"Globalization can be used as a force for good."

I died a little bit inside when I read that. No good can ever come through a one-world government. We already have a federal government that is out-of-control. That is not a system we need to expand upon even further.

In concept, globalization of the planet would be good for humanity as whole, yes. But it is impossible because people in power will always be corrupt to some extent. That, will never change.

Your smart you can see that throughout history all Civilizations have ended in the same way by Corruption/greed/immorality. If you look deeper you will see this is not "human nature" and was no accident.

Interesting. Could you fill me in? I’m genuinely curious.

I recommend reading, this

That is because you have subconciously linked the idea "Globalization" with NWO type of government which does not necessarily be the case.

It wasn't done subconsciously, it was done with purpose. With globalization will eventually come one currency, and with that comes global governance. People need to be independent. They should freely be able to trade with whomever they want, using whatever they want as exchange.

With globalization will eventually come one currency, and with that comes global governance.

You assume global governance is a government with no transparency, which is not a fair assumption.

No, I assume global governance should not exist. People and cultures are so vastly different that no one should rule them all. It is a false assumption that people NEED to be governed in the first place. Basic governance my be inevitable, but for goodness sake, we don't need any more of it. We already have too much of it.

Government does not mean "ruler," like you are saying. Rather there has to be some sort of system to allow for things like infustructure, development of new technology's, etc. How can you do that without any government? Having the whole world be under one government does not mean that you have to add more layers too it.

Did you research the term before you submitted your post? That is exactly what government is. Government produces a hierarchical structure that consists of legislators, administrators, and arbitrators. It is literally defined as "a system of social control under which the right to make laws, and the right to enforce them, is vested in a particular group in society."

There is a lot of private infrastructure, and development in new technology. That is the government's least important aspect. A one world government requires an additional layer--it is not like we're going to replace our federal government with a one world government. That's not going to happen.

Government produces a hierarchical structure that consists of legislators, administrators, and arbitrators. It is literally defined as "a system of social control under which the right to make laws, and the right to enforce them, is vested in a particular group in society."

Yes exactly, not a single "ruler" where "one should rule them all"...

it is not like we're going to replace our federal government with a one world government. That's not going to happen.

So you are assuming that a one world government must be identical to our Federal Government? Why must that be the case? By doing this kind of "it must be a bad way" type of thinking you are really limiting the real possibilities and actually giving the people who want a NWO type of government's hands. Stop.

Although I agree with you, I can make you work a lot harder.

Why are western values and civilizational conceptions a better basis to move forward than any of the other hyper-developed societies:

The Chinese. The Needham Question

The Indian Subcontinent.

The "Umma" - Islamic civilization.

The Mesoamerican.

It would seem that you have to deal with each potential candidate in detail, rather than just insisting the Western Canon trumps them all, prima facie

Exactly, the problem with "Western" though or enlightenment thought is that the basis of rationality and scientism inherently is treating what we understand as all that exists in the universe while at the same time anything that doesn't fit into the "rationality" bucket is immediately disregarded until 50 years later there is an experiment to prove it right.

Eastern philosophy on the other hand is rooted in ancient knowledge from Civilizations we are told did not exist. Knowledge that was stored in the Library of Alexandria and destroyed. Look into Taoist ideas such as the idea of yin an yang and life-force energy or "chi."

The western intellectual tradition has strived for absolutes to replace the absolutes of god. Strived for objective truth in a way that the deepest part of Asian intuition realizes is only a human construct.

Then explain why modern science today is reaching into the "god-question" left and right, in order to explain things like quantum interactions and infinity and extremely connected layers of nature that seem to produce, or emerge as, organic beings?

The fact that Indian philosophy never split the two domains of natural philosophy and theology - and arrived at results that in many respects parallel european findings - may indicate they were on to something all along.

why modern science today is reaching into the "god-question" left and right

Fundamentalist leanings have become political fire. Every thoughtful person considers the god question. A lot of the interest in eastern philosophy starts with that.

Seen this? > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UOM3C3q7II

Good lecture.

I would take a more definitive approach in my thinking about religion (which can be enabled by basically intermingling multiverse aspects into the search for god), but he has very good points.

Because Western values give me the liberty to do as I please, not as some authority figure wants which would frequently be the case in the conceptions you mention.

