YOU AND I ARE BUT JUICE pt III

[BADGE OF HONOR]

I have said before, I am saying again:  people are social creatures.

Give 100 people a moral dilemma, and most of them will resolve it in the same way.  Is it cultural?  Probably.  But the thing is, we're all made of the same kind of meat.  The juices that run through our brains might vary from person to person, but evolution has handed us a very powerful tool.  We're on top of the food chain for a reason.  Millions of years of history screaming at us to use that lump of fat three feet above our ass.

And yet.

And yet everyone encounters stupid people every day.  People who just don't seem to think about anything.  Who don't consider how something works, or the consequences of their actions, or whether they might be wrong. 

The thing is, we don't really have to think any more.  Modern culture has removed that necessity.  It is entirely possible to fill up an entire day with noise.  Radio, tv, 24 hour news, movies, iPods, blackberries, malls, fast food drive throughs. 

And, worst of all, the internet.

Now, I love the internet.  I can't get enough of it.  It's a fountain of information and entertainment.  I've talked to some pretty interesting people on the internet.  But I also benefitted greatly from not having it for six months.  The internet cannot replace actual face-to-face social interaction.  On the internet, it's easy to find people who think similar things.  It's easy to ignore the people you disagree with.  It's even easier to forget that there's a thinking, feeling human being on the other end of the flame war.  The internet allows the creation of tiny cesspools. 

The internet made furries.

People who aren't furries automatically have a viscerally negative reaction to them.  It's just wrong.  As far as I know, furries didn't exist before the internet.  There is no victorian furry porn.  They represent, to me, a total and complete alienation from both the human race and all normal human interaction, especially sexuality.  How the hell does anyone look at a fox and think, "Ooh that is sexy"?  I say it is because a bunch of social retards sat in a circle and started agreeing with themselves.  Social affirmation is a great feeling, even in the flat, false society of the internet.  "Oh, your drawing of that fox fucking that lion was so great, do another one!" is probably the first praise any of these people have ever gotten. 

Actually, the internet isn't the root cause of any of this.  All it does is allow the socially awkward to remain inside and delude themselves into thinking that they have friends.  It is a tool, like the flint hand-axe, but unfortunately most people don't die if they use it the wrong way.  I can only foresee humans getting estranged and stranger, and so I say, as I have said before:  we are fucked.

[Cain]

I'm actually fairly sure that CSI: Las Vegas invented furries.

Reminds me very much of something in The Art of Memetics however.  The internet allows for people to choose their own feedback loops.  These give them their cues for their behaviour, thinking and so on.  Which is fine, as most relatively intelligent and sensible people are going to focus on feedback loops that are healthy ie; fact-based media, communities that give critical or constructive feedback and the sort.

But then, you get something like Furries, or my favourite place to hunt wingnuts, Pajamas Media, or conspiracy boards, or DeviantArt, it all goes wrong.  Because these feedback loops are not reality based.  They're based on things like ideology, or ego-based vested interests, or mutual jerking off or...well, mutually jerking each other off really, in hope of keeping reality at bay.  And that's how you get people like Jonah Goldberg, who are unoriginal little twits, but really believe they are bold, pioneering and sophisticated individuals.  Its because they've restricted themselves to an environment where that is all they are ever told.  No-one ever says to him in the comments section of his National Review Articles that he's a halfwit and a twerp, mainly because there is no comments section, but because if they help Goldberg persist in living in his fantasy world, then he'll help out when the ugly reality looks like its going to intrude on them.

And that is where brutally shattering their reality via outright mockery comes in.

[cheeseball]

   What the fuck is a furrie?  Maybe you people do spend too much time on the internet.  That last one is hard to follow.
Anyhow,
Here's my take on the whole thing.  Long long time ago the Aztecs built great cities.  The made amazing things and charted a callendar that far advances our own.  They did things we can't even figure out even with all the "technology" we have these days.

And they were savage beasts.
Not unlike our own world today.

But then what happened?  They realized it was killing their souls.
Or something equally as dramatic.

And then they returned to the forest to live as their neolithic ancestors.
Something more simplistic and yet so much more rewarding.  Answer me this:  How many close friends do you have?  Or family members?  And I don't mean people you hang out at the bar with or bitch about your husband to.  Real friends who got your back no matter what.
Five, max maybe?
We are so paraniod (and rightfully so really) we can't trust anyone.  We are so alienated from each other, even our own family, that we, as a people, as a society, FREAK OUT!  Just watch the news!

Hopefully, collectively, people will realize the mess they made and return into the forest.

