Questions answered in order received
Mar. 31st, 2008 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_fantastic_ms_foxThe first four questions.
You have five days left to ask.
1. Are you an optimist or pessimist?
Short Answer: Increasingly optimistic. Slightly, but more healthily, pessimistic.
Long Answer: Since I am capable of both, this is hard to answer, as it involves finding a middle ground in an ordinal variable. It's like asking if the Federal Liberal Party is right or left of centre.
I can tell you that I am much more optimistic than I was, in some respects. And generally less pessimistic. I understood that it was bad for me for much the same reasons as written here. I can still anticipate bad things coming, but they do not depress me as much, and so I do not anticipate them as much.
2. Is our civilization, as we know it, going to survive another 100 years?
Short: Absolutely not.
Long: It's not possible. Civilizations are the unification of cultures intertwined about material circumstances. It is not physically possible to continue our current rate of consumption without radically altering both our culture and our planet. And on top of this we use on a growth-based economy that relies on more consumption each year.
Societies are often fonuded upon massive change in the response to crises. And this is what will happen.
If we're wise, it will be the kind of change that comes out of foresight, and the product will be a society with its founding values rooted in considering the large-scale, long-term, consequences of our actions.
If we're foolish, it will be the kind of chage that comes because it's too late to explore any other alternative, and the next iteration will grow out of a social order that relies on desperate, violent measures..
3. What is your opinion of religion? Good, bad? Should it stay, should it go? If it goes will there be trou- okay I'll stop.
Short: No short answer
4. Are you going to feel alienated by the beach this year?
Short: Yes, but I have a way around it.
Long:
- I want to go swimming, but may still be recovering from a big ol' cut across my scalp.
- I could get arrested no matter which changeroom I go into. And if I'm in the women's room, the charges could stick.
- If I wear a women's bottom swimsuit, or no bottom, I get outed kinda fast,
The looks I got from people last year on the island when I combined trunks and a women's top made me pretty uncomfortable. If I removed the top I would be asked to leave. If I wear a woman's bottom, I get outed, and I don't want to know how people would react to that.
Solution: Wreck beach is full of hippies. Go there. Wear only trunks and a top or no top. Wait until head is fully healed before immersion.
*as in "what is is what can be touched," not as in "greed"
You have five days left to ask.
1. Are you an optimist or pessimist?
Short Answer: Increasingly optimistic. Slightly, but more healthily, pessimistic.
Long Answer: Since I am capable of both, this is hard to answer, as it involves finding a middle ground in an ordinal variable. It's like asking if the Federal Liberal Party is right or left of centre.
I can tell you that I am much more optimistic than I was, in some respects. And generally less pessimistic. I understood that it was bad for me for much the same reasons as written here. I can still anticipate bad things coming, but they do not depress me as much, and so I do not anticipate them as much.
2. Is our civilization, as we know it, going to survive another 100 years?
Short: Absolutely not.
Long: It's not possible. Civilizations are the unification of cultures intertwined about material circumstances. It is not physically possible to continue our current rate of consumption without radically altering both our culture and our planet. And on top of this we use on a growth-based economy that relies on more consumption each year.
Societies are often fonuded upon massive change in the response to crises. And this is what will happen.
If we're wise, it will be the kind of change that comes out of foresight, and the product will be a society with its founding values rooted in considering the large-scale, long-term, consequences of our actions.
If we're foolish, it will be the kind of chage that comes because it's too late to explore any other alternative, and the next iteration will grow out of a social order that relies on desperate, violent measures..
3. What is your opinion of religion? Good, bad? Should it stay, should it go? If it goes will there be trou- okay I'll stop.
Short: No short answer
Long: In my experience, "religion" describes some of the more psychologically intense methods of social and material reinforcements of a given societal paradigm. You can't get rid of it. You could try, but not only is it a fundamental human need, you would not be able to convince people that it's worthwhile, since, without religion as defined here, you would be cutting yourself off from the most intense means of persuasion.
Our society uses religion to refer to the ways that non-modernist paradigms reinforce themselves, often in contrast to rationalism, empiricism, materialism*, specialization and individualism. It's a component in running an alternate society, in part or in whole. It's as good or as bad as what it promotes and what it does to promote it.
One of the reasons that non-modernist religion is popular, is that it can provide things where a modernist culture often fails:
- Socially sanctioned and applicable leaps of intuiton and ecstatic states
- The feeling that day-to-day existence has instrinsic meaning
- Meaning attached to pleasurable and painful experiences
- The legitimation and reinforement of a moral code
- Participation in affecting your world
- Community in both an emotional and material sense
In these respects, it is a good thing.
Our society uses religion to refer to the ways that non-modernist paradigms reinforce themselves, often in contrast to rationalism, empiricism, materialism*, specialization and individualism. It's a component in running an alternate society, in part or in whole. It's as good or as bad as what it promotes and what it does to promote it.
One of the reasons that non-modernist religion is popular, is that it can provide things where a modernist culture often fails:
- Socially sanctioned and applicable leaps of intuiton and ecstatic states
- The feeling that day-to-day existence has instrinsic meaning
- Meaning attached to pleasurable and painful experiences
- The legitimation and reinforement of a moral code
- Participation in affecting your world
- Community in both an emotional and material sense
In these respects, it is a good thing.
4. Are you going to feel alienated by the beach this year?
Short: Yes, but I have a way around it.
Long:
- I want to go swimming, but may still be recovering from a big ol' cut across my scalp.
- I could get arrested no matter which changeroom I go into. And if I'm in the women's room, the charges could stick.
- If I wear a women's bottom swimsuit, or no bottom, I get outed kinda fast,
The looks I got from people last year on the island when I combined trunks and a women's top made me pretty uncomfortable. If I removed the top I would be asked to leave. If I wear a woman's bottom, I get outed, and I don't want to know how people would react to that.
Solution: Wreck beach is full of hippies. Go there. Wear only trunks and a top or no top. Wait until head is fully healed before immersion.
*as in "what is is what can be touched," not as in "greed"