9 Responses to “The daily doom, part VI”

1. Chuck Says:
   March 26th, 2006 at 3:00 pm

   Several years ago I would mention something about this situation to some of the guys at work & would get looked at as some sort of loony, like saying we were populated by Martians. (Remember, I’m a retired airplane riveter so I wasn’t working with brightest or most educated bunch.) So I started bring article from Science Magazine & the like showing the scientific proofs of the phenomenon along with the research papers. Well that was another mistake. Not only could they not understand the language, they wouldn’t even try to get through the article. So I gave up on that front.

   A couple of years ago my brother started working on a story about a couple of comunities that survived the global warming holocaust & the rapid rise in sea level so I would corroborate some of his stuff with the science, while also adding a few hints based on my own studies in anthropology & my personal observations from the many hikes I’ve taken in the Cascades & Olympics.

   I don’t know why I added that last paragraph, just needed to say it I guess.

2. Chuck Says:
   March 26th, 2006 at 9:11 pm

   By the way, were you aware that by international agreement (one of the few that we actually honor anymore,) there is no tax on aviation fuel? Pretty much the same stuff that is used for kerosene lanterns & kerosene fuels, so those who can afford airplane travel pay less than those who have to heat by kerosene stoves & read by kerosene light.

3. Again Says:
   March 27th, 2006 at 5:50 am

   combined with hope, not despondency leading to paralysis and inaction.

   i guess, the choice isn’t between “hope => activity” and “no hope => paralysis”. As you may know, i started to gnaw at that “think positive”, “hope forever”, “we are the Champions”-stuff - simply because hope is an emotion and therefore a “program” with a limited scope of application

   so sometimes hope can be your worst enemy

   two REAL examples:

   with hope: jewish parents didn’t leave Nazi-Germany or worse, did come back (!) because of homesickness

   without hope: jewish parents sent their children into an unsafe, unknown, harmful future - all alone, without protection, just some lonely little girls and boys with some little bags in a dangerous, violent world full of hate

   and remember? The children of the latter had better chances to survive

   so please imagine a mother with the slightest hope - she never ever would let her child be unprotected - she had to be desperate to go desparate ways

4. Again Says:
   March 27th, 2006 at 10:21 am

   Chuck:

   so I wasn’t working with brightest or most educated bunch

   that doesn’t matter - the “brightest” or “most educated” aren’t interested, too - too much to do, i guess, more important things than survival - like career or money

   you don’t go desperate ways when you are not desperate - and driving in SUVs, wasting energy and resources without responsibility, only despairing about being too fat or too wrinkled: that you can’t call “desperate”

   problem is, that the “not-educated bunch” may not be able to see it, but the “educated bunch” doesn’t want to see it - what shouldn’t be, can’t be - so they love to follow Bush and the other morons talking about profits when they should talk about survival: greed beats need

   and they are - as intelligent or educated as they might be - too stupid to realize that a stable universe is just a philosophical error and that each highly optimized species (as the humans are) will inevitably risk extinction in case of change of environment - or in other words: no one and nothing guarantees us, that our lives can continue as we (and our parents and grandparents and ….. ) knew it. Oh yes, they are “champions” and “winners” and “successful” and “will never fail” and so they will be able to clean the atmosphere of the whole world, that’s easy for “winners”, just a mouseclick and some dollars - and they move mountains…

   laziness, greed and limitless self-overestimation - a deadly mixture

5. RJHall Says:
   March 29th, 2006 at 3:43 am

   It sure doesn’t sound like those Jewish parents who sent their children alone to safety were “without hope” that their children might be saved thereby (the parents might have been without hope for their own fates, but not for their children’s). After all, if they had been COMPLETELY without hope even for their children’s fates, wouldn’t they have despondently said, “Oh well, there’s no chance that the kids would even make it to England anyway, and even if they did, Hitler would take over there too, so sooner or later the kids would inevitably wind up in Auschwitz anyway, so why bother trying to save them?”

   I’d say that TOO LITTLE hope can be just as much your worst enemy as TOO MUCH hope (the parents who said, “I’m homesick for Germany, let’s go back, they say all is forgiven and to make it up to us they’re offering free Kool-Aid, aren’t you thirsty, kids?”). The parents who sent their kids away to safety had just the right amount, it sounds like.

