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  #21  
Old 06-25-2016, 04:00 PM
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luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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Originally Posted by blackshire
That was an aspect of George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" that both scared and saddened me; while lost freedom can (with luck) be won back, the loss of historical and cultural knowledge that is "dropped down a 'memory hole'" (because it is threatening to an oppressive government) is irreversible. Those who come after have a partial cultural amnesia, because they've been robbed of part of their history and identity, and--which is the really tragic part--they don't even know it.

This is one reason why I'm not sorry that I have less time ahead of me than behind me. While a sensible state of societal affairs will--barring some "river course of history changer" like, say, a nuclear war or a Chinese invasion--eventually be restored, it might take one or two generations to come to pass. Even if I had a full "three score and ten," I doubt if I would see the tentative beginnings of better times that followed the nadir, and those would not be good times to live through, especially if one were old, infirm, and vulnerable.


Quite true... and I share your sentiment. Our zenith technologically (in the noblest application of high technology, ie Apollo) and probably societally was just before I was born in 71... it's been all downhill from there.

I'm middle aged, and I don't see it turning around in my lifetime. Even if I make it til the latter half of the 21st century before I kick off, I only see things getting worse in that time frame, certainly not better.

I feel sorry for the kids that are going to inherit the messed up world that our society has created over the last half-century... and who aren't even really equipped to deal with it. I know my nephews and nieces certainly aren't, and neither are 95% of the kids I've dealt with driving school buses and being around kids. They've been too mollycoddled, too sheltered, and most just don't have a clue.

Why I'm raising Keira to be, in the words of legendary Mission Control Flight Director Gene Kranz, "tough and competent". What most folks would call "tough as nails". Yeah, I'm hard on her, I expose her to a plethora of information and skills in many different areas, but in the end it'll benefit her.

Later! OL J R
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  #22  
Old 06-25-2016, 04:01 PM
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luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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Originally Posted by bernomatic
Isn't that what Bradbury's Farenheit 451 is a warning about. That we may have to have walking books so to speak, that remember something from the past for the future?

Anyway you look at it, the idea of the repression isn't new, it is just the level we have succumbed. Such as sneaking in a quasi-political discussion in a thread on a new capitalist rocketry company.

Of course the fact that Jeff Bezos and others such as Bill Gates are capitalists with the ideas they espouse and their public persona is oxymoronic in a way. However I will not dither too long about such things on this site as my first amendment rights don't hold sway here to any great degree.



True... OL J R
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