lowly_caterpillar

Yes, I agree with this, technology is an artifice, a manmade artifice that impedes "natural" judgement, I put natural in quotations because as a word it is ery subjective. Nature as an idea was created by man as are things like technology but by natural i mean interpersonal, and not intercomputersystem communication. Advertisements have always been around to sway our judgement towards their product and in the process mold ours, once exposed to something you cant take it back so it adds to the collage of artificial judgements. In saying this i'll clarify that i dont believe people all respond to the same advertisement in the same way. The more conveniences we add to our lives the more it seems we are being persuaded to live separately, independantly and completely mobile surviving not on human interaction but on vehicles of communication.

Ok, let's try this. Have we as a society become so selfish and obsessed with our chemical hapiness to garner the pharmaceutical companies complete neglect of other more important issues. This may be pushing a bit far considering science in north america has always diverted from big things like aids and cancer into menial branches for things like seedless fruit (RIDICULOUS, but yes convenient) and hair restoration therapies (no offense but life and death seems monumental compared to self esteem issues associated with hair loss, its character building, get a toupee theyre always a hit). So the bigger question I guess is are pharmaceutical companies too focused on trivial things, but then already i see a flaw, the companies are commercial and depend on our needs and insecurities to survive and as long as we are human beings with senses we will respond in some way to their advertisements and to the judgements of others, whatever it takes to necessitate the use of a pill or a chemical quick-fix. This would be demanding far too much from or society, I say this including myself, I know that i am not immune to shiny posters and pretty tunes. can someone help me out on this? I don't even know if I have a case or a point to argue. I am losing conviction someone please stop me.

Does today's medical community use more paranoia than actual fact to garner it's sucess? With so many antidepressant drugs appearing on shelves everywhere its no wonder the depression rate is gaining. the tiniest inkling of "not feeling so well" can be assigned to something as big as clinical depression. Clinical depression is a problem and these drugs probably do help solve it for the people it plagues, but paranoia about said depression and enough prior knowledge can lead to someones subconcious manifesting these exact problems. Does the medical community deal too lightly with these problems and is information about them readily available for our good or for theirs?

I have hatched a theory, i dont know how much discussion it will prompt, but: Exclusivity breeds solitude, closing yourself off to others on a frequent basis will eventually lead you into complete snobbishness and solitude, people as beings find faults in others, I call this judgement. If we listen to our instinctive judgement in dealing with others we will be fine. If we add artificial judgement to our own through way of media and others opinions then we will eventually find fault in everything leading us down the thornlined path to isolation. agree, please poke holes in my theory they are welcome

It would make court very confusing to have you participating, no offense but check that spelling it nasty. I agree completely. If we were to bring the bible more into court than it already is, as a reliable source, then we might as well dredge up greek mythology, just because the bible is more widely accepted as THE book doesn't mean that it should even be considerred, for law to succeed it needs to veer as far away as possible from following any religious routes, because if this were to happen conflict further down the path would be guaranteed.

For chrissakes! (I cant believe im dignifying this ridiculously bad post with a response(and mine are pretty bad)) ITS SPELT P-A-G-A-N !

AIGHT! Break it up you guys geeeez! Lets not let this regress into a discussion on rights to opinions. I agree that this was worded rather carelessly. The clashing here seems to occur when we speak for the potential child, some of us see this child as a young naive defenseless baby, and some of us see it as a scarred child with and unremedied life, I'd like to drag you all back to earlier posts that suggested discussing this pragmatically. I choose to view the child not as a living breathing being but as an embryo with no sentient life. If you want to bring potential into this, you'd have to argue that letting a woman menstruate and letting people use birth conrol is just as bad as abortion, because the sperm and egg have more potential than an embryo. (oh snap.)

Does our society appreciate technology enough? Everyone nowadays seems to own a tiny silver cell phone, and you can logon to the internet almost anywhere, "art" can be created by typing in random formulas onto a computer. How far are we going to exploit technology and how far will it exploit US?

BAHAHA! What exactly is this 'discussion' supposed to entail? wether or not he is omni...? I think that if your ticked off at "god" the equivalent of fisting him would be to just stop believing or to post something sacrilegious on a debate forum...oh wait

HYOOOOOO! ha! nice to see a sense of humor, prince m.... I just don't see how one couples ceremony is going to harm another persons family in another province/state, why are people concerning themselves in the personal affairs of others, what true "harm" would come of letting same sex couples marry, you will still have the freedom to believe that it's wrong and they'll still think that your wrong. I hear you all saying that this will harm the traditional family, and that that would pretty much bring on the apocalypse, but we don't need to have mom handing us a paprbag lunch every morning to have good morals or standards so how would this be detrimental to society?

Hate crime vs. Freedom of speech would anti-hate crime legislature banning racist rallies, bigotry and public displays of hate tarnish our freedom of speech or would it help society cope with intolerance?

woah. glean, now there's an awesome verb. I think i'll go pick up the pieces of my mind that have been blown all over the floor.

but when these youngins do learn, and then get the option taken away they will be left standing in the cold until some "friendly" record company offers them the newest pop phenomenon.

yes, the radio pays for the music and we pay by listening to the horrendous advertising but if you wanted to take the time you could make yourself a butload of mixtapes and never pay for the artists work. The issue here is that the mp3 format and the simplicity of downloading programs, it has become so widespread and commonplace that the law and the man is scrambling, which is a bit fun to watch but will definitely have some consequences for our society i'm just trying to wrap my mind around what theyre going to be.

what do you guys think of libraries? where for two dollars you can buy yourself a lifeltime membership and take home cd after cd and dvd after dvd until your ears and eyes give out. mind you libraries aren't always going to cater to your particular taste in music, buuuut there is the oft unused suggestion box which could potentially get you anything you want. I think that the development of the mps format is somthing that the music industry is going to have to deal with I agree with this completely, they cant just complain because their lack of creativity and cunning is losing them money, they need to start working as hard as the hackers, consider all of these filesharing programs resumes for these geniuses.