Please somebody explain this to me

[daeron]

If im a man, and youre a man, and we are all men, how come this is still happening?

http://vinodlive.com/2007/02/15/some...und-the-world/

[Nature Boy]

A very moving collection of images. SWIM felt a little bit sad watching those. It's true that there's a lot of injustice going on in the world.

[Alfa]

Because we are man.

[jesuswantsmeforasunbeam]

shit like that has always gone on and always will.
it doesnt matter how much we protest and oppose there will alwasy be those who commit atrocities in the name of ?????????? (fill in your own cause here)

only way it will stop is when mankind ceases to exist, and lets face it thats not a bad thing to hope for in the long term.

[podge]

What a beautiful yet terrifying world we live in. Lets hope someday man will lose the need to commit such atrocities.

[Trebor]

Man will always commit such actions. Pics made me sad.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

there was a scorpion crawling along the edge of the river trying to find a way to cross when it happened upon a turtly. It asked the turtle "Why don't you let me get on your back and we can both cross the river", the turtle objected saying "If I let you crawl upon my back you'll sting me", the scorpion replied "Why would I do that? If I sting you we'll both drown". the turtle agreed and let the scorpion get in it's back. as it crossed the river the scorpion stung it, as it was dying it asked "Why did you sting me? now we'll both drown" the scorpion replied "I couldn't help it, It's my nature"

the moral is, you cannot change the nature of the beast, we will always war amoungst ourselves becuase it is in our nature, even if it leads to our destruction.

[The Doors]

One can ask himself about how he can just live on his life and not worry about the civil conditions that some humans are part of. Meanwhile some people decide to dedicate their lives to a particular civil right cause but why? Do we actually evolve as human beings? As living creatures maybe, but as humans, as an animal that can feel emotions and be aware of them? I don't think so. Greedyness is a strong feeling, some how some people seem to have a power trip in controlling people's way of life or thinking.

Now, I understand the fundamental laws that we need to have and guide us as a society, but truly, why the hell do they care if all the SWIMs out there induce in their bodies? What is it to them? I really don't understand that concept despite the many times I have thought of it. There is no reasonable logical explanation. I often ask myself if as a society we'll be able to evolve? As individuals we can if you let your mind and spirit open.

[The Docta]

None so blind.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

One word: control.

[Alicia]

Stirring strings of human emotion, there is no good or bad only flesh and those with power. seeking to control those for there own ends. enabling them to kill\suppress\harm\wipeout with no care to whom is caught up in the process.

reminds swia of that this video made by band she doesn't know whom it was only that it was sort of a documentary going over the birth to death of different cultures throughout the years. showing some scenes.

[PingoTango]

Alicia - the film SWIY is referring to might be called Bodysong - a complete record of life in different cultures, from birth to death, using purely found footage, with a soundtrack composed by members of Radiohead.

I saw it too, it's an incredible piece of film.

[Alicia]

Originally Posted by PingoTango

Alicia - the film SWIY is referring to might be called Bodysong - a complete record of life in different cultures, from birth to death, using purely found footage, with a soundtrack composed by members of Radiohead.

I saw it too, it's an incredible piece of film.

Yeh thats it. Swia watched it at the time she was on acid and found it seriously depressing it is wonderful on how its put together thou. She couldn't get away from watching it thou at the time there was something compelling let upsetting about it , swia kept summarizing ideas on the species as a hole after watching it . crying her eyes out at the conclusions she came up with but ultimatly came back to the same thing. She likes it thou and swia can now buy it. thankyou Pingotango

[zera]

While those photos are terrible one must remember that for the vast majority of human history life like that was the rule not the exception. A thousand years ago pretty much everyone on Earth lived like that, but in the past 500 years humanity has discovered the miracle of economic growth and managed to lift billions of people out of poverty (including everyone posting here).

If economic growth rates continue by 2200 everyone in the world will be living at or above current first world standards. To give you some perspective global GDP per capita in 2000 was about $6500, this represents about a 7 fold increase from 1915, when it was about $870 (a tremendous increase in living standards). This 7-fold jump took 85 years, the 7-fold jump before this took 415 years from 1500 to 1915.

