kevconman, you win the award for the biggest idiot I have encountered on this site. How dare you call anyone elses logic stupid?!
However, I think you may be on to something. Technology is devastating! In fact, so devastating and down right dangerous that I truly believe you should stop using it entirely. You should begin by stopping your careless use of the internet, then all of horrible contraptions in your house, move into a cave, and finally, quit fucking talking. It is too dangerous of technology for you to play with.
You’re in the majority of technology lovers who has never considered its negative aspects because you think it will save you. If you dont want to realize that it will eventually destroy you, that its part of evolution, then fine. I cant convert the techno crazies into cave dwellers because they’re just too brave.
You telling me to go into a cave is like me saying to you, you love technology so much, why don’t you strap yourself to a launched missle and ride the fucking thing because its the height of modern day invention. What a beautiful and benificial ride that would be, huh?
This is obviously exaggerated, but arn’t you catching on to Kev’s meta-point here? This isn’t about the likeliness of a plane falling on him… it’s about the whole thing.
You may wake up one day to find that all this shit we use doesn’t work. I’ll bet Kev will be able to manage, but what will you do?
Actually I’ve been intending to say some things here, but I didn’t feel the need to rush into it. Mainly I want to be careful that what I say isn’t misconstrued. Please bear with me here…
Shamatha meditation consists of learning to hold the mind to an object without being distracted. That’s it. People use the technique to help themselves de-stress, ‘stop thinking’, vegetate, stop drinking or smoking, bury their heads in the sand, see themselves as lofty and enlightened, and on and on. I can’t tell you whether it actually works for people or not who have such a wide range of goals, expectations, and sometimes delusions.
The traditionally stated results which are possible from shamatha meditation are an increase in the stability, clarity, and strength of the mind. When we practice this meditation we tend to notice the unbelievable volume of useless mental chatter that we constantly engage in. Further, we notice how that discursive proliferation is connected to dissipation and a victim mentality in ourselves. With practice our mental agitation tends to settle and that becomes a great help to us in seeing our situation more clearly and therefore (because we are naturally intelligent as human beings) understanding what we may or may not be able to do about it. It is worth stating though that the conclusions you may come to about your situation are unpredictable. Will you become contented enough to live with your situation? Will you feel empowered to ‘fight the power’? Will you simply get up and move to a new home? There are no objectively right or wrong answers. I’m just suggesting that the discipline I’ve described can and most likely will help you if you engage in it genuinely and regularly over time.
I can recommend books, organizations, etc. if you’re actually interested in this and I’m not just embarrassing myself.
I am so thankful that someone here sees . . . its not about the probability of one plane crashing on one house killing one person. It is about the world at large. It gives me great relief and hope that at least one person understands. I can’t argue about the probablity or the reasoning behind these potential accidents. I’d lose that arguement every time. All I can say is that the reliance on technology is a danger. Just because I think through the danger in detail, I’m criticized for being weak.
The way people say, go live in the cave, they dont realize that I am forced to adopt these technologies to survive, or else perish. Just because I use the internet to bash technology, does that make me a fraud? Maybe. But the truth is I have considered living in the woods before, only to realize I would still have to walk into some establishment for food and people would complain of my no shower stink. I dont know if I want to deal with that in order to make a point.
I personally believe that driving on the highway is a risk to your life. And everybody ignores that because they associate driving with work, with survival. Even if someone disagrees with highway travel, thinks it happens to be irrational, society is structured in such a way, one is forced to buy a car and make that morning commute.
Sure, one can argue that tech makes everything easier, and that how its always marketed, but its a very short sighted view of progress or advancement. I know I’m in the minority on this one, so the most I can do is hold back from having kids. I refuse to bring anyone into this world, only for them to be confused by what is essentially real or virtual.
Get your exercise jumping to conclusions about me Kev? Good. Now quit frothing and deal with your gadgetidis. Sure alot folks are dependent upon them and some will have major convulsions if they have to live without them. No biggee, man moves on. If its our downfall, well I am sure some humans will survive to breed up again. We are a sentient cockroach.
Just protect your butt and live life the way you see is best. That is all any one human can do. Oh and get earplugs and a helmet.
I would say this is actually some pretty good advise.
In my situation, it’s not even that I think a plane will fall on me, it’s that they’re actively dumping barium nitrate shit -on- me, continually. I’m acutely aware of how technology can be harmful to us, and meditation is how I deal with that.
If you’re centered, (and thus naturally intelligent) you can handle anything.
It’s called hyperbole and it is clearly used satirically in lieu of your own tremendous ignorance of hypocrisy.
