired taboo on population genetic thinking on humans, we should effectively address our genetic make up and start to prevent genetic pollution from automatically undermining any attempts to establish lasting fair and civilized societies.
We wish to point out here that in that respect we do not need to foster any fears as installed in us by what happened in the Third Reich. We now do have all technological tools at our fingertips to help people avoid unwanted genetic defects in their offspring. And since the average human being can easily be brought to the point of paying attention to these genetic issues and act accordingly, there is basically no need whatsoever to exert strong pressures from above to enforce a genetic police system. Where it appears possible to seduce people for instance to buy the useless foods that they daily purchase in great quantities, it should be no problem at all to seduce them to follow a healthy management of their own offspring. The level of advertisement needed to achieve that is probably less intensive than the advertisement needed to make them continuously buy unwholesome quantities of junk food. All that is needed is a better level of awareness at all levels of society, breaking this specific veil of organized ignorance and superstition.
To put it bluntly, humankind can only survive if it addresses effectively not only the unhampered growth of numbers, that is causing the destruction of the world’s ecological heritage, but also the effects of genetic pollution and deterioration, that would unavoidably cause the collapse of any serious attempt to establish a really civilized human community, as it has always done, throughout the history of mankind. All the necessary know how is now available. We just need to change focus, breaking taboos and ignorance and embrace awareness.
Our civilization is getting global. Let’s take the war producing population genetic sting out, before it destroys us all. We cannot afford to have complete morons sit at the red buttons, which is what unavoidably happens more and more when ever increasing “genetic loads” are smothering any further possibility for adequate and intelligent action.
The stark truth is that most of us do behave as, and have been trained to behave as complete morons, adapted with force, under penalty of being ostracized, to systems of collective superstition, blindness and ignorance that block any tendency to come to our senses and take adequate, responsible decisions.
It is time to wake up. Further delay will become more and more “homo-cidal” to us all.
Let us consider shortly what we may expect on the level of human population genetics after we have "woken up". What will happen after Point Omega ?
Increased awareness of our genetic endowment, an increased general level of sober thinking and a strongly improved set of medical tools to assist us in family planning will result in an ever larger percentage of the population procreating consciously and voluntarily. That will increase the frequency couples are utilising genetic counseling for optimal procreational results. In the USA we have seen already a steady increase during the last decades of the use of genetic counseling. And these tendencies are spreading towards Europe and other wealthy regions as well.
Governments can easily induce more use of medical techniques for enhancing the quality of the offspring. Therefore it is not needed at all to use much government pressure and force. Nazi-like measures are not needed at all. Modern advertisement techniques are effective enough to help trigger such rational procreational methods to spread among the population widely.
The modern techniques of birth control enable parents to choose the proper time for procreation. These techniques are spreading rapidly all over the world. This has two very important consequences. One is that conscious procreation will stop the growth of overpopulation. If all unwanted children would not get born, the world population would stop to grow and the present overpopulation would come to a halt. The second consequence is that the genetic counseling going with a more conscious procreation would decrease levels of genetic load and pollution.
These effects will come automatically and unavoidably, simply because they have become possible and people like to profit themselves from their advantages. We may expect that contemporary taboos that are still blocking such developments, will gradually but shortly lose their power over us.
There will be more different effects on the population genetic level that we may expect to emerge after Point Omega. But the above examples will suffice to indicate the trend to be expected.
Avoiding Good-Bad social reflexes
(**) The fourth issue is dealing with our illusions about "Good" and "Bad".
The ability to avoid being trapped by the tendency to indulge in Positive versus Negative Evaluation is likely to be a prerequisite for manipulating population- and group-cycles at will. And since human population- and group-dynamics tend to be worked out nowadays at the level of economic strangling techniques, genocide and (nuclear) war, the skill of controlling such population-dynamic forces would seem to be a prerequisite for man's survival.
The positive-negative dimension, Good versus Bad, does not relate to actual behaviour. Still, people think it does. This phenomenon is one of the most striking examples of man's innate Blindness for the Self. The Good-Bad dimension is a very effective veil for hiding human behavioural reality from awareness. One of the mechanisms is the built in time bomb within every social structure, making sure that the life span of any social structure is only limited and in the end causing catastrophic turn over events like break down through ossification, bankruptcies, revolutions, genocides, political collapse, etc. For the people involved these catastrophic events are highly unpleasant and problematic, but the (historical) biological and evolutionary advantages have been amply explained elsewhere on this Wiki.(***) The evolutionary usefulness of these built in catastrophes is clear.
The proximate mechanism fueling these cyclic selection mechanisms is the involuntary selection pressure within each organizational structure in favour of the genetic roots of docility, sociablity and adaptiveness and against innovative creativity and individualism. These forces of attraction and repulsion work out on the cognitive level through the illusory notions of Good and Bad. The Good-Bad dimension thus motors the cyclic turn over mechanisms and the periodic emergence of social catastrophes. Until now, these social cyclic turn-over mechanisms are practically unknown, let alone their effects and implications.
For all practical reasons, after Point Omega it is not necessary to focus on the working of those cyclic catastrophes. It will be sufficient to focus attention on the knowledge of Good and Bad, that is, on the illusory character of it. Once awareness will be spreading about this one particular aspect of humanity's Self-Blindness, the attachment to utilizing this illusory polarity as the most important personality dimension, the all overriding power of these good-bad reflexes in social relations will diminish and gradually lose its influence in human social life. And that is in particular of crucial importance on the level of politics and governmental decision making.
Viewed from a point of view from before Point Omega (which is "now"), this option, this possibility to collectively overcome the devastating effects of this aspect of our Self-Blindness, the blinding effects of the utilization of the Good-Bad dimension, is rather difficult to grasp. If not conceptually too complicated for most people, it certainly is a bridge too far emotionally to ask from people to not follow the primordial dictates of the blind forces of social attraction and repulsion, that have steered their / our behaviour since the beginning of time.
However, viewed from our situation áfter the Point Omega transition, it will be increasingly easy for increasing numbers of people to overcome these primordial reflexes of attraction and repulsion and to consciously choose more fruitful ways to interact. And this change will also be subject to positive feed back mechanisms that will make it progressively easier for people to adopt novel ways to interact, once certain critical numbers have been reached.
In short, it will pay off for governments to enhance scientific knowledge about the Good-Bad concepts and to stimulate people to find alternative and more fruitful ways to interact with one another. Such ways will be counter-intuitive at first, but gradually people will get used to it, especially after it becomes more and more clear what bounties can be expected at the other side of the divide, after having passed the boundary of the knowledge of Good and Bad.
If you understand how (illusory) Good-Bad reflexes work, you automatically stop to "judge" people.
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Matthew 7, verse 1&2.)
Dealing with other aspects of Self-Blindness
(*) Self-Blindness has been a steady trait of Homo sapiens since a couple of million years, that is, from the time the intelligence of our ancestors started to rise. A high intelligence cannot be an ESS without a special provision that blocks the application of intelligent faculties to the own behaviour. The latter is the strong and striking Self-Blindness that is such a peculiar feature of our own species.
The above discussed compulsive human tendency to make use of Good-Bad differences in judgments is just one of the many forms in which Self-Blindness appears.
In the psychological research literature one can find a vast amount of issues that show specific human blindnesses in certain (other) fields of functioning. Even on Wikipedia one can find a list of cognitive biases(*), each of which biases is another expression of the striking Blindness for the Self of Homo sapiens (see also here(*) for a chapter on this Wiki that is dedicated to these Self-Blindness phenomena).
Since Self-Blindness is one of the main ingredients for the structures that keep humanity bound in slavery and neuroticism, it is of great importance, and very urgent at that, that we collectively try as quickly and as effectively as we can, to come to grips with this typically human behavioural bias. If we wish to create a more agreeable world, we do have to take this hurdle. There is no escape from that necessity. In the above mentioned chapter on this Wiki it is argued that we should start a research discipline that is fully dedicated to create clarity and scientific insight in these aspects of Self-Blindness. In that chapter(**) it is suggested to label such a research discipline as "Amathology" or "the science of ignorance".
It may sound outrageous at first sight to advertise such a research discipline, but it is not meant as a joke. In fact this should be considered as one of the most important issues for putting extra energy, time and attention, if we wish to stimulate a smooth transition into the post-Point-Omega world. Seriously dealing with the human Self-Blindness should therefore be considered as one of the major differences between the pre-Point-Omega condition and the post-Point-Omega situation. In fact, starting up research disciplines on Amathology could be labeled as a significant characteristic of the post-Point-Omega era.
What about Religion
(*) The sixth issue to pay attention to here is religion.
Religion is one of the areas of life where great differences will occur between the pre-Point-Omega situation and the post-Point-Omega situation. In the realm of religions great changes will inescapably occur. One of the reasons is that religions deal with peoples attitude towards life and towards society and towards fellow citizens and at the same time religions play a major, and often hidden, role in keeping people under control. Apart from being a rescue and a life vest for the struggling populace, religions in general also play a major role as tools for power structures. This dual role contributes to the confusion that religiously oriented subjects tend to suffer from. And this confusion is one of the corner stones of power structures in charge, for maintaining control.
