and were incapable of feeling pain and suffering and misery and whatnot, would we even have violence, evil and conflicts in our world like we do today?
And also, would we use drugs then at all like crack, heroin etc in order to feel pleasureable BUT with many negative side effects to them?
That reminds me of an episode from twilight zone.
share
I'm not sure, but it would probably be kind of boring. Sounds like an episode of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror.
😎
If people were incapable of felling pain they would die off very quickly.
Pain is a necessary sense just like sight and hearing. It's a survival mechanism.
This is real life, not just hypothetical, I know a guy who had a stroke and he has no feeling in his left arm. It is alive (has blood flow) but just hangs there limp, he can't move it or feel it. So he was barbecuing and his left hand accidentally flopped onto the grill and he got badly burnt because he didn't feel anything. Anyone else would pull their hand away instantly when they felt the heat.
You avoid things that cause pain because they can also damage or kill you.
Good points, but I don't think OP was going there.
Reconsider his question with the pain in question being chronic. Sure, if you BBQ your hand, you'd feel it and would continue to do so after it heals.
I turned 60 this year and am fortunate to have virtually no pain. I have some lower back stiffness when I try to move like an 18 year old, but I see people much younger than I in constant physical pain. There's also emotional pain.
But what if, like the poster asked, if there was no chronic pain, no suffering, no misery?
My answer is that not much would change because a small percentage of the population are inherently evil or narcissistic to a point that they want everyone to believe what they do and will find the means to force them to do so, like Adolph Hitler for instance.
I don't think anyone is born evil. People can be born with mental illness, but that is not the same as evil. Evil is a choice. Every person has choices every day to do a right thing or a wrong thing. Every person has the capacity for good and the capacity for evil.
The Stanford prison experiment proved that normal, sane people with no criminal history or mental illness (those type of people were already weeded out from participating in the experiment) can turn evil and sadistic in a very short time, given the right conditions. Civilization and democracy is such a thin veneer, it does not take much to crack it and have the baser instincts and values come oozing up.
People can be born with mental illness, but that is not the same as evil.
It's not semantics at all! Do you think all mentally ill people are evil? Hitler was evil by choice, he was not disabled. he had all the same choices anyone has.
Most mentally ill people don't harm anyone. These are two totally different words and totally different groups of people.
Also, if certain people were born evil, and they would end up evil no matter how they were raised, that means they have no free will and whatever they do isn't their fault because they were just born with that destiny. No matter how hard they try to be good, they will always be evil. So would you punish or even execute someone for something they didn't choose and had no control over?
You can't have it both ways. You went out of your way to cite the Stanford prison reference that says evil is a conditioned response as opposed to being an inherent trait, yet you say Hitler's evil was a choice, not a conditioned response to his environment.
Do you think all mentally ill people are evil?
I said that ANYone is capable of evil. You, me, the pope, everyone. It's not good guys and bad guys. Ordinary people with no previous history of 'evil' can do evil things depending on circumstances. That is what the prison experiment proved.
But, some people also did not go along with the prison experiment. It's not 100% that committed the sadistic acts. Some people made the choice not to keep participating.
Because average people have free will.
I think we should punish child predators because they chose to commit those crimes. It wasn't inevitable, it was a choice, and they know the difference between right and wrong. If someone doesn't know the difference or is so mentally incompetent that they have no control over their actions, they aren't evil. They are just sick. To qualify as truly evil, the person had to freely choose that action and understand right and wrong. An animal killing to survive isn't evil. self defense isn't evil. the concept of evil requires free choice and understanding.
I disagree, I believe you can be born evil.
shareReally? little babies can be evil?
well I mean all children are evil sometimes that's why I didn't have them, but I mean can they be truly Evil with a capital E, intentionally and knowing and comprehending cause and effect, as an infant? I feel like that is beyond their capacity.
not saying infants can act upon it, but as they navigate their world and make choices, yes.
shareBut Are they informed choices? With understanding of cause & effect, and consequences? Do you hold an infant fully responsible for what it does?
An infant makes a "choice" based on zero understanding of the world and what their choice and action might set in motion. They have no concept of past or future, so how could they understand consequences. They don't understand that other people are also separate sentient beings like themselves. They are selfish because they are only aware of their own desires, and they don't realize other people have their own desires. Other people are just there to fill their (the infant's) needs.
