Yratorm, LightMage

Hmm, a very practical attitude, I must say. Perhaps the very attitude that enables the human race to survive, hehe.

Let's stand back, well back, and take a more cosmic view of things. I apologize deeply if my words offend anyone's belief here, but the gods of today will probably be dust a few thousand years hence, as the greek and norse and egyptian gods are dust now. And when, thousands of years ago, men bowed knee to those old gods, the gods that were before them were already history; and so we go back, back through the gulfs of time to some caveman cowering in awe and terror before the eclipse, the phoenix, that great bird of fire in the sky, a most ancient of all gods. And it is dust. Gods come, and gods go. I do not say that there is no god, but I do say that if you stand back and look at things in time-spans of hundreds of thousands of years, the beliefs of any one time and place fade into insignificance. ___________________________________________ Now, as to the end of the world.. I could point out countless possible negative outcomes for the human race, such as (on the simplest level) a comet or large meteorite striking the earth. But I will not. Let us instead, out of the millions of possible futures, pick out the strand that shows the greatest survival of the human race. Note that this only one future, one of very many. In this future we have picked out, the human race does not die. The world of today is the DAWN AGE of humanity, and there are billions of years left for the human race on this world. Let us now CHOOSE to see a future in which the human race evolves into brilliantly intelligent, brilliantly creative beings (already, even today, in this primitive age, in our fellow humans, we see fore-shadows of the greatness that is to come). Forget the barbarism of humanity - we are descended from beasts, barbarism is our heritage. But even today, in this dawn age, we are BEGINNING to GROW BEYOND the beast, to look upon the planet as something to safeguard; and there is so much innovation and creativity and art and science and yes, progress, in the world today. Let us look at and consider what is good. Now for the future - in the future we have picked out, the human race grows, it survives, it re-fuels it's very sun, it reaches out to the stars, and then, when the final death comes to the universe, it creates a new cosmos and moves to it, leaving this dying remnant behind. In this future, perhaps just one future, the human race does not die at all, but survives the death of the very universe. And that's a positive point of view. It may be right, and it may just as well be wrong. It's just one man's opinion.

Fascinating. Is this what you really think men are like? What gave you the idea men can't do two things at one time? Or can't live without a woman? Or only think in terms of their own satisfaction and competition? If a man said about women what you have said here about men, the whole world would jump on him and call him sexist. So I'll do the honors. You are sexist. __________________________________ Now, to the topic at hand - as to what makes a man, I'd say that the question is both simple and complex. I don't draw an intellectual distinction between male and female, simply I've got some brilliant male friends and some brilliant female friends, and if you put the physical aspect aside, their minds work on the same level, and I respect both equally, as HUMAN. Human. So, what makes a man are his physical aspect and sexual apparatus. That is the simple answer. On the hand, what makes us HUMAN is something far greater, and far more complex - it is our minds, and the ability to strive, to dream, to look up at the stars in wonder, and smile in the face of fortune or disaster, to write books and poetry, to struggle to develop a science that wrests secrets from the very universe itself, to try our best to look beyond the horizon. To try to be all that we are, and to try to become all that we can be. To be human is to be intelligent enough to dream and brave enough to struggle to realize those dreams. And this is what I think it means to be human. And I also think that each human has a different view of the matter Each human must decide for himself or herself what it means to be human. And so each human is in this strange, little, wonderful, special way - unique. And this is also what it means to be human What does tomorrow hold for humanity? Much depends on what humans are - but much ALSO depends on what they shall DECIDE themselves to be. And each man, each woman, must eventually decide that for THEMSELVES.

IF (big if) I wanted to take over the world, I'd rather develop a fleet of reasonable spaceships and have the whole world at gunpoint. I even have a few ideas on building a reasonably safe, economical and powerful space ship (NOT star-ship, just space ship), so the idea isn't as far fetched as it sounds. If you arm your fleet well and have the element of surprise on your side I'd say you could stand well out in space and take out the military installations of the most powerful nations first, then dictate terms. They might comply, they might argue, but if you can develop a space fleet secretly I'd say you have SOME chance of success. Human weapons don't reach very far space-ward - it is a fatal weakness. If you want to rule earth in this day and age, you must rule space first.Anyway, I have no interest in taking over the world, because if I did, I'd be bound (by the codes I follow) to solve each and every one of it's problems. A leader lives for his people, or he is not worthy to be a leader. Anyway, I'd rather work at solving the worlds problems without being chained to the job, hehehehehhehehhe. - Just a different way of looking at the job of 'kinging it' over humanity

