[nvch]

In this case, we might not have an advanced civilization with modern medicine and technology. Herbs for healing, candles for lighting, letters for communication. (Perhaps I wouldn't be alive without modern medicine. I suppose it's not easy to be dead and happy.)

Don't get me wrong, I love Taoism and Buddhism. But, from what I understand, they are not very pro-civilization and pro-progress.

[HerbManic]

Bingo, that is the point I was trying to make.

While they have the right idea about not leaning in to hard on the progress narrative, if it basically became a movement of apathy and non-science, it is basically regressing back to the stone age.

There is a possible middle ground but how we get there is anything but clear.

[spicymaki]

Buddhism was never intended to be the way you organized societies. It was a monastic tradition where you practiced outside of society with the support of people who had to live in the real world and do the dirty work of progress and civilization.

The goal of Buddhism is not happiness anyway it is the total cessation of suffering. If Buddhists are scoring high on happiness surveys they are doing it wrong.

[enrightened]

Not just that, they would be occupied and subdued (like Tibet for example)