GENIUS FORUMS

Pye wrote:.

Yes, let's give up here, and repeat all the errors of colonialism on a cosmic scale [/sarcasm]

I'm inclined to agree - I don't understand the enthusiasm about space conquest given that we havent even been able to live reasonably on this planet - let alone planets that are totally unsuited to our biology.

But then again, there is the possibility that it will be only the greatest of human beings who will be leaving this planet, taking with them a supremely rational/wise interpretation of history, thus having the sagacity to deal wisely with an encounter with another life harboring planet.

I'm personally not 100% clear on what being wise is like, it seems like I have flashes of clarity and insight, but I know i'm inconsistent and emotional - - my compassion for aborigines I sometimes suspect stems from my own self-pity. I identify with natives and humble farmers because I myself am not part of any dominant elite class/scientific community, etc. Instead I work at a call center like a slave and go to university where I know I'm paying way to much to be taught a great deal of nonesense (although I must say university is much more stimulating than I thought)

Years ago I bought into the mentality of how there were the elite arogant callous intellectuals manipulating and exploiting the weak. Its hard to break from this idea.

Perhaps, as I once stated before - - that sympathy is an illusion, the outgrowth of self pity and weakness. If you are strong, then you have no reason to feel compassion - - compasion just gets in the way of what a man's gotta do. *this should provoke some interesting reactions*

A person who is confident about who he is and has faith in his contributions, is perhaps free from sympathy.

But does that mean he is wise?

And again, the images of Hitler flash through my mind!

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Yes, Elizabeth, I did catch your caveats. Mine was a general statement.


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Cory, you are, to me, such an earnest fellow with many thoughts and wonderings, and I understand how appealing a "native" return to world-doings can be, but everything must be worked from the present forward. Everything is anyway.

The only thing I know about wisdom is that it is fluid. I recognize it when it answers to the immediate, and not to an enclosed definition. Those enclosed definitions -- that perhaps had their moment of answering-to -- often misapply themselves when they refuse fluidity to the present circumstances.

And . . . I don't think personal strength and compassion are mutually exclusive. Again, the present. The when and the where of it, the why. It is possible that compassion exactly requires personal strength to feel.

And as an aside, why not think of university as conditioning your mental capacities. Sit-ups and running laps do not seem important in themselves, but they all serve to condition the organism for greater feats. I know you are learning a lot of "junk," but perhaps think of this junk as those sit-ups and lap-running. The exercises in themselves are not as important as the conditioning they give the individual to reach and inquire into different things. People don't have to go to university to put in this work, but we must face the fact that very few people are inspired to this work when they don't have to be.


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Solway wrote:

Just because a person is a top scientist it doesn't mean they are a good or even an intelligent person.

A top scientist can also be a fundamentalist Christian.

Kevin, Here is what I find perplexing about your perspective - On the one hand you emphasize the urgency that we should invest more resources into conquering space, but on the other hand you openly admit the majority of humanity isn’t wise enough to do it yet.

Am I missing something? What’s your hurry? Space will still be there when we grow wiser.

Basically, You fear an invasion from the same type of beings that you fear sending up into space as a means to prevent an invasion…

The truth of the matter is that if we sent a small group full of Christians up into space as a means to find new life, I’m afraid we’d never see them again, and neither would any other species. They’d probably observe a face in mars that resembled Jesus and crash their spaceship trying to get closer look.

plus when one is a fundamentalist Christian, there isn’t a lot of extra space in the mind to solve complicated problems, religious belief is like an ulcer in the mind, it ultimately prevents creativity and thwarts the possibility of genuine cooperation.

Great thinkers have space in their minds to wonder whereas stupid people lack this luxury, which makes them much more feeble and divided.

feeble minds are only able to tackle large scale projects with the help of intelligent minds.

Furthermore, it is written into nature's design that ignorate forces do not get very far before they are either defeated by more intelligent ones or they simply defeat themselves through dumb blunders.

now that I think about it, I could use this information to create an interesting argument for intelligent design in the universe.

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Ryan: Great thinkers have space in their minds to wonder

excellent.
and space to wander, too. :)


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Pye wrote: Yes, let's give up here, and repeat all the errors of colonialism on a cosmic scale [/sarcasm]

Life is erroneous and well, messy with the tendency to spread; any sublime error included.

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Diebert: Life is erroneous and well, messy with the tendency to spread; any sublime error included.

Indeed, Diebert, indeed . . . .


