Kevin's Watch

my approach to socialism is based upon the simple and natural family principle: everybody does what is needed to help keep the household running smoothly and cleanly and efficiently. but thats where it ends, because I don't see, my vision does not allow, for a Chief Honcho. It has to be a true equality based system ruled by committee of the will, if not the dreams!, of all the people. Administered might be the closest description.....

Consider: all we need is food, water, shelter, medical care, right? Every child born into society is entitled to the very best that the totality of society has to offer of these things. Now, lets throw in Education, because any society that invests the very best of it's educational capabilities into it's members is destined to reap exponential rewards from that investment in return.

So, here we have a child that has recieved the very best of care and education from society, and in return for all that all he has to do is give back to that society in order to help it continue to grow and evolve. The best of everything for everyone everywhere, always. Simplicity. Equality. Celebration of our Humanity, dare I say? Everyday? whew!!!



We have all the infrastructure to make this work beautifully, (thanx to capitalism! )we just need the "infraspirit" to be constructed to weld them together....capitalism stands in the way, and in our minds, as the only current way to exist, seperated and in savage competition with one another that just wastes valuable time and effort and energy into selfish non productive, sometimes toxic endeavors.....

Malik23 wrote:There's nothing holy about other lifeforms...It matters little that they die for us to be born...Screw the plants. Screw the animals. WE are the fulfillment of evolution. We are the universe waking up to itself. We are God being born. Everything else was just a "path to us."

There's nothing holy about us, and it matters little that others die as long as we live?

Ya know, in a certain sense, I agree with you.

In another sense entirely though, I think that type of (and this is rich, me accusing somebody else of this, take my word for it ) megalomaniacal arrogance is the reason that us humans, for all our wonderful advances, still manage to keep things in such a mess.

We are god being born? No. We are already god. Consciousness makes us that. the ability to manipulate our world. But we didn't have to be. The suggestion that everything else is just a path to us implies strongly that some plan exists for humans to become what we are and will be. Of course, I disagree strongly with that. We're random blobs in the universe, and if every one of us died right now, the universe wouldn't give a good god damn.

But if we are truly this noble and godlike entity, then with the ability to destroy everything comes the responsibility for it.

Don't you think your children will be poorer if they never see a whale breach the water? If they never see the incredible diversity of life that earth breeds? If they never get to experience the bush in every direction to the very horizon?

If not, then it's a soulless type of world you plan on inhabiting, and I'd rather have nothing to do with it.

If the price of living for a couple of hundred years more is denuding the world of other life, then it's not worth it. You seem to want power and advance without responsibility. Life, even human life, appears merely a tool to advance to your chosen goal.

You can justify all that, I have no doubt. And hey...I don't believe in absolutes, so it's very possible that, wrong not existing in any objective sense, there's nothing wrong with it at all.

You think it will be an improvement if everything on this world dies to launch you into space? I think it'll be a loss of incredible proportion. Instead of proceeding carefully and learning our lessons, you'd rather uncontrolled growth, expansion and the concurrent consumption of anything that we think will speed us on our way is how to do it?

And nevermind the remains of the universe we leave in our wake? Are we not better than that?

Life, all life, has only one point, one intent, one raison d'être, and that is to strive. I'm sure you'll agree. However, it is up to us to choose how we strive. We can strive physically, as you seem to preach, improve our technology, improve our capacity, improve our ability, spread, consume.

Or we can strive, for want of a better term lets call it... mentally, emotionally, "spiritually." Perhaps morally. Personally. Interpersonally.

It's our choice. But you know what? I know which I'd prefer.

And sure, I can see a way in which long life would be bad for humanity...if everybody was long-lived, you'd have an even greater fear of death, and you'd have a much greater potential for the calcification, the stagnation, of culture and society. Short life-spans make social change easier.

--Avatar

Malik...again, so much to respond to, Idon't know where to start.
First I'll strat off by saying that this is why I stay away from the Tank and the Close...we can argue for weeks and neither of us will change each others minds...so it's kind of pointless.

I could say something like...you see see the earth as expendable because it's only our womb. And I could say, Expendable? Womb?--did you kill your mother off after you where born? (appologies if your mother is no longer with us, I mean not to offend but state my case)

I could be real snarky and say something like, did you ever hear of the food chain? Once some of the links go missing it starts to break down.

Everything has a place in nature, and I don't think that nature's place is to serve humans...if anything it should be the other way around; we should be using our vast amounts of studies to fix more of the problems we have caused; not cause more because we can.

Yes, nature is cruel, animals eat eachother, they fight amongst themselves for breeding rights; but no animal kills at the rate that we do kill other animals or other humans.

And do you see the world right now as a utopia? Are we really living in heaven on earth right now because we're close to making ourselves into cyborgs?
Tell that to countis like Afghanastan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Chad, Indonesia, etc, etc, etc....tell that the the millions of homeless people in the civalised world..people who are staving to death on our city streets...tell that the the farmers of the world, who cannot grow any more food because of the years of technological abuse we've done to our expendable womb.

We live in countries where people are educated enough to make discoveries like the ones you have listed...but where there is also pepople who can't read.

I think there are are far more important things to worry about then trying to implants radio controlled cells into the bodies of rich people...at least for now.

But no matter how much I put on here about my own views...I'm not going to change yours, in fact we're eventually going to start getting upset at eachother, and that's certainly not what I want...so for now I'll bow out of this disscusion.