Because of these central functions in human life, religions will change in appearance and in function once all major aspects of human life are changing with the Point Omega transition.
Briefly summarized, we can recognize 4 central characteristics of religions:
1) Religions represent an important information source for its adherents; religions also function as a support system for people in need; and religions function also as networks for social communication and social relationships; and finally, religions provide a channel for spiritual experiences, god-consciousness and related levels of awareness. These aspects together are the information and support sides of religions.
2) A totally different function is that religions are also functioning as tools for suppression, installing fears and superstitions in their carriers / subjects.
3) Religions also serve as a sort of life vests for neurotic and fearful people. And since the vast majority of people falls in that class of people, the life-vest function of religion has always been, and still is, crucial.
4) The above 3 functions may seem contradictory in many respects, and basically, they are. Religions always seem to create inextricable tangles of inexplicable complexities, that nevertheless manage to bind people within their believe systems. The pictures of the world and of peoples own existence may seem inextricably complex, but as such these pictures and views, as provided by religious beliefs, represent an ESS structure ( Evolutionarily Stable Strategies) for the power structures in place.
All these 4 aspects of religion will change tremendously during the shift towards Point Omega.
So, religions play a central role in keeping communal world views in place and at the same time in keeping their carriers (us) bound in a strong dependence of the local power structures in question. Neuroticism and dependency of the masses is strongly defended and given shape by means of all the fairy tales and lies that religions keep in place (see here(**) for more explanation about the way power structures utilize organized ignorance, superstition and fear for maintaining their power over their carriers - subjects). Packages of superstition, ignorance and neuroticizing belief systems may be disadvantageous to their personal carriers, but they evolved and always existed because of their evolutionary survival value at the communal level. And by that we mean survival value on the level of software, the level of "memes", the leading level for the evolution of Homo sapiens. Not surprisingly, many philosophers (and prophets) consider science as conducted properly and soberly, as a means to liberation. "Seek ye the truth, and the truth will make you free", as the saying goes, a saying that can also already be found in the Bible. In that sense such philosophers mean to indicate science as juxtaposed to religious superstition, ignorance and belief-systems.
What can be expected to happen after Point Omega in this respect is a further secularization of society, in the sense that superstitious beliefs and structured ignorance will stop controlling society as they did in the past. The world will more and more choose for science where science appears to conflict with religious traditions and blindness for the truth, and especially with religious taboos against looking at ourselves soberly. In that sense science will work as a liberating force.
Another effect we may expect from this secularization and increasing awareness of all the workings within ourselves is a cleaning up of all aspects, mentioned under point 1) above.
Our world views, our support systems for the needy, our social networks, and also our spiritual life, will all be cleaned from taboo structures and other irrational blocks, from fear inducing old habits, from illogical inexplicabilities, from structured and forcefully imposed ignorance. And such a clean up will unleash untold and unexpected quantities of personal energy in all people involved, taking away the myriads of energy consuming tricks with which the power systems always kept us subjugated in neuroticizing structured slavery and ignorance. And the synergy between all these individual clean ups will cause an exponential increase of human potential and communal energy. It will verily motor the Point Omega transition. (For an explanation of the mechanisms underlying such synergies, see here(***).)
So, yes, the religion-related changes will be crucially important aspects of the new era and of the transition thereto.
Also, these changes will not be the end of spirituality and personal salvation, for authentic spirituality is not dependent of superstition and fairy tales. On the contrary, ending superstition, institutionalized ignorance and repression systems, will open up the road to a massive revival of genuine spirituality.
From the above we may conclude to a number of focusing points for governments to pay attention to and to invest in, like:
- Discourage superstitions that are blocking science or blocking truth.
- No worldly power should be allotted to systems of fairy tales and superstitions.
- Protect secularization tendencies.
- Protect authentic spiritual revival movements from persecution by old established repressive religious traditions. (The latter have in general become mixed with repressive power structures.)
For deciding how to deal with the differences between religious affairs before Point Omega and religious affairs after Point Omega, it is useful to take one step back and consider the evolutionary necessities that have formed these characteristics of human life and that determine and will keep determining our options, options in personal behaviour, options in political management, and options in philosophical and ideological attitudes, including religions.
As explained in more detail in the article on this Wiki about human Self-Blindness(*), a higher intelligence could only evolve in humans by virtue of specific built in blindnesses for our own and each other's behaviours. Human evolution has been a competition between increasing intelligence and concomitantly needed Self-Blindness needed for preventing that evolving intelligence from biting in its own tail, blocking further successful procreation and spreading of a higher intelligence through the population. As pointed out above and in other articles on this Wiki(**), religion is a major tool to keep sufficient Self-Blindness operational for allowing higher levels of freely applicable intelligence to evolve.
Co-evolution of High Intelligence and Self-Blindness, the example of the Jews
(**) With respect to the above, which was the sixth issue we discuss here, it should be of interest to pay attention to one of the oldest grand religions on earth, the jewish believe system. That belief system already exists for over 3.000 years and has well survived until this day. That is a very exceptional feat. Most religions in the world have been in operation only locally and only for a limited period of time. In general such local religions were very ethnocentric and self-serving.
What strikes the interested onlooker is that the jewish tribe enjoys a higher than usual average intelligence, while at the same time the religious prescriptions are more numerous and more restrictive for daily life, than is usually the case with other religions. What also strikes the attention is that the jewish race has survived quite a number of (forced) mass-migrations out of their home-territory and returning later, not loosing their ancestral religious culture. This cultural survival is not customary in most other religious systems. Tribes and races tend to disappear and or to dissolve in other peoples and tribes, their local belief systems disappearing with them. When investigating the relationship between the evolution of intelligence in the human species and the theoretical prerequisite of Self-Blindness to make a high intelligence possible(*), the case of the apparently successful jewish race could be utilized as a test example. There are a number of other striking features to the jewish people. We mention here the holocaust-like historical events, that have plagued the jews repeatedly, in fact for thousands of years, every time without the jews disappearing completely from the scene, as is more customary with other tribes and creeds in the world of Homo sapiens. Another feature of jewry is that they have moved through a number of population-cycle events as described in another article on this Wiki(***), consisting of a paper that was also presented in 1987 in Jeruzalem at a conference of the ESS (European Sociobiological Society).
The effects of genetic pollution and of extreme selection effects in favour of sociability and against creativity and innovation, as one would expect in most social structures, be it tribes, races or local cultures, evidently have been circumvented in the case of the jews, probably by how their history was shaped. In view of the theory in the above mentioned article the conflict between jews and palestinians is also determined to a high degree by the facts that the palestinians historically are a typical "residue"-population whereas the jews are typical migrated newcomers. Historically such relationships are a guarantee of disaster for or a complete disappearance of the "residue-population". In that light, it is remarkable and maybe a characteristic of this era, that the palestinian people are still present there and tolerated as a distinct population-entity.
Irrespective of these latter considerations, the fact is that the jewish tribe or race combines a higher than average intelligence with a higher than average religious pressure on personal and social life. Also, it can easily be recognized that also theír religious system, as any other religious system, is an extra barrier to understanding of the own behaviour or of understanding the behaviour of human beings in general.
Looking at Jewry, just from the surface, it immediately strikes the eye that these people have just recently gone through an unbelievably harsh racist ordeal, losing literally millions of their kin at the hands of the Nazi nationalists. We should not forget that the genocide that happened in the Third Reich was nothing more than what in earlier times of human history, and even before that, was what ordinarily happened between competing tribal entities. Genocidal and territorial "final solutions" were the rule rather than the exception. The Third Reich was just a larger scale and more "industrialized" version of an ancient pattern. Now, some 80 years later, we find that the Germans in general are deeply ashamed that "they", that theír folk, allowed such stark collective blindness to take the lead. The Nazi's considered the Jews as foreigners, as another tribe or race, which makes genocide easier, but history shows us that such a racial component is not even necessary for committing monstrous and massive killings of people, even of one's own kin. Carrying other than the preferred ideas or believes may be sufficient to be exterminated on a massive scale. We have seen that recently happen in quite a number of occasions, like e.g., the Stalinist purges, killing tens of millions of the Russian's own people, Mao Tse Tung's Great Leap Forward, costing the lives of also tens of millions of people, The Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, also taking the lifes of a high percentage of the own people, simply because they were suspected of not carrying the right political ideas and ideals, etc. So, ethnocentric aspects may facilitate massive killings, but they are in no way a condition for these atrocities to occur. They just make genocides and the like a little more probable.
In the case of the Jews, one would expect that, having suffered such an ordeal just recently, they themselves would nót fall for the automatisms of racism and ethnocentric territoriality. Present history shows us however that that expectation is far too optimistic. Even while a large part of the nations in the world are questioning the Jewish territorial and ethnocentric internal aggression, against people who lived there first, the Israëli nevertheless still give the impression that they "stick to their guns" and that they carry on with the usurpation at hand.
