20 replies to this topic

[brokenportal]

What do these concepts mean to you? Im curious about different perspectives and insight on them. Their famous author meant them for other purposes, but Im asking what you think in conjunction with our cause.


"Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, "What were our parents thinking? Why didn't they wake up when they had a chance?" We have to hear that question from them, now. "


"It takes time to connect the dots, I know that. But I also know that there can be a day of reckoning when you wish you had connected the dots more quickly."


"We have here a scales that balances two different things. On one side, we have *gold* bars! Mmmmmm, don't they look good? I'd just like to have some of those gold bars. Mmmmm. On the other side of the scales... um... THE ENTIRE PLANET! Hmmmm..."

[brokenportal]

Heres another one from the same series, but it speaks to a different angle on the theme. Any takers on this discussion? What do you think about these?

"It's not what we don't know that's the problem, it's what we know that ain't so."

[forever freedom]

Heres another one from the same series, but it speaks to a different angle on the theme. Any takers on this discussion? What do you think about these?

"It's not what we don't know that's the problem, it's what we know that ain't so."

This one is simple; just means that conscious ignorance is better than unconscious ignorance. In the former case, you're one step closer to learning things right.


I'll comment on the other ones later, i ran out of time now.

[brokenportal]

I know they are fairly simple to most people, what I mean is more like what do they mean to you?

When these ideas are expressed in different peoples words they usually have a way of bringing out idiosyncratic perspectives on it that build on the inspiration of the concept.

[JLL]

They mean Al Gore is not a philosopher.

[brokenportal]

They mean Al Gore is not a philosopher.

First of all I beg to differ, and second of all these quotes dont need to come from a philosopher in order for them to be profound.

[Lotus]

Not sure what to say. What do they mean to me? About 15 odd years ago I was active in the environmental movement, working on raising awareness, trying to make people "wake up" so to speak. Most often in the beginning we were looked upon as oddballs, freaks, hippies; you know (some of us were pretty odd, so i'm not blaming them, but that's beside the point). People were not taking environmental issues seriously at all. I wish Al Gores movie had been released back then. Now 15 years later, I'm tired. There is a lot of awareness, and I'm happy for that, but progress is slow. Enough with the raising awareness now, we need the technology and the action to start using solar energy, fuel cells and so on. I believe it is happening though. It's reached enough influential people.

But something tells me you're not so much into the environmental issues per se. Maybe you're thinking that the immortalist movement have things in common with the environmental movement, similar problems/obstacles perhaps? Just guessing.

[brokenportal]

Not sure what to say. What do they mean to me?

There is power in the profoundness of quotes and ideas like this and Im trying to get more of them like these here swirling around in the mechanisms and other ideas like this of peoples heads. I think they add value to a life extension activism orientated mind.

About 15 odd years ago I was active in the environmental movement, working on raising awareness, trying to make people "wake up" so to speak. Most often in the beginning we were looked upon as oddballs, freaks, hippies; you know (some of us were pretty odd, so i'm not blaming them, but that's beside the point). People were not taking environmental issues seriously at all. I wish Al Gores movie had been released back then. Now 15 years later, I'm tired. There is a lot of awareness, and I'm happy for that, but progress is slow. Enough with the raising awareness now, we need the technology and the action to start using solar energy, fuel cells and so on. I believe it is happening though. It's reached enough influential people.

Your right that the awarness raising has paid off and things are more enabled now than ever to happen because of things people have done, but thats no reason to quite awareness raising. Its all the more reason to keep the efforts strong so as to help drive home the efforts they are producing.

But something tells me you're not so much into the environmental issues per se. Maybe you're thinking that the immortalist movement have things in common with the environmental movement, similar problems/obstacles perhaps? Just guessing.

I am not talking about the enviromental issue at all, your right, thats why I didnt want to name Al Gore in the topic, I didnt want it to skew the aim of the topic. I should have known though that people would immediately look it up in this age of google, I did know, but I was hoping it would help keep the topic on track. By on track meaning that indeed I do mean that the life extension movement has direct profound parallels with these quotes.

I wish I could have figured out a better way to word the topic so as to more directly discuss these ideas. Maybe a good speech made that includes these and other quotes. There is a project collecting ideas like this on line 9 of this google document of indefinite healthy life extension exposure expedition projects: http://docs.google.c...evision=_latest

Please do add if you have ideas. If you want to become part of a permanant team to work on it then let me know that also.

