I think that like I was,you are mature for your age in the high school setting where maturity is not a valued commodity.I was often told I was too mature or thought too much.How is that possible

The bad news is, you don't have much to look forward to out of school.People are just as stupid. You can be glad that unlike them, your headstart on rational thinking and skeptism will likely serve you well in life.

And no,you don't have any reason to trust in humankind..

Well, at least I know what to expect. I think I'm just hoping beyond hope that there's something I overlooked, but it looks like it's not that way. I want to believe that there's a reason to believe in people, but I can't see any reason I should. But in the end life really isn't any more or less enjoyable than it was before, so I'm sure I'll be alright.

But, based on the idea that the majority are 'irrational'--to put it politely--is democracy basically bullshit? I don't trust the majority to make decisions about my life. Of course the majority doesn't like it when I make this clear. I've also been more and more interested in anarchy lately, but in the end I just don't believe most people even have the mental or definitely the physical capabilities to survive without society telling them what to do. Perhaps, if society were broken down and people were forced to develop more as individuals, their irrationality would at least decrease. But then again, intelligence is also biological. Any thoughts on any of this?

Yes. Especially because the premise is that "everyone gets a chance to speak." Bullshit. Why do we never televise the presidential candidates from the Green Party, the American Communist Party, the Libertarian Party, or other parties like that? I hate it when people say "oh, that's cuz nobody really wants to vote for them." How do you know, if nobody is ever exposed to those viewpoints, and just given the choice between Democrat and Republican? Democracy is really about suppressing dissent, and making people choose between black and white issues.

Yeah. "Majority rules" works out pretty well... unless you're in the minority.

People will probably give me flak for this, but I actually like a lot of socialist ideas. For a globalization class I'm in, we watched a video yesterday about Argentina. Many companies have abandoned factories in search of cheaper labor, forcing Argentinian workers out of jobs. But what many have done is refuse to let the factory shut down. They continue to occupy it, and eventually get judicial permission to run the machines themselves. Everyone gets the same pay, and gets to say their 2 cents on how to run the business. Personally, I really like the idea. I'm not totally Libertarian, because I feel that there are areas which would be best controlled by the state, but I feel any step in that direction would be preferential over the system we're currently under.

And I think you also hit on one of the draws to religion. People like being told what to do. They don't like having to analytically think things through, and come to their own conclusion as to what is and isn't moral. They'd rather have some ancient book lay it all out for them. And same with society, as you said.

I'd say I really have no hope for most of humanity, because people are just too simple-minded and self-absorbed with their own petty problems. They're totally ignorant to problems bigger than what to do with their hair. Oh, I forgot, you don't need to worry - prayer fixes everything. Silly rational people...

The general Ignorance of humanity did pretty much push me away from people at large.  I remember constantly asking questions like "How did God create us?" only to get general and pathetic answers.  The only thing that's kept my humility is all the bat shit crazy things I believed before embracing skepticism.  Reality is very scary, sometimes people just want to burrow deep into fiction and not think of all the nasty details of life.  I began as one of those faith-heads you see walking around, I believed in some things that I am absolutely ashamed to admit.  Over a long and very painful process I came to realize that questioning and reason are just as wonderful as fiction.  I now feel a new freedom to write my fiction instead of letting it control my view of reality.

I know the hate you feel, you just want to slap some reason into those air headed fools... but being violent isn't going to do anything.  We need to reach out to them, show them the wonder of reason and the empowerment of waking up to the complexities of reality.  You can dream of flight and be inspired by those dreams, but reason built the plane.  What I say of the illogical and the fantastical fanatics is this... dreams can come true, but first you have to wake up.

By default, my stance toward anyone new I happen to encounter is "Probably a waste of air", so yeah, I have no faith in people anymore.

The thing of it though, is that in large numbers, humans are just downright stupid. Alone or in small groups though, we can be fuckin' amazing. I don't get how that can be, but it is. I also haven't figured out just what the cutoff point is where a group is officially too big to maintain their wits. Once I figure that out though, I'll be doing alright.

Hmmm...Well I have a hard time with thinking that people are just stupid..I think theres way to many of us and we all seem to have conflicting ideas on how things are suppose to work. Such as driving on the highway. I assume its best to drive the speed limit. Others think its best to drive 25 mph on the highway and get in my way and make me late for work.While other people think its best to drive at least 20 mph over the speed limit and cut off every car they see. Who's really right in that situation?

Theres this guy at work that goes on and on about how our job should be done. He will tell you he knows his stuff and he is right. To me all his ideas sound like complete nonsense.

I sometimes wonder if Im one of those people that everyone else thinks is stupid. Stupid people dont realize there stupid right?

