my thoughts on the line

M

Mino

Northern Dreamer
Hey all…Once again it’s getting close to Christmas and I’m coming unglued. Probably doesn’t help that I’m unemployed and facing all the joys associated with that. Sometime I look at the world around me and tend to boil what I see down too what I perceive as the simplest equation. I look at hockey players making x million a season, and movie stars making x million a film then I look at the poor child who went to bed again tonight without food and I snap. Where are our values as a common global community when we can collectively agree that this is ok. I read an article e-mailed to me tonight about how the US (and it doesn't matter a hill of beans who,s doing it, it's that it's happening) is about to dump fifty billion dollars into missile defense. I don’t get it… They say that a high percentage of people who’ve been shot into space return with a totally different view of our fragile little planet and I’ve gone too sleep many a night contemplating this notion. Maybe we should put all our dollars together and blast the world leaders into orbit just for the revelation instead of defending ourselves against threats unknown. It just seems to me that we’re going about living together harmoniously all wrong. Let’s drop the borders that divide us and truly become a global village, one great and wonderful species all members of a tiny fragile blue ball in space that ultimately amounts to diddly in the grand scheme of things. I just don’t get the path we choose and sanction. It seems like madness…no…it is madness. Sorry I just wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t put this up.

Does anybody else have these kind of feelings?...or is it just me!!

PS...and I can see the mods now with their hands on the trigger...We got a live one here get ready to hit the lock. I tried to keep it unpolitical.
;)
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

Yes, please. Lets not turn this into a poitical debate.

I have these same feelings. They have been intensified over the years as I have gotten older and have had a son; my best little filmmaker monkey.

I hate that children in any country have to suffer. Children should never suffer and should always be taken care of. It is our duty. I hate when I see people giving to charities that are not for the children. I dontmean Aids or Cancer as those are super noble, but when people give to charitable organizations for, say animals. Animals? What about the children?
 
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We are the dominant force/species on the planet...If our values are good, the animals will do well?

I pose that as a question and a statement. I ultimately believe it as truth.
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

I agree wholeheartedly with that last statement, mino.

We're all connected in some way, shape, or form.
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

We're the dominant species but we're not the best species. Humans bigger brains have caused bigger problems. There use to be a natural balance in the world, but humans shifted the balance, tagged it, and took control of it. Nature will one day take control again. I just hope my name is on the protected list. ;)
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

[quote author=mino link=board=Offtopic;num=1103262735;start=0#0 date=12/16/04 at 21:52:15] Maybe we should put all our dollars together and blast the world leaders into orbit just for the revelation instead of defending ourselves against threats unknown.[/quote]

In Gassho, brother...well done.
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

[quote author=P.K. Gillock link=board=Offtopic;num=1103262735;start=0#4 date=12/17/04 at 02:11:00]We're the dominant species but we're not the best species. Humans bigger brains have caused bigger problems. There use to be a natural balance in the world, but humans shifted the balance[/quote]

Yes, those unnatural humans. I wish they'd go back where they came from.

:P
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

;D  GenJerDan

I know it sounds strange. But we were once part of the balance (back in our hunting and gathering days - I remember it well ;)), but our need for dominance over everything around us has shifted the balance and look at what's happened. We've become a virus, not a cure.*  The only thing good we've done lately is invent the Internet and the DVX100  ;)

*And it's talk like this that always guarantees me NO SECOND DATE!!!
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

[quote author=mino link=board=Offtopic;num=1103262735;start=0#0 date=12/16/04 at 21:52:15]Let’s drop the borders that divide us and truly become a global village, one great and wonderful species all members of a tiny fragile blue ball in space that ultimately amounts to diddly in the grand scheme of things.[/quote]

I agree on the poor children sentiment wholeheartedly. We should funnel all the money given to the rare-albino-species-of-(insert animal name here) funds into helping the poor kids. Notice i'm not saying the government should completely fund this. That's the quickest way to leech and destroy a democracy. I'm saying if the people truly care about this issue, they'd fund it themselves and help their fellow man. Rich celebrities make me puke. Oprah's the only one I can think of that puts up her cash to truly help people. I'm sure there's more, but the mere fact that I can only think of one off the top of my head points to the fact that it's more rare than the norm.

The "dropping of borders" and coming together as one big nation is hinting at a new world order... which hints at the end times... which I'd rather not go through just yet. The cultures and people are too polar to exist under one government... too many varying factors that would cause complete turmoil. (Can you see common Americans having to exist under a government founded on muslim principles?)
 
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Kai, I agree with your beliefs on "dropping of borders." The thought of a utopian global community is a great idea, but it's not possible right now. I couldn't even imagine some of the cultures I've experienced being integrated into any kind of global governing body. I can't even integrate myself into their culture. I hate borders, but until there's a common level of education, economy, and cultural acceptance/understanding, we don't have much choice. Borders it is ....and all the hassles of crossing them. I have to cross the bridge to Laos every 3 months. That's one border I wouldn't mind dropping right now.
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

[quote author=mino link=board=Offtopic;num=1103262735;start=0#0 date=12/16/04 at 21:52:15]Hey all…Once again it’s getting close to Christmas and I’m coming unglued. Probably doesn’t help that I’m unemployed and facing all the joys associated with that.[/quote]

Don't let the unemployment blues get you down. Perhaps allow yourself a little time to wallow, sulk, pout, but not long. Do everything you can so that one day when things are going better, you will look back on this time and think," man, that did suck sometimes, but hell, I used that time to do some things that helped me grow, learn, see life, help someone, help myself, acquire new skills, open a book, etc."

