With what existential crisis are you grappling right now?

[HeadphoneAddict]

Nice story, I enjoyed it.

[Smeggy]

I often wonder why I don't give more of a shit about the things most people deem important.

[nattonrice]

Grappling with the cost of fresh oysters and abalone after taking my gf to the fish markets for 8am breakfast

On the lighter side I washed it down afterward with a Cannoli and hot choco while watching Sydney's second dust storm in a week.

Edit: not very existential but still a crisis.

[robm321]

Very nice story screaming oranges

[Aimless1]

I often wonder why I don't give more of a shit about the things most people deem important.

Ditto. A question for the ages. In my case I wonder if I'm too self absorbed or are other peeps that shallow?

[MoonShine]

X3

I don't even watch the news (daily brainwashing).

Global warming, politics, blah, blah, blah...

I just don't give a shit and I haven't for so long that I don't even wonder why anymore.

[morphsci]

X3

I don't even watch the news (daily brainwashing).

Global warming, politics, blah, blah, blah...

I just don't give a shit and I haven't for so long that I don't even wonder why anymore.

Bodes well for the future of humanity

[Sherwood]

X3

I don't even watch the news (daily brainwashing).

Global warming, politics, blah, blah, blah...

I just don't give a shit and I haven't for so long that I don't even wonder why anymore.

Easy, these things don't affect you, and you don't affect them.

[Genetic]

Yep the medical law expert is now waiting for a medical exam result to be analysed by some unknown (to me) brilliant ''med guy'' who will possibly tell me that I'm no longer immortal...

Amicalement

PS:

Fuck that shit I'll have plenty of time to see McCoy Tyner tonight before I die.

[Dusty Chalk]

"One of the wonders of the world is going down...

One of the blunders of the world is no-one cares..."

[dreamwhisper]

Easy, these things don't affect you, and you don't affect them.

unless you drive a car, buy food from MacDonalds,

I dunno, I doubt the average person is aware of how what they do affects a larger picture

I sure don't, but I still eat mostly organic food and ride my bike

One thing people don't realise is that your money is your vote.

We create the world we want to live in by choosing what we want to buy/support.

Although it's hard to see beyond our expenditures, necessary and unnecessary

[Sherwood]

I dunno, I doubt the average person is aware of how what they do affects a larger picture

I sure don't, but I still eat mostly organic food and ride my bike

I'm pretty sure the actions of the individual "average person" do almost nothing to affect the larger picture.

By buying organic food, you incrementally raise the price of non-organic pesticides (as opposed to organic pesticides) which are the most effective means of curtailing the spread of malaria in Africa. Eat enough of it, and perhaps you'll be responsible for the death of an entire African person over your lifetime, but I don't think it's likely.

All the things you're talking about aren't proactively influencing anything but yourself. If you enjoy it more power to you, but you're not saving the world. If everyone did it, everyone would not be saving the world either.

There are real things real individual people can do to change the way the world works, but I assure you none of them are so simple as what you eat or how much you refrain from using fossil fuels.

My crisis, if I have one, is how to be in a position to do those things right, rather than just stamp passports and set out bottled water.

[Dusty Chalk]

I completely disagree -- it's like voting, one vote may not make a difference in the overall scheme of things, but you still have to do it and make your little contribution.

[Hopstretch]

You don't have to. The debate appears to center on whether you should.

[Aimless1]

I'm pretty sure the actions of the individual "average person" do almost nothing to affect the larger picture.

Seems like a cynical viewpoint. Nelson Mandella and Ghandi no doubt were considered average by their peers, but their dreams and goals were not. Average Americans get vast areas of the United States designated as Wilderness. Plenty of examples of actions of average Citizens which have changed our world.

Pursuing your beliefs and putting action to your goals is commitment. Commitment is the spark that causes a flame, a flame a fire, a fire a conflagration. Ultimately what we choose to do, or not, does matter.

[Sherwood]

Are you arguing that Nelson mandella and Gandhi were average? Clearly they were not, as they are exceptional enough for everyone here to know who they were.

Average people do not make a difference -- exceptional people do. I think a lot of the milquetoast "make a difference with the little things" initiatives are ways for average people to feel better about not being exceptional.

[jp11801]

Couple of thoughts,

first I call bullshit on your malaria statement Whats your source (Glenn Beck doesn't count). Most studies I gave read give pesticides limited lifespans due to mosquito resistance to pesticides.

Average people by their actions alone mean little but as a part of a greater movement effect great change. If no one steps up nothing happens if thousands stand up it means something.

Taking away individual accountability, stating your lone action changes nothing, is a cop out that favors the status quo (business and govt)

[Sherwood]

first I call bullshit on your malaria statement Whats your source (Glenn Beck doesn't count). Most studies I gave read give pesticides limited lifespans due to mosquito resistance to pesticides.

Go ahead, call bullshit. If you can find me a study that argues that organic pesticides are more affordable or more effective than DDT, I'd be happy to read it. DDT does have limited effectiveness, granted, but it's still superior effectiveness to the alternatives. If there's something better and I missed it, I'm all ears.

Also, it's not up to you to decide which news sources are valid, any more than it is up to me. Glenn Beck links to the research of others, just like Kos and Huffington. I would hope you would evaluate anything I linked you to by its content, not its URL.

Average people by their actions alone mean little but as a part of a greater movement effect great change. If no one steps up nothing happens if thousands stand up it means something.

