|
|
Go to page 1~2 [Next] | ||||||||||
landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
I know the following will get written off as landmark with his anti-military stuff again.
I can only tell you I am sincere about feeling we have lost our way, and that we have become Sparta. All social, economic, recreational, and intellectual activity now have but one focus: killing. Here are two things I ran across today: DARPA Funds a Robot that Moves Like a Worm Okay, sounds cool. But it's not cool, it's just another way to inflict more death it seems. Do the bright young things at MIT understand this? That anything they make in that cool robotics program is going to be perverted into a killing weapon? And then this: 23 Mathematical Challenges And YOU. Hey cool again, just what I was looking for, to stimulate the brains of my students: Quote:
Mathematical Challenge 1: The Mathematics of the Brain And so on, what could be bad? Until I followed the link at the end which told me where this list came from--DARPA again. Quote:
Discovering novel mathematics will enable the development of new tools to change the way the DoD approaches analysis, modeling and prediction, new materials and physical and biological sciences. The 23 Mathematical Challenges program involves individual researchers and small teams who are addressing one or more of the following 23 mathematical challenges, which if successfully met, could provide revolutionary new techniques to meet the long-term needs of the DoD: So it's really all about killing again. I really don't want to teach anymore if this is where it all gets funneled to. Now I know you all are going to respond that science was ever fueled by military necessity, blah, blah, blah, Leonardo, Oppenheimer, yada yada and I know some of you have worked for DARPA and felt it was good important work. No. There is no balance anymore. The time is out of joint. A society this obsessed with killing cannot survive. At least not survive as humans.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
|||||||||
MobilityBundle Regular user Las Vegas/Boston 120 Posts |
Two things:
1. It shouldn't come as a surprise that DARPA / DoD-funded challenges have military applications. But you'd be wrong to think that's exclusively what's driving mathematical research. Consider the Clay Mathematics Institute's Millenium Problems. This list of long-standing math problems was compiled around the year 2000, and none of them have any apparent application to engineering -- much less engineering stuff to help kill other stuff. Oh, and each of them have a million dollar prize for their solution. More generally, if you want to gauge whether society in general (or science in particular) is obsessed with killing, look beyond the R&D agenda of the department of the federal government whose job it is -- and always has been -- to help defeat enemies of the state. Because although killing enemies isn't the only way to defeat them, it's certainly one of the biggies. (Moreover, this has been true since the dawn of recorded history.) 2. There is often little or no technological difference between helpful stuff and destructive stuff. Research in one arena often (if not always) advances progress in the other. For example, I recall working on a patent application directed to autonomous wormlike robots that were deployed to help keep cardiac patient's blood vessels clean. Technology itself is neither good nor evil, and DARPA (or most engineering undergrads) know this. The good or evil comes from those who use it. |
|||||||||
landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
@ Santa: You're not obsessed with killing, but look who's looking to utilize those worms. Look at what your tax dollars are going to.
@ Salguod: The reason the character in your picture is looking upwards is because his entire family has been wiped out by drones. @Mobility: thanks for the reasoned response. Technology, however, will be controlled by those who have the control. My point is exactly that the killers will grab anything they can get their hands on, and make it seem normal. It becomes part of everyday life, suffusing every aspect of it. I'm sure the technology for the V-2 was the precursor of lots of nice things. There is no such thing as a weapon that will not be used. Almost all other social purposes of this government have been abandoned except destroying, rebuilding what we've destroyed, and then destroying again.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
|||||||||
Steve_Mollett Inner circle Eh, so I've made 3006 Posts |
Eisenhower warned us about the Military Industrial Complex.
Author of: GARROTE ESCAPES
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth. - Albert Camus |
|||||||||
stoneunhinged Inner circle 3067 Posts |
How about this:
1. America is the new Rome. 2. Rome was destroyed by two things: a. the economic costs of the perpetually extending military occupation of its empire. (Forget that America doesn't have an empire; it's the economic costs of military occupation that is key here); b. the moral degradation that accompanied its increasing emphasis on martial virtues above all others. In other words, the emphasis on military led to an elevation of tolerance toward--or even a celebration of--violence. 3. American is in danger of succumbing to the same fate as Rome. You ain't gonna find this in history books, folks! It's just my own interpretation of history. Where's Woland? I'd like to hear his take on what I just wrote. |
|||||||||
landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Pretty much agree with you Stone. Though I don't think it's wrong to think of America as having an empire.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
|||||||||
landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
The Roman Circus:
Quote:
Nine Nobel Peace Laureates on Monday joined a growing chorus of critics calling on NBC entertainment to cancel the new “reality” show—“Stars Earn Stripes”—saying that “war isn’t entertainment” and challenged NBC’s promotional line that that such a television program would be “pay[ing] homage to the men and women who serve in the U.S. Armed Forces and our first-line responder services.” http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/08/13-3
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
|||||||||
landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Because fun time is gun time:
Quote:
A new gun range opening this summer in Lewisville, Texas, will have two rooms available for hosting children's birthday parties. Owner David Prince tells WFAA that the Eagle Gun Range will be available for children as young as eight years old. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/tex......318.html My argument here is not so much about any one of these activities, more so the pervasive, culture of guns that knows no bounds. Why would there be any other answer to settling disputes when it's so cool to blow the other guy away?
