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Originally posted by lonegurkha
It's human nature to be interested in gloom and doom. Like when there is a bad accident and you can't look away even though you know you should. People have always been this way. The people who say their not like this are lying. They just can't admit that they are as human as the rest.
Originally posted by AdAstra
Originally posted by lonegurkha
It's human nature to be interested in gloom and doom. Like when there is a bad accident and you can't look away even though you know you should. People have always been this way. The people who say their not like this are lying. They just can't admit that they are as human as the rest.
No, we are not lying.
If I know I will not be able to help, there is no money in the world that would make me look even in the general direction of an accident site. I am glad to say that most of my family and friends are the same.
You may not believe it, but that says more about you than about us, and it's your problem, not mine.
OP, the reason that so many people feel a certain "happiness" or at least excitement when some major catastrophe is going on - or when there is talk of impending doom for the planet, for that matter - is basically quite simple. They want something to disrupt their daily lives to such a degree that the usual "laws" and expectations - and bureaucratic burdens - do not apply anymore. It has nothing whatsoever to do with "entertainment", pure and simple; and I agree, totally, with another poster who does not believe it's about pleasure in seeing others suffer. If anything, it is the opposite of that: it is the hope that something will finally throw the world - a place of misery to many (or so they think) - off course, so that a new world, a new way of life, could emerge.
It is an ancient phenomenon, too.
Search for "apocaliptic joy", you'll see. :-)
edit on 16-4-2011 by AdAstra because: (no reason given)
If I know I will not be able to help, there is no money in the world that would make me look even in the general direction of an accident site. I am glad to say that most of my family and friends are the same.
You may not believe it, but that says more about you than about us, and it's your problem, not mine.
Originally posted by AdAstra
OP, the reason that so many people feel a certain "happiness" or at least excitement when some major catastrophe is going on - or when there is talk of impending doom for the planet, for that matter - is basically quite simple. They want something to disrupt their daily lives to such a degree that the usual "laws" and expectations - and bureaucratic burdens - do not apply anymore. It has nothing whatsoever to do with "entertainment", pure and simple; and I agree, totally, with another poster who does not believe it's about pleasure in seeing others suffer. If anything, it is the opposite of that: it is the hope that something will finally throw the world - a place of misery to many (or so they think) - off course, so that a new world, a new way of life, could emerge.