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Author Topic: Things that made you sad today thread.  (Read 9704663 times)

Loud Whispers

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57570 on: January 19, 2013, 06:57:17 am »

In a way, all of these have already happened.

Science: War industry. The entirity of the first/second/third world war, the cold war, nukes, whatever ...

Weapons technology is the direct result of a race of war obsessed monkeys trying to get the upper edge over another. The age of enlightenment didn't spark a lightbulb that said: "Science equals war!"

Progress: The industrial revolution
The industrial revolution was the greatest thing to happen since the agricultural revolution. Now we're onto the digital, it gets better.

Reason: The first world War. A war none of it's contestats wanted to fight, but it was the entirely logical result of the network of alliances and such. More examples can easily be found.
*It was not entirely the result of alliances. British and French conflict ended with the triple entente. Don't bullshit that into saying peace caused war.
*Europe has a long history of every single nation competing against the other.
*The massive arms race to secure world power had a tiny bit to do with it. That and the countries competing to secure world power.
"Wanting to finally end Serbian interference in Bosnia, Austria-Hungary delivered the July Ultimatum to Serbia, a series of ten demands intentionally made unacceptable, intending to provoke a war with Serbia."
Polar opposite of reason.

Equality: Stalin's communist regime
Stalin: The figurehead of equality and labour camps.

Ha ha ha, minorities. We don't care about you because we're worried we'll become too much like those dirty commies and start executing people. Like we already do.

Also, the following slavery was also a reasonable thing. Since the native Americans were not very good at surviving the harsh work on plantations, it was decided, logically, that importing African slaves would be a more economical and maybe more humane thing to do.
What the fuck is this shit

fqllve

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57571 on: January 19, 2013, 07:20:08 am »

I've accidentally developed a biphasic sleep pattern...

For the past couple weeks I've been on a schedule that is basically up 8, down 4 and I have not been doing a good job of changing it. Any time I stay up for an extended period I just end up sleeping 6 or 7 hours for the next couple sleeps instead of one long one. It sucks. It's like I'm basically tired all the time and I don't really have the ability to do all the things I want or need to do before I have to sleep again.

This isn't the first time I've had this happen to me, but it is the most difficult to change.
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Neonivek

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57572 on: January 19, 2013, 07:26:27 am »

Sippery slopes. They're the same 50-year old lame excuses we've been hearing to date. Thing is, none of those doomsday predictions has taken place, so it's kind of annoying to see them being brought up time and time again as excuses to perpetuate inequality or impose religious moral agendas.

You say on your cushy seat.

Understand that where you are sitting right now is paved with the blood of innocents. None of which you had to slaughter yourself.

Know that this blood lust continues and that most of what you have happens at the expense of others.

That is the lesson of modernity.
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dei

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57573 on: January 19, 2013, 07:37:16 am »

In other news, I am disappointed that once again it's the end of the week and I don't have anyting in my fridge with protein in it other than fat-free milk. Right now I am regretting eating at that rib dinner last Sunday because it has reawakened my nearly insatiable lust for seared animal flesh, because I am at the point where I would violate my oath of pacifism just to get a cheeseburger.

Then again, some nights just show me that I am not always as strong as I want to be. I just hope that sometime in the very near future I can make my way to some place that sells cheeseburgers that happen to be affordable for a lower-class citizen and perhaps buy two or three of them, because the last time I tried to make my own I set off the smoke alarm twice.
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Neonivek

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57574 on: January 19, 2013, 07:44:31 am »

There are a few places that sell burgers really cheap that I can think of...

Though you could always prepare your own meat.
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10ebbor10

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57575 on: January 19, 2013, 07:45:15 am »

In a way, all of these have already happened.

Science: War industry. The entirity of the first/second/third world war, the cold war, nukes, whatever ...

Weapons technology is the direct result of a race of war obsessed monkeys trying to get the upper edge over another. The age of enlightenment didn't spark a lightbulb that said: "Science equals war!"
The point I'm trying to make is not that Science is bad, but more that science isn't unanoumusly good. You can't solve all current world problems by throwing science at them. There are other problems that need to be taken care of.

Quote
Progress: The industrial revolution
The industrial revolution was the greatest thing to happen since the agricultural revolution. Now we're onto the digital, it gets better.
I beg to differ. While the Industrial revolution eventually ended up being alright, there are ways it easily could've been better*. Once again, progress isn't good. The direction in which really matters.
Progress just indicates the destruction of the old to be replaced by the new. Since not all old stuff is bad, and certainly not all new stuff is good, it doesn't make a good solution to the world's problems.

*The 19the century was not a pleasant one, to say the least.

