Justify Yourself!
- Thread starter Flamehero1
- Start date
Recommended Videos
The first thing that sprung to my mind was that episode; it apparently confused people, which I'll never understand.
Anyway: I started out as nothing and now I'm working towards my goal, I may not have taken the most efficient path towards my goal, but I'm still going to achieve it.
Anyway: I started out as nothing and now I'm working towards my goal, I may not have taken the most efficient path towards my goal, but I'm still going to achieve it.
Erm...fuck, I really can't justify myself. I am an utterly pointless human being. Nobody on this planet is better or worse off because of me, I'm simply here drifting irrelevantly through existence.
...god damn...you guys know where I can buy a length of rope and a stool?
...god damn...you guys know where I can buy a length of rope and a stool?
Justify my existence? Well, I make the world or more random, fun, and spontaneous place! Without me, who would chime in with snarky quips or produce witty banter?
No seriously.
No seriously.
If anyone besides me took my place, I imagine that it would make my parents' lives that much more difficult. They already have to deal with three half-insane children, they don't need a fourth. If you REALLY think another kid's going to somehow going to be a prodigy instead of one of today's bratty, self-indulgent, misguidedly "independent" pests, then go ahead and press the erase button. If you realize what exactly that statistical possibility is, then you know that you can't.
Now if you have my personality, you enjoy doing what you're told, so shut up and get me an apple.
Now if you have my personality, you enjoy doing what you're told, so shut up and get me an apple.
I think one day, I might be able to wow the world by telling a good story (either in the form of a book or a videogame; depends on how lucky i get). I ahve it working out in my braincase right now!
....soooo, does being "deleted" hurt?
....soooo, does being "deleted" hurt?
The fact of the matter is that I probably don't any more than a lot of other people. Granted, I can say that I'm better than SOME people, like Nazis or Serial Killers or Rapists or general low-life scum like the people who beat others up for fun, but I can't really say that I deserve life more than a LOT of other people.
When I was a kid, that REALLY bothered me - immensely in fact. The idea that kids, who were really no different than me, were dying all the damn time elsewhere in the world. Why them and not me?
Well, the real answer is random chance, circumstance and luck. I happen to have been born in to a moderately well-off family that lives in a peaceful, well-developed country. Did I do anything to deserve this? No. But neither did I ask for it. It was simply random chance and circumstance that I have a life as good as the one I've got. That and nothing more.
But even though I didn't ask for it, I have benefited from the actions of others. I still need some reason to justify my existence and the resources I was given - I didn't actually work hard for the life I have now, and I recognize that I have been given a HUUUUUGE start in life due to the wise and clever actions of my ancestors (all of my human ancestors who made all this tech for me to use). I owe a debt to society.
How can I justify it? By using the resources I have to make a difference. If I use the money and security and resources I have to make a difference in the world, I can feel less guilty about having them. If I can give something back to the species that has given so much to me, then I can sleep at night.
It's one of the myriad reasons I went into science and research. Because that way, I can honestly contribute to something that will improve our species and help our understanding of the world and maybe, just maybe contribute to making the world a fairer place. The fact that the world is INCREDIBLY unfair and cruel is obvious to even the most dim witted of us. We can sit on our hands and wail that the world's bad and there's nothing we can do about it.... or we can put our hands together and work towards making the world a fairer place. I firmly believe science is the key to making that happen.
When I was a kid, that REALLY bothered me - immensely in fact. The idea that kids, who were really no different than me, were dying all the damn time elsewhere in the world. Why them and not me?
Well, the real answer is random chance, circumstance and luck. I happen to have been born in to a moderately well-off family that lives in a peaceful, well-developed country. Did I do anything to deserve this? No. But neither did I ask for it. It was simply random chance and circumstance that I have a life as good as the one I've got. That and nothing more.
But even though I didn't ask for it, I have benefited from the actions of others. I still need some reason to justify my existence and the resources I was given - I didn't actually work hard for the life I have now, and I recognize that I have been given a HUUUUUGE start in life due to the wise and clever actions of my ancestors (all of my human ancestors who made all this tech for me to use). I owe a debt to society.
How can I justify it? By using the resources I have to make a difference. If I use the money and security and resources I have to make a difference in the world, I can feel less guilty about having them. If I can give something back to the species that has given so much to me, then I can sleep at night.
It's one of the myriad reasons I went into science and research. Because that way, I can honestly contribute to something that will improve our species and help our understanding of the world and maybe, just maybe contribute to making the world a fairer place. The fact that the world is INCREDIBLY unfair and cruel is obvious to even the most dim witted of us. We can sit on our hands and wail that the world's bad and there's nothing we can do about it.... or we can put our hands together and work towards making the world a fairer place. I firmly believe science is the key to making that happen.
OMFG! Red Dwarf has got to be the funniest show ever. The title made me think of that episode 'The Inquisitor'.Flamehero1 said:
My answer is I'm generally and entertainer, music, comedy, books (hopefully). I've also been told that I'm insanely good at giving advice on a somewhat psychological and stoic philosophical level.
because I'm a frog, not a person.