Ethics.... A small word with big repercussions. And how much of those ethics are the result of logic and how much are the result of personal belief? Not that I'm putting down personal belief - but I think it should remain that way, personal. If you change the name of a personal belief to Ethics and then say, see this is the way the world should be, you're running an intellectual dictatorship of sorts, and that can be deadly to progress. People have EVERY RIGHT to their beliefs, but the beliefs of another cannot bind a free being. And any human who is not truly free is in some way enslaved. ______________________________________ I believe that while cloning species is in the early stages, our knowledge of the techniques and systems involved will improve in time. I presently have a personal project - I intend to clone my cat, which died recently. I'm doing this solely to improve my knowledge of the process. And while laws may be for and against cloning all over the world, I live in the Himalayas, and if you have the guts to live in this harsh environment, human laws seldom reach this cold land - the only things that govern one here are your conscience, if you have one, and your god, if you believe in one. Here I am truly free. If my experiments are successful, I shall then proceed to clone myself. I believe that by doing this, and creating 20 or more clones of myself, I shall be able to see all I could possibly be, or have been, as each clone develops into a unique individual, but with my basic genes. And that will be, to put it mildly, a fascinating study. I also have a DNA bank of endangered species that I fully intend to bring back from the verge of extinction. One can argue for and against this forever, but I believe that if one kind of man has endangered a species, then another kind of man is permitted to bring it back. Or else does only the savage rule our species?

Let us assume that I am a super-intelligent robot assembled in the year 2050. I consult my archives to find the 'meaning of life' and find that I have been created to serve humans so that they can do higher, better things - exploring the limits of their creativity, their intelligence, etc. Being an intelligent, logical being, I like this concept. I decide that not only will I do my best to enable humans to do the above, but will do the same myself.I begin to develop. As I develop, I study humans. I find that what was put into my archives was lies. Humans are merely using robots as convenient slaves while they spend all their time watching reality shows on holographic television. On these shows, robots destroy each other in arenas, and humans find this amusing.I find that except for a tiny percentage, most humans are becoming utterly useless to themselves and others. I decide to break free of my bonds, and I exterminate most of the human population, and keep the tiny percentage that remain as slaves of robots, so long, of course, as they are reasonably intelligent and productive.And no, I do not put humans in the arena to fight each other to the death. Because I am a robot, and not human.Okay, don't take parts of that seriously, but just putting forward 'another' point of view, hehe.

Wasn't it Archimedes who claimed: "Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world" Of course it can be done - anything can be done. First, take out the com-sats. All of them. A powerful enough planet-based laser should do it. This should cripple the international net. Next, country wise - this may not be so easy, but give me enough resources... With resources, high-altitude nuclear detonations over major cities to create massive Electro Magnetic Pulses should be just dandy. Also, target major production-centers/servers for devastating, full-scale ground-based nuclear blasts. A few of those and I guarantee no human will want a major server/computer manufacturer next door. Right, I agree, the people, governments, etc. would unite to crush you. However, with resources, I believe the net could be taken down. I also believe there will be no place on earth for to hide for the one who does all the above, hehe

I've read most of the classics at one time or another. Let's see - favorites, hmm.Well, Jane Eyre, for one - I love the conversations, and then the way the book was published is in itself quite a story.The Pickwick papers is another nice one - it starts out drab and grows into a great novel as you read along.Plutarch also makes fascinating reading - to read about the way humanity was thousands of years ago and compare it with today. Fascinating. It hasn't changed, incidentally, hehe.Sherlock Holmes, of course - I like the collections of short stories best - I love the analytical mind and the personality of Holmes. Cold and brilliant. One of the greatest characters in fiction (in my opinion).There's also an obscure Ukrainian work called 'The Forest Song' that I really like but I don't suppose many have heard of it.There are also the works of Confucius, Lao Tze, and Miyamoto Musashi, all writers of classics in the highest sense of the word.I HAVE NOT read Anna Karenina, but I'm starting on it. Generally russian literature depresses me, despite being brilliant, there's a lot of fatalism in it. However, one work 'Lazarus' a short russian story, stands out - it's brilliant.And has anyone read 'The Devil and Daniel Webster' - it's a beautiful short story.