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
|||||||||
stoneunhinged Inner circle 3067 Posts |
Landmark, I'm not really sure how deep this issue runs, or why America is--to some degree--succumbing to it.
Let me say something so outrageous that most people will immediately think I'm nuts. But I'm not. Here is it: violence is fun. That's what all the psycho-babble types miss about human nature. They think think that a taste for violence means something has gone wrong, in the same way that some parents used to get upset when they found out their daughter was using birth control. Sex is fun, so kids do it as soon as they trust themselves enough to take the leap (and as soon as they find someone to take the leap with them). Strong parental/religious conditioning can help young people to put off or suppress their urges. But the pleasure of sex usually wins out. With violence, we need a lot more conditioning to make it undesirable. The way I see it, the more economically frustrated people are, the more they are likely to pursue life's cheaper pleasures. Sex and violence are relatively inexpensive. So look to economically frustrated communities, and you see a greater potential for unrestricted, un-moderated, uninhibited pursuit of sex and violence. But in culture at large, these outlets become somehow conventionalized. Rather than actually having all the sex and violence one wants, it is given to them through popular culture and entertainment. This is PRECISELY what blood and circuses meant. It meant giving the economically disadvantaged access to all the violence they wanted without them actually having to perform it--for THAT would endanger the political community. Less so with sex--but there were other ways (like ritualized prostitution) to deal with that. In the USA, sex is no longer an issue, because television, movies, hip-hop, advertising, high school and college life, etc., are sexualized to the point of decadence. (I'm not saying that sex is wrong, mind you; but the public presentation of sex is, IMHO, quite decadent.) But how does a culture conventionalize violence? And that's the issue of this thread. I'm glad you brought it up, landmark. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. But why do people kill people, and why do we want to make it easier to kill people? Or better yet: why do we want to make the fantasy of killing people easier than ever? When it really comes down to it, I think that this sex-and-violence-by-proxy is actually a good thing. Better that kids tear through video games then go out on the weekend and getting into knife fights. |
|||||||||
S2000magician Inner circle Yorba Linda, CA 3465 Posts |
I used to work for ARDEC, which has had a number of projects cosponsored by DARPA.
Cool stuff. (By the way, the company for which I worked that was an ARDEC subcontractor was . . . SPARTA!) |
|||||||||
landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
According to your link, ARDEC also concerns itself with "demilitarization of munitions, weapons, fire control and associated items." I have no problem with that part of it.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
|||||||||
MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
We are horrible war mongers....why oh why can't we be peaceful like those Middle Eastern countries and get along like tribes in Africa? Why can't we treat other countries with the same respect as China treats Tibet or India Pakistan? Man we suck!
|
|||||||||
S2000magician Inner circle Yorba Linda, CA 3465 Posts |
Quote:
On 2012-08-14 22:11, landmark wrote: That's a different group in ARDEC than the one in which I worked. |
|||||||||
MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
Wait, you're not talking about Rome, Georgia are you?
|
|||||||||
Salguod Nairb Room 101 0 Posts |
Oh look they deleted my retort. I am a fond believer in that a picture speaks a thousand words.
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness...
|
|||||||||
landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Oh man, that's bogus. Funny picture, and it renders my reply to you senseless. (Now there's a set-up for a line...)
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
|||||||||
landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Quote:
On 2012-08-14 22:28, S2000magician wrote: Yes, you've posted about some of the work you used to do. Obviously, from my point of view, I only wish it were the other group.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
|||||||||
Salguod Nairb Room 101 0 Posts |
I just had a thought... do I hold the record for most inoffensive post's deleted? Unless Chicken Little was somehow offensive?
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness...
|
|||||||||
stoneunhinged Inner circle 3067 Posts |
Quote:
On 2012-08-15 00:10, Salguod Nairb wrote: You just might. But I once had a post in which the moderator actually contacted me to explain why. The moderator simply didn't get the joke. So I guess that's what's happening to you. Your humor requires a bit too much...ah...thought or something. Although the Chicken Little reference (no offense) didn't exactly require an IQ of 200+ to "get". Maybe they just don't like you. Maybe it's a anti-Burger King sort of thing. Who knows? |
|||||||||
Salguod Nairb Room 101 0 Posts |
Can you guess who I'm quoting?
Quote: ...I’m so sick of posts being deleted without any reason given, and by unknown people at that.
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness...
|
|||||||||
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » Not very magical, still... » » Sparta, worms, and brains (0 Likes) | ||||||||||
Go to page 1~2 [Next] |
[ Top of Page ] |
All content & postings Copyright © 2001-2024 Steve Brooks. All Rights Reserved. This page was created in 0.08 seconds requiring 5 database queries. |
The views and comments expressed on The Magic Café are not necessarily those of The Magic Café, Steve Brooks, or Steve Brooks Magic. > Privacy Statement < |