1. Stupid and not thinking
2. Intelligent and not thinking
3. Intelligent and thinking
4. Stupid and thinking
This is a cycle, so #4 is followed by #1.
1. Stupid and not thinking
This is normal. Most cultures are in this category. These culture have traditions that work. The people are too stupid to create much value. But by following traditions, they survive.
Today the most obvious example of this are Sunni Muslims who blindly follow hadiths without critical thought. But, as usual, most of the world is in this category. Medieval Europe was also in this category.
2. Intelligent and not thinking
Occasionally it happens that a culture becomes intelligent, probably due to some unplanned eugenic force. During this phase, culture opposes thought, but there are a few people who are so intelligent that they can't help thinking, and these people create value.
The European Renaissance is an example of this. Today Japan is in this category where the culture doesn't encourage thinking. Also possibly China where the brutal culture makes thinking impractical.
3. Intelligent and thinking
Category #2 often changes to #3 as intelligent people push to allow thinking. Thinking allows for a great deal of value to be created. But the negative is that traditions are lost and the culture begins to become degenerate.
Ancient Athens, the Islamic Golden Age, and the West from the Enlightenment to about 2000 are examples of this phase. No cultures in this category exist today.
4. Stupid and thinking
This seems to inevitably follow from phase #3. The cause isn't entirely clear, but degeneracy probably plays a role. In this phase, stupid people try to think which produces endless stupid delusional ideas. This phase is short because it is unsustainable. The stupid ideas produced quickly destroy the culture. When the culture collapses, people turn to traditional ideas which leads back to phase #1.
Modern western culture is a perfect example of this. So was decaying Rome.
My order of preference of these phases, from best to worst, is: #3, #2, #1, #4. #4 is clearly the worst with the worst ideas.
Historically, cultures experienced these phases in isolation without influencing each other too much. But global communications has changed this. So now the West is in phase #4 while most of the world is in phase #1. But because of communications, most of the world is exposed to Western ideas which replace their traditional ideas. The result is that modern culture is global. Stupid people in the West produce stupid ideas which are then absorbed by stupid non-thinking countries. For example, America is in phase #4 while Mexico is in phase #1. Mexicans never think and never produce ideas. Americans are stupid people who think and produce an endless stream of stupid ideas. The stupid Mexicans just absorb these stupid ideas. So in the end, America and Mexico have basically the same culture.
So we can divide modern non-western cultures into 2 categories: Those who have the strength to resist modern culture and those who don't. Most modern cultures don't, so they will collapse with the West. The cultures that do resist include Japan, traditional Anabaptists, Orthodox Jews, and some Muslims. These are the cultures that will survive.
My dream would be a sustainable culture in phase #3. Is this possible? My
Arkian idea is my attempt to do this.
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