If you could have a conversation with anyone..

[Alan V]

Is nature brutal though? Or are we mere mortals prejudiced against a natural world that contains intense pain and suffering?

Well, nature would not meet human standards for preventing animal cruelty, with so many predators eating other animals alive and with population growth controlled by starvation. We may ourselves run up against the indifference of nature to our well-being with climate change and its effects.

And what other moral standards besides human standards are there? Apparently none.

I'd love to read Thoreau's late journals with you. I've always found it useful to bounce ideas of others when reading a deep work. You might even start a thread in the journal subforum (or better yet, philosophy subforum) so other interested members could read along and discuss Thoreau's points. Just an idea.

Unlike the philosophy in A Week and Walden, Thoreau's journal entries are largely about his day-to-day observations of nature.

Of course, there is always a lot to discuss about Thoreau's ideas from his books and at least some journal selections.

There's a journal subforum?

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE POEM?

The poem was interesting. It started well but it did lose me at the end. "If these be vague words, then seek not to clear them." Thoreau expressed a similar sentiment in Walden, but I'm afraid much is unclear to mystics exactly because they assume what they shouldn't: "God works in mysterious ways" and all that.

[Cod]

I wouldn't mind a chat with Dolly Parton. I would look her straight in the eye and ask her about her biggest hits.

[Anomalocaris]

Pontius Pilate :  “Don’t crucify Jesus.  Have a really big Roman sodomise him to death.  Trust me on this!!”

Don’t catholic priests already believe that is how Jesus died?

[vulcanlogician]

Well, nature would not meet human standards for preventing animal cruelty, with so many predators eating other animals alive and with population growth controlled by starvation.  We may ourselves run up against the indifference of nature to our well-being with climate change and its effects.

I'd rather have my flesh torn apart by a lion and eaten alive, as tremendously painful as that may be, than kept alive for years in a stall in which I couldn't even turn around, until I was (eventually) fat enough for slaughter. Humans have shitty standards for animal cruelty. There are worse fates than being torn apart by lions, freezing to death in the winter cold, or dying in a brutal fight with a rival antelope during mating season. And humans have invented them all.

These aren't nearly as cruel as what humans have devised for animals. Lifelong servitude pulling a plow, being hooked up to a milk machine, kept confined in a wire box so you can produce eggs. Fuck it. I'll take my chances with the lions. Humans are ghastly torturers. Nature is kind by comparison. Is nature omnibenevolent? No. But she's something pretty close to it when compared with human beings.

Unlike the philosophy in A Week and Walden, Thoreau's journal entries are largely about his day-to-day observations of nature.

Of course, there is always a lot to discuss about Thoreau's ideas from his books and at least some journal selections.

I've read some of Thoreau's journals. They are thought-provoking. And they are also aphoristic. Each sentence becomes a paragraph in your mind. Each paragraph a chapter. Each chapter an entire book. Each book of his is a set of encyclopedias worth of provoked thought. And it's not like he's Hegel. (Abstract to the point of opacity.) All of us can comprehend and appreciate what Thoreau writes. Even those of us who aren't philosophy nerds. That's why I think it would work.

There's a journal subforum?

Yeah. I think so. But the philosophy forum would work to. Your choice. It would be awesome to do, I think.

[Anomalocaris]

Well, nature would not meet human standards for preventing animal cruelty, with so many predators eating other animals alive and with population growth controlled by starvation.  We may ourselves run up against the indifference of nature to our well-being with climate change and its effects.

I'd rather have my flesh torn apart by a lion and eaten alive, as tremendously painful as that may be, than kept alive for years in a stall in which I couldn't even turn around, until I was (eventually) fat enough for slaughter. Humans have shitty standards for animal cruelty. There are worse fates than being torn apart by lions, freezing to death in the winter cold, or dying in a brutal fight with a rival antelope during mating season. And humans have invented them all.

These aren't nearly as cruel as what humans have devised for animals. Lifelong servitude pulling a plow, being hooked up to a milk machine, kept confined in a wire box so you can produce eggs. Fuck it. I'll take my chances with the lions. Humans are ghastly torturers. Nature is kind by comparison. Is nature omnibenevolent? No. But she's something pretty close to it when compared with human beings.

Unlike the philosophy in A Week and Walden, Thoreau's journal entries are largely about his day-to-day observations of nature.

Of course, there is always a lot to discuss about Thoreau's ideas from his books and at least some journal selections.

I've read some of Thoreau's journals. They are thought-provoking. And they are also aphoristic. Each sentence becomes a paragraph in your mind. Each paragraph a chapter. Each chapter an entire book. Each book of his is a set of encyclopedias worth of provoked thought. And it's not like he's Hegel. (Abstract to the point of opacity.) All of us can comprehend and appreciate what Thoreau writes. Even those of us who aren't philosophy nerds. That's why I think it would work.

There's a journal subforum?

Yeah. I think so. But the philosophy forum would work to. Your choice. It would be awesome to do, I think.

Humans are not part of nature?


Humans are not the fruit of nature’s unstinting and ongoing effort to formulate ever more sophisticated and ingenious mechanisms to affect ever crueler tortures upon, well, previous generations of less sophisticated and less ingenious torturers?

[Abaddon_ire]

For me, a conversation with the Hitch.

---

I'd rather have my flesh torn apart by a lion and eaten alive, as tremendously painful as that may be, than kept alive for years in a stall in which I couldn't even turn around, until I was (eventually) fat enough for slaughter. Humans have shitty standards for animal cruelty. There are worse fates than being torn apart by lions, freezing to death in the winter cold, or dying in a brutal fight with a rival antelope during mating season. And humans have invented them all.

These aren't nearly as cruel as what humans have devised for animals. Lifelong servitude pulling a plow, being hooked up to a milk machine, kept confined in a wire box so you can produce eggs. Fuck it. I'll take my chances with the lions. Humans are ghastly torturers. Nature is kind by comparison. Is nature omnibenevolent? No. But she's something pretty close to it when compared with human beings.


I've read some of Thoreau's journals. They are thought-provoking. And they are also aphoristic. Each sentence becomes a paragraph in your mind. Each paragraph a chapter. Each chapter an entire book. Each book of his is a set of encyclopedias worth of provoked thought. And it's not like he's Hegel. (Abstract to the point of opacity.) All of us can comprehend and appreciate what Thoreau writes. Even those of us who aren't philosophy nerds. That's why I think it would work.



Yeah. I think so. But the philosophy forum would work to. Your choice. It would be awesome to do, I think.

Humans are not part of nature?


Humans are not the fruit of nature’s unstinting and ongoing effort to formulate ever more sophisticated and ingenious mechanisms to affect ever crueler tortures upon, well, previous generations of less sophisticated and less ingenious torturers?

[Cod]

For me, a conversation with the Hitch.

Yes, good choice... I would ask him about his relationship with his brother Peter. You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family as they say.

[no one]

Jimi Hendrix.
Where are you from, really?

Marilyn Monroe.
Can you show me how well you sing into the microphone?

[The Valkyrie]

Myself.

At 17 “Don’t do it!”

At 22 “Get a real job.”

At 30 “Perhaps you should have moved somewhere else.”

At 34 “Tell Jess you’re going away for the weekend.”

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Guy Ritchie:  'Why the hell don't you make films like you used to?  'Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels' - terrific!  'Snatch' - wonderful! 'RocknRolla' - brilliant!

'King Arthur:  Legend of the Sword' - dafuq were you thinking??'

Boru