[fatboy]

Heres another one from the same series, but it speaks to a different angle on the theme. Any takers on this discussion? What do you think about these?

"It's not what we don't know that's the problem, it's what we know that ain't so."

To me, this one is just an epistemological quagmire not worth wading into unless you got some serious muck gear.

[brokenportal]

Heres another one from the same series, but it speaks to a different angle on the theme. Any takers on this discussion? What do you think about these?

"It's not what we don't know that's the problem, it's what we know that ain't so."

To me, this one is just an epistemological quagmire not worth wading into unless you got some serious muck gear.

Everything you say can become an epistemological quagmire if you want it to. This concept seems pretty straight forward to me. If we make up things to beleive and base our decisions on these made up things then that becomes a problem.

[medicineman]

If I had one ounce of respect for Al Gore, I would give you an opinion.
The hypocrite has the nerve to talk about respecting the environment when he doesn't respect the value of human life. Why don't you look up Al Gores campaign on AIDS therapy in Africa...
I wouldn't give Al Gore the color of my shit, let alone a respectful answer to his bs quotes.

My apologies to the thread starter, you had good intentions, but my morals can't allow me to take anything Al Gore says seriously. Here are quotes from a real Hero. Despite all the criticism about him, bottom line is, for his time, he was one of a kind, and he was no God, but a human, just like each and every one of us. And whatever bad anyone thinks he has done, history has done well to establish his quote of:

"We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."

Other quotes of his I find inspiring

"I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another. "
"I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another. "

Edited by medicineman, 19 December 2008 - 07:43 PM.

[brokenportal]

I dont understand why people feel the need to shit on Al Gore all day long. Have you guys seen his documentary? I forgot what its called but I watched it like three times and its compelling. It shows how every measurement of weather, co2 and stuff like that is showing that the global warming trend is indisputable and off the charts. Even if he does end up being wrong some how, thats no reason to bash him.

This reminds me of your plight with trying to get pro aging trancists to not bash us. How do you like it when they say, "Oh ya? Then how do you like how the life extensionists are threatening to over populate the planet and starve economies and humanity into oblivion with their short sited drivel?"

I looked up the Gore aids thing. Do you see in campaigns how one side always takes the story and bends the hell out of it and to make the other side look horrible? And then in the next ad that comes out where you see the other guy defending himself then you say, "ah, ok, now I understand more"? Im sure its that way with Al Gore, Im sure hes not trying to Greedily kill off people with aids in Africa. It looks like to me he is trying to get Africans to take their side of the responsibility too. Its a trend over there to have family die mysteriosly all the time, but to not get tested for aids because your afraid to find out that you do. Those people have to take their part of the responsability, they are willing and able to help them with vaccines but if they are going to continue uncontrolably spreading aids regardless then that has to be checked.

Besides, the point is, even if the devil himself said these quotes, they are still good quotes and that is the whole point of the topic. There will be a day of reckoning where we are going to wish we did more, and we want to get people to pick the world over the gold bars and we want to get things that we "know" that just aint so, to stop hurting us, like organized religion going around saying that life extension is bad because its not gods will and we should all be happy to go and die so we can go to magic land.

If Al Gore really is that bad then fine, your right, but the point is the concepts with in the quotes.

If I had one ounce of respect for Al Gore, I would give you an opinion.
The hypocrite has the nerve to talk about respecting the environment when he doesn't respect the value of human life. Why don't you look up Al Gores campaign on AIDS therapy in Africa...
I wouldn't give Al Gore the color of my shit, let alone a respectful answer to his bs quotes.

My apologies to the thread starter, you had good intentions, but my morals can't allow me to take anything Al Gore says seriously. Here are quotes from a real Hero. Despite all the criticism about him, bottom line is, for his time, he was one of a kind, and he was no God, but a human, just like each and every one of us. And whatever bad anyone thinks he has done, history has done well to establish his quote of:

"We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."

Other quotes of his I find inspiring

"I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another. "
"I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another. "

[medicineman]

"It looks like to me he is trying to get Africans to take their side of the responsibility too. Its a trend over there to have family die mysteriosly all the time, but to not get tested for aids because your afraid to find out that you do. Those people have to take their part of the responsability, they are willing and able to help them with vaccines but if they are going to continue uncontrolably spreading aids regardless then that has to be checked."


My friend, are you actually reading what you are typing??? You are a 6 year old kid in malawi with a dead father, and a sick mother infested with HIV, and you are HIV positive, and thats what you have to say??? Responsibility???

