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I too enjoyed reading Sapiens.
The book goes in-depth how much of the world is a "fiction" around us - LLCs aren't real, baseball's rules aren't real, capitalism isn't real. But if the reader's takeaway means that "fiction" == "not real and therefore meaningless", they've hugely missed the point.
It should be mandatory that everyone either read or watch the documentary Guns Germs and Steel. Because on the face of it it wouldnt be a unfair question to ask why did Europeans become the most advanced and dominated other cultures. Guns Germs and Steel lays out a rock solid case on and to sum up the answer comes down to Geography and timing not because of superiority of any race. But the answer is even more complicated then that... andv to sit there and argue with these knuckleheads with this long complicated arguments is pointless. It would be better if kids learn young about why these discrepancies exist so we can shut down those questions early on.
The primary source is the Greenland chapter in Jared Diamond's "Collapse Another book on the pre-Columbian North American ivory trade is Farley Mowat's "the Far Farer's Mowat's book "West Viking" in 1961 had endorsed the theory that the Vikings had really made it to North America. When they found the Viking settlement at L'anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. Mowat realized that it was not an agricultural settlement but a pirate outpost to prey on existing shipping.
Even Columbus sailed off the shores of Greenland in 1477. His brother was in Bristol England advocating for a trans-Atlantic voyage, when Columbus made his first 1492 voyage. When news of his success reached England, the Bristol traders sent Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) to re-establish their trade with North America. They made more money off fish and fur than the Spanish made in gold.
You should read Sapiens, the author explains how the agricultural revolution was a horrible thing for mankind.
tl;dr : We stopped eating diverse foods, which were then more prone to parasites, began to live together and spread diseases among us, stopped running like our bodies are supposed to and began working with our backs curved, which gave us hernias and stuff, etc.
The book isn't just about the agricultural revolution, it's about the history of our species from the first homo sapiens to right now. Amazing book, very trippy.
This question gets people RILED UP. Darling, in America we have no class system, you know that. :P
There's a very interesting book that's now pretty dated but gives a solid foundation on this topic called "Class" A guide through the American Status System by Paul Fussell. Read it for an eye opening look into how it is!
He points out that things like no white after Labor Day and similar strictures (I was raised to believe that patent leather is not worn by polite society, or that pierced ears on children are vulgar, for example) are part of a class system that places people with nothing but time to drift around the globe in search of sport and leisure at the top. So naturally you wouldn't wear white after Labor Day as you're now in moving on to Eden Roc and tennis season is over or whatever :P
However that's high WASP preppy. That's not the only kind of "wealthy" there is! Plenty of people who are genuinely mind bogglingly rich wear flashy clothes and have diamond encrusted watches and so on.
Fussell also points out that there's a class that's beyond class: artists and the children of movie stars, the hyper-wealthy service class people (like let's say "energy workers" who work with the stars) or trustafarian types. Those people wear ironic brands and pad around first class cabins in bare feet with no bra (the book was written in like 1983).
Fascinating read.
I've been reading the book Sapiens, by Yuval Harari. It explains a lot about human behavior on a grand scale. Tribalism is part of our genetic makeup.
Regarding autism you can start here for example. For the wider aspect of what we lost when we broke up with nature I recommend the classic book Food of the gods by ethnobotanist Terence McKenna. The starting point is psychedelic plants but it's really a book about communication and dialogue between primitive humans and nature and how it influenced our intellectual and genetic evolution.
I started reading the book "Sapiens: a brief history of humankind" per my boss' recommendation. Now our department has two cynical persons facing an existential crisis and constantly discussing how transient and seemingly meaningless humankind is to the earth. And we agree that, as humankind, we are committing a very slow suicide.
That aside, it makes a good read. Not too much of an academic paper but deep enough to make you think.
Not directly about Trump, but if you want insight read Fussel's book on Class. Still mostly accurate even though it came out in the 70s iirc. https://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/dp/0671792253
Class in the US is only somewhat related to money. It mostly has to do with preferences and cultural attitudes that are very hard to shake once they're ingrained as the default for a person at a young age.
