About Death
If you have Twitter, follow The Activists. It is a VERY cool left-wing account and if you are a left-winger, you really should be following it. However, some of the things it says are questionable - not least what it says in this blog post.
Go on, read it, take your sweet time. I'll be waiting.
For those who didn't read it, it talked about how death "is a meaningless concept with the intention of making people afraid". There is a lot wrong with this, firstly and most obviously that death is neither meaningless nor a concept. Death is a real, documented phenomenon: breathing and heartbeat stop, as do brain activity and other important biological processes (e.g. respiration). Then all the rest sets in: pallor mortis, livor mortis, algor mortis, rigor mortis, decomposition...in short, it exists and is therefore probably the antithesis of a meaningless concept. It is real, not imaginary, and it is all around us.
Most people, young or old, rich or poor, male or female, theist or atheist, slave or free, fear death; it's a very natural thing to do. I used to fear death, because I didn't know what would happen to my consciousness. These days I imagine death will be very much like sleep - I won't even know that I don't exist anymore. I don't want to die - I still have unfinished business with this planet - but if I must, I will die by my own hand.
As for being conditioned only to feel good while buying things...retail therapy can be nice, I'll admit, but nothing compares to happiness with friends, happiness when you've reached your goals, or - dare I say it? - being happy when you realise that you don't want to die anymore. Consumerism will never match that. And, best of all, we already have a solution to the problem - good parenting. Teach your children that there's more to life than fancy gadgets and clothes and you've gotten rid of the worst of the problem.
Finally, I don't care if you are a government, a revolutionary movement, or a tinfoil-hat brigade. Do NOT mess with science. Do NOT twist scientific concepts or deny them outright to fit your agenda. Science may not be the "truth" - at best, it's a constantly-changing representation of the truth - but it's closer to it than any political philosophy or conspiracy theory will ever be.
I don't usually post twice in a day, but this is a special exception because of my righteous anger.
Go on, read it, take your sweet time. I'll be waiting.
For those who didn't read it, it talked about how death "is a meaningless concept with the intention of making people afraid". There is a lot wrong with this, firstly and most obviously that death is neither meaningless nor a concept. Death is a real, documented phenomenon: breathing and heartbeat stop, as do brain activity and other important biological processes (e.g. respiration). Then all the rest sets in: pallor mortis, livor mortis, algor mortis, rigor mortis, decomposition...in short, it exists and is therefore probably the antithesis of a meaningless concept. It is real, not imaginary, and it is all around us.
Most people, young or old, rich or poor, male or female, theist or atheist, slave or free, fear death; it's a very natural thing to do. I used to fear death, because I didn't know what would happen to my consciousness. These days I imagine death will be very much like sleep - I won't even know that I don't exist anymore. I don't want to die - I still have unfinished business with this planet - but if I must, I will die by my own hand.
As for being conditioned only to feel good while buying things...retail therapy can be nice, I'll admit, but nothing compares to happiness with friends, happiness when you've reached your goals, or - dare I say it? - being happy when you realise that you don't want to die anymore. Consumerism will never match that. And, best of all, we already have a solution to the problem - good parenting. Teach your children that there's more to life than fancy gadgets and clothes and you've gotten rid of the worst of the problem.
Finally, I don't care if you are a government, a revolutionary movement, or a tinfoil-hat brigade. Do NOT mess with science. Do NOT twist scientific concepts or deny them outright to fit your agenda. Science may not be the "truth" - at best, it's a constantly-changing representation of the truth - but it's closer to it than any political philosophy or conspiracy theory will ever be.
I don't usually post twice in a day, but this is a special exception because of my righteous anger.
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