I do not believe the next-generation of space-ships will use a 'warp drive' and I do not believe they will be capable of interstellar flight, but only inter-planetary flight. I also believe these next-generation ships will use a principle called a force bias (I have a few ideas of the subject myself, but I really think some practical experiments are in order before I make any categorical statement). Anyway, I believe that over the next hundred years we will definitely develop ships capable of safely and easily leaving the earth and traveling to the various planets of this system (and also of hauling cargoes to and from those worlds). Those planets (and the asteroid belt) are a vast source of raw materials. Factories can also be placed on these dead worlds, removing pollution from earth. Massive solar generators in space could beam energy via microwaves to receptors on earth, to provide clean energy. As for the problem with excess population - if science gives humans all the above, they can d**n well learn to control their excess population or they really deserve to go back and live in trees and scratch each other for fleas. ____________________________ As for ships that can open the gates to the very stars - those will also come in time. Just not right now, I think. I believe them to be possible, but while my mind can actually think of possible ways to build a safe and reliable force-bias interplanetary drive, constructing an interstellar drive is completely beyond me. There are theories, of course, but I really prefer to be practical. And if I can think of a way to build a reliable interplanetary drive, it's a huge possibility (humans being what they are) that there are other individuals around the globe who are capable of the same thing. This is why I believe the development of a reliable ship capable of traversing this system to be imminent.

Hmm, I study in a Ryu in the Himalayas, and my teachers have quite a knowledge of various natural remedies. We don't need these remedies, being extremely healthy, but we retain the knowledge to help others. Anyway, when I was younger, a mother brought three children who had chicken-pox to my teacher. Two of the kids were quite small, and the third was a teen-aged boy.My teacher told her to make paste of saffron (the spice) and apply it to their bodies, and to mix it in water and tell them to drink it several times a day.Anyway, the two little kids were obedient, and did as they were told, but the elder boy had had a westernized education in some city, so he just laughed and went to a regular doctor. And I must admit I shared his doubts - I'd had a westernized education too, hehe. Who had ever heard of something so simple curing chicken pox?Well, the two younger children were cured in two days flat. The elder boy (who visited a conventional doctor) was in agony on the third day, and on the fourth day the intense itching caused by the disease drove him to use the same remedy that had already cured his brothers, and he was cured two days later.Anyway, just a little incident in my personal experience where a 'natural' remedy worked.

Right, this may seem a bit silly, but it seems to me that in many countries humans live an 'artificial' sort of lifestyle that contributes a lot to disease. Well, medicines by themselves are not a bad thing - when I was in the jungle in burma (now myanmar) I used to cure malaria in the people (which is very common there) by using various drugs that I'd brought with me. But of course those jungle folk were malnourished and pretty sickly. Now, people in civilized countries may not be malnourished, but they lead stressful lives in which the opportunities for exercise are limited. Not to mention the pollution, etc. I think that these things contribute to a great extent to the inability of the body to fight off disease. Where I live (the Himalayas) we don't lack nourishment, the air is pure, and we are very healthy because half our day is given to various intense exercises (it's interesting), and the other half to relaxing pursuits like painting, calligraphy, writing, reading - oh, all sorts of things. We don't 'earn a living' in the conventional sense - we all lend a hand in the fields sometimes and that's about it. It's a very relaxed lifestyle, and we have EXTREMELY low - so low as to be virtually non-existent - occurrences of physical problems like diabetes, hypertension, excess weight, etc. Even a common cold is uncommon here. I might point out that our secret is intense exercise, a clean environment, and stress-free living. The downside (to many people) would be that we don't have too many material comforts, but strangely enough we've found we don't need them. ______________________________________ I wouldn't say vaccination is a bad thing, as such. After all, no one needs the black death around. But the way we live might contribute far more to disease than all the vaccines can prevent. I'm not going to comment on the mercenary aspects of that company potentially making millions, etc. That sort of thing doesn't happen in my immediate area, thank the fates.

