Desperation WTF??

[P3nT4gR4m]

Everything's wrong. Everything's a problem. Quintillions of different things, some of them mindfuckingly big, some of them infinitesimally small but each and every one of them, according to some one or other, is wrong. It's helping to destroy the fabric of civilisation or the planet itself. Hell, there's probably people out there pissed off about shit that they're convinced is going to destroy the galaxy.

Sometimes there's answers. Sometimes more than one. Sometimes they're at loggerheads with each other. Mutually exclusive. Sometimes there's a dispute. Sometimes shit gets ugly and a couple of people shout at each other, all up in each other's faces. Sometimes a couple of million dead bodies get piled up and buried in some great big fucking holes somewhere. This is a meta-problem. It wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for the original problem in the first place.

There's a web of these meta problems, extending out like a universe. Every star an issue, every galaxy a war. Was there a "big bang"? Did something go wrong, right back at the start, either when everything was tickety boo, paradise-perfect or did it start with something that was guaranteed to bollix up everything? Some people have theories along those lines.

What we, as a conscious entity, perceive as a problem or issue or thing that's wrong is, in and of itself, a consciousness related issue. Things like natural disasters and shit do not fit under the remit of this rant, I'm talking exclusively about things that humans do, based on conscious decisions, that are considered a problem by other humans, causing friction. I'm talking about us, as a single biological colony, all at loggerheads with some one or some group. Everyone is pulling and pushing in different directions.

No one has an overall plan.

Or at least not one that's ever really inspired me to take the slightest bit of interest in. There's vague stuff. Make shit better. Cheer people up. Try to learn a whole bunch of shit. Paint a self portrait. Build a house. But, overall, there's no "What does the human race do next?", plan. Once we solve war and crime and disease and travelling faster than light and giving everybody plenty food and clothes and shit that they need. What do we do next? Paint portraits of other people? Stick up a fucking conservatory?

I mean, sure, half of our species seems happy enough with that as a design for life and the other half are killing and dying to varying degrees of contentment or discontent. To be perfectly honest, unless someone comes up with something beyond that scope, something we could accomplish as a fully sentient biological team or coordinated units thereof, I'm basically happy enough to sit back and do my own thing, while the whole fucked up cacophony goes off around me.

When I say "perfectly happy" I mean, "given that there's no alternative" I can't help the nagging feeling that, if only the world was such and such a way, I could be actually perfectly happy. Literally. But what's the "such and such"? And how could you possibly effect the staggering level of change required to even get started? The world, the human realm, is a colossal machine, capable of fuck only knows what if it were working as one, well oiled unit but it's not.

A lot of it seems to be working against other bits. It's a rear diff more focussed on destroying the back wheels than helping them turn. Imagine a supercomputer where all the chips and circuits and resisters and capacitors all worked at different voltages, on purpose, just to piss the other ones off. It's ludicrous. But how the fuck do you make it any other way? And what do you do with it once you've got it ticking over in neutral?

Funny thing is I can't help thinking that if everyone shared the same answer to that last question, the machine might suddenly fix itself. I'm pretty sure I'd be happy as fuck to play my cog-part in something that was going to build something that fucking cool, yanno, if we were all working together. So maybe it's an easier fix than trying to solve all the little things and the big things and the meta things, one at a time, until hell freezes over most likely.

If anyone can think of what we're going to build or what we're going to do.

Anyone?

[trix]

I always thought the big, species challenge, assuming we get our shit together, was space exploration and answering the big questions.  Also, seeing who else may be out there.

This deserves a better more thought out answer, but I have to leave for school, so I'll give it all some thought and shoot for a better reply when I'm home.

Also, I have seen lots of proposed solutions.  None that don't have a fistful of problems, but there's The Venus Project, Technocracy, Marxist Communism, and plenty of others that claim they'd work great.  Of course, without giving them a fair shake we'll never know empirically if they'd work, but I can definitely see the potential for problems, given our baser instincts as a species.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

But, overall, there's no "What does the human race do next?", plan. Once we solve war and crime and disease and travelling faster than light and giving everybody plenty food and clothes and shit that they need. What do we do next?

The human species will never do any of that. We might evolve into a species that does, but homo sapiens hasn't even evolved past shitting where we eat. You're basically asking what squirrels will do next, after they master nuclear fission and air travel.

Our descendant species will be lucky if there IS a "next".

[morosa]

don't we just phase dimensions from here?
stuffs gotta be all physical..

[LMNO]

stuffs gotta be all physical..

Uh... yeah.  We exist in a physical universe, with stuff in it.  We are part of that stuff.  What was your point, exactly?

[Doktor Howl]

don't we just phase dimensions from here?
stuffs gotta be all physical..

Kill yourself and fuck the body.

Jesus H Christ, where the FUCK are we getting all these navel-gazing hippies from?  It's like someone put asshole juice in the watertowers, nation-wide. 

[trix]

don't we just phase dimensions from here?
stuffs gotta be all physical..

Kill yourself and fuck the body.

Jesus H Christ, where the FUCK are we getting all these navel-gazing hippies from?  It's like someone put asshole juice in the watertowers, nation-wide.  

Why do you think "hippies" sounds like "herpes"?  Coincidence?

ETA: I also take back what I said about posting more of a reply, because, well, Nigel covered it better than I could've and in far fewer words.

[Doktor Howl]

don't we just phase dimensions from here?
stuffs gotta be all physical..

