From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri Nov 22 2002 - 17:42:09 MST
Robert writes
> So extropes -- how can you justify these nice la-de-da
> philosophical discussions while the bodies are piled
> higher and higher around us each day?
Hmm. Didn't notice---the path from my office to my car,
and from my car to my house seem as unlittered as usual.
Ah, that just shows what absent-mindedness can do for
you. So the bodies are piled up out there, eh? I'll
check when I go out for a newspaper tonight. If I
remember.
> (This isn't directed at any recent ExI list conversants
> specifically -- it is intended largely as a rhetorical question).
Oh, that's okay if it was. We're big boys here and should
be able to take a little criticism ;-) Besides, that's what
a lot of us signed up for anyway!
Well, I'd say that I engage in these very speculative philosophical
discussions for the same reason that I read math books or listen to
music; they're informative and they are entertaining. I agree that
it would be more noble if I designated a piece of furniture in my
living room as "the worry chair", and conscientiously sat several
hours in it each day worrying about all those dead bodies. I know
that many people are able to do that, but can you tell me what good
it does? I've always wanted to know.
> Some days I just wonder (a lot) about the gap between "our" reality
> and that which pervades much of the world.
Well, some people are interested in gardening, and some people
like to spend time pondering whether measurable cardinals really
exist. I guess I approve of people having quite a bit of freedom
in determining where their own personal responsibilities lie,
but it still seems like good advice for people to mind their
own business. In other words, to focus on their own lives,
and on the lives of the people they love, and on their own
surroundings.
Isn't there some whacko phrase like "act locally, think globally"?
Well, so long as people act morally (i.e., in ways that I and
people generally approve of), then I can't complain.
Lee
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