Not only is the world becoming a better place everyday, but the rate at it's improving is also improving. It's a sad thing to know that sufferring like that exists, but its also very exhilirating that for the first time in human history we can see sometime in the near future an end to that sufferring for everyone, everywhere.

[PingoTango]

Originally Posted by zera

If economic growth rates continue by 2200 everyone in the world will be living at or above current first world standards.

SWIM has difficulty beliving this statement for several reasons:

This statement assumes that economic growth rates and forecasts are uniform for all countries in the world, which they are not..! What will more likely happen is that the ever growing gap between rich and poor will continue to widen, the middle classes will become something of a relic from the past and society will become more polarized - many, many more poor people, who will (and in some ways already do) live purely to sustain the patrician lifestyles of the super-rich, who continue to amass huger and huger personal fortunes and become even more untouchable for the average Joe, whose quality of life will deterorate as the Earth's resources (oil, water, space for settlement and food production etc) will become scarcer and scarcer, strained beyond breaking point by the planet's ever growing population.

I think humanity is hitting the limits of planet Earth and what it can sustain - the coming century will be one of great change for the residents of this beautiful but scarred rock we call home. Either we move on to another life-sustaining planet (although doing this before we find a way to exist in an alien ecosystem with respect and in a sustainable way, instead of consuming and destroying every last wonder nature can throw at us in the name of profit like we did with Earth, would not be a very good idea), or we will suffer a sharp decline in population and revert to a much more naturalistic way of life, and live like our ancient ancestors did. This is, of course, assuming we don't plunge ourselves and our planet into another ice age, or worse, a nuclear winter.

EDIT: Spelling mistakes corrected. SWIM types too quickly and without thinking when stoned...

[El Calico Loco]

Economic growth doesn't have to mean raping the planet for more and more resources. It can also mean learning to do more with less. They're testing technology right now that may one day recycle landfills themselves back into base elements. Imagine a future where trash was valuable. It can happen.

As for the distribution of wealth - ie, the problem of Progress and Poverty - google "Geoism." They've got some ideas on how to fix this, with plenty of empirical evidence to back their claims. Ideas that horrify the wealthy power elite, but that one won't see from neoclassical free-market economists or academics of the impotent Left still stuck in sixteenth-generation post-post-Marxian gender identity critical theory of ten-dollar words.

There's no good solution, on the other hand, to those bored aristocrats who practice deception and violence for its own sake. They've even learned, after taking a beating from the likes of MLK and Ghandi, how to destroy non-violent resistance movements. Hangin's too good for 'em, but they can't be defeated by further deception and violence - no one is better at it than they are.

Maybe someone just needs to weaponize LSD and drop it on every power center on Earth.

1:17: And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
1:18: For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.


ECL

[Streak of Blue]

Originally Posted by zera

It's a sad thing to know that sufferring like that exists, but its also very exhilirating that for the first time in human history we can see sometime in the near future an end to that sufferring for everyone, everywhere.

Oh, if only it were so simple. But you're ignoring the reason why ordinary people like you and I aren't living in poverty in the first place.

For a better living standard humans have always had to opress other humans. For much of the existance of humanity it was leaders in a country opressing other humans so they could live a more comfortable life. It stemmed from feudalism. Back then it was peasants and kings. After the industrial revolution it was workers and employees. Same principal. The leaders/rulers gave the "lesser humans" just enough to barely keep them alive in return for them collectively giving this one person a comfortable lifestyle.

However, revolutions happened, often as a result of big wars like WW1 and WW2. With increasingly hostile attitudes amonsgst the lower classes, figures like Karl Marx promoting unity amongst the working class and the working class becoming more outspoken, the face of Europe and the US changed and essentially it got us where we are now. Most of us live comfortably. However, you've gotta remember that Colonialisation and Globalisation happened over the same time period.

Our minority of wealthy nations simply echo the rulers/opressers of the past and the majority of poverty stricken nations are the opressed. Ultimately, your comfortable life relies on some poor Third World people working their asses off and living in horrible conditions. It's sad, but true, yet it doesn't affect us emotionally. This can be explained by the results of the Milgram experiment, which showed the further away from suffering we are and the less responsibility we feel for it, the less we care, even if it is us causing the suffering.

