[max_power29]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', '
')How, exactly, does love - or hate - affect anything? I suspect that we are much too limited to do anything meaningful with hate or love toward the human species.

Rather, it might be better if people tried something truly novel - thinking and acting rationally. Of course, there's little danger of that happening.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'R')ather, it might be better if people tried something truly novel - thinking and acting rationally.

[smallpoxgirl]

Values and taboo behaviours are all an outgrowth of culture. What you seem to be seeking Jack is a cultural vacuum, a place where there are no values and anything goes. The reality of multiculturalism, I would argue, is something more akin to going out to a buffet and then taking all the food on your plate and running it through a blender before eating it. The resulting product is not a vacuum, but it's pretty much lost all the elements that made it desirable or useful. That's what the melting pot is all about - converting all the various cultures into a sticky bland gick that has elements of each of the cultures but dismembered and out of context in a way that they all loose their utility.

Culture, when it is functioning, is a form of social glue...it binds people together in a common understanding of themselves and directs their actions in ways that are good for the common survival of the group. America is a land where everyone is lonely amidst a sea of people, and our collective actions can only be understood as a suicide pact. We have a culture of sorts, but it's a steak/potatoe/sweetpea/pad thai milkshake and it's not very palatable nor is it nourishing us very much.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', ' ')a sticky bland gick

[coyote]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JustinFrankl', 'I') would not classify all these groups as being "violent"

[JustinFrankl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coyote', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JustinFrankl', 'I') would not classify all these groups as being "violent"

[coyote]

Good defense, Justin. We just disagree on what 'violent' means. I don't think it relies so much on intent... for example, this culture is doing violence to the natural world, even if the intent is simply to make a buck and live the good life, and the crime is one of willful ignorance. And a family that sacrifices their children, or forces them into sexual relations, or brainwashes them into committing suicide, is doing violence to them. Nazis do violence by creating a state of fear. That's my view.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JustinFrankl', 'W')ould you have problems living next to an INTP?

[PenultimateManStanding]

violence is coded into our genes. we live by it. makes me think of that famous scene at the beginning of Stanley Kubrick's 2001.

2001 discussion

violence is also a taboo. we lock up people who use it without sanction. we sanction people to use it for the state. human beings are coded by evolution to violence. it is dangerous, but it is everywhere and will be so much more as these years go by into oil depletion.

[PenultimateManStanding]

here it is violence is natural. red in tooth and claw. Hold on to your civilization folks, the alternative is wicked.

[JustinFrankl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coyote', 'G')ood defense, Justin. We just disagree on what 'violent' means. I don't think it relies so much on intent... for example, this culture is doing violence to the natural world, even if the intent is simply to make a buck and live the good life, and the crime is one of willful ignorance.

[PenultimateManStanding]

The Blue Danube There is something sad and tragic about this. There were such great hopes back in the 60s when this film was made. Such a sordid outcome, it was all based on oil.

[PenultimateManStanding]

to think we will go back to killiing tapirs with bones is more than I can take.