Taking another step back and looking at what is happening today in the "holy land" through the eyes of an unprepared onlooker, we cannot but be flabbergasted by the enormity of what at the surface seems to appear as a jewish blindness for reality. We wish to point out here that this is a good example of the evolutionary necessity of Self-Blindness in cases of an evolving higher intelligence(**). No doubt that the Jews are one of the most intelligent tribes on earth. No doubt also, that hey demonstrate collective Self-Blindness in an incredibly clear and obvious way. The least we can say is that what happens to the Jews today, is alas in line with what is predicted from the pages of this Wiki. Viewed from the perspective of the above mentioned Jerusalem paper (1987)(***) a newly arrived invading group (the jews from the diaspora) has to deal with a resident "residue" population (the palestinians) and naturally encounters difficulties in dealing with the in Homo sapiens customary tendencies of subjugation or genocide of the resident residue population. In view of the recent history of the jews themselves and of the complete world community looking over their shoulders, novel and "better" solutions are sought to solve the emerged political conflicts, but better (novel) solutions cannot easily be found.
As a comment in the margin we could add here that we may hope that the Israëli will shortly manage to learn to keep thinking soberly in front of a mirror, the mirror e.g., of the opinion of the rest of the world. If they would manage to do just that, that would verily be a novelty. Because ........................... we outsiders may easily conclude that the jews in the "holy land" appear to be crazy racists, having lost their minds, but what the jews are showing there is the result of primordial social reflexes that are the endowment of us all, of all the people in the world. Let's hope that they shortly learn how to keep their intellect working in front of the mirror, how to conquer the typical Blindness for the Self that has been the characteristic of us since Homo sapiens started to differ from its hominid ancestors. The Jews have not much time left. The proliferation of nuclear weapons on both sides makes survival of a jewish ethnocentric and territorial state ever more unstable, if not impossible. It looks like time is running out. They either come to their senses quickly, or some competitor group might obtain nuclear weapons and wipe Israël off the map. If that terrible thing would happen, that would no doubt be an extra impulse for the rest of the world to analyse what has happened and what are the basic mechanisms leading to such types of disasters. And that would facilitate and boost a rise in Self-awareness, not only about what is happening to the Jews right now, but about how these mechanisms are working in literally all tribes and races on earth. And that in turn would facilitate the Point Omega transition.
An alternative to such a disaster would be the Israëli coming to their senses, starting to understand themselves at last and explaining to the world how it all works. In that case they could take the lead in the coming explosion of (self-)awareness. That would fit in their self-assigned role of a "chosen People". For the world at large will learn from their mouths, or they will learn from their graves. Let's hope that the first option will prevail for the Israëli people. Time is almost up.
The Jewish (seemingly) ethnocentric creed can thus serve as an example illustrating the customary evolutionary need for Self-Blindness in our species.
When considering and discussing governmental measures to be taken for the benefit of the human species for after Point Omega, it would therefore seem useful to also consider such measures in comparison with and in relationship with the jewish creed as an example. The history and the shaping of that tribe can serve as a valuable reference point and bench mark.
Curbing destruction of the environment
(*) The seventh issue is about biodiversity and our pretended stewardship.
As we have seen, present day human evolution is primarily determined by the survival struggle between meme level power structures. And these power structures are dragging the much slower gene level evolution of mankind along. Competing power structures basically have no "interest" in the environment. They are only interested in spreading their software as well as possible among as many carriers as possible (us). The ecological environment is only important in as far as that environment should be able to keep the power structure's carriers alive. Of course there is no conscious "intent" in the power structures, but from the outside, at the surface, it looks like that to us, onlookers. The survival struggle looks like there is intent involved, but of course it just is an automatic process, the process of evolutionary changes. So, for the power structures in charge ecological values and biodiversity are only interesting in as far as they enhance the more effective spreading of "their" culture, their memes among us humans.
Before Point Omega, including the moment of "now", the real competition for resources is between the power structures in charge. And money is power, so if more money can be made in a short time at the cost of some extra environmental damage, the environment is in bad shape. Even if good stewardship would render more long term profit, then still, higher short term profits are generally preferred, even if the long term environmental damage is high and thus the long term profits lower than would be possible with more rational methods. Because of the short term higher profits environmental destruction has been going on since mankind has learned to manipulate its environment. Agriculture has been reducing the carrying capacity of the environment consistently since almost 10.000 years. Some people may think that environmental damage is a recent phenomenon, but that is not the case. The damage may proceed faster these days then in earlier times, but for instance the process of desertification has already taken its toll since thousands of years. For instance, in some North African regions, that used to serve as granaries for the Roman empire, the desert is now practically reaching to the sea. Another example is the sorry ecological state of the löss plateau in China, the source region of the yellow river, This highly fertile löss area is where the Han Chinese originated from, but in recent centuries the area only could support a minor percentage of the people it could support in more ancient times. The reason has merely been short sighted short term profit making by conforming to habits of overgrazing and subsequently losing fertile soil. Similar agricultural mis-use of soils occurred everywhere in the world. In fact there is more man-made desert on this planet than there is agricultural land.
Since the blind competition struggle for resources between power structures was the leading factor in our evolution, the environmental price being paid locally did not play an important role. As long as the carriers of the power structures in question would not survive less than the carriers of competitor power structures, the environmental effects could safely be neglected and ignored. We can now formulate that even more precisely. As long as the struggle between power structures determines our lives, and that is still the case completely, it is practically impossible to prevent biodiversity from further dwindling away.
After Point Omega however, we will enter the phase of conscious evolution, which will take the sting out of the all overruling influence of the power structures. The ancient penalties on the level of success and procreation, that had to be paid if one's own power structure would not win, do not apply any more. After Point Omega we will enjoy freedom from the old procreational dictates and laws, that used to make rebellion against the interests of the power structures a risky and often fatal affair. After Point Omega we can safely reverse the wave of ecological destruction that has plagued mother earth for such a long time already. In our modern age of tool making and technical innovations we can then choose to use all those technical tools for "creating more biodiversity" rather than reduce it. It just needs some awareness of what has been going on and how we could do it better. And once we have come around to calculating the long term financial profits of good stewardship, we can in principle easily stimulate decisions to improve biodiversity, rather than reduce it. All the modern tools and technical possibilities can equally well be applied for the better instead of only for the worse.
Modern ecological methods that can replace the ancient agricultural habits, go by various names: "Permaculture", "Natuurbouw" (Nature construction), "Ecological Stewardship", "Sustainability", etc. These more rational ecologically-friendly agricultural methods and land-management methods, methods of controlled landscaping, are nowadays spreading rapidly all over the world. Still, the all pervading influence of big money serves as a powerful engine for ecological destruction. Financially, it still pays off on the short term to continue to accept destruction as collateral damage of making more money in the short term. Until these days that destructive effect of the way power structures express themselves cannot easily be countered lastingly, because in the end the question is always which power structure was able to win from which other power structure, wielding its resources, including money, for spreading itself maximally. And the ecological collateral damage was always of minor importance in comparison to the survival and supremacy of the power structure in charge.
However, once we will have entered the phase of conscious evolution, the usual evolutionary penalties will lose their previously all pervading power and influence, making it possible for mankind to conscientiously choose its own course of action, which course of action then may very well be a course that optimizes biodiversity on earth instead of destroying it in the slipstream of the blind battle for survival between the impersonal powers structures.
What governments could do for example to speed up the turning around of ecological destruction is to wield taxes as a means to help steer the behaviour of their people in more environment-friendly and wholesome directions. After Point Omega governments will get increasingly more space to introduce such methods. And their populaces will simply demand it, being aware of what is at stake.
Evolutionary Jet-lag & (Un)Happiness
(*) The eighth issue is about happiness, illusory or not, or about what comes most close to it.
As described in other articles on this Wiki (see e.g. here), lasting happiness is something people tend to strive after, but in reality it does not exist. As the Canadian philosofer Tennessen used to say: "happiness is for the pigs". And indeed, once a person starts to understand how our behaviour works, the illusion of the possibility to eventually reach a state of lasting and stable happiness will have vanished. The notion of happiness is a valid phenomenon in our own personal, day to day, minute to minute, system, in that it indicates a direction in which we wish to go at any one given moment in time. The difference between happiness and unhappiness makes us move. And the items or situations that are thought to make us happy or unhappy, are the things we move away from (unhappiness) and things we move towards (happiness). We move from what we dislike towards what we do like. Any living being that is not a plant but a moving entity does have such perceptions or it would stop moving. So, the feeling or sensation of happiness simply is implied by being an animal and not a plant. But, even if some steady state of happiness does not exist in reality, it is pointed out elsewhere on this Wiki(***) that it is nevertheless very well possible to reach states of well functioning and personal growth as opposed to states of disfunctioning and stagnant learning processes. Happiness may be illusory, but "well functioning" certainly is a real thing, that can be measured and that can be strived after and eventually be obtained successfully.
In the small Himalaya country of Bhutan they do not have a ministry of economic affairs that is trying to maximize the gross national product, but they have instead a ministry that has the task to maximize the gross national happiness. In the same vein most people in the world are striving continuously on a personal level to improve their situation and to seek happiness.
