The sanctity of life

[Kire]

It's the core of many political issues. The value of human life. Any greasy politician will say that you can't put a value on human life, but that's BS. Our reason now for going to Iraq is so they could live better, despite costing hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. The case for abortion advocates is that those who want to will find a way illegally anyway, or will seriously screw up their lives, both theirs and the kids. So...does that mean it's hypocritical to be for the war and against abortion? Heh, well that's another issue.

Still though, the world population has DOUBLED since 1963, and we're at 6.4 BILLION now. I don't care if you're Donald Trump, it has to make you feel at least a little bit insignificant...on top of that, it's a great big universe, and we're all very puny, we're just tiny little specs, about the size of Mickey Rooney (thank you Animaniacs). The best we can really hope for is to be a big fish in a small pond, whether that be your country, state, community, subculture, or message board on the "internets." Man needs purpose to function; to feel that they're at least making some kind of difference in someone's life.

I have often examined my "abnormality" of being gay and long ago concluded that I could never make a good husband, since there are many things I could never give that are expected in a hetero relationship...and in turn, kinda makes me feel guilty cuz I won't be "doing my part" for mankind by raising a kid, but...hell, I don't think the world needs help in that department. Plus, raising a kid out of obligation rather than something you want is a formula for disaster.

I guess the alternative to this perspective is religion. Now, I personally believe there's a God, but I don't necessarily perscribe to any certain religion, even if I think Christianity has a lot of things right...but I've heard the argument that the reason you should follow religion is because otherwise, your life is meaningless. Yeah, I could also believe that Michael Jordan has a 20 inch penis, but that doesn't mean it's true.

I really have no conclusion to this, other than to say that having perspective on your place in the world can be a really humble experience, if not sometimes soul crushing...but I guess that goes w/ the territory.

How sacred do YOU think life is?

[Caciss]

Re: The sanctity of life

That's some great deep thought, Kire.

I guess I don't find life very sacred. The only reason we're here, in my mind, is to reproduce and that's it.

Still, I think more people should adopt rather than have kids.

And, blah blah.

[Funk]

Re: The sanctity of life

I think life is very sacred, and it's humanity's ability to love which makes it sacred. Whenever someone helps someone that has fallen instead of laughing at them or helps someone past ignorance, then the sacredness of life shines through.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: The sanctity of life

So... then we should be helping Staffmaster?

[Funk]

Re: The sanctity of life

People like Staffmaster need the most help.

[OmegaD3k]

Re: The sanctity of life

(I agree with Caciss on this one)

Not sacred at all.. Seeing how people are treated across the world and how even the doctors ram stuff down yer troat (litereally.. happened to me) just to get $$$... Plus unnecessary surgery and the docs conciously not doing anything to help you until you're beyond the point of saving (call the tubes and check bills!)..

Seeing how our bodies are nothing more than meat and flesh with the ability to manipulate things around us, humans are animals with the addition of that spice called religion to give us that touch of "purpose of life".

I want to believe that all life is sacred.. But that cannot be found here on this planet.

As for doing 'one's part' for mankind... I can only hope I somehow manage to motivate others to just do stuff, by having them looking at the crap I make. (them looking at my stuff and going: "OMG I SO can do the same!!" Thus unfolds a hidden talent which might lead them to be some movie GFX animator or whatnot, thus giving the masses "entertainment".)
So yeah.. I'm here to entertain... I guess..
LMFAO

or just to hang around and eat, sleep, wake up, eat, sleep, wake up, eat, sleep... gahd how lame.. I suck... The world is so painful and meaningless.. (quick! Where’re my goth CDs!?)

6.4 BILLION?! Last time I checked it was somewhere around 5bill...
There's a @#%$ load of horny peps out there...
(hell, who isn't)

I've sworn never to reproduce. Living with someone by my side for 40+ years would drive me nuts, too.. Plus why bring more lives into this decomposing rot of a world and give them all my genetic health issues? It would only be torture for the little brat(s).

As for myself.. I try to treat every living thing as sacred. Can't even kill the smallest bug, seriously..
Of course everyone would call me a "wuss"..

[Funk]

Re: The sanctity of life

OK, I can sum up the reminder of this topic's lifespan:

Pessimistic viewpoint: Life sucks
Optimistic viewpoint: Life is sacred

[Armored]

Re: The sanctity of life

Life is a bowl of chilli.

And Funk is a wussbag.

[John Mora]

Re: The sanctity of life

How far should you go to save life? How worried should we be about overpopulation and what are our options?

These are the toughies.

[Magus]

Re: The sanctity of life

*crashes a colony into Australia*

[The Toecutter]

Re: The sanctity of life

Pessimistic viewpoint: Life sucks
Optimistic viewpoint: Life is sacred

As contradictory as it seems, I happen to hold BOTH viewpoints.

For most of the world, life indeed sucks. The top 1% literally own everything and control how our world functions, hence their sociological definitoon as 'the power elite' or 'status quo'. Theyu always get their way, or they start killing people. For the next 30%, you have this nice world of television, automobiles, perhaps computer access, some education, and enough food to eat, this group of which has their fair share of the resources in the case efficiency is adhered to(which it is not at the moment). The middle 40% are happy to have their AK47 to brandish, and if they're without one, they're making mud bricks. The rest are starving and not even treated as human.

If you value human life, this is not the political and economic system that we should be living with. The authoritarians need to be removed from power, by force if necessary, in order to shift the balance of power, income potential, and wealth from the few having the vast majority to the many having the vast majority. Not an equal distribution in the case of wealth/income, mind you, but a much more egalitarian distribution.