[zera]

Originally Posted by Streak of Blue

Oh, if only it were so simple. But you're ignoring the reason why ordinary people like you and I aren't living in poverty in the first place.

For a better living standard humans have always had to opress other humans. For much of the existance of humanity it was leaders in a country opressing other humans so they could live a more comfortable life. It stemmed from feudalism. Back then it was peasants and kings. After the industrial revolution it was workers and employees. Same principal. The leaders/rulers gave the "lesser humans" just enough to barely keep them alive in return for them collectively giving this one person a comfortable lifestyle.

However, revolutions happened, often as a result of big wars like WW1 and WW2. With increasingly hostile attitudes amonsgst the lower classes, figures like Karl Marx promoting unity amongst the working class and the working class becoming more outspoken, the face of Europe and the US changed and essentially it got us where we are now. Most of us live comfortably. However, you've gotta remember that Colonialisation and Globalisation happened over the same time period.

Our minority of wealthy nations simply echo the rulers/opressers of the past and the majority of poverty stricken nations are the opressed. Ultimately, your comfortable life relies on some poor Third World people working their asses off and living in horrible conditions. It's sad, but true, yet it doesn't affect us emotionally. This can be explained by the results of the Milgram experiment, which showed the further away from suffering we are and the less responsibility we feel for it, the less we care, even if it is us causing the suffering.

Well, as a student of economics I have to disagree with you. The main reason that certain nations are rich and certain nations are poor is due to their relative development of capital, both physical capital, like machinery, infracstructure and equipment and human capital, like education and training. The more capital a country has the more productive its labor is. To give you a very basic example lets say you have two people digging ditches, one has a shovel and one has a CAT backhoe, the second one will be far more productive, and hence wealthier than the first. Us being wealthy has absolutely nothing to do with other nations being poor, in fact just the opposite, the more nations that are wealthy the more nations that derive economic growth from new innovation rather than playing catch-up, and in fact the wealthier the wealthy nations get. In other words wealthy nations want the rest of the world to be richer, not poorer.

I think the funamental flaw in your argument is assuming that for some reason the amount of wealth on this planet is fixed. That is quite wrong, the GDP of the entire world has been increasing for the past 100 years. If your scenario was true, ie that we are getting rich by making other nations poor, than you would expect that along with first world growth we should see an actual shrinking in third world GDP per capita. But just the opposite has happenned both the first world and the third world have grown at very fast rates, many third world countries, the ones without complete disasters for governments, have grown far faster than the first world. Without a doubt. Wealth is not a zero-sum game, everyone can get rich at the same time, and in fact that is what's happening. In 1950 the world GDP per capita was $1600, today it's $6500. If there's any evidence that wealth is not zero sum its the fact that average GDP has quintupled in 50 years. If our wealth was simply stolen from the global poor you wouldn't see everyone improving like this.

[Benzeneringz]

Thanks for the link, daeron. It was really moving to see the darker side of the human spectrum. We can be so kind to one another, yet we can be just as hateful.

[Buddah]

Wow... that gave me goose bumps that i still have..... I think swim might have to smoke to calm down

[Paracelsus]

These are shocking photos indeed.

Also, take a look at this one: http://www.npr.org/programs/newsnote...lurb200_lg.jpg

Search for the history behind this photo. It won the Pulitzer prize and the photograph killed himself.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

Glad to have another libertarian on the forum ECL, even if geolibertarianism sounds a little too altruistic for me...

[darawk]

Originally Posted by Riconoen {UGC}

Glad to have another libertarian on the forum ECL, even if geolibertarianism sounds a little too altruistic for me...

I would think the majority of us here on DF are libertarians. I am, at least.

[CRUNK]

I hate seeing this kind of shit...

[darkglobe]

I'm devoid of any intelligble way of phrasing the following opinion, so I will do as I usually do in this situation, I will revert to teenager mode:

"Cunts".

~Dark