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Do people actually care enough about "threats to humanity's potential" to actually support this kind of thing? I imagine more people would say they care than wo

Do people actually care enough about "threats to humanity's potential" to actually support this kind of thing? I imagine more people would say they care than would actually want to pay tax dollars towards it.

tluyben2 6y ago
People care about #1 and the close relatives (very close usually); the rest is nice to say you care at parties and people might even want to contribute to it if the are either filthy rich anyway or get paid to do so (or both). There are exceptions (covid doctors/nurses most notably the last months; although I personally know doctors (and I only know 3) who all refused to work on the frontlines as ... looking out for #1), but in general, no-one wants to pay/help unless they get screwed themselves (Boris Johnson with covid as an example) which then humbles them (hopefully). Most of the rich countries' people are healthy (although it seems the US(and UK lately?) is trying to change that with obesity, diabetes being so prevalent?) so it's easy to think ; screw that, I will never get anything so I'm not paying taxes or doing anything for those 'lazy sods'. Until they get something. I think covid is not (yet ...) bad enough to change that way of thinking; especially here in europe (without the uk) there is strong pressure against helping 'lazy people' (between '' because they are not lazy generally, it's just inequality) with handouts, even though many rich people suffered first hand through how fast you can go from healthy to a complete wreck (or dead). The scare (I hope a scare will be enough..) needs to be far worse than this; the people who lived through WOII are dying off (faster with covid) so most people in the western world hardly lived through any real trauma in general. Imho also the reason words like 'trauma' are now used in completely wrong ways; people getting traumatised by, on a war or 'spanish flu' type pandemic scale, things that mean really not much at all. This is great because it means we live in prosperity (in the west!), however we are not prepared, at all for any larger calamity. And we forgot the calamities of yore (not sure if they still teach history in schools; I have a bad feeling it's not very ... well done) so it's easy to focus on the direct family and say 'f you!' to the rest of the world. I don't think that will change unless there is a real unifying event, far worse than this. Unfortunately it might come as the 2nd or 3rd wave of covid. And if not, as #1, I hope to be dead when that finally happens. But it will happen and we won't be prepared at all because our governments love dismantling things 'we don't need' (do we even have an army of any significance in the EU?) to save money and memory is really short for the 'bad things'.

tluyben2 6y ago

People care about #1 and the close relatives (very close usually); the rest is nice to say you care at parties and people might even want to contribute to it if the are either filthy rich anyway or get paid to do so (or both). There are exceptions (covid doctors/nurses most notably the last months; although I personally know doctors (and I only know 3) who all refused to work on the frontlines as ... looking out for #1), but in general, no-one wants to pay/help unless they get screwed themselves (Boris Johnson with covid as an example) which then humbles them (hopefully). Most of the rich countries' people are healthy (although it seems the US(and UK lately?) is trying to change that with obesity, diabetes being so prevalent?) so it's easy to think ; screw that, I will never get anything so I'm not paying taxes or doing anything for those 'lazy sods'. Until they get something. I think covid is not (yet ...) bad enough to change that way of thinking; especially here in europe (without the uk) there is strong pressure against helping 'lazy people' (between '' because they are not lazy generally, it's just inequality) with handouts, even though many rich people suffered first hand through how fast you can go from healthy to a complete wreck (or dead). The scare (I hope a scare will be enough..) needs to be far worse than this; the people who lived through WOII are dying off (faster with covid) so most people in the western world hardly lived through any real trauma in general. Imho also the reason words like 'trauma' are now used in completely wrong ways; people getting traumatised by, on a war or 'spanish flu' type pandemic scale, things that mean really not much at all. This is great because it means we live in prosperity (in the west!), however we are not prepared, at all for any larger calamity. And we forgot the calamities of yore (not sure if they still teach history in schools; I have a bad feeling it's not very ... well done) so it's easy to focus on the direct family and say 'f you!' to the rest of the world. I don't think that will change unless there is a real unifying event, far worse than this. Unfortunately it might come as the 2nd or 3rd wave of covid. And if not, as #1, I hope to be dead when that finally happens. But it will happen and we won't be prepared at all because our governments love dismantling things 'we don't need' (do we even have an army of any significance in the EU?) to save money and memory is really short for the 'bad things'.