GENIUS FORUMS

Hey guys, I just stumbled on this forum and I think I'll start off with an idea of mine...

You can find the whole text here, please read before commenting

The basic premise is that struggle, conflict, and pain are absolutely necessary conditions of our existence. In spite of pain, under the right conditions humans can produce tolerable conditions and even leisure. It is from these special conditions, which rest on the back of everyone else's pain and suffering, that the highest achievements of mankind are made manifest (art and philosophy and scientific exploration, etc.). The story in the link illustrates the relationship between human suffering and ingenuity which creates the conditions for the flowering of mankind's virtues.

A giant cylindrical pit, reaching upwards eternally,

How does a pit reach? How does an object extend eternally; this signifies ever-growing.

and every soul who has ever existed

...every soul which... (not who).

is thrown into it.

Every soul in every world in the universe, or, only those on Earth?

At first it was chaotic:

It meaning the pit itself? That is what you just indicated by 'it'.

everyone clambered for the top,

How can any soul ever even hope to attain the top of a pit "reaching upward eternally"?

pulling others down in order to push themselves up. People screaming in pain, clawing in desperation, contorted, eternally struggling, and rarely achieving the fresh air on top (and even then it usually didn’t last long).

Your metaphor has already failed, and now you dramatize the impossible with feverish detail.

So it went for millenia, the endless struggle and limited satisfaction,

You characterize the rare achievement of fresh air "limited satisfaction"? That's weak.

the crushing weight, the gravity and the eternal pulling.

"Eternal pulling... for millenia" doesn't work as a literary device.

Some resigned themselves to the bottom, some struggled continuously, and no one was free from the wrenching pain.

After a long time of struggling in this way, some of the souls near the top had an idea: what if we braced ourselves along the wall? If a large group formed a ring around the outer wall, they could all support one another, and all enjoy the fresh air of the top. So the topmost souls did this, the ones beneath them cooperating because they recognized the possibility of eventually being a part of this ring. The souls on the outside underneath the original ring also formed a circular brace along the wall, and the souls within that circle climbed up and formed a ring on top of the original one.

An eternally tall stack of souls. Hmm, might work. Wait, you spoke of crushing weight and gravity. How much do souls weigh, anyway? And don't souls kind of float? Why all the climbing?

They proceeded this way until millions of souls had aligned themselves against the walls.

All the souls which have ever lived is only millions?

There were disasters: many would fall into the middle, bitter or uncooperative souls would try and tear the whole structure down, or large groups would become complacent and allow the intricate, intimate ring to fall apart through lack of maintenance and vigilance (taking their enviable position for granted or forgetting the pain of the pit and actually thinking it was preferable) . This never disturbed the continuous building and rebuilding of the outer wall, though.

And while the wall stood, those on it could continuously breath the cool fresh air,

The cool fresh air wafting down from the top of an eternally tall pit? Must be hella wide.

and enjoy the close companionship of their fellow souls, and talk and laugh and relax.

Wait, that's exactly how the Illuminati think and act, standing on the backs of the world's billions, reaping the luxuries and the leisure.

They were as free as they could be, and they were as happy as they could be too. These poor sufferers had built a heaven on the back of perdition.

I think the Illuminati have built hell on the back of heaven, actually. World was a decent place before all the climbing, whether organized or not, started.

By the way, you misspelled "Existence" in your thread title.

Welcome to the board.

Hi Arthor, it's an interesting vision you wrote there, especially the first paragraph with all the Nietzschean drama! Are you arguing for the strength of the social safety net that's the backbone of the tribal, networked cooperative mode of primates, on a larger scale further developed by homo sapiens?

There are some shades of fullerines here (buckyballs, after Richard Buckminster Fuller) which sometimes are used as the illustration of the tendency of natural processes to form structures of optimal strength through even spaced out interconnections.

Your article seems very anthropocentric though, it implies a "top" that is reached or can be reached and that many don't make "it" and stay at the bottom. Especially organisms that do not organize themselves. There's a value system, possibly cultural, inside this view that should be noted.

Do ant colonies fit in your story too? Bee hives? Are the ones drifting on top as you say where they" talk and laugh and relax" really in heaven? What if they're deluded and just enjoying their beliefs like a heroin junkie at the bottom would feel, during his trip at least.

Bottom line is the question: how are you defining your top? Diminishing of suffering? Consciousness? Loads of free time to spare?