Wall Street Protests

[henry quirk]

"Everyone likes to think they are ready for the Zombie Apocalypse..."

Insofar as I can tell: no one thinks they'll survive...they'd like to, would like a miracle to sweep 'em up and bed them and feed them chocolates (like any good utopian), but none believe they'll actually survive.

#

"...99.99% of the population will succumb."

Of course! Absolutely!

#

"What makes you think you are so special that you'll be part of the 0.01%?"

'Cause I'm 'me'...

#

"And why would you want to be?"

Living/autonomy in Hell is preferable to the calm of the grave.

##

"I know I'll survive the zombie apocalypse..."

Yes, you will.

"actually, only 19 more days until the aliens take me home."

Well, now you're just being silly...

[infinite monkey]

Which is more likely, aliens or zombies?

You know it's aliens.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

Which is more likely, aliens or zombies?

You know it's aliens.

Or god.

You know it's aliens.

[infinite monkey]

It's always aliens.

[DanaC]

and yet...never lupus...

[DanaC]

I hear what you're saying Henry. And to an extent, I can see something admirable about a desire not to be dependant, not to be caught in the trap that dependency can create. But, it seems a cold creed to me. An unnecessarily harsh way to meet the world.

The thing that allowed humans to survive and thrive as a species, more than any other factor, was arguably our capacity for communal organisation and complex communication. The more we have met and organised, pooled our collective imaginations and energies, the further we have got. And the less we have each needed to supply everything.

If everybody took self sufficiency and absolute independence as our goal, there would be no ipads.

[tw]

Originally Posted by DanaC

and yet...never lupus...

Those who claim to be self sufficient will itch for their entire life. Then deny they suffer from the heartbreak of psoriasis.

[ZenGum]

So back to the dressing as a tent to mock the cops bit.

Melbourne city council decided to make it illegal to wear a tent in a public park.
They sent in the cops.
Story with video here http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-0...tester/3715344

Instead of arresting the tentee, they stripped the tent off her. Leaving her in her undies in a public park.

(1) It is highly implausible that any Australian government could make a law regulating what you wear, even more so for a city council. I assume lawyers are circling already. Can anyone say "unconstitutional"?
(2) People who break the law are supposed to be arrested, not stripped. WTF?

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by DanaC

The thing that allowed humans to survive and thrive as a species, more than any other factor, was arguably our capacity for communal organisation and complex communication. The more we have met and organised, pooled our collective imaginations and energies, the further we have got.

I would say that is well beyond argument. Division of labour, cooperation, and creation and transmission of culture (especially "knowledge") are the keys to our success.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

So back to the dressing as a tent to mock the cops bit.

Melbourne city council decided to make it illegal to wear a tent in a public park.
They sent in the cops.
Story with video here http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-0...tester/3715344

Instead of arresting the tentee, they stripped the tent off her. Leaving her in her undies in a public park.

(1) It is highly implausible that any Australian government could make a law regulating what you wear, even more so for a city council. I assume lawyers are circling already. Can anyone say "unconstitutional"?
(2) People who break the law are supposed to be arrested, not stripped. WTF?

They should have charged her with ... loitering within tent.

[glatt]

*groan*

[Lamplighter]

Z, pretty good... well worth a *groan*

[BigV]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

They should have charged her with ... loitering within tent.

First class pun! I approve!

More seriously:

Originally Posted by ZenGum

So, you're an Occupy protestor, the council have a law against pitching a tent in a park, and have sent in the police to remove tents. What do you do?



silly buggers.

Originally Posted by ZenGum

So back to the dressing as a tent to mock the cops bit.

Melbourne city council decided to make it illegal to wear a tent in a public park.
They sent in the cops.
Story with video here http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-0...tester/3715344

Instead of arresting the tentee, they stripped the tent off her. Leaving her in her undies in a public park.