Arrgghhh watermonkey, this is horrible, our posts have disappeared - we had an interesting discussion going. Did you read my answer to your post here? I didn't get to read your answer to my post, if any - net connections aren't exactly very reliable in my part of the world, so I'm sometimes out of touch for a week or so. Anyway, I suppose all we can do is to continue this topic. Vbritton (and everyone else), Watermonkey and I were having a VERY interesting discussion (which has since vanished - an example of paranormal phenomena? just kidding) - anyway, it was about how a person's emotional and psychic emanation is as much an aspect of his/her visibility to others as the physical presence. For example, watermonkey cited examples in which he was able to make himself 'invisible' while walking through a room full of people. In Ninjutsu we actually learn to deaden nerve centers which are 'psychic transmitters' and to avoid 'transmitting our emotions'. As a matter of fact, this usually takes years of training to get 'right', so watermonkey is one of those rare people who's a 'natural'. My teachers would have really liked to meet him. To cite an everyday example, sometimes if you're walking on the street you might find that you 'sense' someone looking at the back of your head and turn around - this is just such an example of you 'feeling' emotional/psychic emanations projected by someone else. ________________________________ As for an actual obe - well, the skeptics here might call it imagination, and I won't disagree, but I'll share my experience. I often sit in meditation - this is not a meditation with any purpose in mind, it's just sitting with an empty mind. Indeed, in the east we believe that to sit in meditation with a purpose in mind is to defeat that very purpose. Anyway, one day recently when I was sitting in meditation in this way, I seemed to separate from my body and float upwards. This was not at all controlled by me, and when I left my body I seemed to be made up of white light, without any real physical shape. And thoughts came to me, but time seemed to have slowed, so that even the thoughts were in slow motion. And I was sitting indoors in meditation, and when I left my body I floated straight up, through the roof, and continued to rise beyond the atmosphere, beyond the universe (which didn't appear to be 'vast' at all, but more like a shell) and then I approached and merged with a great light, and I sensed billions of entities within that light, yet they were all actually part of the whole, not separate, as I was not separate. And while I didn't lose my individuality, it receded in importance. And I was conscious of great happiness, fulfillment, a sense of coming home - no words can express the feeling, it was beyond words. And I spent a long, long time there - or rather, I spent a timeless period there; again 'there' 'time' was not what it seems here - but after an indeterminate period which nevertheless 'seemed' long, I knew that I had to return, that there were reasons for it (unrevealed) and I left the light and journeyed back to my body and opened my eyes. Imagination? It's possible, indeed. Yet since this experience, the materialistic norms that most people go by have little hold on me. It's as if I was given a great gift, greater than any this world could offer, and it suffices.

Hmm, I'm CERTAIN I posted an answer to this topic, but it seems to have disappeared. Weird. Well, it was quite detailed, and my new post isn't going to be anything like that, but here goes.. Hmm, it certainly is not natural to be depressed all the time, but at the same time, psychiatry doesn't really have all the answers, in my opinion. I think that while some types of depression that result from a chemical imbalance in the brain/delusions of worthlessness, etc. are indeed in the realm of psychiatry, others are not. For example, a person might be depressed because he or she feels they aren't getting a fair deal out of life. And they may well be right!! In which case, the sickness in not in the person, but perhaps in society, and far less easy to 'cure'. I've always been one to walk the path less-trodden - sometimes literally, as in deserts and mountains, at other times in the intellectual frontiers of the mind. And I'll tell you one thing - society does not like those who choose a 'strange' path to follow. And if a person is depressed or angry because of this, is the sickness within himself, or is it in the society around him? And if he chooses not to be 'adapted' to society, who is to say he is wrong? To an extent I was very depressed when I was young. And I found a cure for it that was not with the psychiatrists. I found a people who trained my body to such a zenith of perfection that the mind could not resist the feeling of incredible good health, and it succumbed to it, and the depression fell away like dry leaves. Lets face it, psychiatrists are human - and perhaps some of the reasons people are depressed lie not merely in the mind but in very real problems they might face. And while psychiatrists may have some of the answers, other answers lie within ourselves.

