Random Politics & Religion #07

Speaketh the internet conspiracy theorist who wants to interpret literally and concretely as possible a document written over 200 years ago under extremely different social, cultural, and technological conditions.

But new technology is evil!
Electricity is the work of the devil!

Does this make those who are learned in the ways of it demons?

Prepare thy anus for Satan's girth.

I'm just shocked the military has "standards" to begin with !

Ayyyo~ I'm tired of using technology~

So you want to live in the woods like the Una Bomber. He wrote an entire thesis on the "back to nature" movement !

It is actually quite interesting if you take out the fact that he killed people:

http://cyber.eserver.org/unabom.txt

For fun let's just take the first paragraph:

. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster
for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of
those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but they have
destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected
human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological
suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have
inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued
development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly
subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage
on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social
disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased
physical suffering even in "advanced" countries.

Well, his course of action wasn't exactly helpful or constructive, but he's not entirely wrong, either.

I actually read most of his manifesto and was thinking hmm how many years of living in isolation would it take for me to send a bomb to someone...

Wait, his whole "thesis," if you want to call it that, is that the betterment of society actually hurts society. In other words, to him, every positive is actually a negative, and every negative is actually a positive.

That's Lordgrim quality crazy there.

The main argument from his manifesto if you take away the political stuff is that technology drives a wedge from people actually being in nature etc. He worried that man would no longer care about the natural world and be obsessed with technology. Plus he wanted to live in the woods and be with nature and that is almost impossible in the world we live in now.

Staggering? Lol...

How bout when republicans use it to sell people on more weapons or trying to undue band or trying to get guns in schools because having more guns everywhere will stop more gun violence... They were talking about the club in Orlando being a gun free zone and if people were allowed to bring guns in they would have been able to stop the guy...

Hell maybe I should just lump you in with that pastor from California who was glad he killed those "pedophiles"...

Some democrats definitely do use these situations to push their own agendas but if you're going to sit there and say republicans don't do the same them yeah you're an even bigger hypocrite than I thought...

Where he went wrong was thinking that sending bombs to people would get them to join the "back to nature" I think years of living in isolation plus maybe he was "mental" took it's toll on him.

I sure do want to know what period in human history contained that mythical stability we're all sifting around for.

I'm actually surprised that you read his manifesto.

No, it's not.

It's hard to survive for long but it is very easy to live in the woods and be with nature, getting rid of all technology.

Would be a very shitty life to live, imo.

It was around the time man discovered fire. After that, it all went downhill for there.

Stupid fire. Bane of the world!

I think the reasonable approach to such a thing is to consider how to balance advancement with people's physical and psychological well-being.

You cannot deny that as we develop technologically people become less healthy in many ways despite the extension of lifespan in general.

Additionally, there will inevitably come a time where there are no longer humans to exploit in the "traditional" fashion (outsourcing to cheap labor). We've seen this happen on the Pacific Rim already. After WWII the U.S. outsourced to Japan and now Japan is doing the outsourcing.

Sooner or later things will come to a head and the quality of life for the species will trend toward net loss rather than net gain if adjustments are not made.

Look, I'm not trying to go full crazy or say technology is a bad thing. I'm saying a balance between humans and their environment -- both in the ecological sense and mode of living sense -- needs to be reached and by current standards we've not quite achieved that yet.

CURSE YOU PROMETHEUS!/b]

OH *** YOU TAG.

GO TO HELL TED CRUZ

I'm not saying what he did was right or wrong. I'm just saying I can understand him wanting to live a simple life. And trying to do that in the world we live is very difficult. Not impossible.

Basically the Amish do that they get left alone. Maybe he should have joined the Amish !

I think some of you may be confusing Foney and I expressing an understanding of his impetus vs. condoning of his actions/conclusions/etc.

We're just saying there's a small bit of merit to what he's saying. A nugget of wisdom, if you will, to be pulled out of a bad situation.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article86927482.html

I can't even...

*** Amish. GET YOUR BUGGY OFF THE ROAD I'M TRYING TO GET SOMEWHERE.

I see the criticisms of the Industrial Revolution and technology as criticisms of capitalism, not the technology itself.

We're running ourselves ragged to perpetuate a system by which fewer people 'win' while simultaneously using technology to keep us going further in what amounts to a game with a rigged ruleset.

It's our economic system that needs to be reevaluated, not the fact that I can now possess a robot that will give me a mediocre ***.

Hey, stop jacking on!

Well you should get your own buggy and race em !

Natural progression of a society already calls for adjustments when technological advances occur.

It's a natural thing, not anything we actually control. So, you don't have to worry about that.

You cannot deny that we aren't at least trying to maintain that balance.

It wasn't that long ago that we discovered the need for such a balance. Or even put emphasis of such a balance. Why do you think we are developing more towards green technology than ever before?

Again, a natural progression of society.

We aren't perfect. But we do learn from our mistakes (I hope).