Matthew Harris (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} glowing_fish) wrote,@ 2008-04-23 13:58:00 |
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How many shots can get fired at a targer and just barely miss? Do you really want to live like this?
Some of the readers here might be familiar with the concept of "Hurry up and kill me so I can go to Taco Bell", a phrase used years ago by a punk rock kid playing Risk to signal that he was tired of the unending game, and just wanted to get to the inevitable conclusion so he could go indulge in some good, punk rock Taco Bell.
So I often use the phrase when I want a situation that is going to end in eventual disaster to just hurry on to its completion.
I've often taken it for granted that pain and suffering are some of the best ways for people to learn. Even I learn that way! But it seems that after six or seven years of unending war, people don't seem to be learning. Of course, maybe that is just because the "blood and death" aren't enough (4000 dead soldiers in five years? That wasn't even a busy week in World War I or the Civil War!) , and after all, we still "got gas, and we got water".
But I also suspect that perhaps rather than just avoiding bad things, people might want to change because they have something attractive to them, rather than just changing to avoid getting punished over and over. So, perhaps, when someone articulates an attractive way for society to be built around something other than violence and domination, it will happen in...two weeks.
Some of the readers here might be familiar with the concept of "Hurry up and kill me so I can go to Taco Bell", a phrase used years ago by a punk rock kid playing Risk to signal that he was tired of the unending game, and just wanted to get to the inevitable conclusion so he could go indulge in some good, punk rock Taco Bell.
So I often use the phrase when I want a situation that is going to end in eventual disaster to just hurry on to its completion.
I've often taken it for granted that pain and suffering are some of the best ways for people to learn. Even I learn that way! But it seems that after six or seven years of unending war, people don't seem to be learning. Of course, maybe that is just because the "blood and death" aren't enough (4000 dead soldiers in five years? That wasn't even a busy week in World War I or the Civil War!) , and after all, we still "got gas, and we got water".
But I also suspect that perhaps rather than just avoiding bad things, people might want to change because they have something attractive to them, rather than just changing to avoid getting punished over and over. So, perhaps, when someone articulates an attractive way for society to be built around something other than violence and domination, it will happen in...two weeks.