Because Western values give me equality under law, far more so than every other conception you mention and despite my minority status, far more of a shot at social mobility compared to every other conception you mentioned. The other civilizations don't even rectify the people that have been historically wronged while at least the West tries.

Because Western values give me the right to choose my fraternity and not have a fraternity foisted upon me for life by the sheer randomness of my birth.

These values encourage creativity and hence progress, empathy and hence happiness and liberty and hence social mobility. Our lives would be severely stifled and constricted by a huge overarching authority (China/Islam) or a learned helplessness social structure (India/Mesoamerica) in those other models, which would only cause mass unhappiness. We're not animals. What good is a life without freedom?

Yes, that is a key point, the elevation of the individual in the western world view.

The gradual waking of the western intellect, under the church protected religious apologetics, a strange incubation of the Christian intellectuals that had occurred just prior to the invention of printing, the doubts about absolute religious authority led to the death of god, with Friedrich Nietzsche, and a sense of alienation of the individual from both god and nature.

So, this is one angle on "Needham's Grand Question", also known as "The Needham Question": why had China and India been overtaken by the West in science and technology, despite their earlier successes?

In philosophy since the Greeks there is a distinction held between the "value" or ethical mode, and the "logic" or rational.

I think there is a good argument that the West somehow established the basis of a superior ethics in the political and cultural sphere (eg "all men are created equal") - even as opposed to the formidable and socially cohesive Chinese Confucian conceptions of loyalty or the Indian Buddhist focus on peace and non-violence.

This may indeed be why the West is able to "lead the whole world" in many respects, despite and because of Hollywood.

The Needham Question

"Needham's Grand Question", also known as "The Needham Question", is this: why had China and India been overtaken by the West in science and technology, despite their earlier successes? In Needham's words, “Why did modern science, the mathematization of hypotheses about Nature, with all its implications for advanced technology, take its meteoric rise only in the West at the time of Galileo [but] had not developed in Chinese civilisation or Indian civilisation?”[

Right. So you have to realize that Needham had already proven that China had all the necessary ingredients for a modern science at their disposal. They had the fuel - but not the ignition.

Its a lot simpler to pose the question than to fully address it. The isolationism of Japan and China, the Opium Wars, its complicated. The Chinese actually sent a naval expedition to the west at an early stage, came back to China, and "shut the doors". Its wasn't simple.

And the ignition of the west included a kind of existential angst that has its roots in the effect of a middle eastern tribal religion imposed on whatever it was in the mythological lore of the colder northern European climates before they were ruthlessly converted. Its not like the anscestors of the WASPs thought up the idea of becoming Christians themselves and succumed without overwhelming force. If your ancesters are from northern Europe, the western intellectual tradition is not your natural heritage. It was something a whole lot more shamanistic, and a whole lot more recent than people think.

The European adoption of Christianity fed a psychopathic streak. The influence of classical Greece and Rome was very very indirect.

Yes, that naval expedition reached Africa about 100 years before the Portuguese first sailed around Africa. The Chinese ships were superior to the european ships. Highly likely they could have discovered Americas and threatened europe had they invested heavily in naval superiority. They didn't, obviously.

I agree that there was some "mix" of influences that ignited rational science in the west, and it may well have to do with the collision of Mediterranean culture with the barbarians.

But on the conversion of northern tribes:

As I understand it, the german tribes mostly converted voluntarily. It was in their best interests, plus the native population they had conquered was much larger than their own population, and of course all Christian. (Thinking of Goths, Franks, etc)

Where your statement is definitely accurate is in the conversion of the Saxon Tribe in Germany around 800 AD (not the Anglo-Saxons who had already voluntarily converted in England). Charlemagne - himself a German - crushed the Saxons and forced them to convert or die. (this may have helped precipitate the Viking invasion of Europe - another interesting tale)

But even the Vikings - at the height of their power and influence (1100-ish) voluntarily converted.

As I understand it, the german tribes mostly converted voluntarily

I don't know who started this myth, but its so wrong its funny!

Same for the Vikings. No one converted voluntarily.

What you do is like what they did with the African slaves in America, who also converted "voluntarily". I can't stop laughing.

Of, by, and for the people means it has to be local. Decentralized.

