From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Fri Jun 07 2002 - 01:06:01 MDT
Dossy wrote:
> On 2002.06.06, Samantha Atkins <samantha@objectent.com> wrote:
> Something is wrong with everyone else: they're dead. They lost.
> Whatever.
>
> I said nothing about the behavior. If you want my opinion about
> the behavior, here it is: We are naturally competitive beasts.
> The largest prize is life and death, it is only natural that we
> erect the most extraordinary games that involve these prizes,
> such as war.
I don't think "nature" is an excuse that need determine what we
do from here on to the extent you seem to believe it does. We
increasingly control and override the settings from "Nature".
That is part of what we are evolved to be able to do.
>
> Saying that we are "wrong" or "immoral" because of this is like
> condemning the snake which eats the rodent and that is undoubtedly
> foolish. It is merely the cycle of life, like it or not.
>
As we have the power to choose and the snake does not, morality
is very much a question that requires consideration.
> Given this, I'd rather be on the winning team than the losing
> team, if you know what I mean.
So would I but we cannot win by any and all means. Only a few
will win us something we really want.
>
>>It is not a "game" to start with.
>>
>
> You're right, it's a competition.
>
After a certain point, it is only a competition if you
wish to continue to structure it that way.
>>If winning requires accepting "to the victor go the spoils" in the
>>context described and all others then I have no interest at all in
>>"winning".
>>
>
> Suit yourself. More for the rest of us, then.
>
This is a very poor view. We are capable of creating a much
better reality for ourselves than this.
>
>
>>Fortunately I don't think this entire view is in the least mandatory
>>and I don't choose to play such a pointless and evil game.
>>
>
> Neither did the losers who are not around to enjoy the spoils,
> get it?
>
Nope. We choose. Get that point deeply in your psyche. Most of
even us don't really get the extent to which this is
increasingly true and what it implies. We base most of our
arguments on things we once had little choice about but are by
no means invariant today, much less tomorrow. Human beings have
been working to not have their behavior utterly given by their
evolutionary history for thousands of years. Now we have far
better tools present or on the drawing boards for more than ever
being in control of our own destiny and nature. The question
then is how we will choose and how we will implement our choices.
> Thank goodness history is written by the winners and not the losers.
> Else, history would be a epic of whiny nonsense.
>
Instead it is written by insulting, self-justifying, baddest
amoral a**holes around, heh? :-) So wisdom consists of
attempting to be one of them?
- samantha
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