Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (33152)	3/23/1999 3:43:00 PM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Are you and I not part of the same tribe? It would be astonishing if any two people on this thread could be considered by an anthropologist as members of the same tribe -- same language, village, religion, traditions, ancestry?

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (33152)	3/23/1999 3:57:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

This looks like such a fun conversation that i wish i could play, but i have to go out now. But I'll just paste this News of the Weird piece about a pig and arguably very rational thought: * The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in October that LuLu, a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig, saved the life of her owner, Jo Ann Altsman of Beaver Falls, Pa., by alerting a passing driver that Altsman was in trouble. Altsman was groaning with a heart attack and said later that LuLu first whimpered in sympathy, then squeezed through a very small doggy door, pushed open a gate that she had never opened before, walked to the road, and according to a witness, lay down in the middle only when a car approached. The driver stopped and then heard Altsman's cries. ...and while i'm pasting News of the Weird, here's a darling one that suggests that to sentient and aware and conscious and rational, we might add empathetic! * In November, the Westchester County (N.Y.) Feline Club voted its Cat of the Year award, from among 300 entrants, to Ginny, a dog. Ginny was honored for befriending numerous stray cats, bringing them home, and sharing her food with them.

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (33152)	3/23/1999 4:14:00 PM
From: Father Terrence	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

CTC: Unfortunately, (for you) I am correct on every single point. Behaviorism is vastly overblown and tribalism has more bad points than good. Man is above the animals because he can out-think them. [If the asteroid hadn't hit, then perhaps intelligent dinosaurs would have debated this millions of years ago on their version of the Internet, but that's another story and a different universe.] Rational, cognitive thought at the level of even the average man is far advanced from even the most exceptional ape. Of course this may not hold true in the future as we may genetically change apes and even choose to bring back Mammoths and other extinct species as we strive towards the stars and our ultimate destiny of becoming gods. The suckling reaction of an infant is not an instinct but a response to stimuli created by a perceived need within an infant. The defense of a mother (or father) towards his or her child is not instinctive, but a selfish reaction. Some mothers do not defend their young. Some even murder them. Humans are better than other organisms because, at least for the moment, we are on the top of your beloved evolutionary heap. Or would you prefer to live out your existence in the mud as a paramecium? Tribalism does not "contribute" to education, it undermines it. The best example of tribalism in our schools is gangs, chiefly the Crips and Bloods. Surely not conducive to higher learning. Federalism, a form of sophisticated tribalism, foisted upon a young America by the evil Alexander Hamilton, is to be condemned. And federal public schools are a blight upon reason and should also, by their very nature, be expunged from existence. All advances in the sciences have not been due to tribalism, but by the genius of individual men and women, some working against great odds. I am part of no tribe. You may belong to a tribe if you wish, but know that all tribes are doomed to extinction. FT