Anyway...Point is...Alot of people all with different ideas...Its hard for me to tell who is right about what anymore..

Social, intellectual and technological progress is initiated innovatively but prosecuted through effective communication. The capacity to innovate is common enough but the circumstances which allow for effective communication are, ironically, more restricted the larger the potential audience. Since effective communication does not primarily rely on mass media, but even more on the willingness to listen to the message, our present age of rapid dissemination of information has not seen the corresponding phenomenal increase in the rate of progress once commonly predicted. We're not experiencing a bad rate of progress, just one that isn't as fast as optimists anticipated a few decades ago.

To the innovator the masses have always seemed stupid. To the communicator struggling to convey the innovation they have always seemed infuriatingly stupid. But as I said above, innovation and the ability to communicate is improving all the time, and the agencies that through their own interests attempt artificially to stifle them are beginning to become glaringly obvious, both in their existence and in the techniques they employ - not something they're particularly happy about since it screws up a large element of that technique big time.

Thankfully for humanity's future, organised religion is one such agency.

What is the "right" perspective? I wouldn't say we're a successful species. Sure, we've gotten great at surviving and reproducing, maybe too good, because if things keep going as they are we'll kill ourselves off before long. We'll take down a good number of other species with us too. I think we're at a bad place: intelligent enough to shape the world we live in, too dumb to know what shape it should be.

My tongue was firmly embedded in my cheek when I typed this.

From a gene's point of view -- and that really is the one that matters -- surviving and reproducing is THE measure of a species.

Unfortunately, genes don't have foresight.  It's my contention that humans don't either.

Will take down?  Here's a very, very brief list of species we've taken out:

Giant Bison

Wild Horse

Short-faced Bear

Mammoth

Mastodon

Sabre-toothed cat

Giant ground sloth

Wild Camel

Giant Sloth

Giant Armadillo

Giant Guanaco

Giant Capybaras

Giant Anteaters

Did I mention that these are the species we drove extinct in North and South America before we even discovered metal?  We did all that with sticks and stones.

While I'm at it... notable species destroyed by the Aborigines of Australia:

Marsupial rhinos

Giant diprotodons

Tree Fellers

Marsupial Lions

Five kinds of Giant wombat

Seven kinds of short-faced kangaroos

Eight kinds of giant kangaroo

Several Flightless birds

Modern environmentalists are often under the mistaken impression that destruction of the environment is something new to the industrialized world.  The truth is, we've been a blight since the beginning.

Funny... I was going to mention this, but I forgot while listing all the extinct species.

Too many people read "Ishmael" and believed it.  The idea of the noble savage is not only wrong, it's gloriously and spectacularly wrong, to borrow one of Dawkins' favorite phrases.  Besides the voluminous archeological record, there was also a study done a couple of decades ago.   The details escape me, but the scientists studied something like a dozen indigenous tribes who at most received metal pots from a long line of barter with other indigenous tribes.  In other words, they had no exposure to "Western Ideals" whatsoever.  The scientists not only found zero evidence of a conservation ethic, they found that when the tribe appeared to be doing something for conservation, they were really just playing the odds.

For a long time, anthropologists had thought they hunted an area to a certain level and then left it to replenish as a means of conservation.  What they found upon closer examination was kind of a DUH moment.  The natives stopped hunting an area when they were unlikely to find any food!  When they had to pass depleted hunting grounds to get to more fertile ones, they NEVER passed up a chance to take the easy kill in the depleted zone and go back home.

Again, funny this should come up.  Last night in the RRS chatroom, I asked a trivia question:

Chief Seattle made a famous speech in 1854 that is often quoted by Al Gore in environmental activist rallies.  He said, "How can you buy or sell the sky?  The land?  The idea is strange to us."  The thing is, Chief Seattle never said this.  The only report of the chief's words was from about 30 years later, and basically said that he praised the white men for their wisdom in buying the land.  Now... the question:  When was that speech actually written, and by whom?

The answer:  It was written in 1971 by a Hollywood screenwriter.

The evidence is in, and the fact is, when the native Americans did not drive a species to extinction, it was probably because of technical insufficiency, not higher environmental morals.  Anyone who's studied Game Theory and evolutionary psych even a little knows that environmental ethics go against everything it is to be human.

One of my favorite moments was watching the horror on a vegetarian friend's face when she saw footage of how a "noble savage" tribe killed a wild boar for a feast.  They made slaughterhouses look like the Four Seasons Hotel.

True that. Like I've said before,I don't have many friends,but those I do are very close. My friends are all outside the mainstream, and just different. And don't be too quick to equate education to stupidity and friend worth. My best friend never finished school,as he has certain learning problems.However,he's an incredible artist,a musician,an excellent friend, and we have great conversations and times. Don't be too quick to judge.