Recluse was ripped off.

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes!"

Villains typically have the better deal since they usually flick the proverbial finger at authority, while Heroes try to live by the law and help the people.

Please don't

the giant, imaginary friend upstairs has surely wiped away all the evil that once stained our blessed spirits

That statement uses an absolute in it

Hequat was an ancient Egyptian goddess of frogs and childbirth, from the era before Upper and Lower Egypt were united. She fell into disuse when the dynasties began and is almost unknown today.

We totally need an ancient Egyptian zone to go to via the Midnighter Club

And Again GG showing she's been paying attention to Star Wars.

And to use a bit of Yoda to add to the good vs evil thought...

L: Is the Dark side stronger?

Y:No. Quicker, easier, more seductive.

Thats the whole appeal of Evil. It promises us a shortcut to everything we want. It's the ultimate "Buy it NAO!" of the universe. This appeals to us on a very primal level. It takes a bit more maturity to accept the longer, more difficult path that good offers us.

I accept that there is a an absolute good as well as an absolute evil. It's quite possible that these limits are so far beyond what we're able to understand that they may as well not exist, but without these absolutes, we have no way of measuring the shades of gray in between.


Another philosphical tidbit from your squishy amphibian friend.

I should have been a bit more clear when I said I disagreed with the depiction of Recluse as Tartarus. What I meant was that the use of a second generation deity for one Incarnate and having the other Incarnate as a fourth generation deity was inappropriate. Zeus and Tartarus didn't exist in the same way at the same time, they should never have been used in the way that they were. It was just... sloppy. One of the two should have been changed to properly fit the other. I suggested Recluse because Tartarus was never depicted as doing anything other than simply existing and being used as a prison, but Statesman could also be more appropriately represented as the Incarnate of Ouranos.

And pollution, and greed, and murder, and torture, and...

Centuries of scientific study of civilization, congregation, sociology, mobs and herd mentality disagree. Humans are herd animals.

Incorrect. Preservation and care of the elderly was not a development due to morals, but instead because the elderly are repositories of information which aided in survival and allowed family and tribal groups to prosper. Grandpa knew the best method of trapping prey, the best hunting grounds, the time of year when planting was optimal, etc.

With the burden of survival eased by advances in civilization, care of the elderly gradually became an act of kindness and appreciation, but even today, the elderly provide valuable services for people, such as remembering how old technology works or being able to give observations and insights into historical events.

So you believe hominids are vegetables, minerals, fungi or energy, then?

<derailment of the topic choo-choo>
Three weeks after my 18th birthday, which was only two weeks after I was released from the mental hospital, my mother and stepfather demanded that I leave. "We're not required to take care of you any more. Pack your <censored> and get out."

I had a small settlement from an accident (which had left my right leg paralyzed for almost a year) when I was 14, so I bought a used mobile home and moved in. One afternoon, when I was sitting outside, trying to figure out how I was going to survive (with no vehicle, no driver's license, no job and no-one to help me), I noticed a web next to the steel shed which had come with the mobile home, and like most people, I was terrified of spiders at that point, so I went over there to squish the spider.

To my surprise, I saw something one of the most beautiful and wondrous things in my entire life, a female black and yellow garden spider, her long, delicate legs splayed out in the center of the web and that vibrant yellow on her abdomen contrasting delightfully with the black.

I learned, that day, to love spiders, because as creepy as they can be, as deeply entrenched in our primitive minds that fear of them is, they can also be some of the most fascinating and lovely creatures in the world.

P.S. I also find bees, hornets and wasps to be quite magnificent, and very friendly.
<puts the choo-choo back on track and gives it a gentle push>

Now, now... No need to get sarcastic.

Golden merely believes that we human beings can't be held to the same standard as the typical non-cognizant animal.

We are aware of the world and universe, we strive to understand everything that surrounds us and is within us. We have developed numerous complex systems of measurement, social understanding and even language.

Our fellow creatures don't concern themselves with these things, instead focusing on finding food, shelter and a mate. While we also have these primal needs, we also concern ourselves with issues beyond ourselves. We work to repair the damage our presence has done to the environment. We establish institutions, companies and nations to help guide our children and the children of our neighbors.

Our cousins may war with each other for territorial rights just as we do, but we fight with the knowledge that it's all a massive waste of time and life (there's just no other recourse than a trial of force, however). We work to try to phase war out of our world in the hopes of being worthy of something greater, while non-cognizant animals have no concern for something greater.

We are both the same and different from our physiological cousins. Our difference isn't something that can be measured by accomplishment (for even our most resolute structures will crumble, just as our paintings fade away), nor can it be established by behavior (for "particular" animal-like tendencies can be applied to everything a human does, even debating on this forum). We may be structurally similar (skeletons between Mammals, Reptiles and even Fish are surprisingly similar in basic structure, as are most circulatory and nervous systems), but humanity is the one being on the planet capable of constructing not just massive, landscape changing architecture, but also a deeply nuanced, complex and constantly evolving social code that we are constantly debating the best course of progression for.

But now we can write it all down, and store it on computers, and sort it and access it much faster and better than by talking to an older person.
So now that we have a more efficient information system, why not get rid of the older one? It's what we do with other things, like cars, or computers, or celphones.