Kill yourself and fuck the body.

Jesus H Christ, where the FUCK are we getting all these navel-gazing hippies from?  It's like someone put asshole juice in the watertowers, nation-wide.  

Why do you think "hippies" sounds like "herpes"?  Coincidence?

ETA: I also take back what I said about posting more of a reply, because, well, Nigel covered it better than I could've and in far fewer words.

She's like that.  She's the Eva Peron of this board.  Or she would be, if she was the ruler of Argentina.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

don't we just phase dimensions from here?
stuffs gotta be all physical..

Kill yourself and fuck the body.

Jesus H Christ, where the FUCK are we getting all these navel-gazing hippies from?  It's like someone put asshole juice in the watertowers, nation-wide. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

don't we just phase dimensions from here?
stuffs gotta be all physical..

Kill yourself and fuck the body.

Jesus H Christ, where the FUCK are we getting all these navel-gazing hippies from?  It's like someone put asshole juice in the watertowers, nation-wide.  

Why do you think "hippies" sounds like "herpes"?  Coincidence?

ETA: I also take back what I said about posting more of a reply, because, well, Nigel covered it better than I could've and in far fewer words.

She's like that.  She's the Eva Peron of this board.  Or she would be, if she was the ruler of Argentina.

Don't cry for me.

[Doktor Howl]

don't we just phase dimensions from here?
stuffs gotta be all physical..

Kill yourself and fuck the body.

Jesus H Christ, where the FUCK are we getting all these navel-gazing hippies from?  It's like someone put asshole juice in the watertowers, nation-wide.  

Why do you think "hippies" sounds like "herpes"?  Coincidence?

ETA: I also take back what I said about posting more of a reply, because, well, Nigel covered it better than I could've and in far fewer words.

She's like that.  She's the Eva Peron of this board.  Or she would be, if she was the ruler of Argentina.

Don't cry for me.

And I am PD's Nikola Tesla.

You get to die in the Rose House, and I get to die in a motel, obsessively counting my pubes.

I think this means you win.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

don't we just phase dimensions from here?
stuffs gotta be all physical..

Kill yourself and fuck the body.

Jesus H Christ, where the FUCK are we getting all these navel-gazing hippies from?  It's like someone put asshole juice in the watertowers, nation-wide.  

Why do you think "hippies" sounds like "herpes"?  Coincidence?

ETA: I also take back what I said about posting more of a reply, because, well, Nigel covered it better than I could've and in far fewer words.

She's like that.  She's the Eva Peron of this board.  Or she would be, if she was the ruler of Argentina.

Don't cry for me.

And I am PD's Nikola Tesla.

You get to die in the Rose House, and I get to die in a motel, obsessively counting my pubes.

I think this means you win.

I don't know, man. I'll die young and 50 years later Madonna will play me in a movie, whereas you get to live to a ripe old age and 60 years after you die you'll have crackpots claiming you broke physics and invented everything despite any surviving documentation of your research.

[The Rev]

I completely agree with the title, Desperation. In fact I don't think people are desperate enough yet to work together, and they may never be until it's too late.

Getting by on a day-today basis generally takes all of our effort, to make it to the next day. Until there is a real threat that there will be no next day, we won't do much of anything.

[Doktor Howl]

don't we just phase dimensions from here?
stuffs gotta be all physical..

Kill yourself and fuck the body.

Jesus H Christ, where the FUCK are we getting all these navel-gazing hippies from?  It's like someone put asshole juice in the watertowers, nation-wide.  

Why do you think "hippies" sounds like "herpes"?  Coincidence?

ETA: I also take back what I said about posting more of a reply, because, well, Nigel covered it better than I could've and in far fewer words.

She's like that.  She's the Eva Peron of this board.  Or she would be, if she was the ruler of Argentina.

Don't cry for me.

And I am PD's Nikola Tesla.

You get to die in the Rose House, and I get to die in a motel, obsessively counting my pubes.

I think this means you win.

I don't know, man. I'll die young and 50 years later Madonna will play me in a movie, whereas you get to live to a ripe old age and 60 years after you die you'll have crackpots claiming you broke physics and invented everything despite any surviving documentation of your research.

Yeah, but you get to be blond with big tits and legs that would make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window, and I get to get ripped off by Thomas Edison until I finally go crazy and die.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

don't we just phase dimensions from here?
stuffs gotta be all physical..

Kill yourself and fuck the body.

Jesus H Christ, where the FUCK are we getting all these navel-gazing hippies from?  It's like someone put asshole juice in the watertowers, nation-wide.  

Why do you think "hippies" sounds like "herpes"?  Coincidence?

ETA: I also take back what I said about posting more of a reply, because, well, Nigel covered it better than I could've and in far fewer words.

She's like that.  She's the Eva Peron of this board.  Or she would be, if she was the ruler of Argentina.

Don't cry for me.

And I am PD's Nikola Tesla.

You get to die in the Rose House, and I get to die in a motel, obsessively counting my pubes.

I think this means you win.

I don't know, man. I'll die young and 50 years later Madonna will play me in a movie, whereas you get to live to a ripe old age and 60 years after you die you'll have crackpots claiming you broke physics and invented everything despite any surviving documentation of your research.

Yeah, but you get to be blond with big tits and legs that would make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window, and I get to get ripped off by Thomas Edison until I finally go crazy and die.

You get to have a fear of pearl earrings and fall in love with a pigeon... Oh wait. Yeah. I totally win.