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Tinalles
Site Admin
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
Posts: 1630
Location: Grand Forks
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 Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 1:29 am Post subject: |
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"If Con is the opposite of Pro, that means the opposite of Progress is Congress." -- Murphy's Laws of Politics
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Keeper of The Remnant Minuon (cognomen Lucy, the Eaten One) and the Emissary Caeli |
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Nem
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 2111
Location: England
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| Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 3:14 am Post subject: |
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Rather long but I found it quite a nice presentation of the idea:
Blindsight; Peter Watts, (2006)
| Quote: | Once there were three tribes. The Optimists, whose patron saints were Drake and Sagan, believed in a universe crawling with gentle intelligence — spiritual brethren vaster and more enlightened than we, a great galactic siblinghood into whose ranks we would someday ascend. Surely, said the Optimists, space travel implies enlightenment, for it requires the control of great destructive energies. Any race which can't rise above its own brutal instincts will wipe itself out long before it learns to bridge the interstellar gulf.
Across from the Optimists sat the Pessimists, who genuflected before graven images of Saint Fermi and a host of lesser lightweights. The Pessimists envisioned a lonely universe full of dead rocks and prokaryotic slime. The odds are just too low, they insisted. Too many rogues, too much radiation, too much eccentricity in too many orbits. It is a surpassing miracle that even one Earth exists; to hope for many is to abandon reason and embrace religious mania. After all, the universe is fourteen billion years old: if the galaxy were alive with intelligence, wouldn't it be here by now?
Equidistant to the other two tribes sat the Historians. They didn't have too many thoughts on the probable prevalence of intelligent, spacefaring extraterrestrials — but if there are any, they said, they're not just going to be smart. They're going to be mean.
It might seem almost too obvious a conclusion. What is Human history, if not an on going succession of greater technologies grinding lesser ones beneath their boots? But the subject wasn't merely Human history, or the unfair advantage that tools gave to any given side; the oppressed snatch up advanced weaponry as readily as the oppressor, given half a chance. No, the real issue was how those tools got there in the first place. The real issue was what tools are for.
To the Historians, tools existed for only one reason: to force the universe into unnatural shapes. They treated nature as an enemy, they were by definition a rebellion against the way things were. Technology is a stunted thing in benign environments, it never thrived in any culture gripped by belief in natural harmony. Why invent fusion reactors if your climate is comfortable, if your food is abundant? Why build fortresses if you have no enemies? Why force change upon a world which poses no threat?
Human civilization had a lot of branches, not so long ago. Even into the twenty-first century, a few isolated tribes had barely developed stone tools. Some settled down with agriculture. Others weren't content until they had ended nature itself, still others until they'd built cities in space. We all rested eventually, though. Each new technology trampled lesser ones, climbed to some complacent asymptote, and stopped — until my own mother packed herself away like a larva in honeycomb, softened by machinery, robbed of incentive by her own contentment.
But history never said that everyone had to stop where we did. It only suggested that those who had stopped no longer struggled for existence. There could be other, more hellish worlds where the best Human technology would crumble, where the environment was still the enemy, where the only survivors were those who fought back with sharper tools and stronger empires. The threats contained in those environments would not be simple ones. Harsh weather and natural disasters either kill you or they don't, and once conquered — or adapted to — they lose their relevance. No, the only environmental factors that continued to matter were those that fought back, that countered new strategies with newer ones, that forced their enemies to scale ever-greater heights just to stay alive.
Ultimately, the only enemy that mattered was an intelligent one.
And if the best toys do end up in the hands of those who've never forgotten that life itself is an act of war against intelligent opponents, what does that say about a race whose machines travel between the stars? |
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Never forget,
We stroll along the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers.
- Issa |
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Miho
Joined: 11 Apr 2008
Posts: 429
Location: Wouldn't you like to know.
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| Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:58 am Post subject: |
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love it nemster.
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I can't remember....oh *le sigh* |
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theBSDude
Joined: 09 Jul 2008
Posts: 1800
Location: The boring part of Washington
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| Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:19 am Post subject: |
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Pure, refined awesome in a liquid form.
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...In accordance with the prophesy.
TheBSDude, dubbed 'BS' by Asa and nicknamed 'Thebes.'
Keeper of the Tristam, The Amazing Non-Emo Vampire!(tm) and a Massive List of Webcomics.
"I'm like a ninja with no hopes or dreams." --Wally of Dilbert |
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Tenshi
Joined: 18 Apr 2008
Posts: 2594
Location: Star Stuff
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:44 am Post subject: |
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If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. ~ C. S. Lewis
Thought that was very interesting. Probably one of the most life altering quotes I've heard in quite some time.
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. Dubbed "Usagi" by AsA .
Keeper of the Siderean Swords
"If by chance some day you're not feeling well, and you should remember some silly thing I've said or done, and it brings back a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled."
Red Skelton |
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Tinu.
