@escapeartist said:
I have a better idea. How about we send every far right AR-15 gun-toting neo-con to Louisiana and send every far left socialist do-nothing there too, then build a wall around the state and forget about them so the rest of us can have a reasonable debate about the issues without having extreme ideologies pummeling us from both sides.
Austrailia?
i wonder where my blurbs fit in to the extremes scale.. left? right?.. fwiw, i pretty much hope to come across as the peanut gallery in these conversations (which i always seem to get into ) ..but from an internet argument pov, i think i take jabs at both sides..
but when i say things like 'i don't think there's a chance at a real solution', i do mean it (mostly).. even though the solution is pretty simple.. we're just sort of trained to think like "oh, that's too hard.. changing is too hard"
an analogy would be along the lines of this automobile scenario.. (this applies to all of these conversations.. the money ones.. religion. politics.. etc..)
punchline first maybe? your car has a flat tire..
you're sitting around complaining about this bumpy ride in the car thinking 'oh, it's bumpy.. i better change the shocks.. that's the solution.. "
or- I'm getting crappy gas mileage.. "car's really need better [xxxxx]".. or "probably the air filter etc.."
&- "gotta get the alignment fixed.. she's pulling to the right"
the thing is, these aren't problems.. they are effects.. or sub-problems.. and you're not going to get a smooth ride with new shocks.. maybe a tiny bit smoother but that's it..
but fix the real problem and multiple issues suddenly disappear as well.. and you didn't even have to address the sub-problems to make them disappear.. gun control is nothing but a band-aid.. things may get a tad bit better but barely even noticeable because you haven't actually addressed and solved the real problem..
a couple of blurbs from Jiddu Krishnamurti:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vALRsIUUTHU
those are the avenues we need to start going down..
realizing (much of) the world's crises are not actual problems.. they are effect.. the problems run deeper (or shallower if you will)..
the 'radical revolution' is not one where we arm ourselves against the govt or throw a bunch of tea off a boat..
the revolution must occur inside us.. in our brains.
the crisis is a crisis in consciousness
humans (and i'm talking every last single one of us.. no matter how poor or oppressed or whatever) view ourselves as some sort of superior being.. we're so incredibly smart and light years beyond 2nd place..
but what are we comparing to? i mean yes, you're super duper intelligent...
..compared to a pig ...wow, that dog only knows how to shake hands and roll over and it took me 2 years to teach him that..
reality is (at least one version of reality) that we're nothing but cavemen.. we're so low on the smart scale it's not even funny.. an intelligent civilization may see our planet and say "cool.. those bees sure have things figured out" and look at us like some sort of cracked out warewolves that know how to send radio waves..
but we won't admit that to ourselves.. we'll even look at cavemen and think downwardly on them.. we're superior to them dumbasses.. but our actions-- they're more/less the exact same.. except the cavemen, i feel, are the superiors here because they needed those actions for survival.. if they weren't greedy and aggressive and violent etc we might not be here today.. but we no longer need those things for survival.. a difference i think humans may have compared to other earth species is that we have a consciousness.. and with that, we can continue to evolve our brains..
..but what good is a consciousness if we don't use it to our (all of us) benefit? not much
