Dante369 wrote:
Nick wrote:
Wow I just watched that and it was mucked.
Why would you watch that knowing what was going to be shown? I don't understand people's morbid curiosity.
I think classically it stems from the idea that really, the only way one can learn how not to be afraid of something is to confront it.
We have to know what happens, we have to understand everything in this world. Death is the greatest curiosity of all. Tragedy, war, all that crap.
We're compelled to watch the twin towers falling, to see a guy being beheaded, to watch a car crash or a trainwreck, to see an airplane fall from the sky, to see what bodies on a battlefield look like, to watch the Hindenburg burn.
We see that crap and it makes us sick and a part of us wants to pull away, fear makes us want to pull away, empathy, all those things that make stuff like that hard to watch, but in the end we know we can't outrun pain and death and all the evils of the world, so we're compelled to stare at it and confront it and to try not to be afraid, to learn from it and maybe stop certain instances of death and pain from ever happening again.
We're not interested in death so much in the idea of a peaceful death, no one goes out of their way to watch an old man fade away in his sleep peacefully. It's the violent, painful death that we're fascinated by, and it's that aspect of ourselves of humanity as a whole, to confront and try to make the world a better place to live in that makes us such a distinct and successful species.
I don't know how relevant the quote is, but there's one that goes something along the lines that, warfare is the tool from which the human race progresses in leaps and bounds, it was from warfare that man would harvest the power of iron and steel and gunpowder and the atom. The Roman Empire was built and lasted centuries because of conflict, and Britain taught the world to speak English by the points of bayonets. We are a culture of death, and through death we've improved the lives of billions and assured our survival as a species.
_________________
Bowie wrote:
I come on every day and have no idea what Baltar is talking about.
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