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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (78136)	4/14/2000 5:41:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

heehee - it's a suckerpunch of course, but just for fun let me tally up what's wrong with undiluted peace. 1) No technical innovation. Nothing like armed conflict to spur funding for engineers. 2) No mechanism for weeding the sick, weak and/or lazy from the gene pool. 3) Cultural stagnation. we would have social and technological stasis at best and utter decadence at worst. The above is with tongue firmly in cheek. We don't need to go to war against each other - we can be at war with impersonal enemies like disease, environmental crisis and rap music. <g> The only serious note here [that I wish to emphasize]is that even an apparently universal ideal like "peace is good" depends heavily on the premises. (Most people who hear such a thing automatically, unconsciously filter the premises down to a sensible set, and nod agreement.) (But not all ... like X's iconoclasts ... and these are either visionaries or criminals. Which am I?) (probably neither - I'm too contemptibly normal) And locking down the premises becomes maladaptive ... no room for change is built in. Ambiguity, moral or otherwise, seems to be as important to sapient life as air and water.