Pastelland Forum

Rooster5man wrote:

Well technically abiogenesis is a means of where life comes from.

The question is how though. Being it's theoretical, I'm sure an answer still doesn't exist, and may never exist.

Research in abiogenesis is the research of the how. Abiogenesis isn't "herp derp life from non-life, yeah that sounds about right!" They probably are never going to be able to conclusively prove that something happened, but it is pretty likely they will one day find a way life could originate. Life is chemistry after all, it must be possible, even if it didn't happen that way.

As for gun control, I am of the opinion guns should be under the proper regulations. Tests for getting guns, etc. I ran out of time, maybe I'll expand upon this later.

Anyway, I have a slightly less philosophical and more political topic; gun control and gun rights.
That's been a popular topic lately. I'm curious as to what you guys think.

Well, I think that such kind of massive killing events don't only depend on gun control, probably other preventive measures would have more priority. But I agree with Anteroinen in that regulating guns is important.

But I can't find a good reason why people would need guns... I know there is the right, but for what? I never had a gun, and to be honest never needed one. And I guess the probabilities of having to use it in your defense are much lower than the probabilities of an accident. Unless there are frequent criminal acts in your region... anyways where I live (Spain) nobody I know has a gun (except police) and there aren't more cases of criminal acts than in the US, as far as I know.

The problem with these shootings is that they are not simply guys with guns, they are people with mental health issues with guns. Gun control is fine, but if we as a culture are not investing in greater mental health care, the 0.001% of people who are doing these shootings will not get the help they need and they will find a way to either get a gun or something else. The same week the last shooting happened, there was a kind of mass stabbing in china that didn't make any headlines because we were all screaming about gun control.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012 ... chool.html

Taalit wrote:I'm not understanding where this 'no point' thing is coming from. What do you mean?

No ultimate purpose. If we are as Carl Sagan says, a way for the cosmos to know itself, then it only knows itself for a brief flash of time, and much of that is pain. What is the ultimate point of that? I agree, we can say it is simply to live, but how can you determine a valuable way to live if there is no ultimate meaning to that life? Just pleasure for the moment? As much pleasure as you can get while making sure others have as much pleasure as they can get? Those are noble, but still seems so doomed to me. Perhaps I just can't help but look to the far flung future is all. When we have a 60 degree day in winter in my region and everyone is going "wow, this is so warm!" I can't help but think, "Yeah, but do you know how crazy hot it is going to be in the summer because it is so warm now??? Thank you global warming for making my already miserably un-air conditioned fabrication shop even hotter!" Again, that isn't to say I don't enjoy the warm weather, but I can't help but think how I'm going to be miserable later. And if there simply is no later for anyone, I can't help but think there is no purpose to life now.

I'm already late for work, so I'll go ahead and say this too... Guns are a tool, mainly a tool of self defense and hunting that gets misused. These are there purpose and why people need/want them. Cops can't always be where you want them to be before someone gets hurt, and we have killed the predators of many large animals, so for instance, my city pays qualified hunters to do city hunting once a year to curb the deer population.

Guns have there purpose, they just need more respect and control, and we need to take better care of the mentally struggling.

Redafro wrote:I'm already late for work, so I'll go ahead and say this too... Guns are a tool, mainly a tool of self defense and hunting that gets misused. These are there purpose and why people need/want them. Cops can't always be where you want them to be before someone gets hurt, and we have killed the predators of many large animals, so for instance, my city pays qualified hunters to do city hunting once a year to curb the deer population.

Guns have there purpose, they just need more respect and control, and we need to take better care of the mentally struggling.

Basically what should be done, although I don't really think non-hunting civilians have legitimate reasons to have guns.

No ultimate purpose. If we are as Carl Sagan says, a way for the cosmos to know itself, then it only knows itself for a brief flash of time, and much of that is pain. What is the ultimate point of that? I agree, we can say it is simply to live, but how can you determine a valuable way to live if there is no ultimate meaning to that life? Just pleasure for the moment? As much pleasure as you can get while making sure others have as much pleasure as they can get? Those are noble, but still seems so doomed to me. Perhaps I just can't help but look to the far flung future is all. When we have a 60 degree day in winter in my region and everyone is going "wow, this is so warm!" I can't help but think, "Yeah, but do you know how crazy hot it is going to be in the summer because it is so warm now??? Thank you global warming for making my already miserably un-air conditioned fabrication shop even hotter!" Again, that isn't to say I don't enjoy the warm weather, but I can't help but think how I'm going to be miserable later. And if there simply is no later for anyone, I can't help but think there is no purpose to life now.

There are two ways to address this. I'll deal with the first (boring) one: nothing owes us a purpose and I don't really think we have a purpose outside of helping each other survive. I mean, what could it even be?

Second way to address this is to point out that an afterlife is what would really make this life pointless. This is the brief period of torture before bliss? Isn't what makes life precious that it is fleeting, ever-perishing.

Truth be told, there got to be something on the other side. We humans are too complexs, too beaityful, too great to just die out like a ordinarry object,

We humans are too complexs, too beaityful, too great to just die out like a ordinarry object,

I kinda disagree.

Humans are no more complex than most other mammals. Is there *something bigger* for them too?

Well I wouldn't want a gift to just die all of a sudden completely.

Would you want Mateusz to just die one day and he is completely dead, nothing waiting for him on the other side? I would definitely not want that talent to just die and go to waste.

WorldisQuiet5256 wrote:Well I wouldn't want a gift to just die all of a sudden completely.

Would you want Mateusz to just die one day and he is completely dead, nothing waiting for him on the other side? I would definitely not want that talent to just die and go to waste.

Your preference doesn't determine what's true. Besides, Mateusz's talent has not gone to waste, unlike so many other's hidden artistic talent. He has used it extensively, given us more than we, or even he, can guess. In what sense exactly, is this a waste?