Maslow's hierarchy of psychosocial needs

[Lloyd Gillespie]

With all the increasing unsolved social problems of every society around the world where it is clearly lonely at the top of Maslow's pyramid of few actualized persons who must bear the role of leadership to raise everyone to the top, seems to indicate that there exists an inverted pyramid that gravitates each individual to our singular destruction. On the other hand, if the base of this social hierarchy is destroyed then each human society cannot itself exists. This is often realized by wars and conflicts between societies and nations, a word that ACTUALIZED is too horrible to mention: GENOCIDE.

The road to the top is through the bottom__The base of the pyramid, where all the stability is...

[labelwench]

The understanding of our psychosocial needs may not be as simple as merely providing for the basic necessities of life for each individual.

It has long been suspected that genotype, even more than phenotype (environment) might be responsible for a tendency toward substance abuse in certain individuals. There is new evidence that such may indeed be a factor.

"One of the important features of this study was the opportunity to seek evidence for a gene-environment interaction," noted Sullivan. "Homozygous GABRA2 carriers -- that is, participants with a double dose of this gene -- showed activations in selective brain regions including medial frontal cortex, which is part of the brain's reward evaluation system. By contrast, heterozygous GABRA2 carriers -- that is, participants with only a single dose of the gene -- activated a different component of the brain's reward system. These differential patterns endured even when participants were intoxicated. Thus, the difference in brain activation patterns was not dependent on the presence of alcohol in the system per se and so appears to mark a fundamental, genetically linked physiological response to alcohol in homozygous carriers of the GABRA2 gene."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0901103734.htm

Even with such understanding, there may be no way of identifying the specific gene sequence involved, or interceding in any beneficial way, so the challenges of substance abuse may well be with us for some time yet.

[SteveA]

But looking around, I see many obese people, especially among the poor. Here, in the US the poors never die of hunger but their numbers just keep increasing, a negative feedback to take advantage of child care social services.

With my wife it's rather ironic because she used to basically pray just to have enough food to eat in Cambodia. Now that's entirely a non-issue ... a common problem here is that people need to actually refrain from eating too much.

I guess it's one of those examples of - be careful what you wish for

[AntonioLao]

It is quickly becoming a reality that we will soon be unable to provide enough proper nutrition at any price under our current way of management.

What can we do to stop this from happening? Should we start with personal management? Group management? National management? International management? Finanicial management? Food management? Environmental management? Mental management? Psychological management? Health management? Physical management? Intellectual management? Decision management? Interactive management? Chemical management? Relational management? Or anger management?

[SteveA]

What can we do to stop this from happening? Should we start with personal management? Group management? National management? International management? Finanicial management? Food management? Environmental management? Mental management? Psychological management? Health management? Physical management? Intellectual management? Decision management? Interactive management? Chemical management? Relational management? Or anger management?

That's my sentiment as well. In there's nothing that replaces the need for personal learning and growth.

It's great to offer some help to those who happen to be down on their luck, but to turn charity into a enforced institutions ultimately teaches nothing except agression and a toleration of violence and though we can look at some examples of ways that such could help ... we need to also consider the costs and this is one major area in which governments are rather immune to reason - the resources are not something police or politicians produce.

Ironically (or not) Ron Paul (who read the Declaration of Independence in that link) is a doctor and delivered a lot of children. Politics is just part time for him (and I assume he was one of those driven to try to resolve some of the problems) and I can practically guarantee he opposes a lot of this federal healthcare. Is that because he doesn't care? No, it's because he actually cares enough to do something other than follow everyone else being led to the slaughterhouse.

I would love the day when the social mindset turns away from looking for the next victim to plunder for resources to divy up and instead moves toward looking at ways of actually growing and producing things for themselves. We have people that have become dependents upon the system and I've seen obvious abuses as well where people on welfare or section 8 housing live better than people who're actually paying for that.

I agree with your comments, Lorrina, in that it can definitely be a benefit to have some basic services (especially consider the quantity of resources that government has acquired and is continually taking) such as a place to sleep and some basic food supplies for people who're homeless and these services have in the past been provided by private organizations long before government monopolized the welfare business.

I do have major issues when someone who has children and fails to take care of them lives in a 4 bedroom house when they just had a few children and I'm working to pay for a 2 bedroom place.

There are so many people that buy new cars that they can't afford or people that gambled on housing prices and lost (though I blame our monetary system) and the way the system has become now, if people manage to get ahead some they quickly are expected to bear a much larger burden and this continually pushes society down to a level in which people are just hanging on. As soon as economic events turn south, many people have problems and few are able to do anything about it.

We shouldn't consider people who do well to be a liability or greedy etc. In fact, that's what we'd prefer I assume. Shouldn't it be that everyone has the ability to potentially live comfortable? If we make it the equivalent of a crime with fines etc. if someone does well (whether they work hard or not is irrelevant - I don't think we should expect people to work hard either. Working smarter is better than harder anyway) then we're basically dooming a society to not doing well.

Politicians attempt to use sympathy and paint some people or private industries as being greedy or monopolizing etc., but what's the true monopoly around? Government itself and much of the time the monopolies in markets arise from government actions promoting it (such as intellectual property, regulations that discourage competition, rulings by federal agencies against competing companies, or emminent domain actions to forcibly transfer ownership between private entities etc.)

I can go on and on, but it's very simple to me - noone should pull a gun and threaten anyone else unless the person is actually a danger to others. If someone didn't buy life insurance, that doesn't warrant having them abused and if someone did not contribute sufficiently to "charity" that similarly doesn't deserve violence. There's a difference between charity and slavery and slaves can begin to resent "charity" (understandly, IMO).

