1. We all have obligations as well as rights.
Our inalienable rights are well know, but because we live together with others, we cannot do what ever we please. Everything we do has consequences, whether it be how we behave, or what we consume, or what we say and these things effect others and so must be moderated to eliminate harm to others. And when I say others, I mean other humans, other living things, and all future living things. See “is it time for a declaration of human obligations?” below.
2 We usually do what is easiest for ourselves, not what is best for all.
When we vote we nearly always vote for what ever person or party will implement policy that will most benefit us, not others. Likewise, if we see or hear of people causing suffering on others, do we take action or just do nothing, making some excuse that nothing can be done and we are powerless to do anything? Do we not do what is easiest for ourselves, rather than doing what is morally right? Socrates said that with knowledge it would be impossible not to do the right thing, But he was wrong, we can delude ourselves, dismiss knowledge as fake, or pick and choose knowledge to justify what ever we want. In this way events such as the holocaust and holomodor continually occur. See “A History of the world in a single object” below
3. The vast majority of us are good natured, but we are all capable of evil or permitting evil to happen.
“There are no evil people, but there are evil acts“ This is the conclusion of prison psychologists who are attempting to understand and thus reduce future violence. If you read history, study the experiments and read of the world today, you will realise it is all about context, not inherent personality. Any ordinary person can cause suffering, or kill, it just requires the situation to give the reason to do it, or permit it to happen, especially when those suffering are not of our own social group and portrayed as others who are of less importance, or not human at all, and so we fail to see another human who is just like us. See "The battle of Fridaythorpe" below .
4 We are 100% responsible for our own actions.
Human beings can think, and in any situation, can consider options as to how to act next. We can assess different actions and then choose what to do. But we have to think, rather than automatically react, or just do the same as others and personally decide how we should act. We do have freewill, but we must choose to use it. Therefore we are all responsible for our actions as we are capable of deciding what to do. See “You have freewill, do you choose to use it?” below.
5.Belief in god and an afterlife is comforting but bad for us.
A by-product of our minds, (minds that gave us the adaptability to populate the many habitats of this earth), is our need to explain our creation, our purpose and our need to come to terms with the fact that in the future we will die. So to give us comfort we invent stories of all powerful gods and an everlasting life beyond death. However these mythical falsehoods are bad for us, as they absolve us of responsibility or make everyone’s lives on earth less important. Gods or God is in control and we are all going to heaven so what happens when we are alive is not really our responsibility and all secondary, to what will follow. If we ditched such thinking, and accepted there is no one but us and our lives wondrous but short, we might start valuing each other and start really treating each other with love, respect and compassion as most religions teach. See "Concerning religion" and "Atheist faith, hope and prayers" below.
6. We are destroying our home planet.
We have evolved to live on planet earth, and it will be impossible to travel to another similar planet. The way we currently all want to live, is incompatible and unsustainable with the planet. If we keep doing what we are doing now, the world will just get hotter and hotter and hotter. Some people will survive, but most wont and we will transform this beautiful, rich and varied planet into something impoverished and harsh. Our current competitive tribal nature is not suited to preventing this happening and we must change, and change very fast. See "Impacts of Climate Change" and "Why the majority accept man made climate change, but do nothing about it" below.
7. We are extremely violent creatures.
Our historic past is one of constant violence. Our societies use violence to enforce rules. Violence drives innovation and determines which societies prosper. Our use of violence has made us a successful species - but will it in the future and is there a better way? Nuclear weapons means we now have the means to totally destroy ourselves and because of globalisation the planet is very much smaller. We are all interconnected and inter dependent on each other. Use of violence is no longer an option. See "Violence and how to reduce it" below.
8. We are tribal by nature.
Humans are social animals and evolved in groups. We cannot live on our own. But in our globalised interconnected, interdependent world we can no longer separate ourselves into competing groups and should all start to think that we all share a common humanity, The reality is, that there is the individual who is a member of the global social group. If we can lose our tribalism, we will lose competition between clans, nations, races, religions, genders, organisation. It opens the door of opportunity to a truly tolerant, sharing, supportive, cooperative, compassionate world that will be mutually beneficial for all. See "Now is the time to end tribalism" below.
9 We are still animals whose primary purpose is to reproduce.
Because we are biological organisms, or more fundamentally, self sustaining chemical reactions, the point of our lives is to survive, reproduce, bring up our offspring, then die. Its written in our genes and bodies and our brains are just tools that the genes use to replicate themselves and continue. In the human species the brain created by our genes, gives us a degree of intelligence that means we have come to dominate all other species .(except a few virus’ that still kill us). However, that intelligence is now backfiring on us, as we compete selfishly to reproduce with the best genes we can. In this big global competition of display, status and power the world is being wrecked, but our genes don’t care. Will our intelligence over ride our selfish genes? We will soon find out. See also "Human behaviour explained" below.
10 We are not as clever as we think we are.
We used to think we were the at the center of the universe and everything revolved around us. Some people think they are the center of the universe and the everything world should revolve around them. Others say the brain is the most complex structure in the universe but isn’t; the entire planet together with the biosphere in which all the brains survive is far more complex. We are always getting things wrong, and we should never be as arrogant as to think we know and stop learning. The more we think we know, the more we realise what little we do know. We should always be open to new learning, new ways of thinking and always aware that we could be wrong and others know more than us. Perhaps it would be the first sign of intelligence, if we owned up to ourselves that we aren’t intelligent at all. See" The Mess the world is in and what to do about it" below.
11 Our Leaders are usually rich, selfish, paranoid, incompetent charlatans, and they think the vast majority of us are too.
In the past, birth determined who were our leaders. Authoritarian states are lead by the most powerful or most ruthless. Democracy is lead by the most popular or most convincing. But in our increasingly complex world, how can one single person have all the answers? The notion of a single leader in which we delegate all decisions or have to accept as the most able to decide what is for the best, is absurd. In today’s world we need teamwork, different people for different problems, not the best well meaning fool who thinks he can do a great job and promises the world. See "World leaders - do we need them?" below.
12 Women are more important than men.
Because they have babies, women are far more important than men. Which is why men have and do oppress them and frequently carry out acts of sexual violence against them. In the future when artificial sperm can be made, men will be redundant and the world will be far less violent. See "Women rule the world - they just don't realise it" below.
13 Democracy is not the default setting of societies.
Because of our frequent use of violence, it is usually the most ruthless who are the most powerful and lead a society. Democracy is an alternative that controls the most violent, by clearly demonstrating the will of the society as to who it wants to lead and when it wants a change of leader. However in order to succeed this system needs some rules that all must obey. and those who break the rules and start to act selfishly in their own interest must be punished. This means vigilance and rule of law, or its back to tyranny. You have to fight for democracy. But democracy must not oppress minorities. See "the direction of human history" below.
14 Our lives are short but amazing..
Time is the most precious thing we have. Because we all die, from the moment we are born our lives are getting shorter. None of us likes to think that one day we will no longer exist and,when we are young we think we have many years ahead of us, but each moment is unique and will never come again. Each moment we experience is a highly improbable event created from the infinite number of previous highly improbable events but your ability to experience them and memorise them will stop. A lot of people avoid the thought of their priceless lives ending by a made up belief in an after life, but if you don’t delude yourself and face up to your own demise, your life and more importantly that of all other living things, becomes a priceless joyous miracle of existence.
Acceptance of life coming to a end, is not a tragic thought, it is a liberating joyous thought. Joyous, because it makes life a million times more precious and something not to be wasted. Don’t waste it doing useless or negative things, make the world a better place. See also "The truest thing that everyone knows" below.
