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originally posted by: NewNobodySpecial268
a reply to: boozo
Personally I am not a fan of the collapsing universe multi-dimensional view of FL as explained in this thread. Even if so, I'll be dead and gone in another decade or so, won't even know my descendants. The advantage of limited life spans I guess. I will disappear into the past.
Heck, the Battlestar Galactica scenario seems a far more probable scenario with humans slicing, dicing and splicing their way to AI-cyborg heaven. I remember Direne saying "machines cannot dream" - maybe that is why they have to make the cyborg to go exploring time. Seems silly to me to duplicate something humans can naturally do. Dream that is.
The Cylons were created by humans, rebelled, disappeared and then returned. Ol' Admiral Addama had nowhere to run. Now that would be something to worry about . . .
Dr Gaius Baltar: I’m going to call my lawyer. He’s the best in the business.
Caprica Six: That wouldn’t be necessary, because in a few hours, no one will be left to charge you with anything.
Baltar: What are you trying to say?
Caprica Six: Humanity’s children are returning home. Today.
why the concern over that when our lifetimes are so limited, we could be dead in a few decades?
Because it is not the individual that is important; it is the species.
And because the important thing is not to know that a civilization failed, nor why. The key question is how it failed.
We already know why all the civilizations that preceded the current one have failed, why and how the Aztecs, the Egyptians, the Sumerians... failed. Because they were unable to solve the essential problem: injustice and inequality.
We also know that a civilization that has solved the problem of inequality prospers, then stagnates and disappears. Here too it is important to know how it disappears.
It is important to know how entropy works if you want to avoid it. If we accept it, if we are convinced that everything will eventually become extinct, then it is important to answer these questions: why one universe? why many?
(1)In psychology and psychotherapy, the term "existential crisis" refers to a form of inner conflict. It is characterized by the impression that life lacks meaning and is accompanied by various negative experiences, such as stress, anxiety, despair, and depression.
Worrying only about your loved ones is obviously a tribal vision that leads, precisely, to the extinction of the tribe. If you only defend your home and your people, you will hardly be able to deal with problems affecting the planet, and you will hardly be able to avoid war with your neighbors and the tribes across the river. There are problems whose solution requires overcoming the egoistic vision of the tribe.
Either you have a sense of global community or your fate will be extinction.
It is important to know how a civilization fails and falls in order not to repeat its design mistakes.
Entropy sweeps away and erases all difference. Order creates differences. And in this environment, only those who learn to love differences, to integrate them, and to build on them survives.
"When the Allies chose Hiroshima and Nagasaki as targets for their new weapon, that was the act of a cultured man. the two cities were on a list of targets."
"A cultured man will see value in the other culture and not want to destroy everything"
"The culture may have "died", yet the people didn't. Why? because the people had children."
"The family is the basis of civilisation like it or not."
"the girls of Tahiti would dance topless for visiting sailors; in the hope of getting pregnant."
"Growing up in a family, falling in love and having a family of our own is just as important a survival trait as hunger"