(hey it said nothing about animals having to justify themselves)
(hey it said nothing about animals having to justify themselves)
Ah, but remember that we're talking about worthwile rather than moralistic. To the Inquisitor wasting your own life is the worst crime imaginable. Also, I believe that on the show it could travel through time, meaning that regardless of how many people it would have to see before you, you'd still be judged.Plurralbles said:
I mean, think about how unfair the world is - you can be born with a congenital defect that will kill you before you're 10 years old. Or even one. You can be born blind and deaf because your mother decided to drink like a sailor while pregnant. You can be born without limbs. You can be born with deformities so monstrous that they preclude you from living a normal life.
And that's just concerning BIRTH. What about what comes next? You can be crippled for life if your mother washes you in a dirty bath when you're a baby. You can die of starvation if you were born in a war-ravaged country. You can grow up illiterate because the schools near where you were born ran out of funding. You can be killed because a particular mosquito on a particular day happened to bite you and transmit a parasite to your blood stream. You can be killed merely because your parents happen to have been of a religious bent that wasn't your choice. You can be horrifically maimed by a simple accident that you couldn't prevent.
Life's unfair. Life's not cruel, because cruelty implies intent - and the world doesn't have intent. Humans have intent, but rocks, water, genes, wind, viruses and mosquitoes don't - they just work the way they do, according to the laws of physics and biology. The world isn't cruel, it's uncaring, unthinking, and just.....just IS. The universe JUST IS the way it is, and it has no morals or purpose that relates to humans. If the Universe has a purpose (and it might), it doesn't involve humans. We are a product of it, not the other way around.
So how can we make the world fairer? With science. In the past, kids could be paralysed by the Polio virus. That was unfair. So we made a vaccine and now, Polio is almost extinct. We saw that people were being unfairly struck down by smallpox, so we made a small pox vaccine. We saw that people could be killed because they were injured in remote locations, so we invented the emergency beacon. We saw that people might not be born into a well educated family, so we made public schools and invented writing and books to pass down knowledge from generation to generation.
It's not perfect by any stretch - the vaccines aren't always distributed fairly, the public schools are often underfunded and we don't do a good enough job to stamp out illiteracy. But we try, we will try, and we do have SOMETHING to show for our efforts. Polio is virtually gone, and smallpox is (if you don't count laboratory specimens). That's a victory right there. Illiteracy is still high, but it's much, much lower than it was in the past. Hundreds of Millions of people have been lifted out of poverty during the past 30 years. Things are better than they ever have before - and our rising population proves it. For hundreds of thousands of years the human population was very, very small. It has suddenly exploded from less than 2 billion at the start of the 20th century, to nearly 7 billion today. Our technology, our crop growing abilities and our educational efforts have worked.
If I can contribute to this process, in whatever small way I can, I can sleep happy at night.
And that's just concerning BIRTH. What about what comes next? You can be crippled for life if your mother washes you in a dirty bath when you're a baby. You can die of starvation if you were born in a war-ravaged country. You can grow up illiterate because the schools near where you were born ran out of funding. You can be killed because a particular mosquito on a particular day happened to bite you and transmit a parasite to your blood stream. You can be killed merely because your parents happen to have been of a religious bent that wasn't your choice. You can be horrifically maimed by a simple accident that you couldn't prevent.
Life's unfair. Life's not cruel, because cruelty implies intent - and the world doesn't have intent. Humans have intent, but rocks, water, genes, wind, viruses and mosquitoes don't - they just work the way they do, according to the laws of physics and biology. The world isn't cruel, it's uncaring, unthinking, and just.....just IS. The universe JUST IS the way it is, and it has no morals or purpose that relates to humans. If the Universe has a purpose (and it might), it doesn't involve humans. We are a product of it, not the other way around.
So how can we make the world fairer? With science. In the past, kids could be paralysed by the Polio virus. That was unfair. So we made a vaccine and now, Polio is almost extinct. We saw that people were being unfairly struck down by smallpox, so we made a small pox vaccine. We saw that people could be killed because they were injured in remote locations, so we invented the emergency beacon. We saw that people might not be born into a well educated family, so we made public schools and invented writing and books to pass down knowledge from generation to generation.
It's not perfect by any stretch - the vaccines aren't always distributed fairly, the public schools are often underfunded and we don't do a good enough job to stamp out illiteracy. But we try, we will try, and we do have SOMETHING to show for our efforts. Polio is virtually gone, and smallpox is (if you don't count laboratory specimens). That's a victory right there. Illiteracy is still high, but it's much, much lower than it was in the past. Hundreds of Millions of people have been lifted out of poverty during the past 30 years. Things are better than they ever have before - and our rising population proves it. For hundreds of thousands of years the human population was very, very small. It has suddenly exploded from less than 2 billion at the start of the 20th century, to nearly 7 billion today. Our technology, our crop growing abilities and our educational efforts have worked.
If I can contribute to this process, in whatever small way I can, I can sleep happy at night.