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Diebert wrote: Life is erroneous

Life itself a mistake? How so? Don't you mean "people are error prone"?

How do we define error? Can can animals commit error? Can a planet?

and well, messy with the tendency to spread;

Yes, life (on Earth) is a spreading mess, I agree. And then a contracting mess. Cycles of mess.

any sublime error included.

Some mess is due to error, yes, but alot is simply due to the nature of the physical aspect of existence. You agree?

Cory wrote:

Perhaps, as I once stated before - - that sympathy is an illusion, the outgrowth of self pity and weakness. If you are strong, then you have no reason to feel compassion - - compassion just gets in the way of what a man's gotta do. *this should provoke some interesting reactions*

A person who is confident about who he is and has faith in his contributions, is perhaps free from sympathy. But does that mean he is wise? And again, the images of Hitler flash through my mind!

Hehe, here goes another one of my racist Hitler rants! : ) , Don't say I didnt warn you guys!

In the distant past I have also observed sympathetic fantasies running through my consciousness to help Native and African cultures, but then I realized that these cultures are inferior, their genetics are inferior. Furthermore, I realized that I only sympathize with what is weaker to me, however what is weaker than me is precisely what needs to be eradicated from the genepool altogether as a means to make the collective’s genepool stronger.

I know this sounds evil, but the noble thing to do is to not help Africa or natives at all, we must allow them to self-destruct. That is how evolution works, the strongest, most well adapted survive, while the most feeble die off. A wise man is like a psychopath in terms of what he feels for inferiors, he must allow nature's forces to do what they will. There are intelligent reasons why native teens are dying from sniffing gasoline, and Africans are dying of AIDS. Moreover humanitarian organizations are doing more harm than good by interfering with that process. That process is an advanced stage of natural selection.

I further realized this when I observed celebrities like Madonna travelling to Africa to adopt a black child, that is when I knew something was up, whatever the most shallow people are doing to try to be moral, we can be sure it is the wrong action. That is feminine-compassion. Masculine-compassion is purely concerned with the preservation of the most superior genes in the genepool.

There have been quite a few scientists in the US that have set up sperm banks for strong genes. They took sperm from some of the brightest minds in the 1900s, which tended to be white males, giving samples to couples who were unable to have children. The results were intruiging, most of the children attended universities becoming things like engineers, professors and so on.

If we took all our African aid, and put it in creating more genetically superior sperm labs, then we’d be in business. The key is using ones resources in the most effective way to ensure the survival of wisdom, I agree with Solway, but strong genes need to be primary or the teachings are doomed to be ineffective.

If we look at the amount of hatred white males have had for certain minorities in the past, there is also an equal amount of sympathy there too. The strong have notoriously showed feminine mercy to the genetically weak, but this is the wrong approach, we cannot allow our emotions to get in the way of nature's intelligent and selective wraith.

Carl G wrote:

Diebert wrote: Life is erroneous

Life itself a mistake? How so? Don't you mean "people are error prone"?

How do we define error? Can can animals commit error? Can a planet?

Error is what you miss.

Carl G wrote:

Diebert wrote:any sublime error included.

Some mess is due to error, yes, but alot is simply due to the nature of the physical aspect of existence. You agree?

Where would you draw the line then? Your line is erroneous. But as well the life you have to live.

Cory Duchesne wrote:I don't understand the enthusiasm about space conquest given that we havent even been able to live reasonably on this planet - let alone planets that are totally unsuited to our biology.

We currently have all our eggs in one basket . . . this one planet. It is extremely foolish to have all one's eggs in one basket, so that's why I think it is imperative that we colonize at least one other planet very soon.

But then again, there is the possibility that it will be only the greatest of human beings who will be leaving this planet

More likely the richest, or those with special technical skills.

Ryan Rudolph wrote:On the one hand you emphasize the urgency that we should invest more resources into conquering space, but on the other hand you openly admit the majority of humanity isn’t wise enough to do it yet.

You don't need to be wise to colonize space. You only need to be curious, or wise enough to know that you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, on one planet.

Am I missing something? What’s your hurry? Space will still be there when we grow wiser.

A couple of things that worry me are:

1. Our planet might be hit by a comet or suchlike which may wipe out all human life.

2. Climate change, disease, religion, etc, may cause a major downturn in our culture, rendering us unable to conduct a space program.

We don't know what the future holds, so it's best to take advantage of circumstances while they are favourable.

Basically, You fear an invasion from the same type of beings that you fear sending up into space as a means to prevent an invasion…

I just want to increase the chances of survival of our species.