Except all the politicians and other ilk.  They can stay in the concrete jungle and die from smog!

[BADGE OF HONOR]

The Aztecs were fucking slaughtered, their empire dismantled for gold, and their culture erased into Catholicism. 

Perhaps you were thinking of the Maya?  Oh yeah, they didn't "choose" anything either, they just happened to concentrate too much of their population in cities and also suffered total fucking catastrophe.  All those "amazing things we can't even figure out" left to rot in the jungle.

Or hey, how about the Chaco canyon cliffdwelling people?  Another great civilization?  Did all that astrology crap?  Oh yeah, they ended up killing and eating each other.  You know how we know that?  Archaeologists found human tissue in a human shit in a human fireplace.  There is nothing romantic about going "back to basics", it's the nightmare at the end of the fucking fever-dream.

And the fucking basics are shit.  There is nothing particularly pleasant about neolithic living, forest or otherwise.  It is an extremely hard, short, and painful life.  Tribes are survival mechanisms, and just because they have to depend on each other to survive doesn't mean they have to even like each other.  I'm sure looking forward to dying of an infected tooth that I got from chewing leather in order to make it even vaguely wearable.


Return to the forest my fucking fat ass.

[Nast]

The Aztecs were fucking slaughtered, their empire dismantled for gold, and their culture erased into Catholicism. 

Perhaps you were thinking of the Maya?  Oh yeah, they didn't "choose" anything either, they just happened to concentrate too much of their population in cities and also suffered total fucking catastrophe.  All those "amazing things we can't even figure out" left to rot in the jungle.

Or hey, how about the Chaco canyon cliffdwelling people?  Another great civilization?  Did all that astrology crap?  Oh yeah, they ended up killing and eating each other.  You know how we know that?  Archaeologists found human tissue in a human shit in a human fireplace.  There is nothing romantic about going "back to basics", it's the nightmare at the end of the fucking fever-dream.
And the fucking basics are shit.  There is nothing particularly pleasant about neolithic living, forest or otherwise.  It is an extremely hard, short, and painful life.  Tribes are survival mechanisms, and just because they have to depend on each other to survive doesn't mean they have to even like each other.  I'm sure looking forward to dying of an infected tooth that I got from chewing leather in order to make it even vaguely wearable.


Return to the forest my fucking fat ass.

, my dear madam!

People always over-romanticize primitive societies. Always.
You want to die of cholera in the wilderness while the jackals eat your corpse? Fine. Because that sort of delusional thinking is a slap in the face to everything we've achieved technologically, and tried to get away from. Those "beautiful savages" would thing you were insane too, enjoying the current state of living that you do yet still wanting to live and die like them.

[Nast]

Also, the average life expectancy of a member of a Neolithic culture was 20 years old, so all those things about life a "deep, healthy, fulfilling life" within nature is pretty much shit.

[Triple Zero]

  What the fuck is a furrie?  Maybe you people do spend too much time on the internet.  That last one is hard to follow.

just one tip for your successfull continuing to not piss people off on this board, please do not refer to the peope posting here as "you people", as if they are one group sharing all properties and habits.
we're too different, what we share is this place. i may spend "too much" time on the internet, the next guy might be kayakking everywhere and only telling PD.com about it every week or so. there is no "you people".

Anyhow,
Here's my take on the whole thing.  Long long time ago the Aztecs built great cities.  The made amazing things and charted a callendar that far advances our own.

how does it advance our own?

They did things we can't even figure out even with all the "technology" we have these days.

just because we can't figure out why they did it doesn't necessarily mean it's something amazing.

And then they returned to the forest to live as their neolithic ancestors.

like RBoG said, no, they were slaughtered?

Something more simplistic and yet so much more rewarding.  Answer me this:  How many close friends do you have?  Or family members?  And I don't mean people you hang out at the bar with or bitch about your husband to.  Real friends who got your back no matter what.
Five, max maybe?

friends i really care about: about 150

We are so paraniod (and rightfully so really) we can't trust anyone.  We are so alienated from each other, even our own family, that we, as a people, as a society, FREAK OUT!  Just watch the news!

nah i'd rather not watch the news. but that's anyone's fair choice, of course.

Hopefully, collectively, people will realize the mess they made and return into the forest.

Except all the politicians and other ilk.  They can stay in the concrete jungle and die from smog!

what's in the forest?

so let's see i can stay in the concrete jungle of the Internet Robot Future and de Strange Times, live with a life-expectancy of 73 years, be able to witness it all, craft beautiful complex patterns out of memetic networks and vast seas of information--oh and of course go camping in a foresty area if i feel like it.

