BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 20

Subject: RE: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 20
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 07:29 PM

The really good news is that by discarding your body through the process we call "death" you can also dump all those nasty little "parasites" at the same time, whilst deciding whether or not to start the whole process all over again, but in a new set of circumstances...possibly even on another world altogether. ;-)

Mars is presently not that hospitable, but this ain't the only solar system out there.

Subject: RE: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 20
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 06:31 PM

Just as well he's never seen an egg laid then....

I get the same reaction when I eat stuff that's been on the floor or is a day over the sell by date.... it's all dirt, it's all (mostly) organic and if I'm going to die horribly then I'm going to do it well fed!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 20
From: lady penelope
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 01:04 PM

"what goes around, comes around"

My husband has this peculiar aversion to eating food he'd seen grow on our windowsill and in the garden. But will happily eat anything 'shop bought'. For some reason it's seeing the food so near the dirt/earth that causes this sticking point. When I pointed out that plants were essentially made up from the earth, where ever we obtain them from, he really had to think hard about the whole idea....Strange, eh?

The good news is that he got over the aversion! *G*

Subject: RE: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 20
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 08:28 AM

But we don't "destroy" our own world. We simply use up what is of use to us. And when the resources run out, humans will evolve or die off. The world will continue oblivious to our demise. The world is not in a dire situation. Humans are.

The world will notice our demise as it does that of an ant colony - turn it into fodder for the next creatures to evolve.

Subject: RE: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 20
From: Paul Burke
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 07:27 AM

Note too that the word "parasite" is invidious. To them, WE are just the environment in which they live- their country, their planet. That they have as little care for or interest in the wellbeing of that planet as most humans do of theirs is not their fault- they don't claim to be intelligent. Some of them totally destroy their own world by using up its resources without constraint, and in some cases the world reacts by destroying them- but they have the option of dispersing their offspring to other nearby planets. We aren't even remotely near being able to do this yet, so when our host dies or kicks us out, that's it.

Subject: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 20
From: Peter T.
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 07:06 AM

Undergoing root canal surgery yesterday, I was intrigued -- if that is the right verb -- by the extraordinary efforts my dentist had to go through with hypochlorides and peroxides and disinfectants to keep the vast array of bacteria in my mouth from messing up the exposed areas. Our mouths, like the rest of our bodies, are a teeming zoo.

The one lecture my students remember, and hate, is the one where I talk about this. I show pictures of the ticks and skin critters that roam over us; I point out that there are more cells belonging to other beings in our bodies than our own; I note (after Lynn Margulis) that something like twenty pounds of a normal person's weight is not our own. This is even before we consider the ancient symbiotic partners in our cells -- mitochondria, etc.

My rationale for doing this in class is to remind students that they are not remotely separate from the environment. However, my experience is that they take this information badly: university students are at an age when their sense of who they are is tightly wound up with what they conceive of as the absolute individuality and inviolate nature of their selves. I respect this, but they need to get over it, sooner or later: it is a delusion that is contributing to the dire situation we face as a species among -- and saturated by -- a myriad, myriad others.