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Cynthia
I agree with you on the world needing people who can think outside the box.

posted by Joe_Love on September 1, 2005 at 6:47 AM | link to this | reply

Your post applies as well to people at large, Pol Pot in the Seventies,

and the Taliban.

 

Yikes, we seem to have forgotten the Killing Fields of Cambodia, and the Chinese Red Guard movement of the Sixties.

Again and again...read Frank Herbert's "Dune".

posted by majroj on August 30, 2005 at 5:26 PM | link to this | reply

Ca88-I do agree that
the world needs people who can think "outside the box" but that is not the same thing as being delusional.

posted by Cynthia on August 30, 2005 at 3:18 AM | link to this | reply

Ca88- I confess I was using
this as a veiled poke at the Bushies, the neocons and the religious nut cakes like Pat Robetson who told us all we should stand back and watch as they create a "new reality".

posted by Cynthia on August 30, 2005 at 3:16 AM | link to this | reply

Magical thinking indeed. I always find it amazing when predictions from many years ago, turn out to be so close to what has actually happened. We really should nurture the ones who think magically.

posted by Ca88andra on August 30, 2005 at 3:02 AM | link to this | reply

Maj, great comment-
You are one of the few people that seem to think and write at the same time, a multi-tasker. I relate to your black humor tinged sarcasm

posted by Cynthia on August 30, 2005 at 2:56 AM | link to this | reply

You can bet your bippy they don't give up the facets they enjoy.

I compare the turn of society regarding sicnec to my relationship with my cell phone.

The damn thing gets more and more complicated, I just wanna make a damn call to someone. Therefore I learn the bare minimum. Each successive iteration of cell phone gets more versatile and flimsy ("slippery"), and so "the basic" doesn't cut it...so at some point I'm going to stop using them, because my brain and manual dexterity can't handle them. And besides, they'll be so small I'll lose one in my old-guy ear hair and that will be that...

Same with science and knowledge. As a little kid, you're told the Earth is round, it spins on it's axes, and orbits around the sun, demonstrated by a neat diagram of circles. Later, you learn that, no, the Earth isn't a sphere, it's sort of a pear shape; the rotational axes actually move a little (precession), nothing orbits in a perfect circle, and on top of all that, the "North Pole", despite all our maps and globes, is not necessarily "up". And, the cherry on top: this information is subject to revision as more is found out.

Some of us can handle the changes and the tension of adult (dynamic) knowledge, others are stuck on childlike (static/dogmatic) knowledge. Dogma is mother's milk to dictators, so anything suggesting change and questions is a threat.

But, as I said, they will never give up things like firearms, electricity, powered flight (for their military)..you know, simple practical things any sane society needs...

Like truncheons.

posted by majroj on August 28, 2005 at 8:02 PM | link to this | reply