Golden Path as philosophy

[SandChigger]

Golden Pathway: Life on Earth
5700years of conditioning process to obey money.
people are starving because they don't have a piece of paper.
and we accept this?
and we claim we are an intelligent species?

What's the basis of the "5700 years"?

More important, what does this have to do with the Golden Path in the Dune novels?

[Nekhrun]

Golden Pathway: Life on Earth
5700years of conditioning process to obey money.
people are starving because they don't have a piece of paper.
and we accept this?
and we claim we are an intelligent species?

I would say that the fact that we can claim anything at all makes us the intelligent species.

[Hunchback Jack]

What's the basis of the "5700 years"?

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

HBJ

[semuta]

5700 years ago the age of the earliest known found coins of any culture on this planet. That is how long our species has been slaves to capitalism.
You will LOVE the movie Zietgeist:addendum.

[Freakzilla]

5700 years ago the age of the earliest known found coins of any culture on this planet. That is how long our species has been slaves to capitalism.
You will LOVE the movie Zietgeist:addendum.

Before that they used salt.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Capitalism and Socialism are both natural human behavior, we've just put labels on them and tried (in different places and times) to focus more on one or the other. I understand that the invention of currency did help concentrate wealth to certain people, but it also upped the standard of living for everyone by making simple trade more efficient and allowing people to specialize more easily, again upping efficiency.

Everything HAS gone terribly wrong, and we're one fucked up species now, but that's the fault of humans in general, not coins. Greed is greed, coins just make it easier to keep track of.

Blaming our problems on currency ignores the real problem and just makes people like YOU feel better about themselves by having a scapegoat to pin society's problems on rather than accepting that YOU and everyone you love are part of the real source of the problem.

endrant.

EDIT: and why the HELL are we discussing this in the GP thread? This has nothing at all to do with the GP.

[SandChigger]

I seem to remember having asked that question myself.

The easy answer is because he's one of this idi...people who insists on applying Dune terms inappropriately. This is no doubt just another manifestation of his "Golden Path for the Earth" crap from that other thread.

[Serkanner]

I seem to remember having asked that question myself.

The easy answer is because he's one of this idi...people who insists on applying Dune terms inappropriately. This is no doubt just another manifestation of his "Golden Path for the Earth" crap from that other thread.

The one thing Iam wondering about is why he doesn't read McDune? Both his rantings and the atrocities are equally deranged.

[Slugger]

5700 years ago the age of the earliest known found coins of any culture on this planet. That is how long our species has been slaves to capitalism.
You will LOVE the movie Zietgeist:addendum.

What? The first coins specifically intended as currency originated in Lydia in 610 BC.

WTF: "Slaves to capitalism."

[reverendmotherQ.]

:shakes head: Leto's Golden Path extends beyond any one factor of civilization. It encompasses it all in scope from my understanding but seeks to reinvent it, essentially away from the mutant muddy pool it becomes.
edit: I must be tired as frak: substitute mutant with miry*. I guess that is more apt at conveying what I am trying to get across.

[Olympos]

My view of The Golden Path ... keeping in mind that I think Herbert didn't intend for everyone to view it the same way, but to interpret it on the basis of their own life:

The God Emperor was a teacher, and his goal was the evolution, the maturation, of humanity. His lesson was Leto's Peace, and his objective was for humanity to adapt to Leto's Peace as prey adapts to the predator ... not to become more comfortable at being preyed upon, but to successfully overcome predation through adaptation.

What did Leto's Peace enforce? Orthodoxy, both political and religious. Acceptance of central authority in exchange for personal security. Suppression of innovation, socially and technologically. Immobility, a civilization on foot with no hope of exploring new frontiers.

What adaptations did he hope for? Questioning of orthodoxy ... a preference for personal freedom above personal security. Embracing the unknown, because only in acknowledging that you do not know a thing can you hope to learn. A desire to explore.

The Golden Path is humanity's escape from conformity, a push for diversity ... because without diversity, we all become vulnerable to the same threats, and on that path his prescience showed him the extinction of our species.

[reverendmotherQ.]

My view of The Golden Path ... keeping in mind that I think Herbert didn't intend for everyone to view it the same way, but to interpret it on the basis of their own life:

The God Emperor was a teacher, and his goal was the evolution, the maturation, of humanity. His lesson was Leto's Peace, and his objective was for humanity to adapt to Leto's Peace as prey adapts to the predator ... not to become more comfortable at being preyed upon, but to successfully overcome predation through adaptation.

What did Leto's Peace enforce? Orthodoxy, both political and religious. Acceptance of central authority in exchange for personal security. Suppression of innovation, socially and technologically. Immobility, a civilization on foot with no hope of exploring new frontiers.

What adaptations did he hope for? Questioning of orthodoxy ... a preference for personal freedom above personal security. Embracing the unknown, because only in acknowledging that you do not know a thing can you hope to learn. A desire to explore.

The Golden Path is humanity's escape from conformity, a push for diversity ... because without diversity, we all become vulnerable to the same threats, and on that path his prescience showed him the extinction of our species.

Well put, I couldn't have formulated a better answer myself. the "universe of surprises" Leto speaks of was definitely crafted around a break from predictability in the ruling structure through the dissolution of the Landsraad, a total disruption of the BG's precious breeding program, and literaly flinging hummanity out into their worst fears as embodied by the uncharted universe. The Honored Matre's were a terrible encounter because of this underlying guiding principle of seeking out the unfamiliar, but Leto never said, just as life should never be unless it be threatened by boredom, that any one part of his plan would be safe. It was a total destruction of safety by which his plan was fueled, for with safety only comes the numbing mind eroding catanoia of satisfied contentment: on the human race level this was a total stagnation of progress, a condition not too far fetched in comparison to oru own( or the world's, to be more specific)

[Olympos]

but Leto never said, just as life should never be unless it be threatened by boredom, that any one part of his plan would be safe.

As Leto tested Siona and it looked like she might fail and die, he reminded himself that she might well die, all that the Golden Path required was that they could not ALL die.

[Snowball]

I'm curious...does anyone know how far in time Leto's vision of the Golden Path extended?

Also, why did he consider the continuation of the species important in the first place? He was barely human even before his transformation, so it wasn't self-service, which I don't think would have been a good explanation anyway.

[SandChigger]

He only peeked a little beyond a certain time, to make sure that the Golden Path continued. After the Scattering got going, there wasn't anything much more to worry about. Besides, after the Siona Gene got spread about, even he couldn't see the people, only their effects, so it would have been pretty boring, other than knowing that some kind of people still survived.

He considered all of humankind his family.