Kevin Solway wrote: You don't need to be wise to colonize space. You only need to be curious, or wise enough to know that you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, on one planet.

Ryan wrote:Basically, You fear an invasion from the same type of beings that you fear sending up into space as a means to prevent an invasion…

I just want to increase the chances of survival of our species.

But any invading species would at least have proven to be more curious, or wise enough to not put all eggs in one basket, while still having developed more intelligence than us for their own superior rocket science. Perhaps it would be tempting to root for the invaders and value their survival instead? I mean if capacity for wisdom is at stake and not just racial instincts.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

Diebert: Life is erroneous

Carl G: Life itself a mistake? How so? Don't you mean "people are error prone"? How do we define error? Can can animals commit error? Can a planet?

Diebert: Error is what you miss.

Diebert: any sublime error included.

Carl G: Some mess is due to error, yes, but alot is simply due to the nature of the physical aspect of existence. You agree?

Diebert: Where would you draw the line then? Your line is erroneous. But as well the life you have to live.

Gotcha. Just about everything is error. Interesting definition.

Kevin Solway wrote: A couple of things that worry me are:

1. Our planet might be hit by a comet or suchlike which may wipe out all human life.

2. Climate change, disease, religion, etc, may cause a major downturn in our culture, rendering us unable to conduct a space program.

We don't know what the future holds, so it's best to take advantage of circumstances while they are favourable.

I just want to increase the chances of survival of our species.

These strike me as odd attachments to have, for an all-seeing sage.

You have said you value wisdom, and that is noble.

But surely you don't believe we are the only planet containing intelligent life.

Why would you put such faith in the human race, anyway, which has proven so resistant to that which you love?

Why would you think exporting to another planet some rich and technical types, among the least likely candidates for wisdom, would serve the universal cause of wisdom?

Why advocate the spread of non-wisdom, putting all the (rotten) eggs in simply a bigger basket, from a universal standpoint.

By the way, how do you know we have not colonized another planet already? Do you believe everything government tells you?

On your personal level, why are you worried? What use is your fear? What good does your concern in this matter do you or the big picture?

What does any of this matter if we have no inherent existence?

Carl G wrote: Gotcha. Just about everything is error. Interesting definition.

One quotation which while sounding dramatic hits the nail even deeper:

• You vine! Why do you praise me? Didn't I cut you? I was cruel, you bleed -: what is it that you want with your praise of my drunken cruelty?
  
  "What has become complete, all that is ripe - wants to die", you reason. Blessed, blessed be the winemaker's knife! Everything unripe wants to live: throe!
  
  Throe speaks: "Pass me by! Away, you agony!" But everything which suffers, wants to live, so it becomes ripe and merry and longing - longing for what is farther, higher, brighter. "I want heirs" - is what all that suffers indicates, "I want children, I do not want myself".
  
  Delight, however, does not want heirs, or children - delight wants itself, wants infinity, wants coming again, wants everything-that-its-own-eternal-likeness.
  
  Throe speaks: "Break, bleed, heart! Walk, leg! Wing, fly! Get on! Get up! Pain!"
  Okay! Well! Oh my old heart: throe says: go away!"

Nietzsche - Also sprach Zarathustra IV, Das Nachtwandler-Lied, ch 9.

[translation note: While mine isn't flawless, finally I've decided to throw Kaufmann's out of the window after seeing how he treated this passage. For example he called this the "drunken song" while it cannot be else in the context than the "sleepwalker song" or literally the "night transformer/walker song". Kaufmann's translations hurt almost every important nuance in Nietzsche's work on many places. It's beyond hope how he used "woe" and missed the whole birth pang references of the original, just to sound more fluent I suppose]

Carl G wrote:

Kevin Solway wrote: A couple of things that worry me are:

1. Our planet might be hit by a comet or suchlike which may wipe out all human life.

2. Climate change, disease, religion, etc, may cause a major downturn in our culture, rendering us unable to conduct a space program.

We don't know what the future holds, so it's best to take advantage of circumstances while they are favourable.

I just want to increase the chances of survival of our species.

These strike me as odd attachments to have, for an all-seeing sage.

Goals are not necessarily attachments.

But surely you don't believe we are the only planet containing intelligent life.

No doubt there are many planets with intelligent life.

Why would you put such faith in the human race, anyway, which has proven so resistant to that which you love?

It is all we currently have to work with.

