I take it on both fronts Bernie. I suggest that the blood
drive will have a trivial impact on the immediate crisis,
but that the emotional appeal could be used to build up
what is generally agreed to be a shortage in the blood banks.
I doubt frankly that it will lead to a global economic panic,
and I doubt that we will see another tragedy on such a vast
scale. but on both counts, the steps to mitigate the impact
on a personal, family, or local community scale are trivially
low. People spend more on life insurance every month than I
have suggested might be spent once, for the indefinate future.
Besides, they have actually developed the technology to make
artificial blood, which has none of the viral or ph hazards
of normal blood. We'd do well to ramp up that production. It
will be stable in storage.
But if the Red Cross, or any organization can make emotional
appeals, so can any terrorist group. They are the flip sides
of the same coin. Likewise, if there are fundamentalist faiths
which rely on sacred text rather than reason to motivate their
people, there will be among them demogogues and others who will
distort that message to their own demented ends. This is not
to say that the fundamentalist faithful are evil or likely to
be terrorist, only to say that we have never seen a religion
so based which did not produce among it's ranks such dementia.
You and your culture are either going to be rational or you are
not. There are many kinds of irrationality, but only one kind
of sane. Likewise, we all know that the computer demands very
high degrees of rationality to function. It provides another
metaphor as well.
You can take a complex argument or program, and if you were to
sit on a pew and listen to it read out, it might make sense.
but were you to sit down and parse it out carefully in ascii,
as we do here routinely, then the flaws in the logic can be
made obvious. The Fundamentalist religions all make statements
which placed in forums like this do not hold up very well. In
as much as their cosmologies were all developed from pulpits,
and crafted to meet the emotional needs of the congregation, it
is not suprising that they lack rationality. No one ever stands
up in the congregation to challenge an unsupported premise from
the pulpit. I note that these kinds of challenges appear in the
philosophy debates of the Greeks and Romans.
> Racist? Hmm... sounds like you are close to stepping over the border to one
> there. You are assuming that this is the case. The most protests against
> the global market are in the "western" world.
Protest organizers do everything they can to prevent violence
and harm to innocents. The terrorists, be they in Africa, the
middle East, Northern Ireland, Indonesia, or anywhere else in
a long history, routinely maim and murder. The protest organizers
you refer to come out of the liberal western tradition, rarely
if ever out of the fundamentalist religions. We see the same kind
of fundamentalist attitude in the bombing of abortion clinics.
I doubt that you will find a single abortion clinic which was
the target of terrorism which was in a minority community. Why
is that, if not racism?
> Exactly what do you mean with "macho"?
Let me refer to the field studies of primates. The alpha males
are the ones on the front lines defending the territory. They
have low seratonin levels, and dont sleep well. They tend to be
grouchy in the morning, but were alert enough at night to warn
the tribe of prowling cats.
When aroused to anger, when their blood is up, they can fight
on the line and be utterly oblivious to pain of injury which
they might suffer,... or inflict. This detachment affects the
ability to relate to others. They do not feel the pain of any
other. The beta males are the same size as the alphas, and have
the intuitive skill to read the emotional state of the alpha
before he strikes out, so as to ward off the blow.
In normal tribal life, given his druthers, an alpha with an
aggressive impulse will prefer to strike out at a beta. but
if none are present, why then the wife and kids will do. The
alphas do not really understand the motivation of others, and
therefore rely on the one thing which they do understand: the
use and threats of violence. The macho alpha is the guy who
cannot handle it when a female will not submit to his will,
or chooses to relate to another male.
The macho cosmology and culture is built around the idea of
controlling women. The macho cosmology tries to have all women
pregnant and as dependant as possible. The demogogues all well
understand that as the birth rate goes up so does their own
power at the voting booth. Since the cosmology is based not on
reason, but blind faith in a sacred text, there is no hope that
they can expand their power base by rational persuasion.
The cosmologies are known for their passion and emotional appeal.
To the extent that the modern global economy and the New World
Order uses those same tools in it's materialist propaganda and
advertising, they will be less successful, and incline people to
accept alternative passion plays as just as valid.
If I can stay on topic here, let me point out how critical the
computer and the communication which it enables is in this whole
process of reaching a consensus on what should be done. First of
all, 'consensus' by definition excludes the lunatic fringe and
fails to offer it justification of despicability. There is no
claim of divine truth in our comments and debates. There is no
'divine revelation' which can be used to justify despicability.
You can parse out all of the above, a line at a time, and see
to what extent the paragraphs make coherent points. Unlike a
sacred text, you can offer modifications, and if they make more
sense, they will be accepted on that basis. It is a lot like
coding sofware; you run it, and see where it crashes, and bit
by bit it moves thru the betas until you've got something which
works reliably.
Religous traditions based on a divine text dont care for that
system. Much of that tradition was based on pandering to the
proclivities of the warrior class, offering justification for
violence. That violence has been used to select many of the
political leaders. Not that Maoist or Stalinist leaders have
not been selected on the same basis, but they at least did not
claim they were doing so in the name of God. But in any case,
threats of violence dont work to suppress ideas on the nets
any more, and the warrior class which has used control over
the flow of information to stay in power- are loosing their
grip. And what the primate studies show, was that grip was
mostly used to control the bodies of fertile females.
But now, here, we have the powers of reason, which are not
controlled by threats of violence. The Greeks said that if
horses ran everything, the gods would be horses. But now, if
everything is run by consensus derived out of rational debate,
what does that do to the concept of the diety? Whatever it is,
it is not the typical tryant vision of fundamentalist religions.
And among those cosmologies are zealots who will do anything
they can in a futile attempt to stop the process. Ironically,
what will result is that others will see all this for what it
is, and weaken the support from their faithful brethren.
There is a cosmological synergy between computers, consensus,
and the concept of the deity.
>
> >One thing I recommend at this
> >point is to download antenna and ham radio software
> >and documentation. Even if it gets so bad that the
> >internet goes down, a wireless network can be built on
> >the rubble of recycled computer and electronic parts.
>
> Unrealistic that something like that will happen. If something really goes
> wrong you'll probably need to get in contact with people relativly close to
> you, assuming others will use something as complicated as that in a crisis
> situation is unlikely IMHO.
>
> >There may be other events requiring blood plasma. That
> >will be more important than trying to help the victims
> >of the current disasters.
>
> So you think we should store our blood (and blood plasma) for a while in
> case something even worse happens? Since your body will create new blood
> (and plasma) in a few weeks time it would be better to help out now. On
> what ground do you deny the victims of this attack help? Are they not
> worthy of your efforts?
>
> BTW: Thinking this was bad? Picture that they had set out to hit nuclear
> plants instead. Only one good hit on one would be much more devastating.
> //Bernie
>
> To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
> unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message.
> Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies.
> More info can be found at;
> http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message.
Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies.
More info can be found at;
http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