6. Again Says:
   March 30th, 2006 at 1:12 am

   RJHall

   It sure doesn’t sound like those Jewish parents who sent their children alone to safety were “without hope” that their children might be saved thereby

   yes, i know

   but how do you stop a speeding locomotive? By subtlety? The problem is, that there is really much truth in the “think positive”-idea, so much, that people forgot the basic principle of reality: the coin has always, ALWAYS a second site - in the deepest night there is a flash of hope, but vice versa in the brightest day there is the spark of doom

   - and the problem is, that we have gambled too long in the brightest day and that we can’t stand the coming night with the non-realistic ideas of the better days

   so sooner or later the kids would inevitably wind up in Auschwitz anyway, so why bother trying to save them?

   “why bother”? no, that’s not your reaction - do you have kids? Or did you ever feel serious despair or at least tried to understand it - did you ever watch Roberto Benigni’s “La vita è bella (Life Is Beautiful )”?

   You wouldn’t react like that - even without hope there are “differences” - even in Nazi-Germany there were enough people helping the jewish and even when you knew that they wouldn’t be strong enough - they would at least try to lessen the suffering of your children

   sure, you can call that emotion “hope“, that’s true - but in my interpretation of that word i miss an important thing: the power of anger. Hope (in my interpretation) is something which warms my heart, which helps me finding strength by “some possibility of fulfilment”

   so hope betrays you in the end, when you can’t see any way out, when the last possibility vanishes - but if you are a proud person, anger will stay with you - so you can call it also “hope”, i guess, because anger enables you not to give up (even when there is not the slightest possibility of fulfilment)

   to understand the difference you maybe should look at teens

   Mortal Road By Barry Wolfenden

   Even without hope there is spite
   Death can bire me
   I am not walking gently into that good night

7. RJHall Says:
   March 30th, 2006 at 10:12 am

   Again!

   Maybe by the word “hope” you mean what I would call “Denial”, as in Stage 1 of the 5 Stages of Depression (1. Denial, 2. Anger, 3. Bargaining, 4. Depression, 5. Acceptance), which I posted about in the Daily Doom No. 2 thread. I agree with you that Stage 2 Anger is far more motivating to solve the problem than Stage 1 Denial.

   To answer your questions, yes I have a child (though not yet a teenager!), yes we have “Life is Beautiful” on DVD, and yes I have spent more than enough time in Stage 4 to know that “why bother?” is indeed exactly the reaction of someone in that stage, someone who has lost all of what I mean by the word “hope”. Stage 1 Denial, on the other hand, is characterized by what I call too much “hope”. Stage 2 Anger isn’t, but then it’s the stage that suicide bombers are in (they’re definitely not resigned to go gently into that good night!), so I’m not sure I would sing its praises so highly.

   Stage 5 Acceptance has many manifestations, each characterized by different emotions (the Sour Grapes “So what if human civilization self-destructs, it’s probably sour anyway!”, the Party Hearty (”So what, apres moi la deluge!”), etc.), but maybe my favorite one is the Don Quixote “Impossible Dream” one or the Atticus Finch “Licked a hundred years before you start” one. They fought on, knowing there was no hope, knowing they would not win. But for most of us, a little hope that we’re not fighting an unbeatable foe is a better motivator, I think!

   Sometimes I have even less hope than James Lovelock - how can he be so sure that even some breeding pairs would survive in the Arctic regions, what would they eat, since millions or billions of humans would have probably already swarmed up there and destroyed their farms and food supply - but I don’t want to slip back into Stage 4, so I try not to dwell on those thoughts. I’ve still working out which emotions are best for this Daily Doom situation (I really wish there were somewhere safe I could send my daughter to!!!) But I do agree with Steve that fear is the best thing to shake us out of Stage 1 complacency.

8. Again Says:
   March 31st, 2006 at 2:56 am

   RJHall

   thanks for answering…

   Maybe by the word “hope” you mean what I would call “Denial”,

   hmm - yes, i guess, that’s what i link to “hope” - the mothers and fathers of a missing child, hoping it will come back even after 10 years …

   “why bother?” is indeed exactly the reaction of someone in that stage

   a clinical depression may be strong enough to betray your (beloved) child, but a sane mind, thrown in a desperate situation? I guess, the race wouldn’t have survived if the individuals didn’t care for their children even when they are in hopeless situations

   Stage 2 Anger isn’t, but then it’s the stage that suicide bombers are in

   exactly, they often come to my mind in that context - but i didn’t sing praise to them, i just reject the statement, that without hope there is only passivity

   and to be honest, in my life, anger was more useful than hope - hope made me waste my time too often

   Don Quixote “Impossible Dream”