Why would you think exporting to another planet some rich and technical types, among the least likely candidates for wisdom, would serve the universal cause of wisdom?

At this stage I just want to make sure that all our eggs are not in one basket. That's all.

First things first.

Why advocate the spread of non-wisdom, putting all the (rotten) eggs in simply a bigger basket, from a universal standpoint.

Wisdom can grow out of non-wisdom. But if the human race dies out then wisdom has even less of a chance.

By the way, how do you know we have not colonized another planet already?

We may have already colonized another planet, but I have to work with what I know.

On your personal level, why are you worried?

My goal is the survival of wisdom. "Worried" is only a figure of speech.

What good does your concern in this matter do you or the big picture?

In top-level sporting events you will notice that unless a person really wants to win, generally they do not.

I have noticed that human beings, generally speaking, do not care if they survive as a species. They do not care if, a hundred years from now, the human race is no more. This is not good news so far as the survival of the human race is concerned.

What does any of this matter if we have no inherent existence?

Why does a plant grow if it has no inherent existence?

DHodges wrote:

Nordicvs wrote:So, as far as I'm concerned, the Natives provide the best example that I can find of a working human system---in my opinion, they lived Truth.

Man, this Noble Savagething just doesn't go away, does it?

I wouldn't know:

1. I've never read much of Rousseau (have never even heard of the "Noble Savage").

2. I never claimed Natives were "Noble Savages."

3. I never claimed they were "morally superior"---I know they weren't perfect (they're humans). But their way of life worked well for longer than the span of time in which the civilizations were raging and raping the lands from the Middle-East to Africa to Japan to Europe and England---fucking up the world.

4. What's your point? Are you roundaboutly mentioning that because you disagree, or were you just bored and looking for a debate?---or are you simply more comfortable viewing Natives as savages instead of honourable human beings who lived (yes) *in harmony* with their environment (was that article supposed to disprove that, or was it supposed to enlighten me as to how utterly horrible they really were and that I should start kissing every civilized person's ass from now on because we're so much better?), or what?

Leyla Shen wrote: To me, you answer your own question with this:

Quote:
Ancient man invented only that which he needed to live---he put his extra time into his art, music and children,…

Or, do you see a disconnect between ancient man and what you consider to be the unwisdom of his modern counterpart?

[Edit: emphasis.]

Yes, I suppose I did answer my own semi-rhetorical question there---good catch.

Well, much of modern man's "unwisdom" is evidenced by excessive needlessness; and just plain waste and excess (and of course general stupidity---lack of mental effort, in either side of the brain). Ancient man handed down wisdom generationally, what was known went from father to son, largely unspoken, sometimes through stories; I doubt it was so much "taught" as it was simply was "learned"---experiential, right brained learning...what we don't value today and how we don't teach our boys any longer (or more accurate: how we don't allow them to learn).

So, modern man---with no wisdom handed down by his father, no initiation into manhood, and being so feminized---has cool clothes and a kickass widescreen and stacks of dusty text books and thinks he's a grand example of humanity, the highest order of life on the planet---the "most evolved," the usual homocentricity; damn, he's a walking wonder, down-right divine, best thing since the big bang... but he's pale and flabby, drinks himself stupid every weekend to kill pain or boredom, is alienated from almost everyone around him and from himself, hates his life, hates his addictions, hates himself, lives in a box, goes to another box to work to collect paper rectangles to trade for things he used to find with his own hands . . . he's a technologically advanced womanly ape-man. Humans have not changed very much since Rome; men have adapted into specialized stations, with some reaching brilliance and, though fewer, genius, and women have hardly adapted to anything at all...

We're the same basic humans we were two (or three or four) thousand years ago. Yeah, we know more stuff---great, but reading does not replace intelligence; memorization is no replacement for wisdom. One person comes up with something that is creative and unique---and then everyone copies him and puts it on sale for $19.99---no wonder there's no original ideas anymore..."geez, no, we're sold out of those---I'm sorry, Sir. How about a battery-operated vagina instead?" Buddha gets enshrined into gold statues and Jesus gets put on a billion tiny, shiny crosses---something I'd be willing to bet neither would have approved of...

There is nothing wise about modern man---and his system, civilization, is working harder and harder to invent new ways of keeping him dumber and dumber---maybe what you mention above hits a key point in measuring how wise one is by how he spends his "free time," more than choices he makes, consciously or unconsciously or subconsciously or semi-consciously. What does an unwise person do after he's done everything he "has to" do? What does a wise man do with his extra time? (Again, I think the answer is the same as above.)

