Libertine
Gold Member
OkeeDon:
<font color="blue">I can't argue with a single thing you said. Doesn't mean I have to like it, because I am one of those so-called liberal leftists, but that doesn't make it any less true. </font>
Thank you.
<font color="blue">I'm realistic enough to know that's not going to happen as long as enough people remain selfish and short-sighted. </font>
Well, there have been advances in genetic engineering. Maybe 1,000,000 years of evolution can be overturned. Maybe human beings can be genetically engineered to be something other than what they are. But if human beings can be turned into something other than human beings, we wouldn't have a human society/civilization any more, would we.
<font color="blue">I guess what I am, really, is an Existentialist -- or, at least how I define Existentialism. </font>
Really?
<font color="blue">it involves personal responsibility. In each action one takes, one has to ask themselves, "Will this leave the world better or worse off?" </font>
That's not exactly a central tenent of Existentialism.
<font color="blue"> . . . because too many people are bent on making it worse, a significant number of people have to do more than their share of making it better in order to show some overall progress. </font>
Actually, very, very few people are "bent on making it worse." But "worse" happens. Even a guy like ****** I think truly believed he was doing the right thing (even though I, and presumably you, would say he didn't). The universe is not a fluid, mental process. It is objective and real. Human beings are not "free agents" capable of choice. We are extraordinarily complex automatons. It is difficult to understand this about ourselves, internally, because we are on the inside looking out. After all, none of us, myself included, like to think of ourselves as semi self aware machines moving through a predetermined course in life. But try an experiment with someone you know well. Study them, really study them. Stand back and try to predict their actions one small step before they make them. Look at them as a true scientist looks at thing he is studying. Try to separate the emotional attachment, friendship etc. that you might "feel" toward that person. The more you do that, the greater you will find that you can predict their behavior, certainly when done in small increments. And remember, life/behavior is merely an assemblage of tiny little steps.
The life cycle is real and no matter how much you pretend it isn't, it still unfolds itself. Likewise, the course of history plays itself out. Of course, even though it's determined we're not always sure of the details (especially at our worm's eye level of view), so, it's fun to hang around and watch it play itself out. I mean, come on, anyone who didn't get a proud thrill watching American tanks rolling across Iraq (finishing the job that should have been finished in 1991) had to be asleep. Or, can't you see the humor in the Jews and Muslims killing each other (come on, the Jews spawned Islam) in Palestine and then politicians getting up wringing their hands over what any rational person knows is an irreconcible problem (2 conflicting cultures trying to run the same territory at the same time). Or, on a personal level, we get "good feelings" (deriving, I guess, from a sense of "power") doing stuff with our tractors, building stuff, having orgasms, watching our kids (or pets) grow and develop and so on. So . . . my advice? Hang around and enjoy it, but don't pretend it's anything other than it is. Entropy is real, OkeeDon. The conflict between Eros & Thantos exists. Thantos always wins in the end though.
JEH
<font color="blue">I can't argue with a single thing you said. Doesn't mean I have to like it, because I am one of those so-called liberal leftists, but that doesn't make it any less true. </font>
Thank you.
<font color="blue">I'm realistic enough to know that's not going to happen as long as enough people remain selfish and short-sighted. </font>
Well, there have been advances in genetic engineering. Maybe 1,000,000 years of evolution can be overturned. Maybe human beings can be genetically engineered to be something other than what they are. But if human beings can be turned into something other than human beings, we wouldn't have a human society/civilization any more, would we.
<font color="blue">I guess what I am, really, is an Existentialist -- or, at least how I define Existentialism. </font>
Really?
<font color="blue">it involves personal responsibility. In each action one takes, one has to ask themselves, "Will this leave the world better or worse off?" </font>
That's not exactly a central tenent of Existentialism.
<font color="blue"> . . . because too many people are bent on making it worse, a significant number of people have to do more than their share of making it better in order to show some overall progress. </font>
Actually, very, very few people are "bent on making it worse." But "worse" happens. Even a guy like ****** I think truly believed he was doing the right thing (even though I, and presumably you, would say he didn't). The universe is not a fluid, mental process. It is objective and real. Human beings are not "free agents" capable of choice. We are extraordinarily complex automatons. It is difficult to understand this about ourselves, internally, because we are on the inside looking out. After all, none of us, myself included, like to think of ourselves as semi self aware machines moving through a predetermined course in life. But try an experiment with someone you know well. Study them, really study them. Stand back and try to predict their actions one small step before they make them. Look at them as a true scientist looks at thing he is studying. Try to separate the emotional attachment, friendship etc. that you might "feel" toward that person. The more you do that, the greater you will find that you can predict their behavior, certainly when done in small increments. And remember, life/behavior is merely an assemblage of tiny little steps.
The life cycle is real and no matter how much you pretend it isn't, it still unfolds itself. Likewise, the course of history plays itself out. Of course, even though it's determined we're not always sure of the details (especially at our worm's eye level of view), so, it's fun to hang around and watch it play itself out. I mean, come on, anyone who didn't get a proud thrill watching American tanks rolling across Iraq (finishing the job that should have been finished in 1991) had to be asleep. Or, can't you see the humor in the Jews and Muslims killing each other (come on, the Jews spawned Islam) in Palestine and then politicians getting up wringing their hands over what any rational person knows is an irreconcible problem (2 conflicting cultures trying to run the same territory at the same time). Or, on a personal level, we get "good feelings" (deriving, I guess, from a sense of "power") doing stuff with our tractors, building stuff, having orgasms, watching our kids (or pets) grow and develop and so on. So . . . my advice? Hang around and enjoy it, but don't pretend it's anything other than it is. Entropy is real, OkeeDon. The conflict between Eros & Thantos exists. Thantos always wins in the end though.
JEH