From: Joshua Freeman (theroadfromserfdom@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Jan 01 2001 - 10:04:18 MST
>"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote:
> >
> > As the counter changes digits, let us rejoice that humanity has gone
> > another entire year without blowing itself up. As we celebrate the
>random
> > division of an arbitrary time period, let us look away from the true
> > twenty-billion-year chronology of the Universe; let us forget the
> > unthinkable vastness of the space between stars, and rejoice in whatever
> > microscopic significance our infinitesimal selves might have.
> >
> > This festival of passing time reminds us of our ephemeral lives, like
> > candles flaring up whitely for an instant and then diminishing to a red
> > glow, sinking until even the embers fade. As the Earth completes
> > another cycle around the Sun, we rejoice in the repetition of the
> > ancient, futile pattern of birth and reproduction and death. Let us
> > celebrate the irrevocable passing of another year of wasted time,
> > another year of missed opportunities, another year of broken dreams.
> >
> > It's a time when we accumulate years of debt on our credit cards to mask
> > our true selfishness. It's a time to brighten our meaningless
>existences
> > with mercantile frenzies of acquisition. It's a time when carols of
>love
> > and hope deny our true loneliness and despair. It's a time when false
> > smiles and ostentatious declarations of friendship hide the dark pits of
> > fear and hatred that lurk in our souls. It's a time to recite insincere
> > prayers to a bleak and uncaring Universe.
> >
> > It's a time when our nervous laughter tries to drown out the sound of
> > hydrogen freezing in the interstellar void. It's a time when the
>radiant
> > warmth of a fire or a loved one lets us forget, for a brief moment, the
> > bitter three-degree-Kelvin cold of the endless night.
> >
> > ** ON THE BRIGHTER SIDE **
> >
> > Only 1,547 shopping days left till the Singularity!
> >
> > Happy New Year!
> >
> > ... tick ... tick ... tick ...
>
That is brilliant!
Joshua
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