Knowing what we now know about our behaviour as laid down on this Wiki, we, Homo sapiens, can become aware that we are not plants, but animals, that we are `movers`, that we move from `A` to `B`, from unpleasant to pleasant, from unhappiness towards happiness. Being constantly on the move, our awareness includes the point where we come from, `A` as much as the point we are moving towards, `B`. So, basically each person can be aware of both happiness and-or unhappiness, just depending on whether the attention is reaching forward or reaching backward. In principle it is technically speaking quite simple to make that switch from looking backward to looking forward, but nevertheless people in general feel either the pain of the situation to move away from, or the pleasure of the situation preferred, giving the illusion that one is either in state `A` or in state `B`, while in reality one is always connected to both, while moving. This very basic fact of human life can serve as an example of to what extent we are blind for our own behaviour. People mostly need so called `wise men` to be reminded of the above truth, instead of really understanding all that automatically right from the start.
Tennessen´s statement `happiness is for the pigs` means to illustrate the illusory aspect of states of happiness. That is the subjective side of the story. From the objective side however we can discriminate very well between states of well functioning and states of bad functioning, between states of expanding and processing experience successfully and states of a faltering learning process and a stagnant development. And whereas that latter distinction is not the same as happiness versus unhappiness, it is functionally related with happiness / unhappiness and it is very real and nòt illusory.
That is why on this Wiki we have paid attention to states of well-functioning versus states of mal-functioning, states of optimal development versus states of stagnation and neurotization. This distinction is not only very real, it is an important issue in the present day state of Homo sapiens. Elsewhere on this Wiki (see e.g., here)(*), the basic mechanisms of learning and the processing of experiences is described. There the basic mechanisms of motivational end emotional reversals is discussed and the importance of a proper rhythm between the two is explained. Since we are not plants but animals, we are "movers" and therefore switches between feeling happy and feeling unhappy alternate. That's what makes us move. In cases where the rhythm of telic / paratelic switches are optimal, also an optimal learning process will result. In cases where the telic /paratelic switches are far from optimal, usually with too few paratelic states, a cumulation of avoidance reflexes occurs and from that the formation of so called "negative COEX-systems" (a label introduced by Stanislas Grof; i.e. Systems of COndensed EXperience). In the ideal case an optimal rhythm of telic and paratelic switches occurs and that results in the formation of many "positive COEX-systems". Such positive COEX-systems consist of areas of experience where the experiences in question have been processed sufficiently and have as a result been integrated in areas of "mastery". That route leads to the actualization of many potentials that were/are present in the person in question. A proper rhythm leads to Self-actualization and an improper rhythm leads to neuroticism and truncated behaviour patterns.
Evolutionary Jet-lag before Point Omega
(*) As explained in other articles (see e.g. here(*)) the power structures that have ruled human societies for almost 10.000 years now derive advantages from inducing to some degree neurotization in their carriers, us humans. They are in need of fearful compliance and that state can easier be induced in ailing neurotics than in well functioning self-actualizers. Another characteristic of the situation before Point Omega is the continuous and structural mismatch between P-feelings and N-demands (see here(**) for further explanation). We labeled the source of that mismatch as "evolutionary Jet-Lag". And that mismatch in turn also does have a strongly neuroticizing effect.
These two effects together result in Homo "sapiens" nowadays functioning quite sub-optimally. We are on average neurotic, truncated, fear-driven failures as compared with "what every individual could have been".
The evolution of "memes" is running on a different time scale than does the biological DNA-based evolution. Since both memes and genes have us humans as their carriers, we humans are the ones who suffer from the Jet-Lag between the gene-evolution and the meme-evolution.
All in all this emotional friction from that Jet-Lag brings us mainly pain and bad feelings. Seen from that point, Homo sapiens after all does have a severe unhappiness-problem. That is, the present state of mankind is characterized by neurotic, truncated behaviour and a very low frequency of Self-Actualizers. However, this does not imply that subjectively we feel rather unhappy on average. Because we are saddled with a strong Self-Blindness, we are not aware of our relative malfunctioning. Our point of reference is ourselves and our very myopic way of looking at things, precludes us becoming aware of the difference between "what is" and "what could be", especially in ourselves.
Humanity is in a very bad state for already many thousands of years, but as individuals we have no clue as to this situation. We cannot see. For us, this horrible state is "normalcy".
Evolutionary Jet-lag after Point Omega
(*) After Point Omega Humanity will resort to conscious evolution and that will inter alii result in taking the sting out of that evolutionary mismatch between P-feelings and N-demands. We will more and more direct the N-demands ourselves and create matches between the consciously designed N-demands and our primordial P-feelings. Until this moment in time, this phase in our evolution, there would be a high penalty on not yielding to current, traditional, N-demands. However, that evolutionary penalty will be suspended by the introduction of conscious evolution.
So, what will happen after Point Omega is this: Conscious Evolution ---> Consciously dealing (and successfully) with evolutionary Jet-Lag ---> less pressure from N-demands that are not fitting with our primordial P-feelings ---> more Self-Actualization ---> more "happiness" in an objective way, i.e. more Well-Functioning (but this does not imply a higher level of subjective happiness, because that is a technical impossibility).
The mechanisms described here offer distinct options for governments to ease the escape from the all influential control over us by the power structures in charge. Governments may choose to help spread awareness of the unpleasantness of the demands by the power structures. That would make it easier for people to gather the necessary courage to make a stand and choose more wholesome courses of action, increasing their psychological health and well-being structurally. And, apart from that, governments can choose to actively take a host of other measures for reducing mass neuroticism, now that they understand the working of the underlying mechanisms. And that will result in freeing enormous quantities of human energy and resources. It does not need much further explanation to understand that such developments will result in a chain reaction of mass-self-actualization, fueling and speeding up the Point Omega transition at large.
Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself
(**) The ninth issue is about how we behave towards one another.
As pointed out in the article about Reversal Theory on this Wiki(***), that is dealing with the antagonist motivational states Telic and Paratelic and the alternations between the two, our behavioural system is designed to make optimum use of acquired experiences and to make us automatically search for those experiences that would optimally fit as a useful addition to already acquired experiences and skills. That way the system makes optimal use of any surplus of energy, investing it automatically in exactly those places and situations that fit best to expand the systems of condensed experience (COEX systems)(***) that have already been acquired and already are available. On the one hand this mechanism results in better chances to successfully expand the behavioural repertoire in cases where the individual in question has already learned quite a bit and is on average well balanced. This is a positive feed back system within the individual behavioural system. The more skills already acquired, the easier it is to acquire further growth.
Between people, at the level of social interaction, a similar effect can be recognized. A positive attitude from one person to the other (we can label that as "strokes") does enhance better chances for the receiving person to find relaxation when needed and subsequently to establish or maintain an optimal rhythm of telic / paratelic reversals. That way there exist also very strong positive feed back loops between people, that finally result in a high contagiousness of psychological health.
If one would seek for methods to enhance a healthy psychological development of as many people as possible, a good strategy would be to treat individual people as supportive and as positively as possible. Such treatment, abundant with "strokes", helps the receiver of such an attitude to reach or maintain optimal telic / paratelic alternations and thus an optimal learning cycle.
"Treating others as one would like to be treated oneself" an admonition which is familiar to e.g. Christians and Buddhists, would therefore be a logical strategy when striving to create a more ideal society. And obviously, the usefulness of that principle has already been recognized by seeers and prophets since a very long time.
This principle also pertains to behaviour towards other species than only to the human race itself. Self actualization brings forth automatically a raised compassion with all forms of life, because in that state of mind there is more emotional space available, in whichever direction. This involuntarily results in "good stewardship" over nature, also an old Christian (and also Buddhist) ideal.
However, until now there have always been very strong evolutionary principles and laws that are at variance with the above mentioned ideal. Evolution cannot proceed without a continuous competition between individuals, resulting in that only the most "fit" will contribute proportionally to the next generations. Without such a selection pressure, a certain species, or a certain sub-population thereof, will soon crumble down and perish from genetic load and pollution after selection pressure has been suspended for some generations. Creating a "socialist, fair and just" society may work for a little while, but it is basically at variance with the above basic laws of evolution and thus of survival. In that sense a fair and just society at best is postponement of selection pressure, or rather, that has always been the case until now. Some philosophers therefore say: "Civilization is a conspiracy against evolution". And necessarily, such conspiracies always were only short lasting.
Every time a civilization would crumble down under the pressures of resumed natural selection mechanisms, times would be hard again on all inhabitants and disaster, mayhem, wholesale rape, economic strangling techniques and other misery, up to and including genocide would reign again for some period of time. Such periods of time would allow for selection pressures to recoup lost terrain again and also typically would enhance a reshuffling of gene pools, causing hybrid vigour to help boost the genetic quality of the left over populations surviving the period of disasters. (See here for more explanation about the effects of genetic load.(***)
Compassion after Point Omega
(**) However, after Point Omega the blind forces of the evolutionary laws that rule all life, including our own, will be enriched in the case of Homo sapiens by "conscious evolution". In fact, by introducing conscious evolution, humanity can take the sting out of the customary selection pressures that until this moment in time always have made "fair and just" societies intrinsically unstable.
