(no subject)

[scottobear]

Worried a bit about Ornj...*sending healing, healthy thoughts, and lots of love*

Got to work and much management was cut. We lost Basically everyone who was making money who isn't related to the company owner.

My job's still safe, but the company is teetering. He wants to get into web design and advertising... a bad time to shift company gears, even though that means my work slot is that much more secure.

Caught more folks in lies and half-truths today. *hiss hiss*. It's going to bite them in the backside shortly... I see 4 folks here at the job who'll probably get the boot, once the truth comes out. Ugly.

Upside, I have to get more blank CD's. Kev brought in a *ton* of MP3 CD's of old radio shows... Dragnet, six-shooter, and Suspense. Hours of good 40s and 50s radio goodness. :)

Need to cash my paycheck, and a gift check from a client from Christmas!

Got a good MLK vibe today.. not to fond of the weird advertising tie-in stuff on the radio though...

I was discussing some stuff with Ornj, and now I ponder... Is man basically good? A community based creature? Sinister, driven by crude instincts, that only civilization has put a veneer of gentility over?

I feel the average man has the capacity for great good, and great evil... do you think that man leans in one particular direction? I know some wonderful people, devoted and happy to make the world better and some people that are purely driven by a heartless force, greed and cruelty.

How have we gotten so far? Landed on the moon, global communication, pretty decent education... all driven because of competition and warfare. Most of out technological advances are due to warfare... medicine too. Does this make war a necessary thing? Even a good thing? I don't know... I figure we'd have come across these advances, if a bit more slowly in peacetime.

Humanity is an odd thing... on deeper reflection, it seems that very many folks run on autopilot much of the time. How can a person go for a *DECADE* without having read a book? I suppose it's easy to wax philosophic when you have the time too... if you're too busy foraging for food, or making that 'big sale'... some of the nicer things take a back seat.

If I ever feel work is more important than personal growth (social, emotional, whatever)... somebody give me a good shake, ok?

Comments

Don't Forget!

[darktrain.livejournal.com]

Mankind invented a MilkShake so things is lookin hopeful!


*giggle*

*cough*

Re: Don't Forget!

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

quite true... although, I'm more partial to slushies, lately. :)

Re: Don't Forget!

[billijean.livejournal.com]

Slushies!!!! Shame on you!!! You won't eat animals because it is inhumane, but you will put that crap in your own body?!

:)
hehe. But I love you anyway.

Re: Don't Forget!

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

wel, I have a right to be inhumane to myself. :)


*hug*

Taking it easy on the sugar these days anyhow...

I need some of that yummy cocoa!!

Re: Don't Forget!

[billijean.livejournal.com]

I have a recipe - just getting the ingredients out now - for chocolate syrup. It is always a hassle to make cocoa - there are always lumps and the powder seems to spread itself all over the counter. So I found a recipe (I am altering it, of course, I can't seem to leave a recipe alone!) for syrup. It makes 3 cups that will keep for more than month. I'll let you know how it goes.

PS how is Day One going?

Re: Don't Forget!

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

excellent, my day one is shining brightly. :) I hope yours is doing the same. :)

let me know when you get comfy with the syrup recipe... I'm keen to see it!

Re: Don't Forget!

[billijean.livejournal.com]

Comfy! heh! I'm lickin' my fingers! Just finished it up. I love it. The boy hates it because it isn't exactly the same as the store-bought stuff (umm yeah because it is all organic, has no artificial flavours or colours!). But he'll get used to it or go without :)
I'll try to post it tomorrow.

Re: Don't Forget!

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

keen! :)

thanks! :)

The nature of humanity...

[billijean.livejournal.com]

... I think that this is a big part of the reason that people get hooked on Star Trek. The premise is that people are basically good and it is possible to have a warm, fair, (other good stuff here...) society where people work for the joy of it and for the good of all. (Pretty Commi ideas for 1960's US tv, huh?).
I go on the assumption that we are all inherently and intrisically good. Bad people are bent because someone bent them. That doesn't absolve them of responsibilty for their behaviour, their own health or their own happiness. I think that a special set of skills is necessary for functioning well in a community, skills like empathy, generosity, a sense of duty. And I think that how well a community fosters those skills determines the health of the community.
So there! :)

PS I'm sorry to hear how crappy things at work have been for you lately :(

Re: The nature of humanity...

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

no worries about work... a good way to kick me into gear, make me find something better. A good motivator, and Im' not terribly worried about it. thanks for the thoughts, though.

I like the assumption of good folks... and an innate sense of justice and law (a quote I got from Ornj) is a good instinct for the human animal to have.

I like old trek for the same reasons... a nice enough ideal. :)

I vote for good

[razz.livejournal.com]

I think that man is basically good, but, like you said, the seeds of both good and evil exist inside each person. I think some people are predispositioned to lean one way or another.

I think that if anything makes the evil in man more apparent, it's civilization. The negativity of one person really can taint a society, like a drop of dye in a pool of water. It dissipates, but its effects are far-reaching. Parents pass it onto their children, friends pass it on to friends -- it goes on in waves. The same holds true for good, though -- except it's not the inherent good that everyone already holds inside them, but the kind of good people deem necessary to exhibit to fight the evils of the world.

I had a short discussion about this with another friend, and he told me I had to see Unbreakable. I still haven't, but maybe you'd know what he's talking about.

Re: I vote for good

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

eloquently said. I saw and enjoyed unbreakable, but your analogy was much more concise. :)

waxing and stuff.

[mootpoint.livejournal.com]

Plato kindof explored that idea in the beginning of "the Republic". Socrates was walking around trying to figure out first what justice is and second how to obtain it (if it can exist at all). Some of the people he talked to were quite content in thinking that most men are inherently unjust and that society scares them into submission. If stranded on a desert island with no sign of any consequences, man would do anything for survival regardless of the moral dilemmas involved.

Socrates (and Plato obviously) disagreed with this. And he was a smart mother. How did he disagree? ;) Read the book. It's really friggen good anyway.

Generally though claiming a person is just or unjust I think can be very misleading. One is rarely one or the other. We are a combination of our experiences and our beliefs.

At least that's what I think. But no one has ever accused me of being smart. Pox on them if they do too! ;)

Re: waxing and stuff.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

actually, I've read republic, and it's a good read, true. :) It sort of saddened me that it wasn't as much of a dialogue as the other stuff of his that I've read... made it a bit duller, but still a fascinating piece.

I feel that you're right, that individual folks can be a bit more just or a bit less just than another... but humanity as a whole? I'm not sure I know one way or another.

I dare not accuse you of being a smart guy, for fear of pox... but were there no disease involved, I might be prone to do so.

Thanks for the observation!