I don't think so.
I took an online class based on this book and it has a good theory in it. It's been a few years but, IIRC, Harari says that the followers of monotheistic religions are almost required to suppress or eliminate other religions and their deities. If your god is the only true god, all other gods must be false gods or your entire religion is false. Nobody likes their religion being called a false religion, especially when they're deeply emotionally invested in the religion.
Basically, IMO, calling pagan gods "demons" is the result of a smear campaign against those gods and religions tied to them by monotheistic religions. Polytheistic/pagan religions are much older than monotheistic religions, but one of the results of this drive to prove that YHWH is the one "true god" is that some of the other deities became "demons". And the Bible, of course, has to reflect this bias.
Yes, you have some people who believe in monotheistic religions and are more secular. But this smear campaign was run by the church and people who were/are deeply religious and fundamentalist.
Do you really think that women in the Middle East were ISIS emerged have any considerable freedom before or after? Feminism is not a relevant factor in those areas a Youth bulge is. Plus read Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships to moderate your ideological stance.
Single for...jeepers I don't even remember, 11 years? I did an 8 year relationship, that ended, dated, decided it wasn't for me and stopped dating. I realized just really really like being single. With the freedom of being single my life accelerated again and I changed jobs, then took leave to finish my undergrad. Things that I couldn't have done easily if I was in a relationship with someone invested in their career.
It started getting weird a few years ago when married with kids friends would "confide" in me that they're jealous of my life and wish they'd taken my path. I however don't think either is better than the other, we all just need to decide for ourselves what works.
I still use Scruff. I make friends from there. It works quite well actually. I've got a list of guys who want to meet once this covid stuff improves more.
I'm not super sexual so I don't really think about my lack of sex life. To be honest I kind of like never needing an STI screening.
Sex At Dawn is a good read if you want to challenge your preconceptions about pair-bonding.
I don’t think Americans spend anywhere near the amount of time thinking about class that the British do.
To the extent that we think about it at all, it’s more about cultural norms than income. A good book to read about this is Class by Paul Fussell .
You should read The Immortality Key
It details the ancient church’s relationship with drugs - mostly psychedelics and opioid type drugs. Happy reading!
IMHO this is a semantics issue that stems from American political culture. Many words/phrases have been co-opted by one of the two major political movements (right or left) in the United States. Using these words triggers a Pavlovian (often hostile) response from people with politically indoctrinated minds. A majority of American TBMs are deeply entrenched in this world of confrontational political ideology.
Recognize the subconscious emotional responses that are triggered when you hear/read the following words:
Patriotism, Climate, Defense, Feminism, Drugs, Immigrant, Ground Zero, Fascist, Handouts, Abortion, Safety Net, Civil Rights, Preemptive, Guns, Black, White, Extremist.
Remember, these are just words. People's ideas give them meaning. Pointing out this phenomenon isn't a value statement by me on anyone's personally held moral values (which should hopefully be able to endure rational analysis and modification).
I've seen many exmos retain their exact same political stance after leaving TSCC. Just because a person has become self-aware of a strongly held and harmful myth-belief called "religion" doesn't mean they will automatically become self-aware of another strongly held and often harmful myth-belief called "politics".
Let us all just be good humans to each other.
Oh...and read Sapiens. That book clears up a LOT of this stuff.
Having armies and defence forces that can destroy entire nations is a big deterrent, in Sapiens Harare attributes our declining major international conflict rates to this.
I’m reading the book, Sapiens, at the moment. It contains a long chapter about this specific topic. I would recommend this book to anyone from beginning to the end.
>According to Plato, "the ultimate design of the Mysteries ... was to lead us back to the principles from which we descended, ... a perfect enjoyment of intellectual [spiritual] good
>Upon reaching Eleusis, there was an all-night vigil (pannychis) according to Mylonas and Kerenyi. Perhaps commemorating Demeter's search for Persephone. At some point, initiates had a special drink (kykeon), of barley and pennyroyal, which has led to speculation about its chemicals perhaps having psychotropic effects from the Ergot fungi.
