Why do so many people lack ambition and lack interest in topics like politics, science, or writing?

Whether you consider everyone to be idiots or not. The point is we aren't so different from each other. Sure the complexity of our minds ensures that everyone is unique, but still not that different. I think it's far easier to consider everyone stupid than smart. People who seem the smartest are just good at hiding their stupidity. The smartest people realize how stupid they are and work around it. Intelligence is just as much a perspective as anything else. And perspectives can be learned, forgotten, and expanded from just about anyone. So really I think anybody can be really smart if they learn to apply themselves. And of course having the determination to do so is important. You can sometimes give that inspiration to others, through communication, and that gives me plenty of hope for our race.

 

Introvert comfort zone? People they already know is still better than being around no-one, and can't bring themselves to join the right groups to meet the right people?

This is an assumption and could be wrong.

If it is accurate- try joining a college club for something you enjoy. I started a writing club, though I wasn't a freshman when I did so. A lot of schools have writing clubs, or book clubs, or tennis. Whatever you're into.

 

Seems unlikely. If it is because of that, staying within that circle because it is more comfortable or better than nothing and then ranting about it on a forum wouldn't make any sense.

I do agree about joining clubs that caters to your specific interests. Just keep in mind that holding friendships requires a little bit of effort as well

 

If you ever get married... it requires a ton of effort. lol. Marriage lost me like 80% of my friends.

 

A lot of people would probably like to live in a smaller world, when you think about it. Humans are naturally selfish (Although it cannot be applied to all), and like to talk, think and explore what their interests are and expand weakly upon that. It's different reasons for everybody of why we do this, but usually it's because certain topics like politics have too many complex connections and concepts that it doesn't appeal to people. In school, there are four types of people I know: the people who only talk about schoolwork, the people that only talk about school events, the people that talk about video games and other media culture, and the people that talk about what they want to do. That last group makes the largest group in school.

Now, I don't mean what they want to do for their future. Not that kind of responsible want-to-do. They talk about what they want to do to have fun, to people, to themselves, and altogether to their life. Here's the opposite of that: talk about what they want to do for people, for themselves, and for their life. It's practically what the original poster had said, where they talk about getting high, sex, etc.

If I wanted to be irrational and unfair, I could just say that people do not consider their future and want to live as if there is none for them. Which, of course, can be applied, but it's also just the fact that politics is not as fun as other things to people. The conversations about them are irrelevant unless it is about hating a certain person or over glorifying said person.

But don't judge people too much by what they like to talk about, because it doesn't always reflect who they are. We all know someone who gives into pressure of what others talk about.

 

I'm a cynic on every matter. And that's why I like politics. It reinforces my view of the world that everything is awful and people are bastards. People who are more optimistic tend to avoid politics because anything more than a passing relationship with it will make you incredibly depressed. Perhaps this is something of a chicken and egg situation; am I cynical because I've been stewing in politics and journalism all my life or did I seek out politics and journalism because I'm a cynic? And, indeed, are people optimists because they don't know how awful every government is or vice versa?

To pose a slightly different question; why do people like conspiracy theories? Because, in so many words, it gives you someone to blame for everything bad in the world. Whatever your chosen boogyman is then you can ascribe everything bad to them and it gives you a sense of control over the world; at least there is purpose to all this, at least someone is in control. That's at the core of things. Some people like to know this stuff because knowing at least helps them make sense of these bad things and to try and see the deep currents that have created the mess we have. Other people focus on things closer to home and want to feel in control of their own lives. This all ties together because, in the end, politics, science and writing (as opposed to reading) are all ways of dealing with the same thing. Politics and science explains complex things about the real world, writing is how we express how we believe other people think. In short, they help us feel better equipped to handle the world around us.

As I have said elsewhere; I write because I can fix my characters. I'm into politics because I think I know how to fix the world. I like science because it really can fix things.