Quote
Reason: The first world War. A war none of it's contestats wanted to fight, but it was the entirely logical result of the network of alliances and such. More examples can easily be found.
*It was not entirely the result of alliances. British and French conflict ended with the triple entente. Don't bullshit that into saying peace caused war.
*Europe has a long history of every single nation competing against the other.
*The massive arms race to secure world power had a tiny bit to do with it. That and the countries competing to secure world power.
"Wanting to finally end Serbian interference in Bosnia, Austria-Hungary delivered the July Ultimatum to Serbia, a series of ten demands intentionally made unacceptable, intending to provoke a war with Serbia."
Polar opposite of reason.
*Oh yes it was. Not that the alliances are bad, but the entire mass of alliances and Defensive pacts was a just a gunpowder barrel waiting to blow. The first world war started with the death of one men, all because retaliatory measures ended up inviting bigger retaliations, ultimately ending in one of the bloodiest conflicts in history.
*Yeah, of course. This doesn't mean that the world war was irrational.

Is it. I don't think it is. Austria-Hungary wanted to cause a "small" war, and so they did. It was a welthought out entirely rational political move. It ended out of control, but Austria Hungary wasn't controlled with a bunch of irrationall idiots. Really, all politics in Europe for the last few centuries are based on reason*, not emotional values.

*Remember that reason doesn't equal reasonable. Austria Hungary never expected the demands to be accepted, but this doesn't mean that they were insane. They were just looking for a reason to start a war.

Quote
Equality: Stalin's communist regime
Stalin: The figurehead of equality and labour camps.

Ha ha ha, minorities. We don't care about you because we're worried we'll become too much like those dirty commies and start executing people. Like we already do.
It's an example of how the ideas of equality can lead to bad things, as opposed to solely good things. Of course Stalin's regime wasn't a really equal one, but anyway.

In order to increase equality, you will loose freedom.

Quote
Also, the following slavery was also a reasonable thing. Since the native Americans were not very good at surviving the harsh work on plantations, it was decided, logically, that importing African slaves would be a more economical and maybe more humane thing to do.
What the fuck is this shit

It's the entirely reasonable consequence of the situations in those times, coupled with the values of that time. Reason is in itself meaningless. It's just the logical combination of A and B towards C.

Shematized version:

Problem:
Natives are bad plantation workers, causing much suffering and death

Values:
-Civilized people have the right to control uncivilized, and need to "help" them
-Profit is important

Solution:
Import African slaves, which worker harder, and are much more resilient to the hard plantation work.
       
Result
-More profit
-Less deaths (at least in the beginning. Then they came on the idea that slaves were really cheap and they could afford to loose them during the voyage)

Succes!

Can't say this is an irrational or unreasonable thing to do. It might be inhumane, but that isn't one of the values supported by the Apocalypse.
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57576 on: January 19, 2013, 07:46:50 am »

Sippery slopes. They're the same 50-year old lame excuses we've been hearing to date. Thing is, none of those doomsday predictions has taken place, so it's kind of annoying to see them being brought up time and time again as excuses to perpetuate inequality or impose religious moral agendas.

You say on your cushy seat.

Understand that where you are sitting right now is paved with the blood of innocents. None of which you had to slaughter yourself.

That's what you think.... I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor … and surviving. We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig. Cow after cow. Village after village. Army after army. And they call me an assassin. What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? They lie. They lie, and we have to be merciful, for those who lie. Those nabombs. I hate them. I do hate them.
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Neonivek

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57577 on: January 19, 2013, 07:51:32 am »

Sippery slopes. They're the same 50-year old lame excuses we've been hearing to date. Thing is, none of those doomsday predictions has taken place, so it's kind of annoying to see them being brought up time and time again as excuses to perpetuate inequality or impose religious moral agendas.

You say on your cushy seat.

Understand that where you are sitting right now is paved with the blood of innocents. None of which you had to slaughter yourself.

That's what you think.... I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor … and surviving. We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig. Cow after cow. Village after village. Army after army. And they call me an assassin. What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? They lie. They lie, and we have to be merciful, for those who lie. Those nabombs. I hate them. I do hate them.

Then what do you care for perpetual inequality if you like to enforce it yourself at the edge of a knife?

---

Also as I finally found out officially...

Science and reason are not the same thing. Science can be extremely unreasonable especially when it comes to things that cannot be measured.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2013, 08:04:20 am by Neonivek »
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57578 on: January 19, 2013, 08:00:48 am »

You have no right to call me a monster. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that, but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror! Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.
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Jopax

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57579 on: January 19, 2013, 08:02:51 am »

About the progress thing, why is it such a bad thing?