I can easily say that I love technology and gadgetry more than anyone else on this site. I do, but I critique it’s shortcomings all the time. I just posted one of my essays on technology in the Essays and Thesis forum. In fact, I am living with it’s downfall right now (My city is running out of water and the city’s infrastructure is crumbling beneath the enormous population like an earthquake). We live in a world that has reached maximum capacity with a direct correlation to the exponential growth of technology. On the other hand, we live in a world where our exponential growth in technology has allowed human beings to reach maximum capacity. The lot of us would not be alive today without it.
We could never sustain the quality and quantity of human beings without technology. It is ultimately our only acceptable future. I say that if you are really ignorant of such a visible fact, then please by all means, stop using our technology! This includes: internet, computers, microwaves, all food not found naturally in the wild, electricity, clean water, the very words that come out of your mouth. This is all technology and yes, you can live without all of it. Our ancestors did, and so can you. Let me know how that goes. Oh that’s right, you can’t talk because you’ve given up language. We are a species that lives as well as we do, b/c of the amazing feats of those that came before us. Appreciate it and get a job so you can be a part of this progress. Otherwise you are a lazy mooch that lives off of my hard work.
Ok. Then as you have just logically stated, you have not made your point. On the other hand, I have.
Why am I dyslexic? I didn’t pick up on the joke.
It is quite hyperbolic, but technology is a methodology and in order to suggest its failure, you must be aware of what you are implying. What “meta-point”? and what’s this “whole thing”? I hear someone complaining about the by-products of technology, who just as eagerly uses his computer and eats his food every day. If you are unhappy with the byproducts, take a look around you. Some of us have realized this a long time ago and have chosen to move to “higher ground”. It’s your choice, you have been empowered.
This has never been about where we’ve come from, but where we are headed and knowing when to stop. Clearly you’re the type who cant wait for virtual reality just to fuck a cyber girl, as cold and detached an action as that may be. I have an appreciation for tech achievements that make life a better place, but thats more about the past than it is about the future. The future is about control. Whether thats through gene manipulation or whatever. But who knows, maybe your hoping for some type of immortality because life is so great. Just think, you’d get to see every war faught forever, and every great invention used to annilate other humans. Now thats progress!
Sure language is a tool. A tool for deception. And that is what our history is founded on, slippery words. And speaking of language, did you know that nanoseconds are the language of the computer, that a nanosecond is a billionth of second which is faster than a finger snap, and these computers can make decisions below the level of human perception. Sure you know, you big tech savy survivor. But you dont worry about such implications because your brave new world is one you thrive in.
and one last thing, I am a mooch and a parasite and I dont care about that because I realize that all the hard work that makes you so honorable will amount to jack shit. Whatever you build or create, it will all fall apart. So keep up the work ethic, it really pays off when you die.
Again, what do I care? I will be dead. While I’m here I will be happy, you will not. Thank you for repeatedly reinstating and rewarding my beliefs. I sometimes get curiously nihilistic.
No problem. I am happy to hear an opinion. Do you care to comment on what I have backwards? Do you take offense on the perspective I take against kevconman?
I think it is quite obvious that driving on the highway is dangerous and I don’t believe that anybody of intelligence ignores this. We all see deadly accidents on the highway, how could we ignore it? What’s your point here? Do you think travel was any safer before cars and highways? Horses can knock riders off and break their necks, in earlier times long distance travel would even be more risky, starvation, predators, bandits, cold, storms, etc.
You try to make it sound like technology has made the world a dangerous place, take the historical perspective here. Fact of the matter is we live in one of the safest periods of human history and this is because of our technologies. Medicine keeps us alive longer than at any period in human history, agriculture provides a steady supply of food (yes I know there are people starving in the world, but this is not a problem caused by technology.) Back in the day simple diseases or injuries would kill you off, nowadays a quick visit to the hospitol will make you as good as new.
There are plenty of reasons to criticize our technologies, but the idea that technology makes the world more dangerous is just false.
This thread has made me realize what a lose-lose perspective i have.
Either I’m right about the negative aspects technology and nobody will listen or side with me, so that doom seems inevitable, because the masses will have it no other way.
Or I’m wrong, as you all keep telling me I am, and I’m walking around with beliefs based on stupid ideas. Where the fuck would I get these wrong ideas?
But when I try to decide which is which, I think of the threat of nuclear war, and wonder how you can tell me we are safer now, more than ever. A button push could cause extinction. Even if it doesn’t happen, knowlege of the threat is enough to do damage to the human psyche.
miracle medicine, you all preach. Its so predictable. Thats how all technologies are ushed in, with the hope of immortality.
What kind of perverted logic would cause you to want to live forever on this rock in the middle of nowhere, especially when war is a constant.
The lot of us would not be alive today without it.