 

I like topics such as politics because it is interesting how it affects thought and decisions. I wouldn't say it is to reinforce thoughts of how bad we have it in this world. It is really easy to reinforce whatever you believe in depending on how you look at things. You easily fall into this trap where everything you look at confirms your beliefs. I think it was called confirmation bias.

This is why I try as much as possible to be neutral. Easily said than done, I know. I also understand there are many messed up things in the world but I try not to ignore the good that's happened.

 

Laws and sausages; two things you don't want to think too hard about how they get made, at least if you still want to like them. Some of us have a morbid fascination with tearing meat off the carcass though.

The thing about politics is that even the good that we can do is never as good as we could do; that's why after a certain amount of exposure it's extremely hard to not become cynical. Without wanting to get too controversial; neither side was actually really happy with Obamacare. And that's the story of every major piece of policy. In the end it seems that all parties are only quibbling over tenths of a percentage point with no real major changes to anything, just little tweaks to a system that it's hard to argue is working for anyone really at all. After you've seen so many things mooted as the savior of whatever only to see it turned into a whimpering husk of it's former self that achieves little of value; well, yeah it's hard to be cynical.

I suppose that I grew up with a closer eye on this stuff because my mum was a public school teacher, one who chose to stay in the class room instead of promotion because that's what she loved doing. And every couple of years the national curriculum would demand some ridiculous and utterly useless change to how she did her job with a bunch of additional paperwork to boot. Nothing was ever allowed to run it's course; just by the time she and her colleagues had finally figured out how to teach the new idea properly they were already changing to something else. And that's just the nature of politics. Most ideas could work given half a chance but few are given that chance and even fewer are free from being meddled with by the opposition.

And this is just in things that are broadly benign, when you get out into the lands of foreign policy where nothing really works at all, including wars, almost everything comes down to 'doing what there is' instead of 'doing what we should'. And no-one is happy but that's what there is unless we want to invade China. On that point alone you can find yourself running through some weird wormholes. For example; China directly manipulates it's currency and markets and industries which effect the global economy in really dangerous ways. We really need to stop them doing that, to the point that this is almost certainly why Mr Trump is cuddling up to Mr Putin; to try and form a unified front against China. But the only way to stop them involves literally going to war with China; are we in favour of that? Should we do that just to stop them dicking with the markets?

On that sphere in essence nothing really ever gets done as such. Nothing at all. Because the options are do nothing or press the big red button and everything in the middle is useless. And these questions that we really need to do something about and yet do nothing about make it hard to believe that politics in the business of even trying to do good. Here's some potent words for you; How many Chinas are there? How many Koreas? And should we adopt a one state or two state solution in Israel? And, given your answers to these; why haven't we actually made these happen after fifty years of tough talking? Why does the president of the US still have to phone up China and say the words 'There is one China and Taiwan is part of China'?

It's very hard not to be cynical; after so very long the only rational position to take on most political matters is, as the nun said to the bishop, 'I'll believe it when I see it'.

 

A little off-topic but I'm geniunely curious as to how China is heavily messing with the economy.

Also, do you think Putin would actually agree to joining forces against China?

It just feels that if it gets to that point, it would be more likely that Putin and China would join forces if anything.

I agree that we should approach some things with cynicism. Afterall, words are just words without action behind them.

 

China is definitely directly manipulating the value of their currency on global markets; they can mess with the money supply very directly or even just decree the prices of things. That alone we can probably be ok with but it comes with other more dangerous stuff like directly manipulating the value of stock prices. Also, as they have an almost entirely nationalized economy and a huge one at that they can do things that are legal but super-bad for the rest of the world like decreeing we're going to build a bunch of new steel works and flood the global market and they have no direct need to actually make money, just as long as everyone else gets screwed too it doesn't really matter.

