Quote of the Day(inspired by SD's post)

[HIT_it_RAW]

"A living complex is necessarily subservient to laws of balance, selection, rejection, preference, and exchange. The need to survive at the expense of the outside world requires an economic scenario, even on the level of microscopic entities. It is, therefore, hardly surprising, that the very same laws of economy apply whether one is dealing with a country, an individual, or a simple cell."  GCB

[CHK91]

"A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future."

A. Einstein

BAWWWWW..... This is way too true...

[PaleoPhil]

Yes, there's a tribe in the Amazon that has no concept of long-term future or past. Moderners call them the Pirahã (they call themselves the Hi'aiti'ihi, which translates to "the straight ones" and is quite similar to the most common name that indigenous peoples have for themselves--"the real people"). They have no history or myths (including no creation story) and no plans and they live almost totally in the present (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXegoZrxcVk). They are reportedly very happy people. That's not surprising given that several religions and many self help gurus teach that part of the secret of happiness is living as much as feasible in the present. These are a people who always live in the present. One Christian missionary, Daniel Everett, realized that the Pirahã already possessed the happiness and tranquility that he told them Jesus could give them. He was so impressed by that and certain fascinating, incisive things that they said which innocently challenged his beliefs that he gave up his faith and as a result lost his family, as his missionary wife would not accept a nonChristian husband.

I saw one of the Pirahã interviewed and he did appear very happy--smiling and chuckling quite a bit. Even more so than the traditional Bushmen I've seen interviewed, who also seem to smile and chuckle a good deal (not so much the ones in cramped reservation villages, from the little I've seen).


"They're the ultimate empiricists." --Daniel Everett on the Pirahã

[raw-al]

Wow Thanks Phil, They have it figured out. Appreciate the link. You have restored my faith.

[PaleoPhil]

You're welcome raw-al.

"The way you walked was thorny through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end. Your suffering is over. Now you will find peace for eternity." --Maleva in The Wolf Man, 1941

[achillezzz]

[HIT_it_RAW]

@chillezzz   Nice man!

[achillezzz]

"No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training… What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” – Socrates

[HIT_it_RAW]

"No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training… What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” – Socrates

Wise man! didn't he also say: "let food be your medicine"

[HIT_it_RAW]

"I have sometimes amused myself by endeavoring to fancy what would be the fate of any individual gifted, or rather accursed, with an intellect very far superior to that of his race. Of course, he would not be conscious of his superiority nor could he help manifesting his consciousness.

Thus, he would make himself enemies at all points. And since his opinions and speculations would likely differ from those of all mankind that he would be considered a madman is evident.

How horribly painful such a condition! Hell could invent no greater torture than that of being charged with abnormal weakness on account of being abnormally strong."

the hunting of the slan
Edgar Allan Poe

[laterade]

Wise man! didn't he also say: "let food be your medicine"

"Let food be thy medicine"
"Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases."
"It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has."
"Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm."
"Many admire, few know"
"Walking is man's best medicine"
-Hippocrates

Googled the quotes, not sure of authenticity.

[achillezzz]

"I have sometimes amused myself by endeavoring to fancy what would be the fate of any individual gifted, or rather accursed, with an intellect very far superior to that of his race. Of course, he would not be conscious of his superiority nor could he help manifesting his consciousness.

Thus, he would make himself enemies at all points. And since his opinions and speculations would likely differ from those of all mankind that he would be considered a madman is evident.

How horribly painful such a condition! Hell could invent no greater torture than that of being charged with abnormal weakness on account of being abnormally strong."

the hunting of the slan
Edgar Allan Poe

huge like

[Ioanna]

"Somewhere along the line, we seem to have confused comfort with happiness. "
-Dean Karnazes

[PaleoPhil]

Aye, short term comfort leads to long term distress.

[raw-al]

"Somewhere along the line, we seem to have confused comfort with happiness. "
-Dean Karnazes

Very good

[achillezzz]

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain

[PaleoPhil]

People are actually hoping and striving for their damnation:

<<People have often commented, 'where are all the humans', well in this abstract interpretation, the robots and machine like beings are us, it's what we have evolved to become, bringing mechanics into our organic structure.

This might seem radical, but I think it's how we are destined to be. The future is always filled with stories of 'robots controlling mankind', but [in fact] mankind [will] itself become robotic.>>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8EWbJ0w68U

[PaleoPhil]

"If you only have the milk of three yaks, don't live like you have the milk of four." -Genghis Kahn (Chenggis Haan)

[cherimoya_kid]

People are actually hoping and striving for their damnation:

I don't think it has to be damnation.  Of course, I'm not an early adopter of new technology.  I'd rather other people use it first, and work out all the bugs.  I assume that my strategy will continue to work well into the times when people are getting various mechanical implants of many types.

Think about it--landline phones were new and untested 120 years ago.  There were probably people calling them damnation, etc. back then.  Would you really include them under the umbrella of "damnation" now?  I'm not saying that they were not, in some way, damnation.  I'm just saying that the kinks have been worked out, and now it's a trustworthy, reliable technology, and it's actually going away soon, because it's mostly outmoded.  Isn't it kind of hard for something outmoded to be "damnation"?  And won't the various implants of the future, at some point, become outmoded?  Would they, at that point, still be "damnation", to the people of that time?

Seriously, do you really think that technology brings only misery?  I agree that it brings some misery...but, when the kinks get worked out, it can be a wonderful thing.

[PaleoPhil]

I'll don't wish to be impolite but I probably should not respond here, as this thread is for quotes rather than debate. I only added my commentary to the quote above because I didn't want people to think that I agreed with the idea of humans striving to become robots as being a utopian ideal.

[raw-al]

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt
should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered
and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed,
lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead
of living on public assistance."

      - Cicero , 55 BC

[miles]

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt
should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered
and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed,
lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead
of living on public assistance."

      - Cicero , 55 BC

MY MIND = BLOWN!

[TylerDurden]

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt
should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered
and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed,
lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead
of living on public assistance."

      - Cicero , 55 BC

  History repeats itself....

[PaleoPhil]

That Cicero quote seemed too modern to have been from Roman times and the talk of "assistance to foreign lands" seemed out of place, since the Romans believed that plundering foreign lands was perfectly OK, as did most or all governments in that time, and plundering Gallic gold was how Julius Caesar refilled the treasury in that era (as recounted in Terry Jones' Barbarians), not via cutting off "assistance to foreign lands."

So I Googled it and quickly found this:

In a letter to The Chicago Tribune (20 April 1971), John H. Collins, Professor of History at Northern Illinois University, reported that the following attribution to Cicero,

Quote:
The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. The mobs should be forced to work and not depend on government for subsistence.

actually originated in A Pillar of Iron (1965), Taylor Caldwell's fictionalized account of the life of the senator. (In fact, Collins noted that it was on page 483 of the edition he had in hand.) http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=28532

The Internet is full of such misattributions, so be wary of quotes provided on the Internet without original sources. It is particularly common for people to attribute all sorts of quotes to famous oraters, thinkers, and religious and political leaders like Cicero, Confucious, Arthur Schopenhauer, Mohandis Gandhi, Shakespeare and others that they never said, so be especially wary when quotes are attributed to people that are often cited, or to famous works like the Bible.

[eveheart]

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude." -Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson (d.1826) wrote many great anti-government debt quotations... yes, the same Thomas Jefferson who, in his personal life, was notorious for excessive spending and died deep in debt.