What this means is that after Point Omega finally the above mentioned ideal of "treat others as you would like to be treated yourself" can be introduced to stay. The usual danger of becoming unstable after a limited amount of time, because of genetic deterioration, can now be countered by "conscious evolution".
The changes coming with the Point Omega transition may imply that religions will disappear, at least the vast majority of (superstitious) varieties thereof. But on the other hand the state of affairs that prophets would sometimes label as the "kingdom of God", meaning a really fair and just society, may at last be realized in a stable and evolutionarily viable way.
When the admonitions "love your neighbors like yourself" and "treat others as you would like to be treated yourself" rule, the result will be: more Strokes --> easier to attain relaxation when being in a Telic State --> better Rhythm of Telic/Paratelic reversals --> Better Processing of experiences --> Better Learning results --> more Self-Actualization --> Mass Enlightenment --> catalysation of Point Omega shift --> Chain Reaction character of Point Omega transition.
How to deal with hopeless cases ?
(*) The tenth issue is about how to deal with the complete failures, the people that fill us with disgust and hate.
From the previous paragraph it follows that it is a good advice to treat others as one would like to be treated oneself. As stated, this is the old christian admonition, that also can be found in numerous other widely spread cultures and traditions. It can be considered a useful prop to enhance the emergence or rather catalysation of the Point Omega transition.
One could however counter that there are vast numbers of individuals that cannot reasonably be considered as even potentially useful for society and for their fellow men. Many criminals, psychopaths, etc., do not evoke any other reactions than aversive aggression and disgust. For many of such individuals the conclusion is almost inevitable that such persons better were dead, for the benefit of their fellow men as well as for themselves.
From a practical point of view, such a radical defensive attitude regarding these failed persons may be advisable or at least very seductive. However, there are by now very good scientific and political reasons why also towards such acknowledged failures, such absolutely hopeless individuals, it is of crucial importance to also treat such disgusting individuals in the way as described above.
That is because once the above is the official attitude, every individual "knows" that he will be accepted "as he/she is". And that awareness will stop most of the basic fears as ordinarily used to be, and still are, installed by the ruling power structures. And that new, novel situation will stop the internal personal feed back loops that always were stabilizing neuroticism. It can be calculated that this is a relatively cheap and easy way to install change of course. And the beneficial effects at the social level will simply be tremendous. A very stable and thorough relaxation will enter the minds and hearts of such "hopeless" persons. And that will have enormous effects on the citizens around, because of the great contagiousness of relaxation and paratelic states.
The advice to governments should therefore be to assume responsibility for making clear that all people, simply because they were born, are entitled to acceptance and support if needed, of course within reasonable boundaries.
In the pre-Point-Omega situation such measures could not be carried through without penalty. Population genetic laws would make sure that then genetic load would increase too much and sooner or later the social structure would collapse under the pressure of genetic pollution, not being able any longer to come up to the competitive challenges from other power structures with a less polluted gene pool. In other words: social stress, competition, struggle and suffering are needed to exert enough selection pressure on the population to realize some degree of selection pressure enabling the power structures in question to not loose its carriers in the competition for survival.
However, in the "after Point Omega" situation we will have conscious evolution replacing the natural struggle between power structures over the backs of their carriers, us people. Conscious evolution takes care of preventing genetic (over-)load, of preventing the ordinary social selection cycles and other mechanisms with which mother nature always kept our innate qualities at the required level. The "natural" methods of mother nature invariably come with struggle and strife and pain for the individuals in question. Circumventing that misery always was self-defeating because of the basic demands from the inescapable laws of evolution. But, once conscious evolution is in place, the usual penalties are suspended and society can safely install the luxury of accepting every human being born, thus removing all serious basic fears.
The chain reaction that such a novel situation will trigger is assumedly of such a magnitude, that the proposed measures will produce revenues of a completely different order than what the costs amounted to. The bottom line is to organize that we all need to assume responsibility for one another, which attitude is further discussed in the next chapter.
Assuming responsibility for every human being in existence
(**) The eleventh issue is about a new foundation for human social relationships.
One of the basic characteristics for after Point Omega is that every human being should be guaranteed a relatively stress-free life. Such a situation is already the ideal of many societies and political systems. However, more often than not, such striving appears to be quite difficult to bring into practice, especially for the long term. And besides, many societies do not embrace such a principle at all. Until this moment in history principles of "survival of the fittest" and the "struggle for life" have dominated the situation. And such principles were very necessary in order to maintain a certain required level of genetic selection pressure. Without such selection pressures genetic pollution and degeneration would quickly put an end to any societies' survival.
After Point Omega however, "conscious evolution" will have taken over and therefore the stress of selection struggles will have become superfluous. The consequence of this change in evolutionary demands is that there finally will be (evolutionary) space for fair and just societies to be continued without end. Genetic pollution and social selection cycles can be countered with ease and the usual life span limitations of social structures can be by-passed.
The implication of such a novel situation is that we may set aside and overcome primordial reflexes of attraction and repulsion without in the end suffering the thereby speeded up life cycle end, and the total collapse of the social structures in question. And that in turn implies that our very strong tendency to indulge in black/white or bad/good thinking regarding other people, will have lost its evolutionary "usefulness". We can now safely open our eyes to reality, to how we are put together, to how we have evolved, to what our options are, and which traditional options have become superfluous "no-go areas".
Having bypassed the ordinary needs for evolutionary selection pressures in our society and our social relations, we can at last safely refrain from denouncing adversaries, from scapegoating, from black/white thinking, etc. We can safely "love our neighbor like ourselves" without paying in the end the concomitant evolutionary penalty for it.
Even more, because we will have entered a situation where conscious evolution has taken over and that being in a democratic context, we are basically all together responsible for every human being that is being born on this earth. A situation will develop, where large and by humanity together decides how procreation will be given shape. Ultimately, that implies that everybody basically is co-responsible for every other human being that has been born. And that may be considered as one of the basic rules of the human world after Point Omega.
Conscious evolution has not yet been started up and it will probably take quite a number of generations before that state of affairs will have been consolidated. In the mean time however we can already get used to thinking along those lines. That will help to support individuals that have problems in functioning smoothly and properly. Many of such problem-people may need to be firmly controlled or even locked up in order to avoid them causing harm to other people, but if we remember that we all together are responsible for their very existence, it is easier to maintain a supportive attitude. As argued in the article about "strokes"(***), handing out "strokes" is the best medicine to help people regain proper rhythms of telic/paratelic reversals and thus regain growth towards fulfillment of their best innate capacities. Self-actualizers are more pleasant company than overstressed neurotics. And every "stroke" helps to bring that better option about.
Ultimately, increasingly more strokes will come back to us in a process of social interaction which is, from a technical point of view, basically a process of positive feed back loops. And because of the technical characteristics of positive feed back loops, this will cause a chain reaction of strongly increasing mutual social support. And that, in turn, will diminish neuroticizing structures beyond a critical point, making space for a more broadly occurring actualization of human potentials to an unprecedented extent. And, because of the technical consequences of the positive feed back loops involved, these changes will increasingly gain speed until the majority of mankind wil all of a sudden be "taken by surprise" (but in a positive sense).
These are the considerations why we need to assume responsibility for every human being in existence, and act accordingly. It is about time.
It is clear that this general attitude of mutually assured respect and support is strikingly different from the pre-Omega condition of unlimited competition on all levels, ethnocentric cramps and reflexes, racism and genocide. This new attitude of accepting responsibility for and giving support to also the less privileged of our fellow human beings, up and including "the hopeless cases", the hardened criminals, and the plain idiots and simpletons, that attitude is an emotional cornerstone of the post-Point Omega world order. Before Point Omega we hardly could afford such an attitude, because of the evolutionary penalties involved, but from now on that attitude will fully pay off on all levels and that to an unprecedented degree. The classical evolutionary penalties and disadvantages of "being soft" on misfits and other hopeless cases will cease to exert their disruptive effects. These disadvantages will be bypassed effectively by "conscious evolution".
Competition and Work; how to deal with it in a different way
(*) The twelfth and final issue to be addressed here is about our attitude to "work".
Our relationship with work is another area of human life where great changes can be expected with the Point Omega transition. Work can be experienced in very different ways. Work can be an activity through which we manage to be an accepted member of society, being useful to the community through our (professional) "work". Work can also be felt as a social obligation, something the person in question does not want, but does not dare to challenge in order to avoid being expelled or ostracized. In order to be accepted and stay accepted, one has to do his fair bit of the toil. In more extreme cases, one simply is forced to do some sort of work. That may be forced labour in a prisoner-type of setting or, more subtle, being forced to do labour against one's will because the social pressure and control mechanisms are felt as inescapably strong and permanently overwhelming. In such situations one cannot formally be labeled as a prisoner or a slave, but the emotional experience is coming close to that.
At the other side of the spectrum one finds those persons who have managed to make money with their hobby, or at least with something that they like to do. In those cases, what people already prefer to do by themselves, is accepted by society as something that is generally considered a useful contribution.