>Discovery of fragments of ergot (fungi containing LSD like psychedelic alkaloids) in a temple dedicated to the two Eleusinian Goddesses excavated at the Mas Castellar site (Girona, Spain) provided legitimacy for this theory. Ergot fragments were found inside a vase and within the dental calculus of a 25-year-old man, providing evidence of Ergot being consumed (Juan-Stresserras, 2002). This finding seems to support the hypothesis of ergot as an ingredient of the Eleusinian kykeon.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries#Participants
I would tie the origins of the War on Drugs in the US to the Christian crackdown on use of plants and sacred ceremonies all around the world for centuries. Peyote was the first drug made illegal here in the US. Mushrooms in Mexico. The witch hunts in Europe and America. I would recommend Brian Muraresku’s book The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name for more on this. Basically, drugs have been associated with anyone who is different. And people who think differently scare us.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Apparently there is also a vol. 1 so far of an illustrated version too haven't seen it though
OOOO you should read this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552
​
Really good.
Long story short: population density allowed for these diseases to grow and become not a problem in Europe far earlier than in the Americas. Americas were just too big, not old enough, and didn't have enough domesticable animals for this to occur.
Samt de arkeokjemiske bevisene som blir lagt frem i Brian Muraresku sin "The Immortality Key" som mer eller mindre beviser at Allegro hadde rett.
Så ikke lenger en teori, vi vet de tidlige kristne brukte ett ergotamin basert hallusinogen, dvs det slekter på LSD/LSA.
Among other things that others have brought up, you could explore sports like tennis, golf, sailing (as someone else said), horseback riding, etc. if you don't already. Playing tennis and golf really does it for me for whatever reason.
Also, read Class: A Guide Through the American Status System by Paul Fussell. Follow it up with any library books you can find that discuss the western class system in general.
If you're able to, look into joining a country club or some other non-academic private club. I figure the exclusive nature of clubs in and around NYC will make this harder for you than it was for me living in the rural midwest, but if you can make it happen, it's a great way to make friends with similar interests.
Once events start up again, you could also consider going to fund-raiser galas for causes you care about. This isn't specifically a preppy thing, but they are a lot of fun, and it's another good way to meet people.
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552
This is a fantastic read which both addresses this sentiment and explores why some areas of the world didn't follow suit in industrialization. I'm not a big reader but it is pretty great. Even has some pictures.
@WorriedBoysenBerry
I think you should read The Immortality Key. It presents an interesting case that Jesus of Nazareth was trying to bring psychedelics to the masses as a way of enlightenment.
There are some fascinsting connections to Ancient Greece and the transition to Roman Catholicism and how religious dogma over the centuries has completely missed the orginal intent of the sacrament.
https://www.amazon.com/Immortality-Key-Uncovering-History-Religion/dp/1250207142
When I was in college we got to go to an old aristocrat's home in France where the guy had died with no family and the place was left relatively untouched (I'm sure it was restored).
I remember looking around and imagining his life and thinking -- Man, I live so much better than this this would be terrible.
That comforts me. We live better than all the other people that ever lived. Also to realize the scale of time and universe and feel and accept the meaninglessness on that scale. You can also see how arbitrary literally everything is and realize no matter your choices and beliefs they are also arbitrary -- then you can pick something that makes you happy.
Check out https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095
> A question is a denial?
Is a question an accusation?
Obviously there no hard line of where a class starts or ends, probably depending on who you ask...but we could arrive at some consensus...and we can also divide in more than 3 classes although historically it is how it has been described.
For example, we could divide middle class into 2 or 3 categories, such as middle class and upper middle class...a manager could be middle class, while a doctor could be upper middle class...if that interests you, there are books written about it...I recommend Class: A Guide Through the American Status System even as it has aged a bit...
He probably was. There are a lot of votive figurines from around this era with the same wide-open eyes, and some evidence now that the ancient cult religions of that area involved a hallucinogenic sacrament...
Yes, and it's fantastic. https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095
Official U.S. edition with full color illustrations throughout.
New York Times Bestseller
A Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg
From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.”
One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us?
Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.
Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become?
Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.
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