As for Putin; the answer is 'Probably'. Russia and China aren't great friends, they just both share this grey world of dictators being friends with each other because no-one else will be (see Mr Assad in Syria). But Russia really badly wants to get back into Europe rather than closer with China. They want to sell Russian natural gas and so forth (huge commodities to Europe) and that means making nice. Putin I think would much rather have friendly, open, trade with Europe and it's prosperous markets than with China where he can only really sell to the government. This would also encourage European money to invest into Russia which would definitely help the country out. At present they are on course for a major recession in an already fairly poor nation. So, there's something to be gained by Putin making friends with Trump.

I doubt that Putin would join China whole hog. In the end it's realpolitik stuff. A Sino-Russian alliance would potentially be powerful but Russia in truth doesn't bring a lot to the party that the Chines don't already have. Trade, sure, but they don't need to be friends to trade. Russia is a paper tiger frankly. Their special forces are great but their regular forces would have problems invading a pantry. They are not in a position to think about beginning another cold war. This is why Putin definitely had a preference for Trump this election because Clinton was genuinely pushing to confront the Russians in Syria and that's bad news bears all around, especially for the Russians.

To be honest; the CCCP isn't going to survive forever and if Putin thinks it'll start to fall in 10 to 20 years then now is a good time to start making friends elsewhere. The fall of the CCCP itself is getting a ways off topic here but suffice to say that Macau and Hong Kong will almost certainly become independent nations and other bits may seek to break off too and that'll be a whole other kettle of fish compared to dealing with the central government. Assuming Putin knows more than me (which I imagine he does on a great many topics including how to not see the men you kill in your dreams) about the stability of China, then he knows that Russia needs to 'come in from the cold'. It's telling that he's so keen to make friends with Trump; it's in their mutual interest. The thing about Putin is that while he's a savage dictator (srsly, he's awful) he's a canny politician especially on the international stage and he wants to get the sanctions lifted and have access to European markets. As for the CCCP; you should look up just how unstable China is right now because there's plural tens of thousands of protests in China every year, mostly small ones, but still. China is a big country but when there is (potentially) as many as 250 protests per day in the country then you have some real problems that no-one is even trying to solve except by sending people to prison camps.

Back on topic - I think cynicism is the only defense to politicians and politics in general. It's something I dearly love, especially this big map theory crafting and particularly middle east domino scenarios, but on a party political front I frankly don't give a damn; I have never voted and likely never will. In the end either you have to be cynical or you have to buy the hype and that is just a slower path to being cynical anyway. My pet issues in politics no-one talks about (I'm a minarchist drug and gun libertarian; I want guns and heroin in the same vending machine with a unionized prostitute handing out syringes) and absent that I just look at the news and shake my head.

The real belief that it reinforces in me is that we really do need a major change in all kinds of things and without that we're just fiddling while Rome burns. We may do some good fiddling but fiddling is still fiddling when we have fires to put out.

 

Thanks. I'll make sure to look into China more. My interest in politics is fairly new. Back to more reading.

 

Best place to start for China is a youtube channel called China Uncensored. They are light hearted and easy to digest but they tell it how it is and their long form episode on the suppression of falun gong is chilling to say the least. They do a mix of day to day injustices and major political stuff, including talking about the South China sea for the past couple of years even before the mainstream news were talking about it. Good people, definitely will give you quick five minute over views of specific subjects you can research on your own time.

Personally China isn't really my focus either; my big interest is in and around Israel who are just the kings of calculated self interest and Machiavellian realpolitik. I studied Israeli conflicts for both my dissertations and I still try to read the English language Israeli press. They are world leaders in propaganda; there is an official IDF (Israel Defense Force) Youtube account that has been around since at least 2008 and that puts out gun-camera footage of missiles hitting Palestinian militants with no civilian casualties every time there's a major attack into Gaza. No-one else has that kind of balls, to put this stuff out under their own name, not even in the press; just look right here at a hellfire missile striking people with RPGs. It's crazy that they've been doing that for a decade too. Israel are such mavericks on the world stage too and utterly unafraid of throwing their military hardware around. They treat absolutely everything as an existential threat (for historical reasons; they got invaded every few years by all their neighbors) and pretty much just deft the whole damn world to come stop them. It's fascinating to look at how they use political and military power together and how they simply will not budge a damn inch on anything. Of all politicians in the world I take Netenyahu at his word when he says he'd have no compunctions about striking Iran's nuclear program again (the third time; once with bombs, once with a computer virus). It's just completely fascinating to me and things move very quickly over there. If you like apocalyptic war game scenarios then Israel potentially reducing Iran to nuclear glass is probably your top go to for an out of no-where nuclear detonation.