As far as the western intellectual tradition goes, it did bring the world to this point, but the mantle is about to pass to China, like it or not, an alternative and older civilization. Its not a matter of what you like, its a matter of what is already happening.

China's ways are less linear, less sequential in nature than western deliberations. Western ways have already begun to adapt to the eastern intuition which is inherently more organic and less mechanical. Perhaps the quantum and relativity aspects of physics was a turning point even in the western trajectory. The end of a Newtonian outlook is probably a break with the classical antiquity of the west.

Slackers have walked away from the western work ethic, incorrectly called the protestant ethic. The driving force had been to built a stairway to heaven, a certain kind of passion had driven us to this point, a certain set of assumptions and believes, incorporated in our philosophies, our religion. We had faith in an ideology, a world view, a mental model, and the definition of civilization and education meant that this idealism had been passed forward, generation by generation. Until it wasn't. When exactly that shift happened we can't know, but its been within the last 100 years or so. Some people can see it already, some can't.

rests in Democratic institutions

consider voting in secret in a situation of competing minorities. inherent distrust and no real communication. forced to live with majority rule.

now consider a smaller tribal situation where the community is not splintered into factions, where a pow wow can be had and consensus achieved in the open through dialogue and compromise.

In the second case, if you had to hold a vote, you would already be doomed, and attempts to rig the voting would also spell doom. As long as there are Machiavellian politics, and this is inherent to the cultural standards of politics in the west, you will not really attain consensus and attempts to rig the voting are expected.

In a tribal situation this would have been very bad manners, and probably considered psychopathic enough that such individuals would have been banished.

I would not dismiss the possible rise of a Confucian value system.

You might be able to have global culture without global governance. The culture and the technology could alter communication dynamics enough that a more pragmatic and less idealistic approach can be identified. The abstract make believe of the west is running out of steam fast, and probably should be retired. It relied too much on absolutes.

I believe the only true future for a united humanity rests in Democratic institutions and natural rights, both fundamentally Western concepts, and as such I believe that Western Civ offers the only proper foundation for a global society.

The problem here is that you are using a location to represent a philosophy which is kind of absurd if you think about it. Not to mention the fact that "Democratic institutions and natural rights" had been found in Ancient India pre-Aryan takeover and other "Eastern" places.

Not to mention the fact that "Democratic institutions and natural rights" had been found in Ancient India pre-Aryan takeover and other "Eastern" places.

Sources? Not arguing, I'd love to read up on something new.

It seems to me that WW2 was the watershed moment. Both world wars shattered the sense of progress and superiority in the Western way of life. I think that, especially following WW2, a reaction against Western life has seemed the norm, gradually, at least among academics, though there are many examples I'm sure that could be used to contradict my statement.

I disagree. We were absolutely gung ho about Western civilization post-WWII to the end of the Cold War. I'd argue that its the end of the Cold War that led to us not emphasizing our history as much as before which is why we're in today's situation. I absolutely agree with your OP but differ on this. The lack of a competitor since the 90s meant that we weren't forced to be self critical hence what we see today that you talked about in your OP.

I would calibrate a time-period breakdown, what I think of as a "long-wave disturbance".

Here's a trial historical period breakdown that attempts to calibrate dates to the complex of major evolutionary "long-wave disturbance".

(date ranges are the "peak era" not the initiation and exit dates):

2000- ??? 1950-2000 technology (50) 1915-1950 modern war and communism (35) 1815-1915 imperialism and industrialism (100) 1770-1815 liberal revolution (45) 1670-1770 enlightenment (100) 1530-1670 reformation and exploration (140) 1400-1530 renaissance (130)

I guess my question in outlining the above well-known sequence is this: does society have to go through these stages before it is ready to do what we are about to do? --whatever that thing is, but I think it's what we are here trying to talk about.

Western ways have already begun to adapt to the eastern intuition which is inherently more organic and less mechanical.

Dude, life in Asia is absolutely mechanical. Parents push kids to study as if it were a full time job, then get like 1 out of 3 degrees that are deemed acceptable according to the job market and then work with less labor rights compared to the less. You don't get more mechanical than that.

You would probably say a bee hive or ant colony was also mechanical in the way it functioned.

