Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "Me All the Time: The Epidemic of Narcissism | Big Think" video.

  1. Yes, that's an excellent summation and a positive note to finish on. thank you for sharing your thoughts.
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  2. Lol!
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  3. I think it's only from a background where you are given the freedom to be selfish that anyone could possibly become a "spiritual teacher" in the first place. But he is right, western society, with America taking the lead, is the vainest, most sickeningly self-absorbed society in the history of this planet. When boys start each day for 15-30 minutes gazing lovingly into a mirror whilst they fix their hair, it can't be healthy.
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  4. Unbiased? Well, I think you only have to analyse the bible, and it's positively schizophrenic. Love your neighbours, turn the other cheek - kill the unbeliever, and your disobedient son! Then contrast what Westboro and mainstream xstians take from it - good and bad. I definitely agree that modern science has increased our capacity for both good and bad behaviour. Just look at the gun or television or medicine/germ warfare. But again, I think it is just an enhancer for what is already there.
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  5. A very well expressed point.
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  6. I absolutely agree with you. I was staggered that they were allowed to run their super-collider experiments with the unknown global destructive potential that supposedly had. But I don't find it more scary than religion. Religion corrodes the soul of the population each and every day.
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  7. Actually, I presented two positive examples and two negative. Even if you did take examples from law or economics politics or business, they are not ideologies or theologies - they are just constructs within which to administrate systems. A completely incompatible comparison. And whilst science may be the method of our destruction if it comes (and I don't share your bleak view), you can be damned sure that either money or religion will be its cause. Or efforts to recreate the big bang.
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  8. I disagree. I think that what has caused this rise, is the fact that our standard of living has risen so high, and we have so much free time, and we are so conditioned to superficiality by the media, that that's the way we are all becoming.
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  9. Hasn't Japan shut all but one of its nuclear reactors? It seems staggering to me that given the fact that you can build them more or less anywhere and deliver the power remotely, that they would build hem in an earthquake/tsunami zone. It's even more staggering that if they are stupid enough to do so, that they do not massively exceed the standards for earthquake proofing. Japans supposedly has some of the best technology in the world for that stuff.
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  10. I think you totally hit it on the head with the last comment. Society is being ruined so these assholes can get rich. The ultimate in selfish narcism
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  11. The biiiig difference is, science aims to reveal more about the world and life, rather than setting our knowledge in stone 3000 years ago. Science aims to advance the human condition, whereas religion seeks to constrict it. For all its dangers, give me science every time. I think you have an overly negative view of science and our future, which surprises me as a buddhist. I thought you would be more detatched and sanguine.
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  12. Religion is simply a mirror and magnifier for the good and bad values in society - it didn't invent them. Personally, I don't think it's worth the cost.
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  13. Don't get narcissistic about it! ;-)
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  14. Agree with you on all statements except the last. Society is waking up to the need for corporate and state morality in the light of the stock crash, and goodness knows how many profit-over-humanity scandals. I think that they may not use the term virtue - responsibility is a better term. I have always believed that human narcissm in the fom of self interest and survival instinct will eventually overcome all evils.
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