Not that any of this is relevant really. But it's all fascinating stuff. In the end most people in the west just don't want to know because if you think too hard about nuclear weapons it tends to lead to nervous breakdowns because it's so terrifying to think about. Think about that for a second; Of the nuclear nations two are outright dictatorships (China and Russia), one is seriously unstable and dictatorial (Pakistan), one is right next to the Pakistan and on a hair trigger over a half dozen flash points, one is governed by Trump who is an utter unknown, one is governed by Netenyahu who is a aggressive and militant, one will likely be run by Marine Le Pen in the near future, leaving Mrs May and the Tories as the nuclear 'moderates'. This is not stuff that anyone should think about for any length of time. The best thing that we can say is that the British, French and American submarine launched nuclear missiles probably do work so at least we can rest assured we'll get our monies worth after all our homes have been reduced to ash.

And, if you are of a certain mindset on these issues, the question becomes something somewhat more terrifying still; would a major world war actually be a positive thing in the long run? Not an all out nuclear war (although I'm sure New Zealand and Iceland would continue our civilization admirably in that eventuality) but just a really big, fast war that decimates much of the world without killing everyone. I mean, a major problem today is that we have too many people and even in the west we're beginning to head into the time when robots will take the majority of jobs from humans to the point that we have to totally re-assess how our countries operate. Not that I would celebrate a couple of billion deaths, just that a big, hard, shock to the whole world that topples regimes and underlines that we just cannot keep going like this would at least ensure that changes simply must happen.

Right now our culture and government just cannot absorb the idea of major industries like transport becoming heavily automated. Think about this; 3.5 MILLION truck drivers in the US being out of work. Even white collar office workers are facing the same fate with automation becoming more and more common in that setting too. Things like universal basic income can maybe stave of revolution at least for a while but we just aren't ready to face the idea that kids in school may never earn a penny in their lives and in fact may not even have the hope of one. This is the kind of stuff that individual nations probably can't even hope to solve by themselves both on a cultural and governmental level. At least a really huge war would shock us into making real changes and hopefully galvanize us all to work together and begin the painful transition to a post-labour world but that's going to be nasty for a long time. At some point a post-currency world will eventually have to happen and then things will settle down a bit, where at least people who never work still live in genuine comfort, but that's not going to be something easy to do.

When you dip your toe into the politics pool there's an infinite amount of really awful things that are just over the horizon. It really doesn't matter where you look; the EU is in crisis. China is falling apart. Russia is facing recession. India and Pakistan are glaring at each other over the border; Israel is glaring at everyone. America is swiftly moving to the point where it needs to split into multiple countries simply because of the differing challenges of the different parts of it. Africa still has huge problems, so does South America. It's things like this that make think that free heroin and automatic weapons for all are the way to go. Because honestly I see one of the better options being spending every day fucked up and eventually dying like my father did; waving a rifle and screaming at foreigners.

 

@kiesi, I am almost just like you. I know how you feel.

I'm about the same age, going to college next fall and pulling my hair out because people around me are so ignorant. A year ago, one of my class mates in high school was very confused about where India is. She didn't understand that it is part of Asia even after the teacher told her about it. I myself live in Finland where we have pretty good education system, but that doesn't help the ignorant people. Because they don't care. Some girls even seem to "Dumb down" themselves to be considered more attractive to others, which I just do not understand.