.. or ..

i can go "back" to the forest, which is probably really pretty with all the trees and plants and bugs and such, albeit a bit uncomfortable at times, and die at a young age of an infected toenail, disconnected from those 150 friends and family.

it's everybody's choice, of course. but don't imply this forest is so much better than the concrete jungle.

[Nast]

Exactly!

I can enjoy nature too, as unseemly as it sounds. I like to garden, and I like all the beautiful systems and processes and cycles that inspire a sense of wonder. But I definitely don't like it when people make nature sound like a Pocahontas fairytale. Nature is cruel, nature doesn't care about your feelings or lifestyle expectations, in fact, nature is just the name we've come up with to describe the cold, unaccommodating world outside the cave.

And such societies weren't any more pleasant because they lived without the modern faculties that we enjoy. In fact, they were just as cruel and petty. A monkey in a forest or in a house is still a monkey.

[Cain]

As a scout, back in the day, I was expected to be able to survive in the woods.  Which I can, with a little preparation.  I wouldn't want to try it, however, for more than a few weeks at a time and especially without a return ticket.  The forest lacks many things, not least:

Much in the way of human interaction
Books
Wifi
Places to charge my laptop
Season 5 of Lost
Scotch
Mints
All night pizza delivery

It does contain plenty of wood, weeds, rain and annoying little bugs.  If that's your thing, of course.

[Cain]

Oh and FYI downspiral, a furry is someone who dresses up as an anthropomorphic animal (which they believe represents their true self, and is almost always a vixen or wolf) and often proceeds to meet other people who do the same and have sex with them.  Or sits on the internet drawing sexually explicit drawings of their chosen creatures.  And so on and so forth.

[Cainad]

As a scout, back in the day, I was expected to be able to survive in the woods.  Which I can, with a little preparation.  I wouldn't want to try it, however, for more than a few weeks at a time and especially without a return ticket.  The forest lacks many things, not least:

Much in the way of human interaction
Books
Wifi
Places to charge my laptop
Season 5 of Lost
Scotch
Mints
All night pizza delivery

It does contain plenty of wood, weeds, rain and annoying little bugs.  If that's your thing, of course.

The forest also lacks soft toilet paper.

[Thurnez Isa]

As a scout, back in the day, I was expected to be able to survive in the woods.  Which I can, with a little preparation.  I wouldn't want to try it, however, for more than a few weeks at a time and especially without a return ticket.  The forest lacks many things, not least:

Much in the way of human interaction
Books
Wifi
Places to charge my laptop
Season 5 of Lost
Scotch
Mints
All night pizza delivery

It does contain plenty of wood, weeds, rain and annoying little bugs.  If that's your thing, of course.

I love going out into the deep woods with nothing but a tent, some food and matches.. maybe a small canoe
growing up in a swamp I got used to bugs
actually being with the snakes, bugs, trees and rocks is one of my favorite things in life... never really tried to comprehend why, probably just my cup of tea I guess
Im probably the minority here though

[Cain]

Sure, but half the fun is knowing you can have a steaming hot shower once you're finished in the woods.  If it just went on forever and ever and ever until you died....

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I love going out into the deep woods with nothing but a tent, some food and matches.. maybe a small canoe
growing up in a swamp I got used to bugs
actually being with the snakes, bugs, trees and rocks is one of my favorite things in life... never really tried to comprehend why, probably just my cup of tea I guess
Im probably the minority here though

I enjoy being out in the woods myself.  Actually, I would prefer to be a lot further away from the human population than I will ever be in this day and age. 

[cheeseball]

eww about the furries
pardon about the "you people"
and I was thinking about the mayans btw

and who says you will die in the forest over such minor issues?  As our species progressed we learned how to heal ourselves and deal with the issues we faced.  And that IS the beauty of todays technology.  My hubby lived in the Gila for two years with only random trips into town for supplies (lucky bastard).  He didn't want for a hot shower cos he had natural mineral hot springs.  Where he could sit and play his game boy.  Naked.  While smoking a j and whatever.
He had a small generator and plenty of food.  And alcohol.  And tobacco.
And silence.  With no one watching.
If you made it a lifestyle you go with someone who knows medicinal plants and you take a book.  But alternative healing is big in New Mexico.  It's necessary to know the local plants and have a gps and take modern percausions.  Not to do so would be stupid. 
And there is a plant called "Toilet paper plant."  It's better than Charmin.  Soft and fluffy and it grows everywhere.  *biodegradable!*
(wink wink)
And I by no means suggest caniblism.  There are plenty of other animals for those carnivors in the group.