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

To: epicure who wrote (21869)	5/22/1998 10:27:00 AM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

and I am willing to pay the price for that. I am even willing to pay a little bit more and try to help people educate themselves so that they can have meaningful lives and be happy. Do you mean a little bit more than what we already pay? Because it seems to me that we pay a good deal and see very little result from it. Along the way, for whatever reasons, we have created a second tier of citizens who have lost the ability to utilize what is being given them and improve their situations. They take, they feel entitled, but they make no effort in return to change. The problems now lie, not in the amount of money we spend on social programs, but far, far deeper, in the souls of people. And I don't know the solution for that. All the free services in the world don't seem to give hope and meaning to life. How can we restore these things to our children? Can we?

To: epicure who wrote (21869)	5/22/1998 1:09:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

X, I don't believe Terrence has children, but on environmental and societal issues his opinions are somewhat close to Skipper's, and Skipper has a lot of children. So this is all very complicated. I also think extremely wealthy people who can afford to live behind elaborate security systems feel impervious to declining societies in ways that the middle and lower classes do not. Certainly, being at the top of the heap economically can lead to distancing oneself from the plight of most humans on earth, and I think this is somehow related to the way Terrence feels (or doesn't feel) about "hick wage slaves". Ayn Rand had a very long affair, with a married man as I understand. I am sure Terrence has more details, but would put a different spin on the whole thing. She definitely did not have the perspective of bearing children who will inherit the earth, or even of trying to keep a marriage together, which requires a great deal of work. I didn't really understand that very well either, until I got married. The problem with space colonization is that it may take much longer than we expect it to, and help only the very rich. However, the IDEA of space colonization is dangerous because it allows some very bright people who could be our best thinkers to treat the planet earth as a resource to be pillaged instead of respected and nurtured. And since we are animals first, who developed in this environment, not space, I believe there is no guarantee at all that we will thrive or survive in space. There may be essential things we get from having our feet on the earth, the wind blowing our hair, the sun shining down on us, open space, music, the freedom to move about and the sounds of wheat growing in a breeze and the ocean splashing on shore, that we will not be able to replicate. Incidentally, in support of one of your previous posts, to Skipper I believe, I agree with you about natural limits on human populations. Here is a url in the same vein about the recent decline in male human fertility: wri.org

To: epicure who wrote (21869)	5/22/1998 7:16:00 PM
From: Father Terrence	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

X: That emotional smarminess is more prevalent in women who have not evolved enough past their primitive DNA urgings. That is why for millennia they played the role of mother hen while the man feathered the nest. Today, much of the social upheavel is being caused by women who tend to think more emotionally than rationally. Ayn Rand was an exception, although there are other women who understand and accept an objective philosophy even though they do have children. [I know one woman in Thousand Oaks, CA who has raised 5 children, is an Objectivist and has taught her children well: values, ethics, objective morality and a sound philosophical underpinning -- something schools cannot do, most parents have no clue of, and churches do the opposite of (they attempt to program mysticism into people to subvert the rational thought process, which is a threat to their cause)]. The non-objective world you treasure is producing non-objective humans who gravitate to gangs for identity, become pariahs that shoot up high school classmates, or politicians who sell their soul and country to the enemy (in the latest case, the Chinese). FT