At the moment we are trying to make a 50's musical with a theatre group I'm in and it is really tearing me apart that everything the whole play seems to revolve around is teenagers' love cycles. The script is being written by the whole group but I don't really have a say in it, because there's just one me and eight others who want the whole musical to be about people braking up and getting back together. The same themes repeat themselves through out the play and it makes me feel uncomfortable. But I can't really do anything. They don't really care how this is going to come out and most of them have learned all they know about 50's from few movies they have watched at some point. Than they act like they know it all. I myself take things seriously, especially if there is going to be people paying for a ticket to watch this play.

The only place I feel comfortable at the moment is another theatre group that is full of elderly people and a poetry reciting club with many of the same people. They talk about more interesting things like politics and art, and how it was like when they were young. I learn a lot more with them than with people of my own age. Science isn't that close to them but I don't mind, if it gives me a break from hearing another story starting with words like "I was so drunk last weekend..." Talk like that makes me feel very uncomfortable.

 

Maybe they have a reason for wanting to do that kind of play? If it's their first experience with this kind of thing, a 50's romantic musical is a fairly simple, basic place to start, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

@kiesi

I feel like you do when interacting with my wife's friends, even though there's less than 5 years' difference between us.

Me and my friends have always been outdoorsy and hands-on. We cut down trees and built sheds for our parents. We fixed and modified our cars on our own, swapping engines and adding things like lights and lift or lowering kits. We could do simple home repairs, like change a door knob or add an electrical receptacle. As teenagers, we all worked in different computer stores. As adults, I'm in commercial building construction, another owns his own business installing home theater and security systems, one is a firefighter, and the other is a SERE instructor in the Air Force.

On the other hand, my wife's male friends/friend's husbands possess virtually no skills. I doubt they know how to jump start a car with a dead battery or change a flat tire. Their technical expertise seemingly ends at plugging in the power and HDMI cables for their latest video game system. As adults, they do things like driving a box truck for local supply delivery or working as a bank teller. They're good people, just lazy. Like you, I see the glaring lack of initiative to learn and better themselves. But they keep busy. They have MMORPG characters to level up and anime to watch.

I find myself thinking of them in their own video game terms: they are NPCs who do nothing to influence any given outcome. I'm nice to them anyway.

“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”
—Malcolm S. Forbes

That said, I suggest trying some new things. You are in need of a change of social scenery from which to choose some new, better friends. I've met interesting people at car shows, arts and craft fairs, CERT training, and in other odds gatherings. Good luck!

 

I'll play devil's advocate for a moment. I am incredibly interested in politics and current affairs and science among many other subjects. However, when I am meeting with friends, I prefer to have a few beers and a laugh. Politics certainly is not a topic for debate, it is too pompous, too serious and too prone to become heated to be a discussion any of us would want to partake in. If someone were to overhear our usual conversations, they might assume that we are ignorant or uninterested in current affairs or science or any sphere of academia. We're not, we just don't need to prove our intellect and worldliness in some pissing contest by debating them, and we've all come to accept that you can sometimes just respect people's opinions rather than trying to change them.

What I would say is that the moment I truly became interested in education was the moment it was no longer mandatory. At school/ college/ university I did what I needed to to get by (and sometimes less than I needed to). It seemed the moment I left, and that I was no longer having learning forced upon me, that my appetite for education went through the roof.

 

I am going to first apologize, just in case I say anything that will in any way seem offensive, I do not mean it in any such way. Second, it's hard to tell what a person is like by judging a single post, but one way or the other a certain imagine of you has formed in my head. It may be quite wrong, so may I.

The things you started your post with: drugs, alcohol, sex, a certain laziness, ignorance, etc. I think most of that has to do with "Decadence." If you are like me and believe that history can be seen as a spiral, you would also believe that history tends to repeat itself, somewhat changing, but staying generally the same. I also like to imagine that spiral laying on it's side, that explains that the direction of history changes, sometimes going up, sometimes going down. Whenever it goes up, we are in the period of "Renaissance," the society is on it's rise and so is art, science, education. Whenever it goes down, the very opposite thing happens, "Decadence," the society starts decaying, drugs, violence and sex become the norm. I believe that we are currently in that period.

