Schadenfreude.

reply to post by Doc Velocity


That is an interesting theory you got here.

Unfortunately I'm hurt quite a lot by my own stupidity and that of others.
Except for 1 experience I never stopped laughing. The best laughs I get when I see it coming before it happens.

So it is a personal thing. Without clear boundaries. Why do we imagine the boundaries then ? Which are again a personal thing.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


I'm not required to have any empathy for others.

What's that quote from Natural Born Killers (it's Woody Harrelson talking) "I was born into a flaming pool of (excrement), forgotten by God..." (I think that's where the quote is from, anyways)...

The universe has never had any empathy for me. Like Andy Warhol said, "Being born is like being kidnapped, and sold into slavery..."

Life is so beautiful, but no matter how happy you are, you don't get to stay that happy...no matter how much you love something, you don't get to keep it...Everything gets taken away, and then I will be annihilated.

The feelings of others are no big deal, because the universe ain't run on the basis of their feelings, any more than it's run on the basis of my feelings...Let them take their chances, and look out for themselves, and pick their way through the ruins, the same way I have to...

(But I do cry over sad songs...)

reply to post by nine-eyed-eel


No you are not required to have empathy.

I think life is for a part what you make of it. You sow what you seed so to say.
You probably want to be loved which requires you to love.

Happiness will never last you say. It makes sense. If you never felt pain, grief, regret how will you know happiness ? If you did know it would become a drag, I think.

Although I personally don't care about other peoples feelings ( except those I love )
I do feel empathy and my gut feeling tells me love and kindness are the way to go.

I've read about you feeling better then poor people. I'm interested how you came to this point. Because of experiences or have you always felt like it ? If you don't mind sharing.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


I am poor, dude.
I was talking about people in general, not comparing myself to others.
I am too arrogant to be competitive, you know what I mean?

reply to post by nine-eyed-eel


Yes actually. I know what you mean.

I've read the following reply to.
I'm not competitive either.

So your attitude is more like survival of the fittest ?

Edit :
Not that I'm arrogant. I just don't see the use of it. Competition can be fun but it is more or less the cause of all the misery in the world.

[edit on 6/14/2010 by Sinter Klaas]

reply to post by Sinter Klaas

My attitude is most like...it's bad to imagine yourself as a victim, as a lump, as an object, as done-to...it's better to be a verb, to be in-process, if something is wrong, I would rather find a way that it is my fault, because I can change things that are my fault...survival-of-the-fittest as a worldview has that personal element of change and potential, it can be used to elevate my will, and all I can control in this life is my will...

Did I express that comprehensibly?

I mean, I've seen some of the most somber and UNFUNNY video clips, and I still catch myself huffing incredulously, "WHAT a dumbass!"

Aside from the black market snuff flicks out there, the coldest clip I've seen is one of a scuba cameraman inadvertently recording his own death due to a bad air mix.

At a relatively shallow depth of maybe 70 feet, the schmuck starts to realize something is wrong, but by then he's already suffering from bad judgement, and he starts tearing off his scuba gear — like somebody tearing off his clothes because he's suffocating, right. His camera and audio gear capture the frantic last few moments, the futile gasps, the muffled yelps and shrieks.... shudder.

Having drowned once myself, I don't find it at all funny, but I was still half-grinning in disbelief. WHAT a dumbass!! I kept thinking. "WTF?? Why don't you just drop the camera and head for the surface?" I kept asking the video. Yeah, I even laughed in exasperation, "You have GOT to be kidding me!"

I guess I didn't want to believe what I was seeing.

I think they use this guy's death as a training film for scuba divers now, and I'm pretty sure nobody in that class is laughing.

— Doc Velocity

Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
Competition can be fun but it is more or less the cause of all the misery in the world.

Competition — and I mean violent competition — is the reason that we're here as a species, with our current higher brain, our current technology, our current civilization. Violence and warfare, the ultimate competition, shaped our brains, made us the cunning, clever apes that we are.

Peace is an illusion that humankind has never known. All we've really known are the brief lulls between wars, and we erroneously call that "peace"... It's not.

In a blissful, competition-free world, humans would never have evolved. Something bigger and meaner would have inherited the planet. Like hedgehogs.

— Doc Velocity

Originally posted by Doc Velocity

Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
Competition can be fun but it is more or less the cause of all the misery in the world.

Competition — and I mean violent competition — is the reason that we're here as a species, with our current higher brain, our current technology, our current civilization. Violence and warfare, the ultimate competition, shaped our brains, made us the cunning, clever apes that we are.

Peace is an illusion that humankind has never known. All we've really known are the brief lulls between wars, and we erroneously call that "peace"... It's not.

In a blissful, competition-free world, humans would never have evolved. Something bigger and meaner would have inherited the planet. Like hedgehogs.

— Doc Velocity

And yet I've seen you speak against racism...?
Help a brother out.

But wait...way off topic...

[edit on 14-6-2010 by nine-eyed-eel]

reply to post by nine-eyed-eel


Yes you did.

Unfortunately life isn't always that simple. But I think it a good ideology to live by.
Have you ever read the rules of levey's Satanism ? No not about worshiping the devil but yourself. Really if you didn't google.

thanks

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


Oh yeah, I got devil tattoos all over my body...LaVey's good but not great...but he does say some obviously correct things, which were not said so much before...

reply to post by Doc Velocity


You are absolutely right but I'm hoping that the next step will be peace. There is no need for violence. Especially in an era that only technological advances are made.

