Mindless Ramblings of The Cool Ones

[raheme]

One thing I've come to know as a fact is that there is no such thing as a utopian society. Communist north korea is about as isolationist and single minded a country you can find...but the very leaders (and late ones) live for self at the expense of their people. Given long enough, capitalism and materialism erode even the steepest reverent mountains.

I think the key word here is choice. I can choose to hear the baby cry. I can choose to acknowledge the hello. I can choose to receive that meal and break bread. Its my choice if I so choose to. Likewise its my choice to care or not.

Choice is not instinctive, its nurtured.

There are instances where I can see your point, like your example of currency. However; some things are just instinctively known. A baby crying out doesn't need to explain to you it's wants. You simply pick the baby up. Someone speaking a foreign language can wave hello and you wave back. Someone handing some food out to you is clearly trying to break bread. A person in a desert with parched and cracked lips, needs water. Someone sleeping in the rain, needs shelter etc.

The media has desensitized us to not care about our fellow person. Society in general and corporate america in particular has fostered a reward mentality in us. If we don't get something out of what we do, we don't do it. We go to work because we want the reward of being able to buy the materialistic things we desire. We go to war because we want to expand our domestic business in the foreign countries and export their local resources. We pay our tithe because we want the reward of going to heaven. We rape our own lands because we want the cheap access to resources. If you look back to the Native Americans and even today's tribal peoples, heck even the Amish, you can see the reverence for all things. Again, there needs to be a balance to life and I'd go so far to say that the world as a whole would be way better off if we all lived in smaller tribal communities, opposed to how our current society is. In summation, if my choice was to live for myself alone and not do anything for those around me, well life wouldn't be worth living at all. I've been on a operating table and have flat-lined before, I've realized there is 'more' to life than just living. I'm always hearing people talk about the materialistic things they want and I can understand it to a point, it helps us not think about the monotony of life, but call me simple because I'm happy being loved and having someone to love, I give what I have profusely. Ok, I realized I've gone a bit off subject again, so I'll end here lol

[raheme]

Still want those other conversations going, but also wanted to stay on the topic of Zombie Apocalypse. I was recently playing online with friends CoD Black Ops Zombie Mode, and I posited this question to them, based on the Walking Dead zombie apocalypse.

You are walking past a car, foraging, not in any imminent danger at the moment, but of course the potential for a zombie horde around the corner is always possible. In this deserted town, there lies a crying baby in the car, do you leave it (it's not yours) or do you pick the baby up and take it with you?

(I will post my answer I gave them, and perhaps some of theirs after a few responses are posted here. We had some wildly varying views, with one person saying he'd reenact the scene from Feast 2, which you are sleeping on if you are a horror movie fan.)

The good raheme says of course id rescue the baby. The naive raheme says well, this is an apoclpye and food is short perhaps this baby is a trap to fish out prey (big meaty humans). The bad raheme says if I'm not able to provide for the child, if I'm struggling just to survive on my own, id probably have to mercy kill the child to save him/her from becoming a meal or dying a horrible death.

[raheme]

The only problem I have with this ideology is that we look at humans as if we are separate or beyond the scope of nature. Perhaps in all our humanly fuckedupedness, we are imperfectly perfect at doing what we were designed to do...reset life on planet earth and beyond. Ashed ground yields the most fertile soil...destroy and rebuild. That's the balance of nature. Maybe this is our manifest destiny.



[QUOTE=CosmicTraveler;41185]I said that was the inspiration for the base concept... That's not a comparison. I didn't exactly care for that movie in any case. Preferred the comics much more.