   Impossible Dream

   This is my quest:
   To follow that star,
   No matter how hopeless,
   No matter how far,
   To fight for the right,
   Without question or pause,

   i posted that on my private blog

   Sometimes I have even less hope than James Lovelock - how can he be so sure that even some breeding pairs would survive in the Arctic regions, what would they eat, since millions or billions of humans would have probably already swarmed up there and destroyed their farms and food supply

   that’s what i also think - starving people don’t comply with rules and laws…

   so I try not to dwell on those thoughts.

   sorry, can’t agree

   you have to look at the problem like any other “project” - to be able to avoid worst scenarios you have to know them, perfectly know them to monitor and control the situation (as long as possible)

   maybe we don’t see a chance to survive when we watch closely - but to close our eyes to be able to stand it doesn’t help either. Worse. If there is the slightest chance, you only see it with eyes wide open

   you can call that attitude “hope” - but it feels more like “anger”, anger about the human stupidity, the human laziness, the human greed, about all together, anger about that “bug” in the programming of Mother Nature

   and something like “ambition” - because i know what information is, how both types of information processing and the strategy to detect information works, what intelligence is - and where the problems of high intelligence are (physically) - i try “solve” the formula

   allows distance..

9. RJHall Says:
   April 3rd, 2006 at 5:38 am

   Again Again! (My daughter has several videos of the Teletubbies where they like to say this phrase!)

   Our disagreement seems to be mostly if not entirely verbal. I agree completely with your words here, especially if the words I have capitalized are emphasized:

   “you have to look at the problem like any other “project” – TO BE ABLE TO AVOID WORST SCENARIOS you have to know them, perfectly know them to monitor
   and control the situation (as long as possible)

   maybe we don’t see a chance to survive when we watch closely - but to close
   our eyes to be able to stand it doesn’t help either. Worse. IF THERE IS THE SLIGHTEST CHANCE, you only see it with eyes wide open”

   I guess, to avoid confusion, we could use some new vocabulary instead of “hope”:

   “dope” – the belief that it will be okay even if you do nothing, so therefore no action is necessary. This is what I called “Denial” and what you call “hope”.

   “mope” – the belief that it will NOT be okay even if you do something, so again no action is necessary. This is what I called “Depression”.

   “rope” – the belief that there is the slightest chance to be able to avoid worst scenarios IF you do something, so therefore THAT action is necessary. (You know, like a “rope” to cling to while you are actively climbing a mountain.) I included this in what I called “hope” and you included it in what you called “anger”. We both agree, I think, that “rope” is good and “dope” and “mope” are bad. For example, we both agree that the race wouldn’t have survived if all individuals are always in “mope”.

   So what about Don Quixote, who lacks all three “dope” and “mope” and even “rope” and fights the unbeatable foe? Well, no matter how admirable his determination and persistence and character and quest and dream are, the Don Quixote character in both Cervantes’s novel and the musical “Man of La Mancha” was literally insane (as was the character in the movie “They Might Be Giants”), so we can’t really say that he was “a sane mind, thrown in a desperate situation”. And objectively in a sense, his futile activity was inefficient and a waste of time (exerting energy in a futile direction that could not possibly yield the result). If only Don Quixote’s labors and energy and spirit had been directed at something constructive and helpful that might have succeeded instead of wasted on a LITERALLY impossible dream! (If it were only FIGURATIVELY impossible, then it would not have been a waste, but rather a “rope” as defined above.)

   Maybe the same even could be said for Atticus Finch (if Steve is reading this, I hope the attempt-at-humor center of his brain is switched on – of course I don’t REALLY mean that Atticus Finch was insane, but maybe just that he was indeed “a sane mind, thrown in a desperate situation”!). After all, that is as good an answer as I can think of for why he knowingly subjected his two young children to physical harm and possibly death (and in fact Jem’s arm was badly broken; this is not a spoiler since the very first sentence of the book reveals it) just so that he could feel good about himself and hold his head up in town? The insane situation was that the system was determined to kill the defendant but staged a Hannity-and-Colmes style show-trial that looked fair and balanced before it did so, and Atticus Finch played the role of Colmes with style and panache, even though he knew (he warned his children) that his children would be physically threatened as a result. What sane parent would choose to make that trade-off?

   Anyway, and seriously again, could it be that, once it is known that there really is NO chance of avoiding the worst scenario, and NO “rope”, after one gets through the “mope” stage, the choice between insanity and the “oh well” responses of the Sour Grapes, Party Hearty, Apathetic, or other Acceptance-people is what it all boils down to after all? After all, as the song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” says, “Enjoy it, it’s your last chance anyhow!” I don’t know - I’m still thinking about it.

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