Sure some old things are good and should be preserved (and a great deal of them are in these times) but let's be honest, as times change so do people and their values. And as far as recent history goes all of this progress has been a positive thing, and really, if something is a bad concept it should by all means be put down.

The Industrial revolution example for one. Yes it could have gone vastly better, but then again, so could every other major shift in history, they could all have gone far far better, but they could have also gone far far worse. It's a human thing I think, and that will probably go away sometime in the future, not sure we'll live to see it but it's bound to happen. And you have to take the good with the bad, you should try to change it but even if you can't that doesn't mean that progress is a bad thing.

My mind is kind of a buzz now with ideas and concepts that I'm finding hard to articulate, but I'm keen to agree with one of Neonivek's views about the comic, that it's taking the Apocalypse idea and playing with it, if the world ends up so different that it can be considered it completely got destroyed and is replaced by something that values any one of those four things more than the current world then that's a good thing and something I wouldn't mind.
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10ebbor10

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57580 on: January 19, 2013, 08:12:06 am »

Progress is not bad. It's just that it isn't always good because it's progress.

The term progress in itself is mostly meaningless, and progress for the sake of progress doesn't solve the world's problems. In fact, it often creates new problems worse than the old ones.

A society based on the destructing the old as fast as possible, in order to be replaced by the new is not a good thing.
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Jopax

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57581 on: January 19, 2013, 08:16:49 am »

Yes but that isn't the only kind of progress, the best one in my opinion is the one that strives to improve the old one by building upon it and replacing bits and parts. You end up with the same result eventually but you do it gradually. Then again gradual change can also be bad.

Anyways, changing for changes sake isn't neccessarily bad, because if you don't strive to change and become better (despite sometimes failing) then you stagnate and that is just as bad if not worse.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57582 on: January 19, 2013, 08:18:10 am »

The point I'm trying to make is not that Science is bad, but more that science isn't unanoumusly good. You can't solve all current world problems by throwing science at them. There are other problems that need to be taken care of.
You don't throw science at problems to fix them. It is a tool as much as any other; that is why it is not inherently good or bad. Which is why you bringing up weaponized science up as a reason why all science is bad is incredibly broken.
There are problems science is well within capabilities of fixing, yet it is impeded all the same. There are other problems, ones entirely of social construct and the like which will not be solved by science. But ones like Climate change can, and the activities of a few big nations with heavy anti-science stances are screwing the world over.

I beg to differ. While the Industrial revolution eventually ended up being alright, there are ways it easily could've been better*. Once again, progress isn't good. The direction in which really matters.
You are confusing progress with regression. Everything can always be better.

For example, the industrial revolution had a lack of equality. Guess what showed up?

Progress just indicates the destruction of the old to be replaced by the new.
Progress does not "just" destroy old things to replace the new. The old things that are good, we keep. The old things that are bad, we lose. This is not hard to grasp. You seem to suffer from the misconception that to move forward you must destroy your identity.
I don't know how you managed to get to that conclusion, but the shard just got built and we haven't blown up St. Paul's cathedral yet  ::)

Since not all old stuff is bad, and certainly not all new stuff is good, it doesn't make a good solution to the world's problems.
I sincerely hope this is just a semantics thing and you don't understand the meaning of progress.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You would have us remain in stagnation till we reach the point of living in a primitive condition. The absurdity of this is profound. The solving of the world's problems is progress.

*Yeah, of course. This doesn't mean that the world war was irrational.
Heyo reason.

In order to increase equality, you will loose freedom.
I am well ready to loose freedom on the world in the name of equality. Glad you agree!

That - that is progress.

Quote
Also, the following slavery was also a reasonable thing. Since the native Americans were not very good at surviving the harsh work on plantations, it was decided, logically, that importing African slaves would be a more economical and maybe more humane thing to do.
What the fuck is this shit

It's the entirely reasonable consequence of the situations in those times, coupled with the values of that time. Reason is in itself meaningless. It's just the logical combination of A and B towards C.

Shematized version:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
1. The values of those times was held by people who found reason, equality, science and progress worthless.
2. Those values were only held by the people who chose to keep them. Slavery was abolished in Britain in 1833. Slavery was permanently abolished in France by 1848. In the USA, 1865.
The plantation workers enslaving the natives didn't care about equality, only profit. Civilized "people" had no right to destroy other people's civilizations and enslave them, working them to death in brutal conditions, where humiliation, torture, rape and degradation was common.

Result:
You are morally corrupt beings driving success from death and suffering.


Meanwhile in Industrial Europe:

"In the words of Nobel Prize winner Robert E. Lucas, Jr., "For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth ... Nothing remotely like this economic behavior has happened before".