Don't spend too much time sleeping in and get up and make yourself some skedule. If you do that, you will feel less random. Change your clothes and don't wear your pajamas all day. :) When you are looking for work, don't let fear hold you back.
 
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I think it's impossible to say humans can get above nature, because we are *a part of* nature. The same way a bird can build a nest - we can build cars. Eventually, if our species is ****ing things up too much, we'll figure it out, or at least kill ourselves off if it's what's best for the world. But I think that we can't take the world down with us, because that's saying we're above it.

And instinctually, we'll never do what we *think* will kill ourselves, and because no species generally kills itself off, if we *are* smarter than the other species, then we won't kill OURSELVES off either. Unless we're so smart that inherrently we know it's what's best for the world...

But now we're getting into pure theory :-/
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

Idealism is nice, it’s honorable, but it’s excessively simplistic and myopic when practiced openly.

You dump fifty billion dollars into missile defense. Okay, but what does that mean? Does that mean some big conglomerate gets fifty billion dollars and we get missiles? Do we consider the people employed to engineer those rockets? The technicians that design the internal components? The fabricators that assemble the parts? The people that cut their paychecks? The guy who supports IT? Their children? The community that gets tax revenue to build new schools? The companies that supply the raw materials? The trucking firms that cart the pieces?

What about the engineering advances that filter down to other industries? What about the safety afforded to the country if the system proves effective?

What I mean is that there are people all over the world that are hungry, and there are people all over the world that are living comfortably. Equality is noble, but it is entirely unrealistic and completely opposed to human nature. One of the first words we learn is mine, and that fact alone is what limits the broader acceptance of socialism and communism.

The whole thrust of our species is to better ourselves as individuals in order to attract a more suitable mate. If we cannot generate more, acquire more, achieve more then the next guy, we have very little to distinguish ourselves besides whatever crappy genes we were allotted.

If nothing else, inequality allows for potential. It gives a backdoor for the ambitious, but less equipped among us. Inequality allows us to not be limited by the crappy genes we inherited from our parents. If there were no social inequality, ugly people would never find mates. Dumb people would never be happy and we’d be empowered in life only by the genes we have no ability to alter.

Inequality allows you to define your own life. Equality defines your life for you.

Sure we want to eat the rich, but what people forget is that rich people don’t horde their money…they spend it. When they spend it, other people get to eat. The idea of trickle down economics was ridiculous as a government sanctioned capitol distribution method, but on a microeconomic scale, it has a definite and positive effect on individuals.

I understand that drift of what you guys are saying, and I agree with all of it on a human level, but the world isn’t as simple as idealism would have it be. The problems of starvation and poverty aren’t solved easily because they just aren’t simple problems.

That’s what stinks.

The only real way you can affect the world is locally, and that gets so distorted when we look through these global portals every day. Television tells us that people are starving in India and we don’t know what to do about it. The internet tells us there’s fighting in the Congo and we don’t know what to do about it.

That sense of helplessness drives us to seek universal solutions for universal problems, and we get frustrated and angry that our world does not come together to fix itself. But it isn’t the world’s responsibility.

Television doesn’t show you the family three streets over that didn’t get Christmas dinner. The internet doesn’t tell you about the kids in the orphanage in your home town. CNN doesn’t profile the out of work painter that’s getting evicted.

If it showed you those things, there’s a slight chance you’d go out and try and help those people. There’s the slight chance that you’d take the long way home tonight and try to bring a blanket to the homeless person in your hometown.

If it showed you those things, you would know that there are things you can do in your town that will change the world.
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

[quote author=J_Barnes link=board=Offtopic;num=1103262735;start=0#12 date=12/17/04 at 11:26:41]Sure we want to eat the rich, but what people forget is that rich people don’t horde their money…they spend it.  When they spend it, other people get to eat.  The idea of trickle down economics was ridiculous as a government sanctioned capitol distribution method, but on a microeconomic scale, it has a definite and positive effect on individuals.[/quote]

I remember some people saying Bill Gates should just give his money away, since he doesn't need all that.

Yeah. Uh-huh.

Everyone in the world gets $7...and then what?

Dan
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

Everyone in the world gets $7...and then what?
Click to expand...

Then I would spend it on a Nations hambuger with extra onions and season fries. I would then spend the remaining on a pack if trident gun. ;)
 
Re: my thoughts on the line

Communist ideals fought inequality and we see how well that worked.

We need to consider human nature. Some people in this world are damn lazy. "Inequality" exists because of human nature.

As for $50 million on missile defense, it just goes back into our economy and feeds thousands of workers and their families. When our govt spends money people spend money and that's what makes our economy great. Americans love to spend money and work hard for that money! What a great mix.
 
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"Let’s drop the borders that divide us and truly become a global village"

Ideal situation and obviously unrealistic. There is a reason we are developing a missile defense system and it is that we obviously can't live without borders. I say tighten the borders and stop sending jobs overseas. Which may be unrealistic also. I don't want to try and be friends with a person who misinterprets their own religion, and thinks they are doing god's will by killing me and my family. Uneducation is their (terrorists/biggots etc) biggest downfall and we will be the ones to pay. There are so many things that are far more a waiste of resources and money then missle defense. Policies need to change but nothing gets done by just talking.
 
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We can't drop the borders and become a global village...because then we'd all have to deal with the french. :P
 
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