When you mentioned your parents, well, that's where I started to get a somewhat negative image of you. Especially since later you mention Socrates, his famous quote is "ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat" (I know that I know nothing). But it seems to me that you actually believe yourself to know quite a lot, more than your father who believes that global warming is a hoax and more than your mother who believes in god. But who are we to say that they are wrong? Could you prove to me or him, right now, that global warming is real? Not with some pictures made by American satellites nor by anything else that could be faked. Could you prove that god does not exist, or perhaps that he does? What makes you think that your parents are arrogant for believing in those things? I believe that the moon landing was a hoax. More than I believe that it was real either way. I have had arguments about that with my friends, I do not believe them to be arrogant for believing it to be real. I do not believe myself to be intelligent for thinking that it was fake.

Later you say that you admit being ignorant, something your previous paragraph doesn't show at all. As I said, that's the picture that I got.

I was called weird all my life, I am girl who always put more of her time into thinking, contemplating, analyzing, than into having fun with people. I have only had 2 friends during my school life, both of them I often find to be... unwise, naive. Mentally I grew up faster than others, thanks to books, my parents, and a lot of traveling that I had to do. I used to be an amazing student, but that changed somewhere down the line, I decided that there were more important things in life, that stressing over marks and silly tests is useless. As Pinky said above me, as soon as I stopped forcing learning on myself, that was when I finally started learning.

Please forgive me for saying that, but I don't believe that you are in the right mindset. I do believe that you don't get along with people because you are stubborn and genuine (I would say blatantly honest here, just like me really), but rational and technical? I feel you are still quite far from that. My advice to you is simple. Stop thinking that those people are ignorant, stop starting arguments with them and walk away from arguments if they start them. You want to be a writer? Try putting yourself in their position. Try to understand why your parents believe in what they believe. Understand that other people can be stubborn just like you, they have pride, just like you. Most people don't like hearing that they are wrong, perhaps you should stop telling them that.

All of that only applies if you actually want to improve your relationships with people. You could also go the other way. Become better, read, learn, think. Perhaps eventually you will be the most intelligent, rational, technical person in this world. Then I suppose your loftiness (the word is too harsh, my apologies, I couldn't find another) will be justified. Then you won't need anyone. But I recommend the first option. At least try it.

Edit: It's better to be wise than to be intelligent. Patience is key.

 

I am going to go on a stretch and guess that... you aren't from Russia.

Who the hell taught you guys that CCCP still exists? Who the hell taught you guys that there is dictatorship in Russia?

What did I just read? My eyes are bleeding. Someone call the ambulance.

Please tell me I read everything wrong. Please tell me that my English got really rusty and I can't understand anything anymore. Please...

 

I'm a nerd, so yes, CCCP still exists. It is the Combined Community Codec Pack, which is what you use when the K-Lite Codec Pack doesn't work for you. MKVs are funny like that sometimes.

 

I won't argue with that.

The democracy doesn't seem to be working anywhere at the moment though.

 

Exactly this. In the west we live under a plutocracy, we have for decades, but if you tell people it's a democracy enough times they'll accept it as the truth.

 

Between the fruitcake President we've just elected, and Putin... who would you rather have backing you up?

Half my family has its roots in the Ukraine, the other half in Scotland... two pathetic countries populated by peasants and limp-dick intellectuals. The one has never really broken free from Russia, the other lives under the apron of Mother England. When you give yourself over to men like Trump and Putin, you deserve what you get.

 

All my grandparents were born in the Ukraine and my parents were born in Russia, I lived in Canada and am currently living in Germany... four pathetic countries populated by peasants and limp-dick intellectuals. Don't tell my parents or grandparents I said that. Was there ever a leader in this world who would do things for his people and not for himself? I highly doubt it.

I do suppose that we all deserve what we get. We've all given ourselves to such leaders. We all have at least that in common.