Do you actually believe humans to be any better than the other animals on this planet? Honestly? You're talking about a species that seems to go out of it's way in an attempt to end itself and everything around it. People kill each other just by basis of being slightly different from one another, or even for little slips of paper with the faces of other dead people on it. Your talk of higher reasoning only serves to make them that much worse. Because all it means is that they're fully aware of what they're doing when they do it. Quite frankly humans are the worst pieces of shit on this entire planet. Lying, stealing and killing just for the hell of it. If humans were really as high as you'd like to believe the word genocide wouldn't even exist, because it would be a purely unthinkable concept. Yet several times through history it's come to pass.[/QUOTE]

[Ms Remy M]

One thing I've come to know as a fact is that there is no such thing as a utopian society. Communist north korea is about as isolationist and single minded a country you can find...but the very leaders (and late ones) live for self at the expense of their people. Given long enough, capitalism and materialism erode even the steepest reverent mountains.

I think the key word here is choice. I can choose to hear the baby cry. I can choose to acknowledge the hello. I can choose to receive that meal and break bread. Its my choice if I so choose to. Likewise its my choice to care or not.

Choice is not instinctive, its nurtured.

Regardless of the government I think it's the people in power that corrupt. America is supposed to be a nation for the people and by the people. Largely though, it's the big company lobbyist that influence government the most, though not always thankfully.

[Ms Remy M]

The good raheme says of course id rescue the baby. The naive raheme says well, this is an apoclpye and food is short perhaps this baby is a trap to fish out prey (big meaty humans). The bad raheme says if I'm not able to provide for the child, if I'm struggling just to survive on my own, id probably have to mercy kill the child to save him/her from becoming a meal or dying a horrible death.

Interesting response.

I, of course would do all I could to take care of the baby.

One of my friends (during our gaming session) stated that they would try to do the same, but if trouble came, they would do like Shane did Otis and drop the baby to distract the zombies so that he could get away. lol fucking bastard

[Ms Remy M]

Well, if we're talking Walking Dead here then they do. As the zombies have been shown to decay to a point of being unable to move without eating. Even though they're still... undead... like... able to move... You get what I mean.

I kind of felt that it has never been fully explained. With regards to the tv show, they gut a zombie looking for Sophia remains, and the woodchuck was there undigested.

Overall, I can see them processing food, since being reanimated as given them basic functions of other senses it is not much of a reach for them to process food. It actually keeping them from rotting though? That would also mean that there is full on blood circulation going to deliver said nutrients to the various body parts etc. If that is occurring then wounds would continue to bleed and fester and rot from bacteria and other general infections, like massive total body gangrene.

I tend to think that the process of eating is more so just mechanical from the small part of the brain. Perhaps, as some actual viruses (rabies) do, they biting is a function that serves the virus to spread from host to host, not so much of a conscious decision on the host part.

[CosmicTraveler]

I kind of felt that it has never been fully explained. With regards to the tv show, they gut a zombie looking for Sophia remains, and the woodchuck was there undigested.

Overall, I can see them processing food, since being reanimated as given them basic functions of other senses it is not much of a reach for them to process food. It actually keeping them from rotting though? That would also mean that there is full on blood circulation going to deliver said nutrients to the various body parts etc. If that is occurring then wounds would continue to bleed and fester and rot from bacteria and other general infections, like massive total body gangrene.

I tend to think that the process of eating is more so just mechanical from the small part of the brain. Perhaps, as some actual viruses (rabies) do, they biting is a function that serves the virus to spread from host to host, not so much of a conscious decision on the host part.

I gotta be honest, I don't have any real response for you here.

[Ms Remy M]

Just watched this really great movie called Carnage by Roman Polanski. It's nothing but fantastic dialogue and if you don't mind that, I highly suggest checking it out. Cosmic, this movie actually plays to your comments about how a persons fortitude for civility dissolves in the face of tribulation. It's not a long film, barely 1hr 20mins and basically just one long conversation. If anyone has seen the film I'd love to pick your brain over it.

[raheme]

Random question...is it possible to be attracted to someone based off of intellect/communication regardless of gender/sexual orientation?

[Ms Remy M]

Random question...is it possible to be attracted to someone based off of intellect/communication regardless of gender/sexual orientation?

Absolutely, I'd like to think that my situation in a particular person is a prime example for initial attraction.