"Chronic hunger and malnutrition were the norm for the majority of the population of the world including England and France, until the latter part of the 19th century. Until about 1750, in large part due to malnutrition, life expectancy in France was about 35 years, and only slightly higher in England. The U.S. population of the time was adequately fed, were much taller and had life expectancy of 45–50 years.
In Britain and the Netherlands food supply had been increasing and prices falling before the Industrial Revolution due to better agricultural practices; however, population was increasing as well, as noted by Thomas Malthus. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, advances in agriculture or technology soon led to an increase in population, which again strained food and other resources, limiting increases in per capita income. This condition is called the Malthusian trap, and it was finally overcome by industrialization."

One country sought to sustain larger populations with farming done by slaves, in decrepit brutal working conditions. The other - which started behind, increased it with technology and science.

Which one caused less suffering.

Guess.

Neonivek

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57583 on: January 19, 2013, 08:21:23 am »

Progress isn't nessisarily even about destroying everything old. Progress is just movement towards something.

But the thing is Jopax... Progress is just progress

It isn't inherantly bad or good. As well a lack of progress isn't good or bad either.

As well Progress is vague and has no real path or destination.

Quote
changing for changes sake isn't neccessarily bad, because if you don't strive to change and become better (despite sometimes failing) then you stagnate and that is just as bad if not worse

Stagnation in it of itself isn't bad. Progress can be just as destructive to someone or a society as it can be helpful. Since progress isn't nessisarily a uplifting force but an outright destructive force.

There are entire civilisations destroyed by progress.
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10ebbor10

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Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« Reply #57584 on: January 19, 2013, 08:48:53 am »

The point I'm trying to make is not that Science is bad, but more that science isn't unanoumusly good. You can't solve all current world problems by throwing science at them. There are other problems that need to be taken care of.
You don't throw science at problems to fix them. It is a tool as much as any other; that is why it is not inherently good or bad. Which is why you bringing up weaponized science up as a reason why all science is bad is incredibly broken.
There are problems science is well within capabilities of fixing, yet it is impeded all the same. There are other problems, ones entirely of social construct and the like which will not be solved by science. But ones like Climate change can, and the activities of a few big nations with heavy anti-science stances are screwing the world over.
I never said all science was bad. I just wanted to say that not all science is good, and that undirected science isn't nessecerially a good cornerstone for a world. After all, you can use the same science to negate all the effects of global warming untill it's to late, or remember what caused this problem in the first place.

Like you said, science is a tool, not a goal. Knowledge would be a goal, I suppose.

Quote
In order to increase equality, you will loose freedom.
I am well ready to loose freedom on the world in the name of equality. Glad you agree!
Some people aren't. (Note that I'm not one of them, but anyway). There are those who prefer the right to try for something better than a guarantee of something mediocre.

Quote
Quote
Snip
1. The values of those times was held by people who found reason, equality, science and progress worthless.
2. Those values were only held by the people who chose to keep them. Slavery was abolished in Britain in 1833. Slavery was permanently abolished in France by 1848. In the USA, 1865.
The plantation workers enslaving the natives didn't care about equality, only profit. Civilized "people" had no right to destroy other people's civilizations and enslave them, working them to death in brutal conditions, where humiliation, torture, rape and degradation was common.

Result:
You are morally corrupt beings driving success from death and suffering.
Not really. The age of humanism was breaking in those time, science was an important factor in the colonization in that time, and progress is just a word to indicate going from one state to another, without saying wherether the new state is better than the other. Reason was important. Point is, reason is just the logical consequence of A to B. If you put crap in, crap comes out. It's of no real use as a value or ideal. While they didn't believe in equality, but they did believe that everyone had their place in the world. Which might even, in a certain intrepretation, might be a better ideal than equality. Let's fastforward to a hypothetical future. In one, everyone is equal and is forced to do exactly the same, wherether they like it or not all under the watchfull eye of a benevolent supercomputer. In the other, the computer scans every person, and gives them a job and possesions he thinks they will like. Not everybody gets the same amount of stuff, but everybody gets something he/she will be happy with.

As the times changed, people's morals changed, and they continue to do.

Quote
Snip
I'm not comparing the initial advantages of the slavery with the improvement of agricultural practices in Europe. I was comparing the using of natives slaves with the use of imported slaves in post colization (16the) century America. The import of slaves was an entirely rational descision, based on reason, and initially it did improve conditions. This doesn't mean I support it, or that it was a good thing, but merely that pure 100% reason is not always a good thing.

Other examples are:

-If I think someone is a danger to my life, it would be a reasonable thing to kill them before they do so. It's not a good thing though
-Same, but for nations
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