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The Anti New Futility. Just ignore the bad stuff?

Jack Denfeld

00:29 / 24.10.02

Wouldn't we all be more happy if we simply ignored all the bad things that happen in the world and simply go to work, come home, go to sleep, and then go to work the next day?

Actually, how much of your reality (things that happen all over the world everyday) do you purposely ignore? There's no way one could remain sane having empathy for every injustice done everyday. Obviously I don't think we should ignore the horrors of the world, but I wonder, how much of the world do you consciously block out? Unconsciously? If a man is murdered in Alaska do you care as much as a man killed in your backyard?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:51 / 24.10.02

It is indeed human nature (and a valuable survival mechanism) to ignore stuff. If you got as upset about everyone in the world who dies as you did about those you love, for example, you'd go absolutely fucking insane.

I think beyond that level, however, ignoring things becomes dangerous. Would you ignore a truck hurtling towards you as you crossed the road? And if not, why should you ignore your own species driving itself and a whole bunch of others to extinction? (Nihilism aside.)

Empathy and self-preservation aren't mutually exclusive.

(Oh, and definitely don't ignore people when they tell you to put an abstract in.)

pointless and uncalled for

11:22 / 24.10.02

If a man was murdered in my backyard then there's quaite a good chance that I did it thus I would be sufficiently more interested in that then a murder on the far side of the earth.

However, dumbassery aside, I think that one of the main reasons that social structures have not fallen in on themselves is because humans learn quickly and easily to ignore any article of news not reported to them less than 3 hours ago.

Alright, that was a little bit harsh but I do think that humans have the unique ability to disregard all that falls outside of our own personal defined norms.

11:44 / 24.10.02

It's not about ignoring but prioritising, surely?

Morlock - groupie for hire

16:33 / 24.10.02

"More Bush based warmongering, exploitation if the Third World is up again, snipers in Washington, tchhh, the world today. What's on TV?"

Prioritising is part of it, but only a part. Not that I'm holding any moral high ground on this one...

Perfect Tommy

21:50 / 24.10.02

There's ignoring, and there's keeping a sense of proportion. There were 3,000 people killed on Sept. 11, but there were also 3,000 people killed in auto accidents in the US that month.

It sounds cold to say things like "sense of proportion" here, but of course it would; we primates figure that our whole social group must be at most a couple hundred people. So when that many people are killed at once, by one thing, some part of us believes that everyone we've ever known has been killed at once.

grant

22:19 / 24.10.02

I suppose the question to ask is how does that primate ignore switch get turned on?
How does one turn it off again?

The Falcon

01:24 / 25.10.02

Wu-Tang Clan's Raekwon the Chef was espousing (I think) such a concept with his album 'Immobilarity'. Of course, it's quite hard to work out Rae sometimes; whether he's gibbering or a genius - some stuff about 'transferring 5 billion dollars to the Rap Vatican Bank, until such as time as we receive majority control of the immobilarity'. I think he's both of the above actually.

Of course, if I'm correct, this concept stretches to illegitimate employment, and refusal to engage with 'the system'. Being a lazy bastard, I love the concept.

"Immobilarity could be something new, kid."

Perfect Tommy

18:19 / 25.10.02

I want to blame "the media."

I mean, hell... is there any way to turn the huge numbers we talk about when we talk probability into terms our monkeyminds can understand? Despite what I said about car crashes I've still been white-knuckled on plane flights. "My primitive ancestors evolved symbolic thinking and all I got was this crummy sense of dread."

Sharkgrin

11:35 / 26.10.02

Palahniuk's Fight Club struggled to illuminate making a difference in thre world after years of blearly slepp walking.

Is my difference legitmate? Will it help society? Can I gather support for it? Can I commmunicate it to those supporters?

My typical cop=out is 'time's pressing, so I'll settle for the next episode of 'Firends'.

Ah well, evolution and destiny can wait.

VR

The Shark

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