Still though, the world population has DOUBLED since 1963, and we're at 6.4 BILLION now.

That's the 'people-poverty' cycle. Note the populations of 1st world and 2nd world countries where citizens enjoy a good living standard and have enough food to eat and can save enough money to retire. Those in the third world and fifth world nations, and those poor in the wealthy countries do not have this. The third and fifth worlders thus have a LOT of children, in hopes some of them will survive to care for the parents in their old age. There is the cause of your population problem.

Why are they so poor?

Lots of reasons. One of the most common reasons is that the land of these people's ancestors was stripped from them by corporations attempting to 'industrialize' their respective nations, paying the government off to have permission to confiscate peoples' land. since none of the land owned is documented, there is no proof of ownership. Military or corporate-hired mercenaries thus move in and steal it. Not having a means to grow crops, the people have no means of sustinence, and their only option is to move to the cities to work in the factories. The corporations, having intentionally created a job shortage in order to peg wages down, offers jobs at the lowest possible wages, trapping those fortunate enough to work into poverty, but at least they aren't living in shacks constructed of garbage like the rest; they get a nice fancy wooden shack with a dirt floor instead of that cardboard box shack. Those same corporations then overcharge the 1st and 2nd world consumers for the products those poorly-paid slave workers make. That $100 pair of nikes, for instance, cost less than $20 to make and ship with all labor, shipping, marketing, ect. costs factored in. Gets sold to retail for about triple that, and retail marks it up some more.

Those confiscated plots of land that once grew food? The corporations grow cash crops like tobacco and coffee on it to sell to the first world. Thus no domestic food, and demand for imported food shoots up, making prices of food skyrocket. The people can't afford it, and starve, even though most of it ends up rotting with no one buying it, because they couldn't afford it.

So being in poverty and getting older, third/fifth worlders thus have lots of kids. Once they're old, they can't work or scavenge. Some of those kids will survive to support them, if they have enough kids and at least some survive.

Meanwhile, the wealthier nations have a negative birth rate, where there are more deaths per year than births. If it wouldn't be for immigration, they'd have a declining population. But immigration doesn't add to the world population.

Wars make the situations of this sort even worse. With destruction of ariable land during wars, war-torn nations experience this cycle starting in their nations. Iraq, once having been reasonably wealthy up until the 1st gulf war, is experiencing this. Worse, the depleted uranium used is deforming offspring and making once fertile farmland permanently useless. Wars are started to boost profits of those industries pushing for them, such as the defense and oil industries, seeking government funds to provide a service, with the promise of boosting the domestic economy. However, the part of the economy that is boosted is the income of those in the top 1% that are part of such industries.

Nations, having been thrown into poverty by corporate takeover, war, or the seizing of control by authoritarian leaders, quickly need money to function. Taxes, not providing the revenue, quickly become increased by large amounts, BUT it still isn't enough to cover expenses. Quickly, these nations start borrowing money from wealthy nations, at heavily inflated interests rates that make total debt more than 5 times more than what they borrowed. Those nations then get rapped into being permanently poor, having no means to pay the money back, but neededing it for subsistence. Often, it is the 1st world nations through war or imperialism that push these nations into such a state, to exploit their resources. Present day exploiters are the IMF and World Bank. Can't pay the loans? Those nations get yet more sanctions against them, further preventing economic growth, while the first world nations make out with thier resources.

Then there are the oil barons. They have been documented to have committed genocide against entire peoples and tribes to seize their land, one famous example being Shell Oil in Nigeria hiring armed mercenaries to seize oil-rich land that was blocked by those pesky villages. The government, seeing an opportunity to get some of that oil money, even agreed to help the oil company take the land and drill, although the government gets a mere pittance of the total profits, it's enough to allow the bureacrats to live like people in the 1st world nations.

Want to stop overpopulation? End poverty. Crack down on exploitive multinationals, war instigaters, land grabbers, loan sharks, and oil mongers. Those are the very groups of individuals perpetuating this cycle, because it is how they make their money. Those individuals are the reasons we are fighting wars, are the reasons religious fundamentalists are gaining popularity due to an upset population in these nations, the reasons living standards for those impoverished peoples are not increasing(some VERY rare exceptions, like the formation of a Chinese middle class), and the reason people who are not so well off see it fit to have so many children, making life miserable for everyone except those wealthy enough to avoid those people and the consequences of operpopulation and drained resources.

Some will scream communism or socialism, even though the solution is not necessarily such. What the solution is, is putting humanity itself before profits, not necessarily controlling the individual. Humanism, whether it is humanistic capitalism, socialism, or communism, humanism is the route that needs to be taken. If higher profits will cost lives, then profits should take a back seat. Otherwise, we will continue to get very overpopulated and eventually this will make for some horrific conflicts, conflicts of which those top 1% will be wealthy enough to be sealed off from, while the rest of us are kind of screwed.

[Kefka Jr.]

Re: The sanctity of life

Pssh, how precious can life be? You get it for free.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: The sanctity of life

No you don't. Once you're born, you're socially obligated to be a working class stiff for your entire life, ruining 1/8 of the life you get for free. At least. Some people work two jobs, and they only sleep in their spare time.

Not even life is free. Except for hobos.

[Magus]

Re: The sanctity of life

Yeah, I really envy the guy on 8th St. outside Chipotle begging for quarters.

His threads are tight.