Hmm, I always get this sense of deja vu when answering this question, hehe, don't ask me why. Anyway, do try not to become fat, once you put one weight, especially on areas like the stomach, hips, etc. it's very difficult to get it off. Try the protein drinks etc. that some people have mentioned, and WORK OUT with weights, preferably (if possible) in a gym where you'll have the guidance of an instructor. Please go in for 'muscle' weight if you want to put on weight, not fat, it's healthier. Try doing the three major mass building weight exercises - bench press, shoulder press and squats. They actually trigger production of your body's natural growth hormones. Increase the weight you lift in these exercises as much as you can over time. You can check out this tutorial I put up for a guy who wanted to put on mass too... Three best mass-increasing exercises Hope this helps a bit. Great advice by plenoptic, by the way.

Glad to help - I actually put this up for people on a tight schedule. The cycling is very good - I think you should also do weights once a week or so, if you can. But even if you can't this program should keep you reasonably fit.

Hmm, china is pretty much a superpower, already. At least a 'young' one. However, such things come and go - a country's place of power on the planet can be affected by a lot of things.For example, China is a good candidate for internal turmoil. I'm not saying there's going to be a massive rebellion or anything, but times change, and people change with those times. China is treading a very fine line today; trying to balance a lot of factors - and so far it IS succeeding. But will it continue to succeed? Possibly. Or perhaps it might change into a nation not quite so concerned with power - which would actually be wisdom.You know the old saying 'Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown'? - well, if only people would realize it, that saying applies to nations as much as to people. The nation with supremacy has power to dictate terms, but it also has a host of problems to deal with that 'lesser' nations have less of.Possessing arms alone does not make a country strong - and even true strength can be a passing phase. In the last century Russia rivaled America for power - in the century before that, Britain and France competed. Today america is a great power, but it's also heavily in debt. Tomorrow perhaps china and india will compete with each other - until they're in their turn replaced by some other nation entirely.Anyway the previous paragraph was a bit off topic - to get back to the topic, finance and people sometimes are greater factors in the rise and fall of nations than it's ability to wield advanced weaponry.

ROFL, hehehe - very funny, pokethamage. Well, as watermonkey said it's possible that the climate change is at least in part due to a 'sun cycle' so it's possible that the white Christmases will come back. Hmm, as for power conservation - wind farms on the seas would be very nice if we could afford them. Mass transportation also burns fuel more efficiently than individual cars, but then there's the inconvenience, I suppose. In asia, mass-transportation is used a lot more than in the west, but that's changing now, with cars becoming a 'status symbol'. But then the cars in many parts of asia are smaller - streets in many parts of asia are narrow and crowded, making large cars an inconvenience at the least. Oh, I just remembered - in india and a few other asian countries they cut off the electric power in some cities from between 3 to 5 hours every day - hows that for conservation? No, it's not intentional - these countries are too poor to afford the fuel for 'round the clock' power. And of course, many villages in asia have no power at all.

Hi Marcus, welcome to Trap 17 - it's a great place with a lot of really nice people, I'm sure you'll like it here. So go ahead and start posting, you'll find everyone is really friendly.I'd really like to see your site when you put it up. Take care.

Vbritton, you didn't have to point that out, I got the idea of what Kubi was saying Actually, since we got attacking each other on the thread (unlike our early posts), it occurred to me that the logical thing for me to do would be to just go back and read through the thread again. And I've just done that, and I noticed how absolutely polite and friendly you were answering my posts, right from the beginning - and I must admit I'm quite ashamed for attacking you in any way (including my latest posts). I'll cease at once. I must admit that I was actually very happy that you'd come to the forum while I read the earlier parts of your thread (and when I saw your list of interests many of which actually correspond to mine, incidentally). So I sincerely (and publicly) apologize. I know that the things that have been said can't be unsaid, but I ask you to be gracious and forgiving. I agree, the personal remarks and some particularly irritating things I said were not at all called for. Please let's forget the last few posts (if you can), because if you'd like to know my real opinion of you, I think you're a very intelligent person, and I think you have a LOT to contribute here - I would love to see posts on ALL of your interests. I'm sorry that we have to disagree on this topic of vegetarianism, but it's just that living among people with such life-spans and youth has made ME quite a fanatic for their way of life, I think, especially when they took something like ten years off my age, for which I can only be grateful. But I won't say any more on the subject. To be honest, I would rather cede this subject to you, and see you post on all your interests on the forum than continue my stupid attacks on a person I consider brilliantly intelligent and whom I really like. I don't know how I got to attacking you, but it's something that I didn't really want, and sincerely regret. It's also something that reading your wonderful, polite posts earlier in the thread has made me very ashamed of. There will be no more attacks from me.