I have been to India so I know how obsessed some sectors can be, etc etc. but I was referring to something else, something culturally different in a society that wasn't raised with the Christian, Jewish or Muslim creator gods, stemming from the Abraham myths. The social fabric of Asia is different than the western intellectual tradition. That also doesn't mean that Asia has not been interested in parts of the western traditions. My god, have they ever been interested!!!!

Thanks for your comment though, I appreciate it!

Some complications: - the Judeo in Judeo-Christian which brings in Sumer/Babylon - Egypt being absorbed by Greece / Rome - Constantinople split, then Knights Templar reincorporating Orthodox into West after Inquisitions - The spread of Islam through Spain/Portugal

but the trivium aspect you are focusing on would be a good topic on its own perhaps

To add a conspiratorial twist to the Trivium aspect: realize that an education in the Trivium was always reserved for the elite. While the Quadrivium was self-selected in a sense to the true scholars who could handle it.

The 90% of skilled and unskilled worker bees - to this day - do not absorb anything like the Trivium, and because of our vaunted educational system not just despite it.

"Western" civilization gets its roots from two conquesting gatherings of people's after the flood.

The other factions spread around the globe and tried naturalism successfully much to the chagrin of the other faction.

Eventually these two warring factions that originated in Asia and the Middle East made their way to England aka The Sacred Isles due to them having been less affected by the flood.

True that Western Civilization has brought the narrowed in versions of science and life that we have only ever been exposed to, but as science progresses it comes intimately closer to revealing the true nature of the Earth's history and our connection to the cosmos that Western Civilization seeks to control and profit from by keeping track of interactions.

Your argument for Western Civilization is an argument for industry built on the backs of countless slaughtered and raped under the surface of the waters to keep the iceberg afloat.

Sure we convince ourselves of ignorant ethical models that have no bearing on reality, but our older history suggests an agenda that you simply aren't going back far enough to acknowledge and visualize.

Eastern mystic beliefs are merging with indigenous beliefs because of our exposure and our pattern recognition.

Western civilization seeks to alienate and outcast these principles until it can work them into a profitable system to control humanity's awakening.

Nice try globalist. Tribalism isn't a negative thing if every tribe maintains emotional security.

The tribalism comes from the original pillagers that lived in fear of being overrun and so they hid and have amassed a world of influence and wealth to control you to say these things about the society they have built to blind you.

Watch Michael Tsarion.

In my opinion, real human conflict only began with farming and the accumulation of surplus. Are you referring to those who would have been tribal raiders of the early subsistence farmers? I don't think Civilization and conflict as we know it could exist until Farming allowed a surplus of population and goods to allow something for humans to compete against each other for.

Look up Graham Handcock, mainstream knowledge of prehistory ignores some interesting truths.

This is the best and most useful post I've read on reddit in quite some time. Thank you, op.
I taught myself to read when I was three. I've been an avid reader all my life. While I've read some classic Greek stories in high school, it wasn't until my late thirties that I was introduced to Classical Education, the Trivium, and the Great Books. It was not apparent to me that any of it had and context or meaning, and it's opened up a whole new world to me learning how each builds upon the next. What it means to have a representative government and why we have things like natural rights protected by a constitution.
The reason why this thread is so VERY important to this sub in particular is because of how quickly the current school system is generating people who have no idea what a classical education is about. It gives the wiggle room and dark space that these fucked up conspiracies seem to emerge from.
The current system is designed to output consumers and compliant, non resistant workers. It was designed in the middle 1800s in order to control the population.
It's our responsibility to speak about this subject and tell others. We are all made better by being introduced to Plato, reading Caesar in his own words, and learning critical thinking skills through grammar, logic, and rhetoric, then further on with the quadrivium.

Government produces a hierarchical structure that consists of legislators, administrators, and arbitrators. It is literally defined as "a system of social control under which the right to make laws, and the right to enforce them, is vested in a particular group in society."

Yes exactly, not a single "ruler" where "one should rule them all"...

it is not like we're going to replace our federal government with a one world government. That's not going to happen.

So you are assuming that a one world government must be identical to our Federal Government? Why must that be the case? By doing this kind of "it must be a bad way" type of thinking you are really limiting the real possibilities and actually giving the people who want a NWO type of government's hands. Stop.

Right. So you have to realize that Needham had already proven that China had all the necessary ingredients for a modern science at their disposal. They had the fuel - but not the ignition.