- Silentone2
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- Fabled Mythic Member
OMG
Master Chief w/o his Helmet!
Stosh <3's me vicariously... at least someone does...
The world spends billions of dollars every year on weapon regulation. Whether it be knives, guns, or fission/fusion weapons, humanity goes to great lengths to limit the presence of weapons. At the same time, the world spends trillions building these weapons.
On this morning, everyone is shocked at what has happened at a school in China, and a school in the US, wondering what should be done about the knife and the gun respectively.
This is like flapping your arms moments before the terminus of a kilometer-long drop.
The truth is, even if we removed every weapon from the world, or ensured that every individual possessed one, we would not be able to prevent the one thing everyone is truly upset about with regards to this incident, and that is death.
No one would care about this incident if all the children involved were immortal. Sure, it might be uncomfortable to get shot, but they'd get over it. But unfortunately, these children no longer exist, and we are reminded that we ourselves will one day cease to exist, and this upsets us very much. There may be some amount general sadness surrounding the incident, but don't kid yourself; empathy is nothing but self-preservation, and "self" is an illusion.
What is "you" anyway? An infinitely small window on an infinitely large universe? A limited, delusional, and incomplete series of observations checked against a decaying memory comprised of fragments of these observations? How much information have you already forgotten about today? About yesterday? About a given day a year ago? Where is that information now?
In truth, you aren't even alive, not in the way you're led to think you are anyways. "You" is a chemical process, no more unique or supernatural than those that took place today in the weapons we're so worried about. There is no "great mystery" or reason to the universe, but your belief in one keeps you alive, and that is why the processes that form "you" have prevailed. Evolution is simply the addition of time, to a sentence you never deserved, but hope imposed.
So cry and scream and yell all you want, do whatever you want, but just remember that everyone who died today (of which these children are a tiny fraction)would have died eventually anyway.
Do not pine for those who seem to have lost their futures today, for in reality they had none to lose.
[Edited on 12.14.2012 7:09 PM PST]