[FutureBuddha] Tragic Stories of Today ... Potential Good Answers Tomorrow ...

**Hoseki** · 05-19-2023, 02:24 PM

Originally posted by Jundo

Some tragic reports from today ... but maybe there are answers to come.

Something is tragically wrong with American society (not only America). The answer will not be strictly pharmacological, although great strides will soon be made there, and medicine plays a vital part. Rather, we must reform work place and family, help people find meaning, and make a more caring, empathetic world within the human heart.

May we have "ours" instead of "mines" ... and develop "non-weapons" of peace and embrace ... gifting flowers to our enemies, not "petals" ...

We pass the brink ... brought about by insatiable desire and consumption ... until we moderate human desire within our biology, enabling earlier satisfaction and contentment with less, and for generations to come ...

Technologies are coming ... hard to regulate ... Buddhists and other humanitarians must demand their uses for good ... if we cannot regulate AI , what about genetics, pharmacology and other like fields?

We need to intercept individuals, identified by their own families and teachers, and treat them before they kill ... same as for any disease ... even if we will not intercept all ...

Gassho, J

stlah

One think I hope for with these new technologies is the potential change in the way we view each other. We are social creatures but were isolated and over worked. We live in these competitive societies where we see each other as opponents to compete and fight with rather than potential allies and friends who we can build lives with. If we worked less and lived in walkable communities we would have both time and access to each other. But, at least in North America, we're overworked and we can't get anywhere without a car. But if we could easily walk to the places we needed to go (groceries, entertainment, etc. ...) we would be seeing each other engaging in the same activities. We don't have enough third spaces anymore. Everything has to be monetized so were left without a place to just be together. I think and hope that if we we're able to loosen the grip of our anger greed and ignorance we can see the need for these types of spaces.

As a side note, with regards to the AI we also have to be careful that these regulations being pushed by big companies will allow them to be the only people with the capacity to develop them. If the regulations are too strict and one needs a large capital investment to actually develop the AI then we lose a lot of the potential good that this kind of tech could do in the hands of different people. People whose concern isn't to monetize AI but to use it to either enable new activates or reduce some of the drudgery of working lives.

As a second side note, we often hear people associate gun violence with mental health issues but it's not always the case. In fact, mentally ill people tend to be a bigger danger to themselves than others. A lot of this violence is perpetrated by people who are mentally fine but whose politics have become so extreme that they are locked into their views of other people as the enemy or somehow lesser than them and deserve less. This is an unsettling thought for many because we can't point to a fault in their thinking. It's a case of there go I but for the grace of god type of situation. But that's the reality of the matter. We are capable of cruelty and violence and we will use those as tools if it seems like the right thing to do. But what is and isn't the right thing to do depends on how we see the world. I'm just saying if you see people blame it on mental violence insist they actually put their mouth where their money is and support mental health initiatives. So often mental illness is used as a red herring because tackling the larger issue isn't something that's seen or it's seen as too costly for them to challenge (I'm looking at you politicians!)

I'm going to stop here because I feel like I'm just complaining.

Gassho,
Hoseki
Sattoday

**Nengei** · 05-19-2023, 06:36 PM

Please forgive my overly long response, and my half-baked ideas. Please take it all with a heaping tablespoon of salt; these are my ideas only.

So much agony in the world, and agony begets more agony.

I feel that many of the issues we face in our communities, nations, and the world stem from rapid changes in how we interact with others, and how our cravings stemming from anger, greed, and delusion are purposely being fed by the information we consume. Rising levels of indignity, self-focus, and anger or even hatred toward others for the smallest (or even well-meant) interactions become part of a cycle fed by siloing ourselves and learning to see people as others, not I. We engage with the world in ways that provoke negativity and violence as the first response. We must each take responsibility for ourselves and the effects of our actions on others, on new levels, if we are to survive. The forced isolation of the pandemic worsened things, as we came to believe that the way we view the world, though our phones and social media, was somehow reality. With new megaphones, the small numbers of bad thinkers living in their parent's basements have found each other and found a way to shout. With thousands of years of history of horror under autocrats and monarchs, we seem nevertheless determined to put an end to our republics and democracies.

For the people who perform such horrible acts, or for ourselves as perpetrators of greed and anger, if we choose to see these actions as the products of disease, what is the root cause of the disease? From a traditional Buddhist perspective, we might say Oh! I know this one! Samsara! Delusion! And we would be right. Perhaps not very effective in creating the kind of solution that is needed at this point in order to save our planet and our society, unless we suddenly are able to spread widely our desire to overcome delusion and achieve liberation.

Of course, we know that cause precedes effect, and another cause precedes that, and so on. How far back in the karmic cycle can we intervene, and will that intervention be enough? In biomedical science we think a lot about the activation of this gene or that, leading to a consequence, but we pay more attention to the preceding factors that activate "bad" or "good" genes to begin with. A family may have a disposition for type 2 diabetes, but the genetics of the disease come into play when we make poor dietary choices and remain sedentary. A physician-scientist friend of mine likes to say genetics loads the gun, but (family) habits pull the trigger. Perhaps we are on the brink of genetic discoveries that will relieve the burden of type 2 diabetes, but does that mean bacon-wrapped steak with a side of butter brickle for everyone? Probably not, because eating that way still leads to heart disease, cancer, dementia, and debilitation. So we will try to get rid of diabetes, and we will celebrate that day, but in the meantime we also have to work on our habits. Sit, as it were, then go for a run. A one-pronged approach won't do the trick if your goal is to lead a healthy and long life. But we 100% should take diabetes out of the picture, by any means necessary that does not result in harm. In the meantime, while scientists who work on this search for solutions--all metta to their work and their genius--people should take their meds and get off the sofa.

We see a world where humans are behaving differently than we did ten years ago, and a whole lot differently than we did fifty years ago. In some ways, our behavior may be better. In some ways, not so much. We've tasted the bacon-wrapped steak, and now we crave it, even though it is terrible for us. To help ourselves, I believe that more, many more, people must recognize that the relatively few who had it are losing the habit of seeing each other and our world through a lens of compassion. To not rise in anger, we have to choose to see with tolerance and love. Individually, we will have to decide to change how we interact with the world around us. Perhaps anger, defense, and victimhood as a first response really is human nature, directly following ignorance and delusion, or perhaps these are learned behaviors endlessly fed by the conditions of the world around us, habits that are easy to fall into. Can we choose to feed different habits? Or are we doomed by our nature toward hatred and violence? History would certainly support the latter. Behavioral science supports the former. But like a lot of things that seem to be all one way or the other, the truth probably likes somewhere in the middle. If we were being academic, science proceeds best when we select a direct line of approach, choosing in our work to investigate the nature end or to investigate the choice end, and doing what we can in that way. Ibuprofen may not cure the cause of my foot hurting, but it at least blocks pain receptors so that I feel better while I heal from whatever is causing pain. Fortunately, coming from a more philosophical approach, we can decide to see the whole of the situation, and take the ibuprofen, remove the nail, wrap my foot in a warm compress, lie down in a dark room, do a ritual, mediate, and pray. Of course, it would have been better to avoid the nail in the first place, maybe not have gone walking through the junkyard, worn better shoes, or been more aware of the world around me.

Gassho,
Nengei
Sat today. LAH.

[FutureBuddha] Tragic Stories of Today ... Potential Good Answers Tomorrow ...

[FutureBuddha] Tragic Stories of Today ... Potential Good Answers Tomorrow ...

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