"With just over 10% of the world's population, sub-Saharan Africa is home to 95% of the world's AIDS orphans and 60% of all people infected by HIV.

In Africa, 12.3 million children have been orphaned by AIDS (losing their mother or both parents)—82% of the worldwide total.

The number of AIDS orphans is expected to reach 25 million by 2010.In sub-Saharan Africa, 1.9 million children under the age of 15 are living with HIV/AIDS—86% of the worldwide total.

In sub-Saharan Africa, up to 46% of pregnant women are infected with HIV, and approximately 35% of their children will be born infected because of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

AIDS is responsible for an increasing share of under-five mortality. In Africa, its share rose from 2% in 1990 to 6.5% in 2003."

Now, why dont you repeat your 'responsibility' post again, but this time, direct it towards the African children with HIV....See how that works.

Im sorry if I come off aggressive... I hope you see my position clearly at this stage.

[brokenportal]

Im sorry if I come off aggressive... I hope you see my position clearly at this stage.

No, thats fine, we can disagree with out being disagreeable. Im not even sure that we disagree in the first place.

Your right, the 6 year old kids should be helped. They should be helped by their parents by not having more kids when they have aids, and they should be helped by places like the united states with vaccines, and a host of other things to help them.


Im still wondering about this though,

but the point is the concepts with in the quotes.

[brokenportal]

Do the simple things to help now, like join this "72 Team Project" other wise these quotes will be true. Join it today. There is somebody that needs you today. There is somebody who is going to die 1 day before the sens therapies or therapies like it get here, they need you today.



"Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, "What were our parents thinking? Why didn't they wake up when they had a chance?" We have to hear that question from them, now. "



"It takes time to connect the dots, I know that. But I also know that there can be a day of reckoning when you wish you had connected the dots more quickly."

Edited by brokenportal, 30 December 2008 - 10:37 PM.

[fatboy]

Everything you say can become an epistemological quagmire if you want it to.

I don't want it to. And yet it is.

[JLL]

I dont understand why people feel the need to shit on Al Gore all day long. Have you guys seen his documentary? I forgot what its called but I watched it like three times and its compelling. It shows how every measurement of weather, co2 and stuff like that is showing that the global warming trend is indisputable and off the charts. Even if he does end up being wrong some how, thats no reason to bash him.

Have you read the global cooling thread? You should.

The disputability of the trend depends on the time period you're looking at. It's not "off the charts", however, no matter which years you choose.

And there is ALL the reason to bash Al Gore. He's a liar and he knows it. Google around for criticism of his "documentary". Not even the IPCC, which basically says we're all going to drown while burning to death in five years, agrees with his claims - that should tell you something.

[brokenportal]

I dont understand why people feel the need to shit on Al Gore all day long. Have you guys seen his documentary? I forgot what its called but I watched it like three times and its compelling. It shows how every measurement of weather, co2 and stuff like that is showing that the global warming trend is indisputable and off the charts. Even if he does end up being wrong some how, thats no reason to bash him.

Have you read the global cooling thread? You should.

The disputability of the trend depends on the time period you're looking at. It's not "off the charts", however, no matter which years you choose.

And there is ALL the reason to bash Al Gore. He's a liar and he knows it. Google around for criticism of his "documentary". Not even the IPCC, which basically says we're all going to drown while burning to death in five years, agrees with his claims - that should tell you something.

I couldnt find what you mentioned through a bit of searching in google. You may be right, Ide be interested to read it. Have you watched the documentary?

And again,

If Al Gore really is that bad then fine, your right, but the point is the concepts with in the quotes.

[Cyberbrain]

"We can only engineer our freedom from death, not pray for it ... having invented the gods we can turn into them" - Alan Harrington

[brokenportal]

"We can only engineer our freedom from death, not pray for it ... having invented the gods we can turn into them" - Alan Harrington

"It takes time to connect the dots that we can engineer it but not pray it away, we know that. and we also know that there can be a day of reckoning when the people that dont wish they had connected the dots more quickly."

Not sure about the turning into gods part though.

[Cyberbrain]

"We can only engineer our freedom from death, not pray for it ... having invented the gods we can turn into them" - Alan Harrington

"It takes time to connect the dots that we can engineer it but not pray it away, we know that. and we also know that there can be a day of reckoning when the people that dont wish they had connected the dots more quickly."

Not sure about the turning into gods part though.

I stand corrected

I found it here actually (very last sentence)

Edited by Kostas, 05 January 2009 - 07:19 PM.