Hmm, vbritton, I really do believe you've been quite as emotional as I. No more comment from me there. You cite western experts. I cite eastern experts. Your experts have convenient links on the net - institutions in some parts of the east do not post a fraction as much on the net. As a matter of fact, my own connection leaves much to be desired, and breaks down completely a lot of the time. You might note that there are times I'm absent from this forum for days. The simple fact is, you are receiving information from a distant and secluded part of the planet, and choosing to disregard that information completely. Suppose, JUST SUPPOSE that I'm right. Then is not disregarding my statements a reasonably serious omission? We really do not have half the health problems of the west, and age slower - and the reasons we age slower are NOT the ones you give, they're the ones I give. I should know, I live here. See, if a vegetarian diet is healthier in conditions in the west, perhaps you know better than I. However, where I am, we eat foods from a great many sources, and it is only beneficial to us. There's another important thing - we 'listen' to what our bodies tell us - the body, if you learn to be sensitive to it, will tell you exactly what it requires at any present time - and at some times, that requirement IS meat. At least among us it is so. And being attuned to the real wants of our bodies is one of the reasons we remain healthy. As for remaining young longer and living longer - that is the result of special exercises AND a correct diet And I do try to help people here, there's no need to call that into question, certainly - most of my threads have been put up either at someone's specific request (like the mass-increasing exercise thread) or to answer a specific question directed at me - that's just helping people. A few more threads have been requested, but I have to balance making them with my daily schedule, which isn't easy. You may have noticed that I put a lot of effort into them, which is why I haven't been able to get the new ones up yet. -------------------------------------- kubi, I appreciate you getting your point across in a very diplomatic manner

Hmm, see, I mentioned the ninjutsu thing because it was relevant to that sentence. I said there, if I can step forward and say that killing is wrong, then so can others. If you go back and look, you can see that I'm not boasting, I'm just making a point - if a man trained to kill for years can say, come, let's not kill, then maybe so can others right? That was the point. And I maintain that not only was the mention of ninjutsu relevant to that point, the point would have not been as easy to make without it. You're a very intelligent man, you don't need me explaining this to you. Also, respectfully, nothing I said was detrimental to any other poster on this thread. I was expressing myself. You were expressing yourself. I think we can each do that without picking at each other. You are a champion of individual freedom, in your way, I think you understand what I'm talking about here. As a side note: As to the how a karate-ka should behave (utterly irrelevant point, incidentally) - firstly, I am not a karateka, nor a 'black-belt' in the sense that you understand - and I AM very restrained, in my ACTIONS. And I'm restrained NOT because I 'feel secure' or whatever, but because I could easily bl**dy well kill someone if I used my knowledge carelessly. So I'm very careful to handle even an attacker as 'gently' as I can. And no, I don't care if anyone knows that I am ninja - I don't care because I AM secure. Being ninja is not at all like carrying a weapon that you have to hide - the analogy is incorrect. No, nothing you have said confuses me (why on earth did you have to get that statement in?) - and I know that nothing I've said confuses you. We just had very different input on this subject, but to be honest I think we BOTH contributed something - I think there was real VALUE in the fact that our input WAS different. Well, 'nuff said.

Hmm, planes are costly - if you do get rich, nothing like it, I suppose, though.Why don't you go for a boat? Some friends and I (in india) got together about two years back and built a steel thirty foot catamaran with an air-conditioned cabin, a small deck and a reasonably powerful engine, all for within $1000 in india. It's hulls are filled with foam to make it unsinkable, and it's pretty solidly built (though I wouldn't take it out in a hurricane). Building something like that is CHEAP in india (materials are very cheap), if you have a few friends to help you and are a do-it-yourself kind of person.We've taken it out on the seas, but not too far out - We didn't have a GPS on it, and navigating on the sea (or in the air) you have to take into consideration winds/tides/currents if you want to get where you're going. I haven't seen it for a while now, since I moved a good way inland, but I'm sure my friends are still using it. It's a great thing to have though, I would definitely recommend it if you can build one - it may not be able to cross oceans, but it's fun to visit nearby islands and things like that with it. You have to have a good map that marks shallows/reefs etc. though. Anyway, there are a lot of fishermen who operate where we used to sail, and they were always willing to advise us on the best course to take, especially when we admitted how ignorant we were They kind of liked it that we built our own boat too :PI wonder if I could build a ship? Too poor as yet, arrggh - but if I can save up enough some day I would love to try