Certainly those behaviors and attitudes are evil when they are seen in adults, that would be called a sociopath, but you cannot hold an infant to the same standard.
It's called Cannabis and it doesn't kill you like crack and heroin. Its non toxic and safe. I think Carl Sagan summed it up perfectly with this quote.
“The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.”
-Carl Sagan
Wow. I just Googled and it seems you're right...
Carl Sagan was a pothead. Even though he was a rather high functioning for a stoner, I just lost any bit of respect I had for him!!
That's a shame. Why would you lose respect for him? Not everyone who uses pot is a "pothead" or "stoner". Just like not everyone who drinks is a "drunk" or an "alcoholic".
shareAnd yet you suck up to Kane who has made numerous references to using hashish and other narcotics and I've lost all respect for you !
shareWho's Kane? Not really sure what your talking about?
sharedb, you might consider amending "numerous references to using" to "numerous references to having used" or "numerous references to knowing about." The last time I used any of the drugs you cite was 24 years ago, when they gave me morphine when I was on life support in Boston's Deaconess Hospital. Also, hashish is not a narcotic. OPIATED hashish, also known as Nepali temple balls, is a narcotic. Hash is to pot what cognac is to brandy: a more concentrated form of the stuff. That's all. (Fun fact: Cognac was created by Dutch brandy merchants who wanted to make more profit from each shipload; so they distilled the brandy, intending to reconstitute it by adding water when the ship reached port. On their first voyage, in the spirit of scientific inquiry, they sampled the concentrate, said, "Screw reconstituting! This stuff rocks!" in Dutch [Stratego, a little help?], and cognac came into the world.)
Also, Kane is not my family name. My name is R_Kane.
This is just more of your convoluted rationalizing and misdirection, Kane !
Hash is to pot what cognac is to brandy: a more concentrated form of the stuff.
No, pot is not a narcotic either. It's a drug but not a narcotic.
Think of a venn diagram Circles within circles.
all narcotics are drugs, but not all drugs are narcotics.
Then why is America, with the highest number of incarcerated individuals in the world, clogging its prison system with people charged with simple " possession ? "
https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/19810515-different-forms-of-narcotics-opiates-cocaine-marihuana-and-hashish-805933-2014-02-28
Ok, I will amend "numerous" to at least several.
shareNot trying to get involved in this argument, but for the record, opiated hashish is largely a myth. Anything that comes out of Nepal is usually hand rubbed and referred to as "Charas". if your interested, check out the history of Malana.
But ya, weed is NOT a narcotic. It's a drug of course, but a harmless one at that. Technically anything psychoactive is considered a drug, including caffeine.
I have smoked opiated hash MANY times in the 60s and 70s. It has white flecks in it. It feels completely different from straight hash. I know what morphine feels like. Opiated hash is a milder simulacrum of that. I have no idea about the availability of opiated hash today.
And I have no idea how someone thought I said reefer is a narcotic. I said that it was not, but that opiated hash, containing an opiod, was.
Your right. I asked an acquaintance who's an amateur historian on stuff like this and he said he's heard similar stories.
shareAnd yet you suck up to Kane...
Kudos to you with this post, Padeen. It beautifully complements a two hour program I watched just this morning about the presently burgeoning marijuana industry in the country and the conclusions that were presented at the end.
shareIt's a balance.
Without ugliness we couldn't appreciate beauty.
Without sadness we couldn't appreciate happiness.
Without violence we couldn't appreciate peace.
We would all be automatons just existing.
That's not really a way to live.
And without light, there would be no shadows; and any photographer or cinematographer will tell you that it is the shadows that make the picture. But, as I've posted before, light is not inherently good. Too much can blind us, to put it simplistically. Dark is not inherently bad. Dark allows us to sleep and regenerate ourselves. Sadness, or melancholy, can be transcendentally beautiful, e. g., the song Un Bel Di in Puccini's opera, Madama Butterfly; whereas happiness has created a disproportionate percentage of all bad pop music ever written, e. g., Don't Worry, Be Happy and My Life.
The secret to harmony and balance is in knowing and feeling how to look past the form of a thing (and I promise you that Satan will ALWAYS have a beautiful form) and to look into the substance of the thing.
To answer your OP, no, I don't think we would have violence, conflict (in the way we have), or have any need to use drugs.
But as others have pointed out, then we'd have no contrast either.