tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-366385969888572618.post4704536423142262105..comments2023-09-12T05:35:15.609-07:00Comments on Alessa's Adversaria: The End Justifies The MeansAlessa Ellefsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01587451250007222192noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-366385969888572618.post-20880055370145756162015-05-31T10:38:31.476-07:002015-05-31T10:38:31.476-07:00Hello, hello!
I'd posted the quote here to ge...Hello, hello!<br /><br />I'd posted the quote here to get people to think and debate, so I just love your comment! I think that humans have been basically the same for millennia too (is it cause I'm getting older too?)! And I'll go further than your point about 10th century Flanders or Brabant... I know people keep thinking cavemen were stupid, simply because they hadn't yet invented the latest high-tech gadget around (and you scare me with your vision of 2030! I really hope it doesn't get to that... then again I feel like we are living within a scarily close to A Brave New World world.) But their brains had the same capacity as ours. So why do they have to be more stupid? That makes no sense. And yes, all the vices have remained basically the same, because humans have stopped evolving and history keeps repeating itself, even if with different tools at our hands (so perhaps a silicon brain extension might be a good idea?). <br /><br />As for Nietzche, I studied some of his superman theories before, and I generally disagree with his thoughts as well. But even if I disagree with someone most of the time doesn't mean he/she can't come up with a good thing too, once in a while :)Alessa Ellefsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01587451250007222192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-366385969888572618.post-90402899635764968722015-05-30T22:17:04.844-07:002015-05-30T22:17:04.844-07:00Thank you for quoting a nice passage from Mr. West...Thank you for quoting a nice passage from Mr. Westlake. In fact, I read and reviewed "The Ax" about six weeks ago on Goodreads. Although I do not disagree with your statement above, to me the novel (other than the fun bits about how easy, or how not so easy, it is to kill people) is perhaps about something different - in the worst stupid bumpkin's style I will quote myself that the book is "about middle-class resentment of corporate downsizing, about a hard-working man's anger at the fat cat executives and the stockholders."<br /><br />I believe that "the end justifying the means" philosophy has been with us (the so-called humanity - the term is so much nicer than its referent) for thousand of years. I am too lazy to look for examples from Homer or Shakespeare, but I remember the topic being discussed in fiction by Galsworthy and Stendhal. I do not believe the current generation is in any particular way worse (or better), morally, than the previous generations.<br /><br />I will now totally get carried away on the sails of geezerdom: The older I am the more clearly I see that people have always been basically the same. It must be pretty funny for people entering adulthood now to imagine world without internet and even without TV or radio, and they must wonder deep down there how they can have anything in common with all these people who have already died or are about to. Well, people born in 2030 will be wondering how their parents or grandparents were able to live without implanted memories, silicon brain extensions, and color pills for dreams of desired types, or whatever the New Things will be, but, still, they will essentially be the same people as peasants in 10th century Flanders or Brabant. Most of them will still be lazy, jealous, egocentric, and they will still justify the means by the ends, when things get really serious.<br /><br />It is so cool to disagree! Let me be even more contrary - the quote from Herr Nietzsche is ok, but that must be an exception. I read some major work by him a long time ago, and could not stomach it - I find the "will to power" and similar stuff totally nauseating. <br /><br />Time to shut up <br />Lukasz Pruskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04057365964035909369noreply@blogger.com