Ideally, parents wish to bring up their children in such a way that they can master one or other skill that is considered useful for society and is being paid for, while the kids in question like to perform that specific type of (professional) skill. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't. In the latter cases, the children in question end up in some sort of jobs that they don't really like, but that they keep performing in order to make some money and survive, trying to forget that they are basically living in some sort of harsh or gentle slavery.
Basically, on average we live in states of mild or harsh slavery and the extent to which we manage to like our "jobs" differs greatly. The more we like our "job", the less we feel enslaved.
One of the specific factors that tends to make work less pleasurable for us humans, is the factor of the rat-race. Successful societies in general have incorporated in their social systems structures that induce competition between people doing similar work. Our capitalist system is but one example in which organizations strive to get the necessary work done in the most efficient and profitable way. Workers are under continuous pressure to perform better and often it is quite difficult for them to maintain a healthy balance between work pressure and personal needs for relaxation and recovery. In such cases the slavery-aspect is felt more strongly. Seen from the point of view of the power structures ruling our societies and lives, it doesn't matter so much if a majority of the people works under such pressure that they do not manage any more to maintain proper emotional balances and as a consequence end up as fearful neurotics. The useful output per neurotic person may be less than optimal, but the power structure can manipulate neurotic workers easier than they can manipulate self-actualizers. Neurotics have much more fear-handling-points that can be utilized by the power structures in charge. The useful output per person may then be lower, but the malleability of the neurotic herds is much better. They can be better employed to man the production lines and the military battle units, doing as they are told.
One more factor we need to keep in mind about work is that mankind is suffering from evolutionary Jet-Lag. This means that the requirements that are demanded by the power structures are often at variance with our primordial emotional preferences and tendencies. There is a misfit between our primordial P-feelings and the N-needs. And it is especially in "work" where we feel that squeeze hurting. Much work that is required by the power structures, only gets done by way of force, either harsh or subtle.
If we look at human history, we can recognize that during the last millennia we have been moving from very clear cut slavery structures, being a cornerstone of society, to less total suppression and slavery in which the slave-aspect is more and more hidden and less painful. Since in the latest centuries technical machinery has been developed to replace simple manual labour, society does not need any more such high percentages of slaves in order to be successful. In particular stupid and mindless work is done more and more by machines. And besides, those machines can produce way more products in less time and against lower costs than what was possible before.
In fact we have entered a situation of affluence and that situation is not going to disappear. On the contrary, in the present time we are testimony of an explosive increase of efficiency and that gives an enormous boost to the world wide "wealth" of us humans. The present development of computers and communication tools is multiplying the effects of the industrial revolution and our wealth will keep increasing accordingly.
Seen from that point of view, from the exploding increase in wealth, the millennia old rat race and the millennia old enslavement of people have become basically superfluous. In principle, society could start to utilize other, different, ways to win the competition with other power structures. After Point Omega the playing field changes thoroughly and more agreeable methods can become the winning formulae.
Work after Point Omega
(*) After Point Omega the percentage of neurotics will decrease, making it more difficult for power structures to utilize the age old methods to rule by fear. It becomes increasingly more viable to seduce people to do useful things by being transparent and by simply paying more for unpleasant jobs. If fear doesn't work any more, the remuneration needs to go up in case it is different from work that is intrinsically pleasant to do. After Point Omega the balance between telic and paratelic states and their alternations will improve, with a higher frequency of paratelic states, in turn resulting in better growth and development of the individuals, which in turn results in a higher percentage of Self-actualizers.
Point Omega basically is the "run away" increase in optimal telic-paratelic reversal frequencies. The contagiousness of proper personal growth will fuel the typical Point Omega changes leading, among other things, to a radically different work attitude. People will more often stop accepting slave positions and will more and more demand "meaningful" work. And "meaningful" is in principle more in line with our P-feelings(**). So, the evolutionary Jet-Lag will stop to make our work situations miserable. The dirty, boring, tedious, heavy, difficult work that cannot be done by some efficient machinery, simply will have to be paid better in order to be in balance with the new situation.
Evolution works through competition between conspecifics. We humans have to compete with fellow human beings, either within our own group or tribe or competing with other people in a more far away group or society. Evolution proceeds because the winners contribute more to the next generation than do the losers, losers in whichever sense of the word. Men may theorize about fair societal structures in which aggressive competition is harnessed and cooperative friendliness reigns. But, as we mentioned above, civilization can in a sense be regarded as a conspiracy against evolution. No matter how clever a fair and just society had been designed, sooner or later such a society would collapse and selection pressures would recover lost terrain by launching the citizens of the former fair society into chaos, turmoil and destruction. Competition as we know it in our societies can be hard, in the sense that one's life depends on the outcome, but also it can take the form of a rather "sportive" competition. In such cases winning the competition is striven after, but one's life does not directly depend on the outcome. In such cases it is rather like in sport. One works hard to win, but basically it remains a game.
What we may expect after Point Omega is that competition will not disappear from work and social life, but that the ongoing competitions get a more "sportive" flavour. We then work ourselves right until our limits, but we do it for fun, not out of fear and desperation.
Since after Point Omega work will be more like a game, giving enjoyment to the "worker", rather than stress and fear, and since we all will have to take responsibility for literally every human being on this planet, base pay comes in sight. It can be calculated that granting every person in society a base pay, no matter what the person in question is contributing, an enormous shift in general attitude will occur in most people. The pressure is off and relaxation is always within reach. As pointed out elsewhere on this Wiki(*), easier relaxation will trigger better learning processes and subsequently will bring about an ever higher percentage of Self-Actualizers.
Until this moment in time "work" used to be in most cases very much a "re-active" activity, full of fears and concerns. After Point Omega work will have a more "pro-active" flavour. People will work rather "for the hell of it", rather than out of fear to drop out or to perish financially. Work and play will be better compatible and pleasure in work will become the rule, rather than the exception. And as pointed out above, if, in such a fear-free society the dirty, hard or unpleasant work is refused by most people, a better pay for the jobs in question will do the trick.
This development will be amplified by the advance of technology. Ever more necessary work is delegated to machinery and robots. People can enjoy more leisure. This will stimulate the "pro-active" working attitude over the traditional "re-active" attitudes. For an eloquent discourse on this development, refer e.g., to Livingston (2016).
Priorities for an action list
(*) After the above 12 paragraphs we may draw the conclusion that:
- After Point Omega many issues and many problems will have to be treated in a different way than before.
1. - Some of these changes in attitude will follow suit automatically and involuntarily. In those cases no extra pressure is needed to steer the changes in the right direction. Such changes therefore do not need to be put high on the list of priorities, that is, the priority list of where we should invest extra attention, energy and time. These changes may in some cases be quite crucial for mankind in the new situation and they may play a central role in the shifting towards the Past-Point-Omega state of affairs. But still, these issues end up low on the priority list, because they will also come about without extra purposeful action from our side or from the side of the authorities.
2. - Some changes can be boosted and sped up from outside rather easily. Where that is the case, it pays off for that reason to give these changes an extra "boost" and the issue may for that reason be put higher on the priority list. There, extra effort will pay off.
3. - Some of the changes, related to the emergence of Point Omega, are already on the list, in the sense that people already pay attention and try to spread the changes in question as broadly as they can. An example is "freedom of speech". In many parts of the modern world the importance of this change is recognized, but in many other countries freedom of speech is still a utopian dream. These issues are certainly of importance. Still, they do not need to be put high on this priority list, because, evidently, they already are getting attention, time and energy.
With these three criteria in mind we now can, as examples, order a non-exhaustive listing of priorities and recommended actions for governments and individuals. With every item, every change, we will give an indication of why the item has been put higher or lower on our list of priorities.
1) Amathology.
Spending time and money studying the mechanisms of human Blindness for the Self is crucial for dealing with the changes needed for moving through the Point Omega transitions. Awareness of and knowledge about these mechanisms of Self-Blindness are fundamental for the Past Point Omega world. However, for purely technical reasons we should expect that people and institutions will not automatically put energy and time and money in that type of research, no matter how important it is. For most people these issues just "don't feel right". Therefore this item is put high on the priorities list. Extra effort on this issue will pay off exponentially.
2) Transparency.
One of the major tools for power structures to maintain their control over their subjects is that the officers "in charge" enjoy broad information privileges. They "know more" than their subjects and keep their people that way in a permanent state of helplessness, which, by the way, these subjects consider as "normal".
In contrast, democratic ways of cooperation need to be anchored in sufficient information levels for the people who are part of the democracy. Otherwise, no educated opinions can be formed. In our modern world, and especially recently, transparency has increasingly become a hot item and the target of introducing and improving transparency on many levels is part of most modern societies. In spite of all this already existing attention, we still put transparency high on this priority-list, because it is something that can easily be improved and steered by governments and other large organizations. By putting energy in the further improvement of transparency on all levels, the transition to the post Point Omega situation can considerably be facilitated. Transparency is a main characteristic of the "new world" and it will pay off to increase the emphasis it is already receiving.
3) Legal innovations for "taking responsibility".