Taking away individual accountability, stating your lone action changes nothing, is a cop out that favors the status quo (business and govt)

You're building a straw man, here. I never argued against personal responsibility, I argued that there is nothing praiseworthy about incremental change in your own life, about switching from paper to plastic. You seem to feel that this is exceptional because it will cause a change if thousands of people do it.

If you want a change, organize thousands of people. The organizer is the one responsible, not the organized.

As far as the status quo is concerned, it is the way the American system was designed to operate. Radical change is undesirable under the system we have built, and it only comes about through earnest crisis. Ergo, beware anyone telling you there is a crisis.

[Sherwood]

Apologies, should apologies should be necessary, before we continue this further. I've spent considerable time in Middle Eastern cultures where discussing politics is friendly, if extremely heated, and where political culture is very different from America, let alone the bastard America that is the internet.

I greatly respect the vast majority of you, and value your friendships. Please take my inevitable badgering as the good-natured discussion that it is.

[grawk]

I agree with you. Eating organic and riding a bike are great for how you feel about yourself, but the impact they make is miniscule. They help assuage the guilt some people feel for living a comfortable life in a world that's filled with suffering.

I don't think that buying organic is more likely to cause malaria to increase worldwide, of course. That would be hyperbole on a par with the idea that driving a prius is going to change the climate.

[Sherwood]

That would be hyperbole on a par with the idea that driving a prius is going to change the climate.

Very true. It was intended as gross hyperbole, and it is decidedly such. UN regulations on DDT post "Silent Spring" did far, far more to negatively affect Malaria than we as an heirloom-tomato-loving people ever will.

[Dreadhead]

Go ahead, call bullshit. If you can find me a study that argues that organic pesticides are more affordable or more effective than DDT, I'd be happy to read it. DDT does have limited effectiveness, granted, but it's still superior effectiveness to the alternatives. If there's something better and I missed it, I'm all ears.

Also, it's not up to you to decide which news sources are valid, any more than it is up to me. Glenn Beck links to the research of others, just like Kos and Huffington. I would hope you would evaluate anything I linked you to by its content, not its URL.

Way to not answer the question. Not that I disagree with the argument about DDT/malaria but there is also the question that if DDT wasn't in the market place depressing prices that maybe ramped up production of other less environmentally damaging alternatives would drop the prices of these.

The issue I have with Glen beck is that he doesn't judge the quality of his source before passing it on to his audience, this opens him for ridicule. Last time I checked I really shouldn't have to fact check everything from a program that claims to be journalism.

You're building a straw man, here. I never argued against personal responsibility, I argued that there is nothing praiseworthy about incremental change in your own life, about switching from paper to plastic. You seem to feel that this is exceptional because it will cause a change if thousands of people do it.

If you want a change, organize thousands of people. The organizer is the one responsible, not the organized.

I disagree with this entirely as would most of those "organizers" who personally encourage and praise all that join their cause.

As far as the status quo is concerned, it is the way the American system was designed to operate. Radical change is undesirable under the system we have built, and it only comes about through earnest crisis. Ergo, beware anyone telling you there is a crisis.

Depends on what one calls radical change. I would argue that there have been lots of radical changes to many things in the US system from deregulation to Roe vs Wade without an attached crisis.

As far as the argument that these small changes make no difference and only make the tree-huggers feel better, that depends on how many tree-huggers there are doing it and congratulating other tree-huggers and converts when they do it too.

[Hopstretch]

I like headphones, beer and pussy.

[Sherwood]

Way to not answer the question. Not that I disagree with the argument about DDT/malaria but there is also the question that if DDT wasn't in the market place depressing prices that maybe ramped up production of other less environmentally damaging alternatives would drop the prices of these.

The issue I have with Glen beck is that he doesn't judge the quality of his source before passing it on to his audience, this opens him for ridicule. Last time I checked I really shouldn't have to fact check everything from a program that claims to be journalism.

The question wasn't really clear to me. What did you want me to provide in the way of a source, John? Something showing the effectiveness of DDT against other pesticides?

None of can answer as to what *might* have happened had DDT not been an option. That's an argument that goes nowhere.

As to Glenn Beck, I would not imagine someone of a more left-leaning bend to enjoy him, but you do yourself a disservice by dismissing what he brings to the table out of hand. In my business I fact check *everything*, regardless of source. There are fewer than 5 organizations I trust without checking, and I still check them. I don't know if I can say that Beck is a particularly grievous example of someone who brings questionable sources to the front. He does it, yeah, without a doubt.

I disagree with this entirely as would most of those "organizers" who personally encourage and praise all that join their cause.

The organizers are free to disagree, but it would not have happened without them. Movements have leaders, almost without exception.

Depends on what one calls radical change. I would argue that there have been lots of radical changes to many things in the US system from deregulation to Roe vs Wade without an attached crisis.

Depends on what particular period of deregulation you refer to. The most recent period under Reagan corresponded to America assuming hegemony of world affairs formally, which is pretty monumental. It also corresponded to Thatcherism in the UK, which came about from crisis, and was a crisis itself, according to many.

Roe V. Wade was not radical, to my eyes. It was an incremental change, like prohibition and its eventual repeal. Moreover, it was a change that seems to have occurred from the inside out.

As far as the argument that these small changes make no difference and only make the tree-huggers feel better, that depends on how many tree-huggers there are doing it and congratulating other tree-huggers and converts when they do it too.

Sure, of course it does, but the individual makes no more difference by himself than he does in a large group.

There's a fundamental difference between my producing free market leaflets in my kitchen and a libertarian being elected president, but if I did nothing more than make leaflets I'm not responsible for it.

[Dreadhead]

I like headphones, beer and pussy.

Agree plus cycling in my case.