If someone's just manipulating you via undeserved guilt, that's something that needs to be tossed off even if it appears to be callous. Respect should be mutual.

[labelwench]

It is my opinion that we can do little save lead by example.

There are plenty of intelligent individuals out there yet.

Until people begin to assume responsibility for their own choices and actions, nothing will change.

The education system should be teaching useful life skills, and good old reading, writing and arithmetic. Even with the technical assistance of spell-check and calculators, there is bad math and poor communication skills being evidenced, from the level of government and leadership throughout.

Unsecured credit is destroying peoples lives. A recent law was passed that Credit Card companies have to print a guideline on the statement to make people aware of the math involved.

On a balance of $2012.05, the minimum payment is $10.00

If one makes no additional charges and only pays $10.00/month, it will take 13 years and 9 months to pay the balance.

If one makes no additional charges and only pays $64.00/month, it will take 3 years to pay the balance.

What kind of an education system do we have that we have to legislate the credit corporations to take this step?

Why would you even give credit to someone who did not understand math?

Apply simple math to any situation you care to in the world today, and the numbers, in most cases, are not very encouraging.

We should be contemplating much more seriously how we may accomplish more with less, for that shall soon be the remaining option.

Until such time, it is the nature of most people to follow rather than to think for themselves.

In that regard, I quite agree with Lloyd Gillespie.

People need to begin to observe and think for themselves, yet most will not.

Yet some few will, or I'd not be spending my time and energy in the various efforts that I do.

My first act as an agent of change would be to get the worst foods right out of the marketplace, reducing one's selection by about 50% and likely angering about 90% of the population, to say nothing of how many businesses would cease to exist.

Mind you, if people elected to make better choices, this would happen anyway, but at an acceptable pace, as producers moved toward sustainable practice and options.

We are what we eat, and we cannot even think to our potential without good nutrition, IMO.

[SteveA]

My first act as an agent of change would be to get the worst foods right out of the marketplace, reducing one's selection by about 50% and likely angering about 90% of the population, to say nothing of how many businesses would cease to exist.

Mind you, if people elected to make better choices, this would happen anyway, but at an acceptable pace, as producers moved toward sustainable practice and options.

We are what we eat, and we cannot even think to our potential without good nutrition, IMO.

Though I do understand your sentiments, I tend to think it's better in the long run to let people learn what works and what doesn't on their own. Some people might think fat is bad, in other countries it's a large part of the caloric intake and while one generation might have problem with alcohol, the next tends to learn and it's really the learning that makes the difference in the long run.

For example, what if some of those foods you removed were actually beneficial to some? There have been many times that some current views in foods said that such and such is good for health, but then later on they find the opposite and in terms of something like food, it's really an individuals choice, though maybe having food producers being held more accountable for health issues or fraudulently representing products could help reduce this.

[labelwench]

Though I do understand your sentiments, I tend to think it's better in the long run to let people learn what works and what doesn't on their own. Some people might think fat is bad, in other countries it's a large part of the caloric intake and while one generation might have problem with alcohol, the next tends to learn and it's really the learning that makes the difference in the long run.

For example, what if some of those foods you removed were actually beneficial to some?

Absolutely valid point. Conversely, what about foods that have been demonstrated to be harmful to most. Remember Olestra? Eat all the undigestible fat you want without gaining weight?

There have been many times that some current views in foods said that such and such is good for health, but then later on they find the opposite and in terms of something like food, it's really an individuals choice, though maybe having food producers being held more accountable for health issues or fraudulently representing products could help reduce this.

Likewise, I understand each point that you have raised.

People are quite entitled to live and die by their own hand,and by their own choice.

My objection should be better directed at the misinformation that abounds, which makes critical thinking, evaluation and judgment difficult for most.

I would respectfully suggest that the majority of the members posting at this forum enjoy an intellectual advantage over the majority of persons, that may actually impair one's ability to relate to the 'average citizen' and the means by which they prioritize personal decisions.

Anyone living through the disaster in Pakistan right now would be appreciative of anything digestible.

My previous post and comments were intended to provoke, and I appreciate your rational response, Steve.

A sad state of affairs when so many have not sufficient to preserve life, while others are actually suffering from excess and their own choices made.

[SteveA]

Thank you for your rationality as well.

I agree with you that there are many areas that aren't quite as clear cut, but the manner in which these should be handled is more individually and that's where the courts and private issues become involved in order to allow for a diversity of people to live together.

I snipped a larger post ... it appears rather hopeless to me that things will turn around at this point and there's really little to do about it. Luckily you've got a bit better 'standoff distance' where you live than I do

[labelwench]

Drawn to the light and the apparent openness within the store, I watched as a small bird flew into the heavy plate glass window.

A glancing blow, it flew off into the dark only to return in moments and strike the window once again, this time falling to the ground beside the row of shackled grocery carts. I approached softly, to see if I could be of aid.

The little bird was upright on the ground and flew up yet again upon sighting me, grazing the window before retreating under the carts.

I backed away in the sad realization that there was nothing I could do.

Some time later, the bird was gripping the bottom of the window ledge and making fluttering attempts yet to breach the invisible barrier, but this time I did not attempt to intervene.

The bird, as with people, had to exercise it's right to choice.

Nature is neither intentional or malicious and allows for success or failure based on the choices of each living thing.

It can be painful to watch, and the toughest lesson in life may be to learn if and when it may be appropriate to intervene.