After a really fine comment on the subject, you apologize for it in the last line.

This demonstrates how our society discourages thought.

I run into this regularly. The best comments in Bob’s Blog — and they are generally excellent — often end as yours did.

It amounts to this:

“Oops, I started THINKING, didn’t I? I should have learned after all those years of schooling that the minute I start to THINK, my teacher or professor tells me I am getting off the subject.”

I know the feeling. I, too, got the full course of training on how NOT to think.

What you are apologizing for is precisely what you should be proud of. All those trillions of dollars spent on education and a few people like you still have a functioning brain.

Sparrow, in a world of intellectual zombies, you are a welcome relief.

[QUOTE=sparrow]I’m not sure I get your point.

But I think there is a Genetic basis for Morality in this.

We believe, I think correctly, that our progeny are extensions of ourselves. Therefore to hurt our progeny is to hurt ourselves. Hence we have to adjust our lives in a way that protects our progeny in addition to ourselves. In a world where a man doesn’t believe his progeny is an extension of self, he really has no reason to care about the future. Why do I care if there is overpopulation, why do I care if there is pollution, why do I care if there is famine, why do I care about 100 years from now, since I will be dead then.

There are only a few reasons… ego (I just get off on the fact RIGHT NOW that people will be looking at this piece of art I made today a 100 years from now), bloodline immortality (as long as my descendents live, I live), belief in reincarnation (i might come back and have to live in the filth I left behind), fear of the divine (I must do this or god will punish me, both here and in the afterlife), or some sort of genuine altruism. I think if you rely on genuine altruism you will find it doesn’t work. I’m sure there will be a few, but I doubt they could sustain any kind of culture or build any kind of future.

I think for the supermajority of people we care about the future because we have the ego to want to live forever and we believe that progeny is the only way to do that.

I’m sure some one will point out Christianity, but you will note that Christianity doesn’t discourage Bloodline immortality. In a sense a Christian is encouraged to hedge his bets… Accept Immortality through Christ AND have tons of children.

I’m sorry have I gone off on some weird tangent?[/QUOTE]

You put me in a bad mood this morning, and I’ve spent sixty-five years (March 31) becoming old enough and crotchety enough and rich enough so I don’t have to be diplomatic.

No comments. You had NO comments!

I write my tail off here, and I expect what I say to generate some THOUGHT.

If you look down in front of you will see a thing on the table that is over a foot wide and about eight inches long. It is called a keyboard. If you come out of your daze and look at it closely you will see it has cute little buttons all over it with numbers and letters and other fascinating stuff.

Look at it a few minutes and your inner child will be fascinated. You will go “Goo!” and drool a little.

As your mind slowly clears you will notice that you can push down those little buttons with the pretty lettters and numbers on them and the very same letters and numbers will appear on the shiny thing in front of you.

The shiny thing is called a monitor.

Stare at the monitor a minute or to you and you may begin to connect with something called your frontal lobe.

P.G. Wodehouse was asked how he wrote his hilarious books.

Wodehouse replied, “Well, I sit stick a blank piece of paper in my typewriter and then I stare at it until my forehead bleeds.”

The shiny thing you are looking at has the words you are reading right now on it.

You stare at these words either until you think of something or your forehead bleeds, whichever comes first.

When I see Comments (0) I figure there are a lot of bleeding foreheads out there.

Back to this frontal lobe thing. It is located just back of the blood of the blood that is oozing out of your skin.

Feel around. It’s in there somewhere.

I cannot believe a group of people can read what I have to say and absolutely none of them are caused to think of a single thing worth sharing.

If you wipe the blood off your forehead enough times you may, at long last, feel a painful sensation directly behind where your hankie is, just under your skull. There may be a noticable sound of grinding as the rust breaks in there.

As the pain subsides, if you do not actually pass out from pain and astonishment, you will read what I say and your frontal lobe will suddenly be connected to your fingers.

You push the little buttony things and something coherent may actually appear on the shiny thing. Wipe your forehead one more time. You are almost there.

It is a painful, novel experience, of course.

But if you are willing to endure all this suffering you will make Ole Bob very happy, and he will no longer feel like shoving the buttony thing and the shiny thing into an area far away from your forehead.