Are we really better off?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Aug 10 2006, 12:19 AM) [snapback]300630[/snapback]</div>

So, what you're really saying is that Florida has better dope than...where was it? Boston?

 

You want to live on the Enterprise and are looking for others to beam up with you?

 

Let us all hold hands and can we all say, Kumbaya.

 

In that society who would do the laundry, and who is the garbage man?

Do the really smart people who essentially pull the weight of your ideal corporation get any added incentive to be part of it, or do they all leave the island for the ratrace where they can use that talent to gain for themselves?

Typically someone who has the ability to collect more acorns for their own nest will not participate in this thing with someone who has less of an ability to do so for themselves. If all you have in your society is the bottom end sucking off the tap of society, the whole thing turns into a mess. Reference CHA if you want an example of how that works.

So.. No... Don't want in on that gig. Everyone is not equal, so you're living in a terrible thing with people who are not doing their part. (Many by choice).

 

Russian communism and Cuban communism are so different that they cannot really be put in the same category. If you compare the quality of life in Cuba with the quality of life for the vast majority in countries with similar resources (Haiti, Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc.) it is clear that the Cubans are much better off. Children in Cuba are thin but active and healthy-looking, playing in the street and laughing. In Mexico, the children of the poor are sickly and lethargic.

However, as for "then" vs "now," average lifespan demonstrates that modern medicine and sanitation bring great benefits, and any middle-class American who wants to adopt a healthy lifestyle can have the best of both worlds.

Your post reminded me of a cartoon in Mad Magazine, some 40-odd years ago: Two enormous rats in sneakers and numbered shorts, running through a city; and one is saying to the other, "I'm sick and tired of this rat race."

 

society has now reached the vortex that leads to the drain... there's no going back without some serious overhaul of people's ideals, what is seen as good and bad, and what is perceived as necessary and not.

the medicines made to ease stress-related illnesses will only promote more stressful conditions in our lives. and that's only one example. i've been working 8-10 hour days lately with little time to sit down and relax, using my laboratory equipment to its full capacity, and i just never feel like i'm working hard enough. why do we insist that anything short of superhuman achievement is not enough? computers. automation. the gotta-have-it-now attitude. it's all wrong. all of it.

while a great idea squid, i doubt it'll ever happen. i think we're going from the sink to the vortex and from the vortex down into the sewer at breakneck speed as a society.

and with that, i've got 9 min 10 sec to set up my next assay, remove the current ones, incubate new ones and get to the filtration steps... i'm off.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Aug 10 2006, 09:16 AM) [snapback]300855[/snapback]</div>

That's kind of like saying, "Don't all Americans drive Cadillacs and snort cocaine?" Glue is probably one of the cheaper and more destructive drugs. I suspect that nobody sniffs glue for very long.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Aug 9 2006, 11:19 PM) [snapback]300630[/snapback]</div>

Squid....it's already here...and I'm living it...it's called the United States Armed Forces!!!!!!

Come join us and be one of us! The few, the proud, the broke!

 

Here you go Squid,

List Of The Most Stressful Cities

The Top Ten Most Stressful Cities in the category "100 Largest Metro Areas."

Boston is number 77. I bet it would rank higher if the list was The Most Stressful Cities To Drive In.

1 Tacoma, WA

2 Miami, FL

3 New Orleans, LA

4 Las Vegas, NV-AZ

5 New York, NY

6 Portland-Vancouver, OR-WA

7 Mobile, AL

8 Stockton-Lodi, CA

9 Detroit, MI

10 Dallas, TX

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Aug 9 2006, 10:19 PM) [snapback]300697[/snapback]</div>

Mystery Squid, however appealing it is you have described i contemplate somtimes myself, this Enterprise solution well.... simply put i would not be able to drive my Prius except in the holodeck that aside we wouldn't need an alternate fuel vehicle in the first place.... that said we wouldn't be here discussing life in the first place as it is the Toyota Prius that we are all here talking about to begin with...

**whew** enough of that tangent... I feel that i am on the later side of my quote for this post then others.

 

Here's a joke I got the other day, pretty much expresses my opinion on life:

Will I live to be 80?
I recently picked a new primary care doctor. After two visits and
exhaustive lab tests, he said I was doing "fairly well" for my age.
A little concerned about that comment, I couldn't resist asking him,
"Do you think I'll live to be 80?"
He asked, "Do you smoke tobacco, or drink beer or wine?"
"Oh no," I replied. "I'm not doing drugs, either."
Then he asked, "Do you eat rib-eye steaks and barbecued ribs?"
I said, "No, my former doctor said that all red meat is very
unhealthy!"
"Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf, sailing,
hiking, or bicycling? ""No, I don't," I said.
He asked, "Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or have a lot of sex?"
"No," I said. "I don't do any of those things."
He looked at me and said, "Then, why do you give a s**t?"

PS to MS; some folks are lucky to take only 5 pills in their old age...some in their earlier age!!