Movie

Hey, how's it goin'? Well today I was thinking about the movie that we watched in class. I dont really see how this connects to Ishmael. I do see a connection between it, I just dont see how the Doctor was able to change the socieologist enough to save the world. How does his "illusion" change the way people view things. It disturbs me that I cannot grasp the idea of how this works, this "illusion" we live in. What does it mean to live in an "illusion". Are we just too blinded by greed, wealth, and personal being? I really have no clue. The movie was Ishmaelian though, I just think it was a very interesting way to introduce the idea. In my opinion, I believe that nobody would walk away with anything if some random person off the street got up and watched the movie, that they would think of saving the world. You know what I mean? How do we live in an "illusion"? With the illusion gone, will there be hope for man? With man gone, will there be hope for "illusion"? See how funny that looks, especially the second one.

What good is one person?

If one person had the choice to set up a campaign to rally around the White House about the environment, what good would it do. The only way I can possibly think the government would change if the economy absolutely needed it. Like in Ishmael, he said that the only way humans change if our survival depended on it. If it wasn't for the economy, then it would probably be something about global war, and how the US is the top polluter, compared to other countries. I mean one persons campaign could put it into the government officials heads, but still, they would just find the easy way out. Inventions are highly expensive, time consuming, and need years to develope. The way most people feel is that by the time a scientist figures out some great, unique invention to help reduce emissions, the way humans do things will be different and un-needed. So no invention takes place.

So here is my theory. We do mass rallying around the country and protest about emissions and pollution, and we need the standards to change for the benifit of the planet. Then we picket till there are scientist working on a new invention. Then every month, we picket till till the inventions get put into action. But then again, what good is my idea? I'm only one person, one mind, one vote.

Look at this.

This is from http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/25/smallbusiness/algae_oil_fuel.fsb/index.htm if you want to read more.

SAN DIEGO (Fortune Small Business) -- Step into the greenhouse at Sapphire Energy, a small biofuel company in San Diego, and you might expect to be accosted by rows of exotic tropical orchids or at least a few tomato plants. But the only thing growing here is algae - lots of it.
Inside 1,000-liter bags of salt water, each one bubbling with carbon dioxide, live some of the fastest-growing plants on earth: algae that have been genetically modified to produce an oil much like underground crude. If Sapphire can grow enough algae, the oil generated could replace petroleum and the organisms themselves could help save the planet by eating excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Not bad for pond scum.
The concept of algae as fuel is not new. A federal energy project created in 1978 studied pond scum for nearly two decades. It examined 3,000 strains and concluded that algae with a high oil content and a taste for harsh living conditions just might help mankind kick its fossil fuel addiction.
Once popular with environmentalists, ethanol and biofuel made from vegetable oil have fallen out of favor, largely because they take more energy to make than they produce. But there's been a tiny bloom of algae startups in recent years. There are 60 of them in the U.S. today, according to the Algal Biomass Organization, 50 more than existed five years ago.
"All of them are small companies," says Thomas Byrne, the industry group's secretary. "And many right now just have a concept."

This is a really good idea to replacing fossile fuels, eh?

What's on my mind...

This is a thought, on page 198 of Ishmael, the very first sentence of part six says, “What exactly is culture?” This made me think as I was re-reading parts of the book. If a person takes a little time to think about what culture actually is, a person may think that culture is a persons heritage, and the history of their heritage. Culture is a person beliefs of where he/she came from. Culture is basically how a group of people live their lives based on what they believe is right and wrong, and base their actions on what they believe. According to what I just said, this means if a cannibalistic tribe believed that cannibalism was the best way to live their lives, then that tribe of people will live their merry lives until a stronger, bigger, better taker culture eliminates them from the face of the planet, or integrates some of the beliefs into the better taker culture to create a new system of living. Why would I mention a new system of living by intergrading parts of the older culture? I believe that anything is possible within certain limits of human life, because not all things can be accomplished by our imperfections as humans, and I believe that it is possible for parts of an older culture to be integrated into a new culture. Think about the culture of America. It has proved to the world that democracy is a somewhat successful way of leading a country. Many cultures have based their government system off of our own, created a new culture. The American culture may be still alive and living, but it is already almost 300 years old. Life is fast paced, so who knows if our government system will last much longer, partly because we live very materialistic lives, and use so many resources just for our little everyday needs. Why? It is because it is part of our American culture, because we believe that we can live as materialistic as we want. This is just what I was thinking right now, and now I cant focus… later.

One question, one thought popped into my mind the other day after class, and yet I wasn’t even thinking “Ishmaelian” either at the time. The thought that I had was the idea that “Can leavers successfully live in a takers world?” I know some of the other students might have touched bases on this, or said it in different terms, but the way I view this idea is in my opinion, that leavers cannot really live successfully and coexist with takers. Why? I believe it is because the leavers will slowly evolve into takers. Since the takers obviously are more technologically advanced, the leavers will adopt some trait to help them survive, much like the topic discussed in class: The Indians didn’t leave their agricultural lifestyle until horses, then they when back to being hunter/gatherers. If the Indians knew that horses could plow the ground, then the indigenous people would have stayed living as agricultural people, right? What about when the native people of Alaska came into contact with Europeans, what did they take, or adopt shall I say, to help them accomplish every day tasks? The natives took the idea of guns and metal knives. However, their mindset stayed the same until America bought Alaska from Russia, so the Alaska Native leaver lifestyle didn’t change until then. But my idea is that takers cannot live side by side with leavers. The takers just end up destroying the leaver’s culture or as fellow peers mentioned in class, we help them so much the leaver’s culture collapse itself. This just what popped into my mind. What if, parse, that the leaver lifestyle could coincide together with takers, what would happen?

A fresh Start

In the beginning God made heaven and earth. The earth was invisible and unfinished; and darkness was over the deep. This was stated in the Orthodox Study Bible, Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. The Bible then states later that man and animals were created by it's kind, because they were created by God's will.

Pages 50-53 in Ismael by Daniel Quinn explains a different view of how man was created. Quinn isn't saying that the Biblical theory that God created man, nor is he stating that man evolved. He is saying that man "appeared". One of the definitions of the word Appear is, begin to exist. Man began to exist, well I can't tell you when man began to exist. It is all based on your beliefs and what you want to believe in. Let's think about this though. What if God's creation is correct. However, the Bible does not say anything about dinosaurs or "predecessors" of human beings if that's what you want to believe in. How did the come into existence? Did the just simply appear? Did they evolve? Did God create them? Fossils don't lie. They're not fake, people did not just create them to diverge away from the Bible.

Let's not drudge on the past though. What is fossilized in the ground is what is fossilized in the ground. What people want to believe is what they think is the truth. I'm not out there to say that this is wrong, and this is right. I respect different peoples beliefs.

"Man's destiny was to conquer and rule the world...." I believe that to be true (Page 80, Quinn). If the chimpanzees or the gorillas, hint hint, couldn't conquer their surroundings, manipulate it, and achieve absolute and complete control of the world, then they weren't meant to be rulers of this world. Humans, on the other hand, have a population of 6 billion people. Six billion. The only things that out number us are plankton and possibly mosquitoes (damn flying devils) and a few other living creatures. If humans can pull oil from the depths of the earth, forge steel, and cause an accelerated process of global warming due to the vast amounts of carbon dioxide released into the air, and make species of animals become extinct, then are we as humans not the rulers of earth? Or just possibly the most successful animal?

If we parse "rule" the earth, do we not give a chance for "lesser" species to rule and to conquer their surroundings? Or do we as humans destroy every possible chance of ever happening? If we make species go extinct, are we number one? With gorilla gone, will there be hope for human?