Taking responsibility by everybody, for everybody else's existence, is a new concept for most people. It is not or hardly supported by already existing traditions and culture. It goes counter to traditions of competition and of holding failing people responsible for their failures to "have made it". Still, this novel type of responsibility - by all for all - will have a tremendous impact on the feelings of well-being of the majority of mankind. It will give every individual a feeling of "being OK" and "being accepted". It will take away the feeling of failure and the neuroticizing fear to be ostracized or held personally responsible for failure. By positive feed back loops in our behavioural system such a removal of imposed feelings of inadequacy will free enormous amounts of positively spent energy.
This admonition to accept responsibility for literally everybody will have tremendous effects on the peace of mind and the peace of heart of our fellow human beings. Knowing the mechanisms of the contagiousness of well-being and of emotional equilibrium and personal growth it is clear that "Taking Responsibility" is very important for the transition to the other side of Point Omega.
Because of its importance and because it is difficult for individual people to switch to this new attitude, we have put this issue high on the list of priorities. Attention and energy being spent on this issue will most likely be very well spent and that is why we have put this issue also close to the top.
Once the idea of "together taking responsibility for every human being alive" has been accepted as a useful tool to (re)form our world, this principle has to be embedded in new legislation that can help to establish and propagate the global support for "everybody". First of all the authorities should recognize the importance of this "support of all by all". And one of the most effective - lastingly effective - methods for authorities to boost this principle is legislation itself.
4) Psychological sciences.
Giving shape to the post-Point-Omega world will be supported by an increase in scientific research efforts. In our rapidly developing and changing world, new techniques emerge and are actively sought in all fields of human functioning.
Whereas technical scientific developments traditionally used to get much attention and financing and will automatically receive such attention in the future, we have good reasons to advise for a shift in emphasis into the direction of research in the fields of psychology, sociology and ethology. The Omega-shift implies that humanity will enter into another level of understanding of our own behaviour. One of the tenets defended on this Wiki is that the level of knowledge about our own behavioural system, our emotions and motivations is still very limited and at places almost non-existent. Large gaps in our understanding of these matters need to be filled in urgently. Many of these gaps in our knowledge have traditionally been maintained by complex systems of taboos and contemporary superstitions.
After Point Omega we will need to pay extra attention to for instance the following fields in psychological research:
-- Good-Bad reflexes and their biological functions;
-- Reversal Theory, dealing with the dynamics of our emotional and motivational system;
-- Automatic selection pressures in the social plane on the dimension of Adaption-Innovation and the resulting periodic catastrophes in social structures;
-- Amathology or the research on human blindness for the own behaviour and its biological function.
Whereas not being exhaustive, these issues should be in the front of our future scientific research efforts. As pointed out in many papers on this Wiki, human misery is finally and solidly anchored in ignorance about exactly these fields of psychological functioning. Spending attention, time and energy here, certainly will pay off.
For that reason this focus point is placed rather high on our list of priorities.
5) Military authority for the UN.
At this moment in time, it is becoming more and more likely that at some stage a group of deranged idiots will be able to lay their hands on nuclear retaliation instruments. If that would happen, humanity will be in bad shape. For instance, Islamic fanatics have flown 2 airplanes into the New York twin towers. Imagine what would happen in case such fanatic morons would get control over nuclear missiles. Such disaster would most likely trigger the immediate allocation of more military power in the hands of the UN "government", in order to be able to prevent such idiocies from happening again. However, it seems much better strategy to arrange such decisive military power to the UN level before the above may happen. Until now, people don't seem to feel the urgency to put more effective power in UN hands. But that is a sorry example of shortsightedness, that might cost many millions of us their lives unnecessarily.
Since this issue is likely to be taken seriously too late, and because of the price humanity would have to pay for the sorry consequences, this issue is also put high on this priority list.
These days there are quite a number of political states of whom we would not like to know nuclear hitting power in their hands. Examples from the recent past or the present are for instance: ISIS, North Korea, the Ayatolla state in Iran, Zimbabwe, Ruanda's genocide, Pol Pot in Cambodia, etc., etc., etc.
6) UN-power guaranteeing the right to political self-determination for all populations and sub-populations.
Self-determination will come about for all people in the world without any doubt at some point in time. Developments that can be expected after Point Omega will bring that about inevitably.
Until this moment in time, until this moment in our evolution, differential procreation of tribes and races and other (sub-)populations was inevitable and necessary for the gradual evolution of novel characteristics of Homo sapiens, for the progress of evolution. And selection processes on that level of operation come with genocide, large scale war, economic strangling techniques and other misery producing events. These events may always have been unpleasant, or rather terrible, properties of human life, but they were basically and in principle unavoidable because of the evolutionary dictates of differential fitness of different tribes, races or genetic sub-groups of people. Only when the ordinary automatic evolutionary pressures have been bypassed by a different (and more effective) mechanisms, can we hope to have conquered the above mentioned eternal sources of human misery and pain, pains that are basically the same as the pains of any species in evolution, but that in the case of Homo sapiens tend to occur at a larger scale and more at distinct intervals (wars) instead of continuously.
After the introduction of "conscious evolution", after Point Omega, the evolutionary forces leading to all those forms of suffering will be bypassed and principles of self-determination will become a possibility that is not unstable any more. So, after Point Omega we may expect that principles of self-determination will automatically become the rule rather than the temporary exceptions.
However, it pays off to put extra energy and attention in this development and speed that process up where possible, because of the dangers for mankind stemming from the present situation in many countries, where self-determination is still a far away dream and violent revolutions are lurking below the surface. The sooner we can install a generally applicable right to self-determination, the sooner those - really great - dangers will be brought under control. In the new situation every local population will be entitled to collectively decide how much autonomy is preferred against which decrease of efficiency of size or decrease of governmental expertise.
Recent examples of where such issues are under discussion or, less ideal, should be under discussion, are for instance: Scotland versus the UK; the UK versus the EU; the Krim versus Ukraina or Russia; East Ukraina versus Ukraina or Russia; East-Timor versus Indonesia; Papua New Guinea versus Indonesia; Catalunia versus Spain; Western Sahara versus Marocco; Southern Sudan versus Sudan; Darfur versus Sudan; etc.; etc.; etc., almost without end.
7) Create better opportunity for mothers to care sufficiently for their babies.
One of the most effective ways to improve chances for young children to grow up to be mature and capable individuals is to enable mothers of neonatives to spend enough time and attention to their newborns and in the first years after birth. There are ample scientific research data that show the large effects of proper maternal care on the development of the newborns. Also, various articles on this Wiki explain how this developmental effect comes about.
Whereas in the future there will be no doubt more space, time and room for mothers to care for their newborns in an optimal way, we still need to emphasize here the usefulness of paying more attention to these long term developmental effects of good maternal care. On the one hand there will be created more and more opportunity for mothers to give their birthlings an optimal start. On the other hand, we can catalyze these changes tremendously by putting still more attention and energy in these changes.
Therefore this issue should get relatively much priority. It will happen anyway, but events can be much optimized by now already speeding up this particular change as much as possible. (A scientific analysis of these effects can for instance be found in the work of Bowlby(1969) and of Bruno Bettelheim(1969), where he describes the large scale failures in 20th century kibbutses regarding the early upbringing of babies.)
8) Tax reforms world wide.
Taxes are a relatively easy way to help steer the behaviour of large masses of people in the right direction. An environment tax would make it more expensive for people to purchase or apply environment-unfriendly articles and products. Price differences can easily bring people to make better choices on a daily basis. This method could reduce pollution considerably and could equally improve the protection of biodiversity. Likewise a junk-food tax could help to make people buy less unhealthy fodder (then more expensive) and instead buy more healthy (cheap) alternatives. This would improve the average well-being of people and simultaneously reduce costs of medical care.
At this level benefits can also be obtained by making better international agreements on preventing tax-evasion. That would improve the possibilities for governments to collect fair levels of taxes from all citizens concerned, including the bigger international companies who nowadays often do not need to pay their fair share. Fair taxes for internationals would greatly reduce the tax levels for ordinary citizens, this to the benefit of all. And once the big companies pay their fair share of taxes, the environmental components of the taxes will finally have a strong effect on the reduction of pollution and the improvement of biodiversity.
These tax issues already do have increasing lots of attention, but still it would pay off greatly to put extra energy in these reforms, because the powers that resist such reforms are traditionally very strong and the effects of these tax reforms will have immediate beneficial effects on the whole of society. Also, it will enhance people's confidence in the authorities if they manage to realize a broad tax-equality.
9) Eugenics.
One main characteristic of the transition Point Omega is finishing the era of evolving gradually towards higher levels of consciousness and entering a new era, a new phase in human history, the era of Conscious Evolution.
That new situation implies the conscious utilization of Eugenics and all its techniques involved.
Homo sapiens cannot survive without taking its ow evolution consciously in its own hands. It is therefore of crucial importance now and in the near future.
