Human beings are stupid.. And when I say that, I include myself. We can’t do anything right, we have laws that have loopholes in them, but are the most important laws. Our governments only care about money, and getting their way. Can’t wait till 2012 (when the world ends thanks to the Mayan prophecy) or 2060 (when God casts Earth into flames - Isaac Newton predicted this from reading the bible) or 3797/3979 (forgot which one) when the Earth will completely be destroyed thanks to Nostradamus’ predictions.
This is what you're talking about killing off:
A group of homo sapiens captured on film in their native habitatI’d just as soon humanity not kill itself off. But all those clamoring for it are welcome to cull themselves for great justice. We’d be better off with fewer fatalist cynics.
For as stupid as people can sometimes be, stupidity is not the hallmark of humanity. It is our intelligence that sets us apart, and our creative, rational minds are the spice of the Earth. Our accomplishments of science and art, and literature, and engineering, and philosophy, are unprecedented in the history of the world, and perhaps are unique. Even our innate physical abilities, when they are not being repressed by government or some religious authority, are a source for pleasures both subtle and gross, and the fantastic natural world in which we live grants us opportunities of every stripe.
Something of that wonderment gets lost in a conventional political discussion. Here we are gadabouting the message boards of a video game that has touched all of us in some meaningful way, and yet we continually ignore the importance of reaching up from beyond the mundane into a better, higher way of thinking. I just want to slap people who don’t see that. To me it’s so obvious. ZeaLitY too, in his own way, recognizes some part of this, through his dedication to this place. But we are social creatures, and our setting often defines us. So more often, I find myself here arguing with nationalists who can’t see beyond their own flag, conservative dead-enders who hate everything beautiful and good within our culture, and religious thugs who think pleasure is a sin and guilt is the essence of our species.
Many of these types are kids; their enmity is more rehearsed than it is genuine. Like AuraTwilight’s comment about people deserving to die. I was a kid too, once. I had quite a similar thought before I smartened up, so I can be more forgiving than most. If people do deserve to die, contrary to Leebot’s well-intentioned but overly idealistic plea for peace on Earth and good will toward everyone, poverty is not a good way to decide that, nor is the fact that some folks live in a city below sea level and prone to tropical storms.
And then there’s Eriol’s comment about the UN losing its soul the minute it gave “Communist China” a seat on the Security Council. By the way he says it, you can tell he’s so young he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. Some television or pastor told him what to think, and kids will do it. China is such a wonderful country; a competitor to the United States but a very beautiful place, with wonderful people and fascinating customs. They are as good, and as flawed a people as we are. And they are a powerful country, even more so today. They deserve that Council seat.
In these rare moments, where someone like you, Zaperking, makes a comment so stupid that all of us can realize just how stupid we too have been to participate in such petty, pointless bickering, I can remind myself that the wonders of the world are where our attention ought to lie. I hate to sound sappy, but we’ve gotten away from the Chrono spirit here. Humanity does not deserve to be destroyed, unless we ourselves act as the agents of our demise. And I for one will have no part in that.
What is that Magus quote that so many of you seem to love?
If history is to change, let it change.
If the world is to be destroyed, so be it.
If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh.That’s precisely the kind of thinking that’ll get us all killed. Suppose we follow Sentenal’s advice and spit on the rest of the world? Is that really in our national interest, like he says? No. That sort of misbehavior destroys the nations who practice it, especially in these ever-globalizing times. Or suppose we listen to your advice, Zaper, and wait around until we kill ourselves off? Didn’t it occur to you that believing we’ll all kill ourselves off might actually help make it come true, by our actions and motives? Or suppose we listen to nightmare975, praising certain leaders blindly and following our ideology as though it were infallible? I keep remembering how many people in the 2004 United States presidential election insisted to the news reporters who interviewed them that, although they disagreed with President Bush on the issues, they liked that he stands his ground rather than changing his mind. I saw a political cartoon shortly before the election. Kerry and Bush are driving in two separate cars down a highway. Kerry is fumbling over a map, explaining some long, complicated detour that will eventually get them to where they’re going. So why isn’t he just going straight ahead, like Bush? Bush is driving full speed ahead through a warning blockade “Bridge Out Ahead”. And where our leader goes, we have been sure to follow. The country and the whole world is in distress. Are we being patted on the head for our dutiful loyalty to George Bush? No. It just gets worse and worse with this guy. Yet he still has a loyal core, who will follow him to the ends of the Earth—to where Bush
is certainly intent on going. And, so, if his username is any indication, I think I know how nightmare975 sleeps at night.
Political involvement is a basic form of literacy. It is just as important as knowing how to read, because
politics in the abstract sense is what shapes our world. And understanding how that works is a sure route to personal awareness. Politics is not a synonym for corruption and depravity, and governments are not innately awful. These cynical stereotypes are a function of powerless people who wish to go on being powerless. What do I mean by that? I mean that many people resign themselves to a less ideal world by blaming their ills on “powers that be” whom they feel they can never touch. Thus the ills continue. This ties back to your comment, Zaperking, that all humans are stupid, and that we can’t do anything right. That’s patently false. We are an imperfect species, growing up with no parents and no guidelines. Sheer chance gave us the opportunity to make something of ourselves, and bring a little self-awareness to the world. The dream of the human race, expressed vividly in the floating Kingdom of Zeal, is a long way in coming. And the fact that Mr. Kato and his team decided to put that paradise in the human
past, is a potent reminder that our sense of entitlement is guaranteed only by our
eternal vigilance. No one will save us if we fall. And the higher we become, the further we have to fall, and the longer it will take to restore what was. We
are stupid in the sense that we have so much left to learn, and that so many of us cling to ignorant delusions, but we are not stupid in the pejorative sense that you used. Many times I think the world could come to its senses in a single night, if only people realized that, in all its full ramifications.
Daniel Krispin, like many fire-and-brimstone Christians, says we are dragging the world slowly to its doom, and I’d like to prove him wrong despite all his efforts and those of his ilk, by building a civilization that will last beyond the imagination of mortal humankind, with each generation able to seek out its own, unique paradise. I’ll bet you never figured that paradise can exist right here, right now, but you’d have been wrong. Every time we encounter a deeply satisfying moment, for however short or long a blink of the eye it may last, we are within such a fabled place.
In those moments, and in the unwavering ambition to seek out paradise in all its forms and beyond every horizon, and therein pursue the one true Paradise, with a capital P, I thankfully enjoy a moment of repose from the sheer puerile inanity of petty political bickering. It puts this whole thread and our other discussions here into their proper perspective. The world is so much more contenting, when you can see it for what it truly is. And every blunder every human being has ever made, is but a thin slick of oil atop the very deepest ocean. This is a fine world, and we are a fine part of it. I hope you someday find the imagination to agree with me.
