Reply #30: I still can't get where you're coming from. [View All]

You seem vaguely resentful of something, pretty much resigned to something, vaguely couldn't-give-a-damn, and... just plain old vague, maybe a little loopy too, especially when you talk about not being "much of a fan of time".

I suspect you meant that mostly as a smart ass comment, but it still gives me the feeling there really isn't any situation that would make you happy. If time itself really does bother you, you're pretty much doomed for discontent.


It can be a big, expansive, fulfilling existence in one sense. But it can also be an environmentally low-impact existence.

Don't take my sci-fi-ish living-as-software example too literally. I merely brought it up as an example of a possible future, to show that an environmentally low-impact existence, which is still safe, secure, and prosperous, is a conceivable thing. Now if you're going to be so insane about what you consider "impact" -- like daring to stop an asteroid on it's (rightful?) collision course with the planet, I can't help you much there, nor do I care to.


What big threat is a polar bear, a crocodile, or a malaria-infested mosquito, to an underground computer complex? Maybe if in a few million years the polar bears and crocs start learning how to drill tunnels and wield blow torches, we might have to intervene to protect ourselves, but so what? Other than the fact that we can protect ourselves in more sophisticated ways than other creatures, fighting to survive IS the way of nature, not counter to the way of nature.

The first photosynthetic plants didn't give a damn they were poisoning the whole planet by indiscriminately pumping that awful corrosive stuff we call "oxygen" out into a perfectly fine atmosphere of nitrogen and methane and whatnot, an atmosphere which the rest of life was perfectly content with at the time. They wreaked havoc on the ecosystem of their day, and probably killed off a lot of their own kind in the process. We're certainly no worse for the planet than those first plants were, and at least we have a chance to think about what we're doing and minimize the impact we have on other life.

You're acting as if the first obligation of conscious awareness is to let yourself die off and not get in the way of dumber, or even non-sentient, things.


That makes absolutely no sense as an analogy to anything I've said. I might figure it out if I can guess the right set of black-or-white extremes presupposed behind what you're saying, but I'll leave that up to you to explain if you care.