One of the novel tools involved in dealing with eugenics is Eugenic Mapping. The improvement of these techniques is a major tool for conscious evolution. On the one hand we mention it here, because it is not something that will automatically be taken on by governments. At this moment in time this matter is still hidden safely behind walls of taboos and superstition. On the other hand, eugenic mapping will gradually but inescapably be boosted by public demand. People will increasingly demand to enjoy all the advantages of genetic screening and other measures to produce offspring that is as healthy and as capable as possible. It can therefore be put at a relatively low position on the list of priorities, because in due time this issue will get sufficient attention anyway. The public at large simply will demand it.
10) Sexual liberation of women.
The inequality between the sexes is a primordial given. Apart from cultural habits our biological past has caused difference between the average investments in newborns by mothers and the average investments by the fathers. This difference between the sexes has always been causing certain basic frictions. These differences in focus and in where the main concerns are located in each of the sexes, evidently has been an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy, ESS, throughout our evolution.
However, in the coming era of conscious evolution it will be of crucial importance that women will increasingly be in command of their own bellies, about their own offspring and if possible, the fatherhood involved. Genetic pollution, which is one of the major classic obstacles for a long lasting and stable peaceful human society, will have to be tackled with a range of novel approaches. And more say for women about their own pregnancy is one of those indispensable novel attitudes.
This beneficial effect of women's sexual emancipation on the reduction of genetic pollution is the reason why we have included this issue here on the list of priorities.
11) Make biological fathers pay for their offspring.
As a pair to the above item is the priority of making men pay for the offspring they have sired in a biological sense. Medical techniques to assess fatherhood without a doubt are now available everywhere and they will increasingly be applied to back up claims of young mothers to share the burden of parenthood with the biological fathers. This tendency is already on the increase in most places of the world. That we still mention it here is because this will put a break on the tendency of men to "knock up" women with child without coming up with marital assistance.
And that shift will be in favour of fathers who are capable of giving parental support and this shift will be an increasing hindrance to the fatherhood of incompetents. Making biological fathers pay their fair share in parental efforts is an extra brake on genetic pollution and moreover it helps to provide newborns with a good start. And that will improve the likelihood of positive learning cycles and optimal courses of development with all the resulting positive spin offs involved. And that, in turn, will help to make the Point Omega transition more likely to occurr.
12) Pollution.
Pollution too, needs to come to an end shortly. We presently tend to regard the fight against pollution as crucial for human well-being. And that is quite right. However, the pollution problems will automatically be tackled more vigorously and more effectively once Point Omega has been passed. Most individual people and also their governments are increasingly aware that pollution needs to stop and that human well being can be raised that way. Pollution can therefore safely be put somewhat low on the priority list. We'll effectively deal with it anyway.
13) Overpopulation.
Alleviation of present day suffering of our whole planet through over-exploitation, fueled by millions of tonnes of superfluous human flesh, is very urgent and one of the major features of the new time. Still, this item ends up rather low on the priorities list, because a systematic and lasting reduction of human numbers will inevitably and automatically happen anyway, and that without draconian pressures from above.
14) Secularization.
We have put this item low on the list because doing away with superstition and religious fear will score high with many people already anyway.
Giving shape to the world after Point Omega does not need spiritual awareness to disappear. What it does need is that superstitions and collective fears do not keep dominating individual and group behaviour. Organized religions normally played a crucial role in maintaining power structures by inducing and regulating fears in their people. What will be left in the future of present day religions is at best a kind of spiritual awareness and feeling of unity, that is denuded from all the traditionally concomitant fears and unwholesome taboos, that served the power structures rather than the individual welfare of the believers. Anyway, putting religions back in their proper place, where they do "good" and no "harm", will continue to happen automatically and unavoidably.
15) Ecology.
For evoking sensible and rational action with respect to the global ecological hot issues, the best and also lasting approach is to broaden the education packages about ecology for our young people in the schools. The more people are aware of the ecological imbedding of Homo sapiens, the more our ecological heritage will be protected and improved upon. The more emphasis we put on the issues of ecology, the better we will take care of our biological heritage.
A movement that already is gaining more and more influence at the level of ecological values, is "Permaculture". The Permaculture methodology guides land owners in the direction of producing useful goods, foods and raw materials, while at the same time improving and not exhausting the local ecological carrying capacity. This new method about how to deal with our world originated in Australia and has since its beginning kept spreading over the world at an ever expanding pace.
A similar striving is included in what we call the "Sicirec Formula", a form of "controlled landscaping" applied in plantation forestry, but equally well applicable in any other exploitation of land for whichever purpose, be it forestry, agriculture, industry or urban planning. That formula emphasizes that crucial for preserving biodiversity is the strategy to keep a certain percentage of the land involved in a state of its climax vegetation, together with its climax animal life, spatially intertwined with areas for rational productivity. The latter may refer to forms of Permaculture, but less ideal patterns of utilization will also work out well within the Sicirec Formula.
Boosting the world wide utilization of these new ecological principles, can and will have a tremendous impact of the well being of the world as a whole and thus on our own well being.
Still, we put this issue relatively low on our priority list, simply because these issues will be tackled with more and more vigor and purpose anyway already.
16) Technical sciences.
Boosting scientific developments is not surprisingly of crucial importance for shaping the world after Point Omega. This holds for psychological and related sciences, as mentioned above, but also for technical sciences.
That this item shows relatively low on the list of priorities is due to the fact that rather automatically sufficient energy, time and money will be invested in these developments. There is hardly an extra boost needed.
17) Medical Sciences.
Equally, Medical Sciences have been put in a low position on the priority list.
Apart from what people generally think about the reasons why medical care and medical knowledge are so important, we wish to point out one crucial effect of good medical care that is of importance for how the transition to the era of conscious evolution will come about.
Good medical care namely, makes longevity of our species increase. And that in turn implies that decision making will increasingly be in the hands of older and more experienced people. And that in turn is equal to saying that less decision making will be left to inexperienced youngsters who have not yet learned to deal with their testosterone boosted social reflexes or the female equivalents of it in a prudent way. For instance, male inclinations towards group aggression and female brainless procreational impulses will have lower chances to run out of hand. This beneficial collateral effect of longevity will be one of the major ingredients of the after Point Omega society.
Anyway, Medical Sciences will automatically receive sufficient support from society and therefore a high place on this priority list is not needed.
Relax .......... we can afford it now
(*) The main tenet on this Wiki is that we are now entering the shift of human society into Point Omega, and beyond. Indications are that humanity has already entered the accelerating phase in this transition and that we are already beyond the "point of no return". What is certain, according to the information on this Wiki, is that Point Omega will happen, sooner or later, automatically and unavoidably, simply because that is how human behaviour has been organized and has evolved up to this point. And yes, we think that we already have entered the predicted accelerating phase. That this is not generally recognized already is mainly due to the fact that human awareness very strongly is hindered by myopic effects, making it almost impossible for humans to see the broad and complete picture. Our personal horizons are very narrow indeed, for both genetic (genes .....)and cultural reasons (memes .....).
From the contributions on this Wiki one might deduce that this Omega Transition, being of more influence and importance than the agricultural revolution, and bringing untold changes and advantages to the whole of mankind, is very much worth fighting for. And of course, this is very much true. Of all possible targets and goals, helping Point Omega to proceed appears to be the most useful possible, rightly deserving all our best efforts. Having listed in the above chapter the priorities that we could handle to make our choices about what to do first and what second, we could embrace the attitude of "let's not waste any time, but go for it right away with all power available". The conclusion does emerge that such is the best thing to do, with all energy available. We seem not to have time to waste, because we really still do have to do a thing or two !
However, this motivation also would tie in perfectly with the pre-Point-Omega general attitude of "telic dominance" and the customary out-of-balance "goal directedness". And this tencency is very seductive indeed. But, what in fact would facilitate the necessary shifts towards Point Omega best is more relaxation of all participants involved. So, our message should rather be: ...... RELAX. Allow yourself personally the time to come back into balance, into emotional and motivational balance. Only then the paratelic states will emerge more frequently and only thus you will be able to correctly perceive the situations at hand and choose prudently the most effective ways to proceed and contribute from here. Only when anchored in a proper telic/patatelic emotional and motivational balance, a person can grow into great enough strength and capacities to make a difference for the whole of society at all. So, RELAX ........, we can afford it now.
Looking at the world-wide situation of humanity, we are basically in a very comfortable position. We have unprecedented amounts of energy at our disposal. We are producing plenty of food to feed the whole world populations, be it that we still don't manage to distribute it effectively enough. We are living in the middle of an avalanche of technological innovations, making life proceedingly easier. Basically, this is an era of plenty, no matter what problems the newspapers present to us each day. So, what we can do, what we can afford to do, is just STOP ! RELAX ........
We can afford it now, at last. So, let's enjoy it ! And besides, that way we best boost an increasing frequency of paratelic states in as many people as possible. The articles on this Wiki have explained how that contagiousness works. And the restoration of mankind's emotional and motivational balance is the most important trick of all. And it is our birthright. No feelings of guilt for laziness needed. The theory explains how paratelic states will automatically emerge sooner or later, once relaxation has done its job.
So, give it a chance. That's what the world really needs at this moment in time: your and everybody's paratelic states, in sufficient frequencies. Don't worry, relax, and a thing or two will happen to you ! . . . . . and especially . . . . . to us all.