Joined: 23 Mar 2008
Posts: 3659
Location: The land of dreams
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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From whence was that quoted Usa?
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Keeper of Gaia and all the books on Earthsong
"If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid."
~Einstein |
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Tenshi
Joined: 18 Apr 2008
Posts: 2594
Location: Star Stuff
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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Which one of his works? Oh, I'm not entirely sure. I just have a few pages of C.S. Lewis quotes bookmarked. He's very inspirational! Not to mention insightful.
_________________
. Dubbed "Usagi" by AsA .
Keeper of the Siderean Swords
"If by chance some day you're not feeling well, and you should remember some silly thing I've said or done, and it brings back a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled."
Red Skelton |
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Gully Foyle
Joined: 25 Sep 2009
Posts: 2
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| Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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Might as well start somewhere, so here goes:
"Freedom Without Responsibility Is Only A Word"
Constable Dorfl.
"Cave et Aude"
Darwin family motto (kind of appropriate for the year that's in it).
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With a host of furious fancies
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghostes and shadowes
I summon'd am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wild world's end.
Methinks it is no journey.
Tom a Bedlam
Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum.
Havelock Vetinari |
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Tinu.
Joined: 23 Mar 2008
Posts: 3659
Location: The land of dreams
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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"For those of you in the younger generations who may be unfamiliar, novels are like a series of pretend Facebook posts strung together to tell a story. Imagine if what your friend had to say went on for longer than 140 characters and was actually compelling. I know that it's hard to compete with "having a bad day" as far as storytelling goes, but trust me, some of these novelists have really mastered the whole multiple sentence plus a story arc thing."
~Daniel B. Kline
My mom found this funny bit in our newspaper.
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Keeper of Gaia and all the books on Earthsong
"If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid."
~Einstein |
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Miho
Joined: 11 Apr 2008
Posts: 429
Location: Wouldn't you like to know.
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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I was just about to like your quote and then I realized. This isn't facebook.
Dang.
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I can't remember....oh *le sigh* |
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Jovey4
Joined: 04 Nov 2009
Posts: 9
Location: St. George, Utah
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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"She was the girl of my dreams. And when she passed away, she became the girl of my dreams again." - Gordon B. Hinckley
That's one of the sweetest phrases I've ever heard!
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Dubbed Joyvin by Asa
Jovey4 = Jov = Joy = Joyvin
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Biding my time until they call my name,
then two years I'll serve out there to proclaim.
>D&C 75:14< |
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Tenshi
Joined: 18 Apr 2008
Posts: 2594
Location: Star Stuff
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| Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 5:15 am Post subject: |
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I really like that quote, Jovey. Thank you.
_________________
. Dubbed "Usagi" by AsA .
Keeper of the Siderean Swords
"If by chance some day you're not feeling well, and you should remember some silly thing I've said or done, and it brings back a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled."
Red Skelton |
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Asa
Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 3443
Location: Grammar Police HQ. Watch your language, I'm armed with the NYTimes Style Book AND Strunk and White!
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| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:20 am Post subject: |
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I... don't know whether that's supposed to be sweet or not. 'Cause see, she's dead... so he can only dream about her. Kinda dark humor/depressing, from my angle...
Anyway. I tried to fit this into my signature, but it's too long, so it's going here:
Brother's friend, at his high school graduation: "You know what'd be funny? If you woke up and you were just starting freshman year!"
Brother: "You know what'd be funny? If you woke up and you were on a wooden raft in the middle of Lake Michigan."
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Self-styled Forum Grandmother, because I hand out nicknames and hugs whether you want them or not. ^_^
Keeper of the Library and the Gateway to Haven
Nem: "It's the sort of face you just know is getting ready to poke you with something sharp."
BS: "...then insist you eat a brownie."
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If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended...
Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends. |
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Nem
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 2111
Location: England
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| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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A couple'a philosophy-related quotes
"Rather crude expectations of uniformity are liable to be misleading. The man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken."
- Bertrand Russell
"Do not assume that because I am frivolous I am shallow. I don't assume that because you are grave you are profound."
- Sydney Smith
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Never forget,
We stroll along the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers.
- Issa |
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Asa
Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 3443
Location: Grammar Police HQ. Watch your language, I'm armed with the NYTimes Style Book AND Strunk and White!
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| Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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Another philosophy related quote!
"A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive." - A Miscellany of Men
And more GK Chesterton quotes (found a website of 'em online):
"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision." - G K Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908
"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man." - Chapter 19, What I Saw In America, 1922
"If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer except slanging or silence." - Chapter 3, What's Wrong With The World, 1910
_________________
Self-styled Forum Grandmother, because I hand out nicknames and hugs whether you want them or not. ^_^
Keeper of the Library and the Gateway to Haven
Nem: "It's the sort of face you just know is getting ready to poke you with something sharp."
BS: "...then insist you eat a brownie."
__________________
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended...
Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends. |
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