Is A Crying Baby Alive?

[Nick_A]

http://illinoisleader.com/columnists/colum...view.asp?c=8744 (http://illinoisleader.com/columnists/columnistsview.asp?c=8744)

As I type this there is a forty gallon fresh water aguarium not far from me. When I first set it up, along with other fish I bought five healthy young angelfish. Now nature has taken its course and these angels have easily become the largest fish and two have paired off and the female just spawned for the third time. Angelfish mate for life. Now these very young fish are beginning to get the hang of it and she has become a tyrant chasing everything else away from her corner. The male does also but she's got more conviction. She has so impressed me with her dedication though her young must be eaten that later this week I'm going to buy a twenty gallon setup strictly for them since this pair can no longer be lived with for the next year or so. They are that protective. Don't have the heart to give away such beautiful fish so I'm stuck with selling baby angelfish every month or so for a while at least as she spawns every month.

I've read the article and watch my angelfish. Something's wrong someplace.

[Common Sense]

How is this a Politics & Social Issues topic?

[Nick_A]

At one time it was actually believed, and maybe it was true for a time, that social issues represented something of the genuine nature of man that understood the efects of vanity. It just strikes me that we are the only species that either feeds off its young or destroys its young for the purpose of vanity. Its not a stretch to ask if vanity itself represents the needs of the collective human being that society is supposed to theoretically represent.

The anglefish eats bad eggs or deformed fry and the like through some form of objective standards in conjunction with the quality of the gene pool. We make these same determinations for reasons of vanity. The views of what Mary thinks, cash flow, attraction to opposite sex, nuisance factor and the like disturb our opinion of ourselves and the value of life making this vanity often the largest factor in determining sociatal values.

So, being a bit of an idealist, I had one of those moments of weakness when I wondered if it were possible that the striving to understand and value the purpose of life itself may actually be more important than the striving for a satisfied vanity. Experience has lead me to believe that it cannot happen other than for a small minority. Vanity will rule and living and dying will inevitably return to be based on how it fits into personal vanity. Societie's values will have to reflect that as is obvious in the hypocrisy of the entertainment media.

Of course such questions should be part of personal individual understanding based upon something other than vanity. We are incapable of it, giving ourselves over to "experts" to think for us so it becomes a societal and moral issue and bombs in that setting as well.

Actually, I would say that such questions really don't belong anywhere from a truly human perspective since they really aren't human questions. Such questions as the striving to understand life and its purpose are now related to the distortion of what one time was uniquely human. The questions have been reduced to arguing if one form of vanity is more acceptable than another. Vanity, being a learned quality, is not essentially human yet decides the deepest of all human questions.

But why argue? These questions of vanity produce many opinions by genuine "experts" who write books that sell and all sorts of conflicting attitudes are created that spur the economy on exchanging dollars in the process of justifying all this vanity.

[vicente]

At one time it was actually believed, and maybe it was true for a time, that social issues represented something of the genuine nature of man that understood the efects of vanity

"the more deeply I search for the roots of our global environmental crisis, the more I am convinced that it is an outer manifestation of an inner crisis that is, for the lack of a better word, spiritual". Al Gore, Earth in the Balance, 1992

In regards to abortion I like how a bumper-sticker summarized it:

ANTI-ABORTION
GET A VASECTOMY

:)

[Nick_A]

"the more deeply I search for the roots of our global environmental crisis, the more I am convinced that it is an outer manifestation of an inner crisis that is, for the lack of a better word, spiritual". Al Gore, Earth in the Balance, 1992

It is one thing to say it and quite another to "understand" it especially in yourself.

In regards to abortion I like how a bumper-sticker summarized it:

ANTI-ABORTION
GET A VASECTOMY

This is a perfect example. The whole cycle of life is regarded cheaply. If a person begins to see in themselves why such statements are seen as humorous, it is extremely enlightening.

[venom mama]

such a sad damn world we live in

what the hell is wrong with us?







sooner or later we will self destruct, it's already in the making.

[NeverMind]

Amrageddon is already in the making.
I suspect the world will end sometime within the next 4 years.

Which is a pity, because life for me is pretty damn good.

[beesting42]

sooner or later we will self destruct, it's already in the making.

Amrageddon is already in the making.
I suspect the world will end sometime within the next 4 years.

Which is a pity, because life for me is pretty damn good.

scary huh?

[NeverMind]

Its pretty damn scary.
http://www.csicop.org/si/9901/apocalypse.gif

[pnklphnts]

i think we can crank out another 100 years, but then we are through. works for me, but what oh what will happen to al lthose reincarnated souls?

[NeverMind]

the world could possibly get better

with education ignorance and hatred could fade away and we could all live in harmony where the only crimes would be necessary to survival. Laws would all make sense, people would work hard for themselves and their families, religion would be obliterated by reason....

or we could just explode

a post-apocalyptic humanity marred by radioactivity, grotesquely mutated, spawning more and more disgusting "homo sapiens sapiens" and then dying soon thereafter. Mental illness would be a way of life. All memories of the previous world would soon die and the "people" living in the shells of the previous glory of the 21st century would revert to a rudimentary worship of a giant God that built the wonderful buildings they inhabit. They would die off shortly and humanity would be lost forever, devoured by animals driven mad by man's incompetence.