Kevin Solway wrote:

Cory Duchesne wrote:Modern man just seems so much more pathetic.

Not to me he doesn't. After hundreds of thousands of years the Australian aborigines never developed any science, surgeries, hospitals, space travel, or even writing of any note.

Why would they need any of that? Their way worked fine.

Science, surgeries, and hospitals have attributed to overpopulation as factors, more than any other single factor.

What good has overpopulation done this world?

Kevin Solway wrote:They were essentially living like wild animals - even more so than we are today, which is saying a lot.

More than that, the aboriginal "spiriitual" culture was so weak that as soon as it was confronted with modern culture from the West it immediately crumbled and aborigines everywhere reverted to dependence on alcohol, glue and petrol sniffing, and domestic violence for sustenance.

A genuine spiritual culture doesn't crumble so easily.

Based on what evidence?

So, if an 8-foot mammoth of a beast of a man, covered in armour from head to toe, spewing crap about God and hellfire and brimstone...walked up to you and started beating the hell out of you---that would mean that you're too weak spiritually?

What if your philosophy was non-violence, and that above happened? Still too weak spiritually?

Have you ever been sold something that didn't work? Have you ever been lied to by a government?

Do these mean that you're not genuinely spiritual?

Kevin Solway wrote:The human race is pretty much advanced enough for interplanetary travel, and yet we aren't intelligent enough to recognize the value of benevolence. We are a race of unconscious half-dead animals and insane maniacs. If alien species are anything like us then we have got serious problems.

I doubt humanity as a whole is ready for space exploration (colonization). We have not learned from our mistakes here---because as a species we have memory problems (collective attention defecit disorder?) and-or just don't give a shit about anything except that which enters our anal-retentively organized, tiny, meaningless little bubbles in which we live.

Nordicvs wrote:

Kevin Solway wrote:After hundreds of thousands of years the Australian aborigines never developed any science, surgeries, hospitals, space travel, or even writing of any note.

Why would they need any of that? Their way worked fine.

They are now dying out as a race, so their way didn't work fine. They were proven to be uncompetitive and unable to adapt to naturally changing circumstances.

Science, surgeries, and hospitals have attributed to overpopulation as factors, more than any other single factor.

What good has overpopulation done this world?

A large population can generate a large amount of wealth and creativity, which are important for colonizing space.

A very small population would have great difficulty in colonizing space, and would probably die out for the same reason as other small indigenous cultures.

A genuine spiritual culture doesn't crumble so easily.

Based on what evidence?

Reason and personal experience.

A person with genuine spiritual knowledge is not dependent on traditional lands, activities, social interactions, etc. Their strength comes from within.

Have you ever been sold something that didn't work? Have you ever been lied to by a government?

Do these mean that you're not genuinely spiritual?

Those who are spiritually defeated are spiritually weak.

Those who are wise do not expect the government to tell them the truth.

Kevin Solway wrote:I doubt humanity as a whole is ready for space exploration (colonization). We have not learned from our mistakes here.

It is a mistake to put all your eggs in one basket. That's the first mistake we need to stop making, and that's why we need to colonize other planets.

Kevin S wrote:I have noticed that human beings, generally speaking, do not care if they survive as a species. They do not care if, a hundred years from now, the human race is no more. This is not good news so far as the survival of the human race is concerned.

It's being wiped out by dementia, brought on by too much sex.

Kelly Jones wrote:It's being wiped out by dementia, brought on by too much sex.

How are you defining sex here? I don't suppose you mean just the act of intercourse, do you mean the range from intercourse to the "sex in advertising" technique of commercialism? Gendered mental activity? Or something else?

There is a fascinating book of far deeper insight than "Guns, Germs, and Steel":

"The Lucifer Principle" by Howard Bloom. It's on my lifetime top-10 list of books that have affected my worldview. Every chapter is a constellation of ideas in its own right. It peters out at the end when he tried to bring it to a conclusion, but well worth reading.

Kevin wrote:I have noticed that human beings, generally speaking, do not care if they survive as a species.

Kelly wrote:It's being wiped out by dementia, brought on by too much sex.

Elizabeth wrote:How are you defining sex here?

Too much sex = wanting to have sex = desire = lust = attachment
Too much booze = wanting something = desire = lust = attachment

but

Attachment to reason = interest in Non-attachment = thinking about Emptiness

leads to

Reality appears empty of attachments = constant mindfulness = not-dementia, not-suicidalism