GG, we value the aged because of their experience. The fact that they can help the pack through unusual circumstances because of KNOWLEDGE. It's another survival tool that came about because of our communication skills

we are still animals! MORALS are simply sophisticated survival tools, and people will still cheat on their mates. They lie, cheat, and walk all over the more deserving in order to get ahead. They still kill for no good reason. If people were really afraid of a 'hell' or totally moral it wouldn't happen

GG, our "animal instincts" are social. The bigger our pack is, the better "we" as a whole will be able to survive. Quit pretending that we're talking about alley-cats and sharks. They aren't social, for the most part, and would gladly kill another tom's kittens and eat smaller sharks because they're only interested in their own survival. Humans, as a social species, follow a completely different set of rules. Rules that take numbers into account. Wolves care for their sick and elders too, so they are 'moral' creatures too?

And we now have the technology to store, sort and bring up more knowledge than any human mind could ever hold - so there's no need for the elderly anymore - unless we're actually above animals, and make judgements based on love and compassion, and not the law of the wild.

Sorry, but instincts don't change overnight. We still offer food to potential mates, even though there's a grocery store down the street she could get all the food she needs from

Try again

But that about inherited illnesses? There's no "logical" reason to care for people with them who will only pass them on to a new generation - the human "pack" would be stronger without them - but we care for them because we know it's the morally right thing to do.

Can you record information from every person on the planet, from the moment of their birth until the moment they die?

No? Then I suppose we need to keep those people around so they can give us the benefit of their experience, insight and wisdom.

The existence of technology is not the application of technology, and simply having the ability to record knowledge does not imply that all knowledge is recorded.

Because simply knowing does not imply understanding, nor does it imply experience, insight or wisdom. I can e-mail you a .pdf of how a Dellorto 14mm PHVA carburetor works, but unless you've actually worked on that carburetor or a similar one, or understand how carburetors work, or are extremely intelligent, you won't know how to repair or rebuild a carburetor simply by looking at the information. You would need instruction from someone with experience.

Because events which are witnessed by different people result in different points of view from each person, which gives you a more complete picture by interviewing every person, but it's next to impossible to get every detail in a single question and answer session. No matter how advanced our information systems become, the weakest point is still human memory, and sometimes it takes years, or decades, for all of the details to be revealed.

Because recorded information is like a telephone signal, in that it distorts with interference. Every layer between the reader and the original observer increases the chance for error. There's nothing as good as having the actual source, such as the original observer, to clear up inconsistencies and mistakes.

Because some things simply can't be recorded on a computer. You can't computerize how dirt should feel when it's ready for planting, or what the wind feels and smells like when a tornado is coming. The best you can do is give a description which may or may not be accurate and may or may not give the reader enough information to understand what he/she should feel in similar circumstances. A surprising amount of what we "know" is reliant on actual experience. If you think it's that easy, describe a third degree burn for me. I know it's hot, and I know it hurts, but describe it in a way which will tell everyone exactly what the experience is like, to such an extant that no-one could mistake it for a second degree burn.

Because even when people speak the same language, they may not understand each other. Different regions use different figures of speech, idioms and dialects, and they use different words to represent the same thing in different places. With text, there isn't even the buffers of body language, facial expression and gestures to assist in transmitting information, which makes it even more difficult for some types of information to be exchanged. Ever notice how often sarcasm is mistaken for seriousness right here on these forums?

And because we have people who fail to avail themselves to the information that has been made accessible and proceed to enter into debates with nothing more than absolutist opinions which are directly contrary to scientifically proven facts, and argue endlessly from a position of emotion and, frankly, lack of education. People who don't read, but they'll darn sure listen to an old person who's fired up and tired of hearing the younger person yammer on with their foolishness. People who can't be bothered to spend 30s looking things up at Wikipedia or in Google because they're in too much of a hurry to tell everyone else what they think, so they have to have the information spoon fed to them, or, just as often, beaten through their thick skulls.

Lastly, newer does not imply better, regardless of what you might want to believe. Not for information systems (cuniform on clay tablets and stone tablets still exists from thousands of years ago. how long do you think a DVD lasts?), not for anything. Even the oldest things still have value and usefulness, for those who value them and know how to use them. This includes our pensioners.

Medicine is survival of the fittest. It is one the ways in which we use tools and advanced brains to improve our chance of survival by controlling our environment. It is no different from putting a leaf on a cut to stop the bleeding, in principle. We do what we have evolved to do, use tools to promote the best survival conditions and thereby determine our own success in an evolutionary sense.

Hospitals are an extension of that. There is no imperative to leave a wounded member of the species behind now, because there are no predators which threaten our daily existence, but there is a strong imperative to advance our knowledge of medicine and ensure that as many members of the species are as healthy and productive as possible, because that ensures that we continue to advance at an evolutionary pace which we control. So we heal the sick and ill and care for the infirm until they can care for themselves again, and we learn how to improve our methods of care and healing and how to improve our species further, thus improving our control over our evolution.

So why do we bother developing new technology, if it's no better than the old stuff?

So why do we look after the terminally ill? Logically, it's a waste of resources - but morally, it's the only proper thing to do.