Do we really care about other people's children?

If I were to guess a “real” solution, it would be to teach children the importance of community and the value of the group as a whole. The individual is important, but not the highest goal. Just like any one member of a family is important, no one member is most important. And the family cannot exist without all its members.

That said, I remember what Tsunetomo said in the Hagakure

It is a wretched thing that the young men of today are so contriving and so proud of their material posessions. Men with contriving hearts are lacking in duty. Lacking in duty, they will have no self-respect.

It is said that what is called "the spirit of an age" is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world's coming to an end. For this reason, although one would like to change today's world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation.

There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.

Human life is truly a short affair. It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.

Al that sounds rather pessimistic… But, I think there is real wisdom to be found in it. Rather than look back to what worked in the past, because this is not the past but now, look to reasonable solutions for going forward.
I don’t think we can fix what is, as it is and its cause has already happened. But we could put in motion a cause for a different future outcome. I believe that the first step in would be re-affirming the inherent value in human life. All human life.
I could say more, but I am curious as to if this line of thought will spark any ideas.

To stay in the Spirit of Hagakure one would then assume to break the system down to the ground and start over , quite the job. I think by giving the example of caring and putting yourself in a postition where you can actually be of service and educate the people around you , change will gradually come and...dissapear again , its a contstant cycle of care , greed , sorrow , repenting and caring again , if that makes any sense.

Not only should we be aware of our own need for material things , but we should encourage a deeper spiritual way of living without putting the responsiblity on some god or a religion. Mushashi put it very wisely when he said :

“there is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.”

― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

As much as i enjoyed the Hagakure , and its wisdom , it is a tad to grimm for my taste

I find the Hagakure to be “grim” as well. But I understand why it emphasizes what it does even if we do not live by such a strict adherence to death. I think the parts of the book that are grim to us would be the parts that train the samurai to realize his life is not his own and that his strict obedience to his daimyo is to be observed at all times. This completely contradicts our individualism and free spirit.

I do still find a lot of good wisdom written in the pages even though it comes from such a ridged warrior society. Like, “It is a fact that fish will not live where the water is too clear. But if there is some duckweed or something, the fish will thrive. Thus, the lower classes will live in tranquility if certain matters are a bit overlooked or left unheard. This fact should be understood with regard to people’s conduct.” When one understands that the Samurai is not unlike the Knight we strive to be, then the lower classes become all others. This tells us that hold others to our exacting standards will only cause a break in harmony between the two. And that if certain things, that which would bother us or be not up to our standards, are left alone for the individual to resolve on their own then there will be tranquility between us. This does not mean that we should ignore the “wrongs” but more like, don’t judge other’s shortcomings. Instead, help them if they wish to not be where they are.

I don’t see any issue with being or identifying with a group. People tend to migrate towards what they are most comfortable.

I would argue that just because something is not a part of a particular group that doesn't devalue or elevate it as a general rule though.

What I am referring to is the relationships in the community where people live and not so much a worldwide relationship. But as we learn from natural law, what is on the micro will associate to the macro.

Let’s use MOoK as an example. I will not say that I am more important than you or Jzen or Senan or any of our members. But because of the respect we have for each other we can work in harmony. Now, being here, we have decided to associate with a particular group that shares a set of values. But we are not homogenous in our ethnicity, religious beliefs or even where we come from.

As we treat each other here, on the micro, I would hope that translates to how we treat others in the rest of the world, the macro.

Because evolution, revolution, growth and decay are linier, I don’t think we can go back to how something was in the past. A bel cannot be un-rung. But we can make the best of what is and move forward. Hopefully, using the lessons we learn from the past to develop the future.

And sure, any measure can be taken only so far. And I do not believe that there is any one “right” answer that can be applied to all circumstances. But as a starting point for a broad application, I think it would help. Not be the final solution by any means, just a starting off point.

I think that better clarifies what I was referring to in response to what you said. I think

Yes, we are all different, but in America, like anywhere else in the world, I would hope that the people of that area had the ability to at least appreciate the creed or design of that area and if not assimilate at least operate within the bounds of that creed or design.

In principle , we are beings of diverse, varied and unique heritage, stemming from all parts of our galaxy and even other dimensions who are now here and occupy these biological shells, but as much as we would like to think so , this doesn’t make us all one. Sharing the same shells even though our souls are magnificently divers doesn’t make us the same. But having said that ..we do have a responsibility to take care of ourselves and ...others.

The word “others” in itself is the subject of many philosophical debates , as there are assumptions that there are no others , but i won't go into that too much as this is still a matter of great debate.

Now if we assume that our existence is played off mainly inside our heads , and we are guided and manipulated to spend most of our time online and develop our individuality rather that creating a strong community base, then it's easy to recognize that joining online groups is not going to solve the problem of community spirit , the means to hold one another accountable are too limited and one can easily fake ones identity and have a complete double life.

Community spirit is developed by giving the good example , by being an example , no doctrine , no list , no title, no rank can replace you being a decent human being. If you are a decent human being , the rest will follow , it's a labour of love. Loving yourself and thus loving others.

It's easy to shove the responsibility of loving and caring for others to the side as if it is not your business , but ..even though we might or might not be One , we are certainly in this together , and all our actions ripple out , in good or bad ripples

Seemed a bit hollow in its attempt to make a point, but the cares given would have to be proportional to the impact that exertion would have on the other cares given. Not everyone is going to drop everything for someone elses problem, even if its a kid, but I bet they'd freely offer some measure of effort to help a kid in danger which they otherwise would not have if it were an adult. But I think that is marginal and the effort would be more about an assessment of how much of a difference it could make if they did bother, compared to the impact its going to have on their own lives. Whether they are honest in that is another question!!

For people are good at being observant when tasked specifically, but that is about it generally speaking, without proper training and integration with supporting emergency services. It can start to cause more problems if 'citizen cop' goes too far without proper controls.

The example especially of kidnap is a good one which people can easily make a difference, because the first few hours are so very vital in having any chance at all of saving the child. That time component adds an urgency which any decent person would act on if they had a chance to actually help, as something as simple as keeping a look out for a particular suspect vehicle etc.
If it were your own child you might go a step further and actively drive around looking for it.... and if everyone did this it would increase the depth of surveillance, but previously the technology did not exist to provide the information fast enough and widely enough, in both target description and also cancellation of search upon recover. Now they do with mobile devices!! Crowd sourcing intelligence collection FTW!!

But outside that example, its the same thing. As individuals we can only cope with so much structure in our lives at once, and we shape it to some end and spend our time managing that design to deliver results. As a group we can divide our efforts such that the results increase or become possible. It's the same in economies, reaching down the individual in a capitalist market system, where can specialize and achieve a greater output result without compromising our other needs in other areas. A collection of specialists working together to a shared goal will be able to achieve much more then a collection of less skilled multi-taskers working individually to a shared goal - all other things being the same, IMO. So the scope of problems we can handle individually will probably be determined as whatever we can individually make progress on, and remain somewhat limited to it. That said, cross training allows a fail safe capability to support degradation of the primary capability, and having knowledge and skills relevant to important areas in things like security can provide ad hoc capability where no official capability exists at that time, and until that time.