(1) It is highly implausible that any Australian government could make a law regulating what you wear, even more so for a city council. I assume lawyers are circling already. Can anyone say "unconstitutional"?
(2) People who break the law are supposed to be arrested, not stripped. WTF?

this is what happened in Seattle when the same issue arose back in October:

Occupy Seattle Protestors to Outfox Police With Morphing 'JakPak' Jacket-Tents
By Curtis Cartier Fri., Oct. 7 2011 at 6:00 AM

Of all the small, local companies that could take an interest in the ongoing Occupy Seattle protests, Jim Rose's Capitol Hill startup JakPak might be the most useful.

A combination jacket/sleeping bag/tent, the waterproof JakPak is everything a homeless person, or in this case a protestor, needs to stay dry, warm, and mobile while they practice some democracy. And when Rose saw Seattle police arresting demonstrators and confiscating tents on Wednesday night, he decided to drive down to Westlake the next day with more than $6,000 worth of his mighty morphing jackets.

[henry quirk]

"...to an extent, I can see something admirable about a desire not to be dependant, not to be caught in the trap that dependency can create. But, it seems a cold creed to me. An unnecessarily harsh way to meet the world."

Why 'cold'? Why 'harsh'?

It seems perfectly natural to me that I should self-direct, self-determine, self-rely. My living is not 'cold' or 'harsh'.

#

"The thing that allowed humans to survive and thrive as a species, more than any other factor, was arguably our capacity for communal organisation and complex communication. The more we have met and organised, pooled our collective imaginations and energies, the further we have got. And the less we have each needed to supply everything."

No argument with this on the face of it, but (perhaps unintentionally) embedded in the above is the notion of a universal standard of 'sociability', a uniform baseline of interaction.

As I said elsewhere: no doubt many, perhaps most, folks NEED the company, aid, support, of others...without that company, aid, support, those folks just plain 'die'.

The mistake, however, is to apply the needs of the many to the (admittedly aberrant) one.

Let's use the cockroach analogy (for every roach you see there are 100 hidden in the walls): for every 10,000, 1 million, 100 million, folks who are '*the luckiest people in the world', there is one who (by nature) only **needs him- or her-self.

There is the uncomfortable suggestion (it seems to me) that this 'one' needs 'rehabilitation' and this is a rather large problem (for every one).

As this relates to the thread ('occupancy'): those in favor rally those against (and vice a versa) and both sides scratch collected heads at one who's indifferent to the pros and cons and thinks it's all a silly attempt at envy-fulfillment.

#

"If everybody took self sufficiency and absolute independence as our goal, there would be no ipads."

And this would be a 'bad' thing?

If so, why?

##

"I would say that is well beyond argument."

Allow me, then, to etch out the beginning of a bare-bones opposition.

Some time back, in the 'New Scientist', there was ***piece about the roots of language. Some recent anthropo-/archeo-logical findings indicate language has its beginning with the individual as he or she apprehends the world (and its contents) and, through symbols, attempts to apply significance to the world, for him- or her-self.

The killer of the piece: that language promoted 'community' was incidental to its fundamental purpose as tool of the one (a refutation, perhaps, of Wittgenstein's assertion that there is no 'private language').

My point: 'community' is perhaps the tool of the one, not the creation of the 'we'.

#

"Division of labour, cooperation, and creation and transmission of culture (especially "knowledge") are the keys to our success."

No doubt, but keep in mind: the labor of, the cooperation in, the creation of, the transmission of, 'culture' begins with one doing all those things for his or her own reasons. The tendency to relegate 'one' to cog in the machine of 'many' is deplorable...and (despite my personal preference and the above cited anthropo-/archeo-logical findings) probably perfectly natural.

As I posted elsewhere: no doubt the individual is a relic or deviance...the future (and probably the past) belongs to the many, the 'we', 'the people'.

*shrug*

If this is indeed the case: then dinosaurs, cancers, and aberrations (like me) are obligated to give all of you one helluva show before each of us is buried deep and forgotten.

I'd prefer to be just 'left alone', but (especially after Mr. Obama's 'we, the people' speech) this may not be possible.









*people...people who need people...are the luckiest people...in the world!

**wanting company is not synonymous with needing company...'need' and 'want' are two very different animals.

***if I find a link for the piece, I'll post it...I don't expect any one to take my word for it.

[classicman]

someone needs to rehabilitate hq in the quoting function.