traptunderice wrote:
cry of the banshee wrote:
traptunderice wrote:
It's like you look at one lion pouncing a gazelle and see brutal, naked self-interest but if you look at the whole savannah, you'll see three other lions positioning the gazelle within that one's reach, not to mention them sharing the meal afterward. You can always see our debates as being in an ivory tower but I think you should also know it affects us in our practical lives and what we do on the weekends.
That's an interesting point. But, lions are predators.
And also consider that lions run in packs of their own kind, and there are still domiant members within their own group, typically males.
But, what happens when you throw an outside group competing for the same niche as the lion, for example the hyena?
Or other, smaller felines?
And, keep in mind when I post something, it often times is merely me musing out loud, so to speak.
Still, I don't see an application of large-scale Marxist policy as being in line with natural law.
Just to continue this benign argument, I think people are a lot different than lions despite my use of the example. We really should be looking at bonobos only, not even gorillas or chimps, for examples of our behavior in the 'state of nature'. Then again we aren't exactly in a 'state of nature' nor are we in necessary scarcity like how some characterize nature. Our world could provide for everyone we currently have in a sustainable manner if we would choose to behave that way. We have enough food to feed the entire world with what's planted in only a few Midwest states yet we choose not to allocate it at that way. Our state isn't comparable to lions competition. You could say our society should be compared to their form of hierarchy but even then are the strongest/most clever always at the top? I personally think not.
haha, I kinda wondered at your using lions as an example.
All those things you stated above are probably true, but all that food, all the resources are not being shared; why?
I personally despise materialism and greed. My personal opinion is any man that has more than he knows what to do with is a pig.
We live, as you are most certainly aware, in an obscenely materialistic society; people's worth is literally measured by their ability to acquire "things", as opposed to their honor, intelligence and any other former virtue.
They are told that they must consume, consume, consume... they are even wittingly labeled "consumers". I blame the TV, perhaps the most powerful and misused device invented by man.
But that is only part of the problem.
The other half of the problem as I see it is that the same people that inevitably desire to govern, are exactly the ones that shouldn't, out of the interest of the greater good.
Catch-22.
Man: natures biggest paradox.
And there are far too many people out walking in their own shadows that are either too stupid, too lazy or simply too narcotized by the big noise box with it's ADD inducing flashing lights and blaring mindless slogans that they can't see it. Perhpas because the reality of the state of things cannot be reduced to a 5 minute MTV video, or reality show.
Or, perhaps they simply don't want to, which is the more likely case.
And they are rustled into their quaint little voting boxes, and they pull the same lever, different name and face, every two / four years, smiling upon themselves, thinking: "I have made a difference"... and around it goes.
Call me cynical, but I have little hope for humanity pulling itself out of it's own decadent slime.
Which is another example of the great paradox Man: humans are a very very clever animal and there is so much potential, yet that potential seems to be squandered away on trinkets and toys.
The same mind that can split the atom, can concieve of time travel (worm holes), microelectronics, can establish Quantum theory, indeed even
begin to grasp Superstring theory, invent machines that can perform the closest thing to real magic that exists (I'm talking about the computer, of course; can you imagine if someone from three hundred years ago somehow managed to make his way to modern day civilisation? He would go into massive shock, probably followed by cardiac arrest), the WWW, can send a craft to Mars and watch the video it captures in real time here on Earth... on and on and on it goes; that same organism cannot figure out how to solve a budget crisis, let alone hunger, crime and poverty?
Really?
