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With gorilla gone is there hope for man?

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techstepgenr8tion
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16 Nov 2009, 11:20 pm

With the 70's gone is there no hope for bell-bottoms?



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17 Nov 2009, 12:41 am

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
With the 70's gone is there no hope for bell-bottoms?


After the 70s were gone, for the first time there was hope for freedom from bell-bottoms.

And corduroy. I hated that. It messed with my stim. And turtle necks. I cant stand stuff touching my neck.

But I dont miss the 80s either.


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17 Nov 2009, 7:29 am

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
With the 70's gone is there no hope for bell-bottoms?

I demand a movement for the preservation of bellbottoms. And all forms of baggy jean.



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17 Nov 2009, 9:27 am

TheOddGoat wrote:
Is this thread an in-joke type thing?



It's a play on words of an ancient buddhist koan that goes 'with man gone there is no hope for gorilla and with gorilla gone there is no hope for man'

Daniel Quinn (one of my fav authors) played with the wording a bit and posed it as a more direct question wording it as 'with man gone is there hope for gorilla and with gorilla gone is there hope for man'

In the context of the japanese buddhist koan, it's meant to illustrate the equality of life, neither human nor gorilla is superior to each other in any way in the eyes of nature.
Quinn's intention was more of a saying on human's nature to eradicate any life that doesnt fit their paradigm of living (within it's own species and outside.) It asks the question "is there more hope for the survival of human with the exterminating other species -- is there more hope for the non-human life with the extermination of human"


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17 Nov 2009, 9:51 am

willa wrote:
TheOddGoat wrote:
Is this thread an in-joke type thing?



It's a play on words of an ancient budhist koan that goes 'with man gone there is no hope for gorilla and with gorrila gone there is no hope for man'

Daniel Quinn (one of my fav authors) played with the wording a bit and posed it as a more direct question wording it as 'with man gone is there hope for gorilla and with gorilla gone is there hope for man'

In the context of the japanese budhist koan, it's meant to illustrate the equality of life, neither human nor gorilla is superior to each other in any way in the eyes of nature.
Quinn's intention was more of a saying on human's nature to eradicate any life that doesnt fit their paradigm of living (within it's own species and outside.) It asks the question "is there more hope for the survival of human with the exterminating other species -- is there more hope for the non-human life with the extermination of human"


We do selectively protect animals that serve us though, bees for example. We would be screwed without bees so we protect them. Gorillas... Not so much. Put a different creature into the questions and you get different implications think.

But.... there's no realistic hope for any of the life on Earth in the long term, so isn't it a pointless idea? Because in nature all things are equally valueless, aren't our human values put on creatures based on their use more important?



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17 Nov 2009, 10:49 am

The 'gorilla' aspect is not intended to be taken literally. Not asking if, in particular, the gorilla's extinction holds sway on the world at large.
It just lends to a mroe eloquent saying if you illustrate it with a majestic species such as gorilla (philosophical propaganda if you will =P)

"With the extinction of human life is there hope for non-human life and with the extinction of non-human life, is there hope for human life"
That just doesnt have the same poetic tone =P.

Granted, the non-literal translation is probably lost on aspies =P. Gorilla is just meant to represent life in general.


It's far from a pointless idea. You're gonna die one day, so should you stop eating and keeping yourself alive just based off the fact you know life is temperary? Absolutely not, live what time you've got to the fullest, and the planet earth is living nature to it's fullest in the time it has left as well.
In the 100s of millions to billions of years of life before the last 10,000 years of modern society, the planet settled into a nice set of natural laws to ensure that it lives life to the fullest. And one species' thoughts that it's importance and values being better than another very clearly goes against those laws. It's probably why we'll be one of the shortest lived species in the history of animal life =P.


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17 Nov 2009, 3:36 pm

willa wrote:
The 'gorilla' aspect is not intended to be taken literally. Not asking if, in particular, the gorilla's extinction holds sway on the world at large.
It just lends to a mroe eloquent saying if you illustrate it with a majestic species such as gorilla (philosophical propaganda if you will =P)

"With the extinction of human life is there hope for non-human life and with the extinction of non-human life, is there hope for human life"
That just doesnt have the same poetic tone =P.

Granted, the non-literal translation is probably lost on aspies =P. Gorilla is just meant to represent life in general.


It's far from a pointless idea. You're gonna die one day, so should you stop eating and keeping yourself alive just based off the fact you know life is temperary? Absolutely not, live what time you've got to the fullest, and the planet earth is living nature to it's fullest in the time it has left as well.
In the 100s of millions to billions of years of life before the last 10,000 years of modern society, the planet settled into a nice set of natural laws to ensure that it lives life to the fullest. And one species' thoughts that it's importance and values being better than another very clearly goes against those laws. It's probably why we'll be one of the shortest lived species in the history of animal life =P.


Yeah... I'm not great with the whole taking things literally thing.

So... Its trying to make you think we can leave other living things alone and be just as well off, it wouldn't hurt us to leave them be and be a bit more careful?

I'm guessing this philosopher was a long time before Pasteur?
:-P

What if we had no fear of death and felt no pain? I think many more people would commit suicide because what is the stopper is normally the fear of death rather than wanting to live. Imagine you are in a situation where some people have killed themselves but additionally you don't fear death or pain...

We spend every moment of our lives degenerating....

I have swine flu, dammit!