The Sun is rumbling. A well aimed solar blast will make an end to all of our advanced technology.

As we now have reached a point that peace and cooperation will be the best way to survive.

When 70.000 years ago mankind nearly got extinct do you think that they realized ?
I'm pretty sure they didn't go to war amongst themselves cause we are still here.
Data showed a decline to only 2000 individuals.

A very bad emotion indeed. But all too human.

When we recognize it in ourselves, we shoud combat it if possible. But I suppose in some circumstances it can be valuable in bolstering low confidance.

Originally posted by nine-eyed-eel
And yet I've seen you speak against racism...? Help a brother out. But wait...way off topic...

No, no, it's germane to this thread, I think.

You've seen me define racism before, no doubt; in doing so, I always endeavor to make this point: Anyone who uses racism to further his personal and political agendas is a racist.

This necessarily includes groups like the Aryan Nation and the KKK, but it also includes those sneaky little bastards such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters, the NAACP, the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam and all those other "progressive" black groups who believe they are entitled to exercise their racism freely in a climate of white guilt. It also includes those insidious Hispanic activists and groups who are trying to turn the issue of border security into a race war, which it isn't.

Interestingly enough, my definition indicts the entire human species of racism, although I'm not sure that "indict" is the appropriate term.

Suffice to say, Humans are, by nature, a territorial species, and are inherently "racist"... Nobody gets to ride in the front of my bus.

The most twisted of all racists, I think, are these lofty social architects and behavioral strategists who think racism can be eliminated by reason. Which is like arguing that flatulence can be eliminated by square-dancing. It's nonsense, it's a lie. Both farting and racism are perfectly natural functions of the Human species.

The social architects and behavioral strategists believe — and I mean believe, like a religion — that by "curing" our minds of racism, we'll be on the doorstep of peace and global harmony and all that other bilious BS. But, you see, they're proceeding from a false premise — there's no such thing as "peace" in Nature nor in the entire Universe. The only way humans will ever achieve "peace" by the Utopian definition is if we devolve into molluscs or something. Our species and "peace" don't go together at all.

— Doc Velocity

reply to post by Doc Velocity


How are we on "might makes right"?
Yes or no?

Originally posted by nine-eyed-eel
How are we on "might makes right"? Yes or no?

Might (superior intellect, superior morals, superior strength, superior firepower) wins every time in my book. Survival of the fittest. Big thumbs up.

— Doc Velocity

reply to post by Doc Velocity


Thank you for answering...this was fun...I suspect we are in fundamental agreement, and I have misjudged you...and good luck with your health issues, and allow me to offer encouragement on the anti-smoking as follows...I am self-indulgent, and all, plenty, but I quit smoking four years ago, and I haven't backslid even once...it is so doable...I was smoking them nasty flavored Primetimes, once I stopped, you should have seen what I coughed up... it looked like macaroni...

reply to post by Doc Velocity


I've got to say.

You have a very real perception of reality IMO. And I absolutely agree with you for the most part.
I assume you are not religious. ( Correct me if I'm wrong )

Evolution is also part of your basis. Since you bring up fundamental human characteristics. Evolution means to adapt. Why should man not adapt to a peaceful coexistence ?

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


The thing about peaceful coexistence is...you can't be nice to everybody...you always have to be good on one hand, and do bad with your other hand...otherwise nothing happens, you're already dead...like that Talking Heads song Heaven...Heaven is a place...a place where nothing...nothing ever happens...If Jesus is nice to everybody, there is no reason to be nice to him...he'll be nice to me anyway...You always have to reward and punish...and that's not peaceful coexistence, right?

Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
I assume you are not religious. ( Correct me if I'm wrong )

I lean toward spirituality and have explored the precepts of many religions — including atheism, which I thought I was practicing for about 20 years. I have a background in Science and Journalism, but I'm also very much right-brained, given to artistic pursuits and a fascination with the miraculous.

Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
Evolution means to adapt. Why should man not adapt to a peaceful coexistence ?

I don't think Man (Homo sapiens) has ever adapted to anything.

We can look back at the pre-human hominids that stomped around the globe for hundreds of thousands of years in apparent peace and harmony with their environment. The Neanderthal, for example, who were incredibly adaptable, learned how to thrive for 200 millennia in the midst of Ice Age Europe. These were not dumb animals — their brains were larger than ours, their bodies many times more durable than ours, they had a social order, perhaps a spoken language, and perhaps a reverence for things spiritual.

Neanderthal maintained their balance with Nature for 200,000 years. Then, about 35,000 years ago, Homo sapiens waltzed into Europe, and Neanderthal disappeared.

Given what we know of Homo sapiens' territoriality and penchant for war, I'm guessing that we killed off Neanderthal. I'm not one of those who thinks we interbred with them.

Since that time, Homo sapiens has continued on his warrior path right up to the present, making the same mistakes, waging the same tedious wars over and over (for the same property, no less), for thousands and thousands of years. We abuse our resources, we're so out of touch with Nature that we don't know HOW to live in harmony with it, and so we proceed much as Agent Smith described us in The Matrix: That humanity is some kind of virus, some kind of cancer that cannot adapt, so we conquer, instead.

Neanderthal succeeded, unchanged, for 200,000 years. Regrettably or not, Homo sapiens is on the verge of self-extinction

EVERY. FEKKING. DAY.

No, I don't think we are capable of rising above our territoriality and our violent nature. If we were, then we'd be a different, longer-lived species.

— Doc Velocity






[edit on 6/14/2010 by Doc Velocity]