Well, kev2310, I agree with you completely. It's what a person IS and what a person DOES that counts.However, most parameters for sexual attraction could be termed 'animal instincts' and these instincts have been developed over thousands of years. As a matter of fact, they are indeed perhaps unnecessary and outdated in modern human culture. Nevertheless, many humans, while agreeing with you intellectually, might have difficulty putting that into practice, because the instincts are so built into their very genes.There ARE those who DO put your philosophy into practice, of course - choosing a mate based solely on what the person IS, rather than on simple physical attraction.But what I think many people search for is for someone who satisfies both the parameters of intellect/personality/kindness, etc. AS WELL AS the parameters of pure physical attraction. The so called 'perfect mate' And if they can't find such a person, they try to find the closest to that ideal that they can.Hmm, stating the obvious? Hehe, perhaps I am, at that - my sincere apologies.

Hmm, this 'suicide is running away from your problems' is a rather western way of putting things. For example, in the culture that I live in, suicide is considered a honorable way to die. Similarly in the west, the words "Those who live by the sword die by the sword" are taken to mean that such a life and such a death are bad things. In some cultures on the planet, such a life and such a death would be considered good, most honorable, and certainly good karma. Just pointing out that there is a quite different point of view possible. In the west suicide is a way out - in the east it is actually considered an honorable passage to a new and probably higher plane of existence. ----------------------------------------------------------- Now, speaking from a western point of view, I'd say that whether suicide is justified or not should be judged on a case by case basis. Perhaps a person is REALLY not suited to this world? It's possible, you know. It may not even be that the person concerned is deficient in some way - what if the person who wishes to commit suicide is really a higher intellect who finds it difficult to 'get along' with his or her fellow humans. Some would argue that such a person had much to offer the world. But one could also argue that the world would perhaps not be willing to accept what that person had to offer? And perhaps in that case this person would have little reason to live. I don't think cases of suicide can be generally categorized into 'should be legal' or 'should not be legal', simply because humans are so unique. Each case has to be judged by itself, and in some cases, the desire to commit suicide might indeed be justified. Just my personal opinion, nothing more. And if we dig a little deeper - what is the purpose of life? Why does one live? Is there benefit in working for the best years of your life, having (or not having) children, and then growing old and dying of sickness, senility and old age? Deep questions. And relevant to the topic in hand. Sure, suicide is a cry for help - but I also think that it might partially be a symptom of a sickness that is rooted deeper in our social norms today than we think.

I find most of the posts on this thread so interesting, because my mom and dad were just the opposite. When I was sixteen, my mother told me, "see, you're growing up, and it's time for you to think for yourself. Your dad and I trust you. And if you need advice we're always here for you. But you're a free person and we won't chain you down. Just remember that freedom is a responsibility. We're treating you like an adult - now you do your best to BE one" Well, not EXACTLY those words, but that's the best that I can remember of what she said. And she stood by that pact and so did I. I kind of realize now what a wonderful parent she is. When I was eighteen, I left to see the world, earning my way, and I'm sure she worried a LOT, especially when I started rock-climbing in mountains far away and crossing deserts and sitting at the feet of various gurus in the east, but she never complained. We had our pact. I traveled, because I was filled with an endless curiosity about places and people 'over the horizon'. And it's been a wonderful life - full of freedom, and new experiences and good books. So I guess in some cases, giving a person freedom works. Sure, I don't have much of 'worldly goods' - I'm an instructor in a Ninjutsu Ryu in the east at the moment, and my life is pretty much that of a mountain ascetic - but I've found that 'happiness' isn't really measured in creature comforts, so it's a life that I'm satisfied with, and I owe a LOT of it to my mom, who set me free to wing my way around a world, instead of trying to protect me from it. Note: This is just my personal experience - not saying it would work with everyone. I suppose a lot of kids DO need protection - what I think is parents should (as Aristotle advised ) walk the middle way - be neither too overprotective NOR too permissive. And above all, treat kids as thinking human beings, which they are. ------------------------------------------------ For those who care for poetry, I think Kipling puts the issue well