From: Patrick Wilken (patrickw@cs.monash.edu.au)
Date: Mon Nov 16 1998 - 17:50:06 MST
>So how does this compare to a child who sees hundreds of his or her neighbors
>slaughtered in front of them by government or guerrilla thugs? Also, how does
>this compare to children who grow up on farms where animals are slaughtered as
>an everyday practice? How about to a child whose parents are abusing each other
>and their children on a daily basis? I'm sure that compared to a baby raised in
>a bubble there may be a difference, but compared to children raised in the real
>world, not in the suburban fantasy land, I doubt that there is much difference.
>Making suburban kids aware that the rest of the world does not grow up in their
>saccharine way of life may even be of benefit to them when they leave their
>cocoons...
So living with abusive parents or in a slaugherhouse is the real world? And
my childhood without this is some sort of disneyland? Yeah right. Either
you are very bitter about others having a happier background or you are
just posturing. I am well aware I have had a privileged background. I have
been very lucky. Are you trying to tell me that my life has been somewhat
less real? What exactly is your transhuman vision of the future? Some sort
of Clockwork Orange Utopia with lashings of ultraviolence to ensure that
people have some strong emotional rush and living Really Real Lives?
Do you honestly believe living through war makes you live any sort of
better life? My grandmother and mother lived through the World War II in
camps in Eastern Europe, my grandfather was shot fighting the Russians as a
partisan. I can tell you they don't feel they lived a more "real" life
because of it, and I would love to see you tell my grandmother to her face
that watching TV would have helped her get out of her cocoon and better
prepare her for the real world. Please do: I'll sell tickets...
ciao, patrick
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Patrick Wilken http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~patrickw/
Editor: PSYCHE: An International Journal of Research on Consciousness
Secretary: The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/ http://www.phil.vt.edu/ASSC/
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