Fight Club____for Sailors

[smackdaddy]

RIP Captain Phil Harris.

Jeez - what a bummer. He was a very cool guy.

[knothead]

There is a disturbing theory about the human species that has begun to take on an alarming level of reality. It seems that the behavior of the human race is displaying uncanny parallels to the behavior of pathogenic, or disease-causing, organisms. When viewed at the next quantum level of perspective, from which the Earth is seen as an organism and humans are seen as microorganisms, the human species looks like a menace to the planet. In fact, the human race is looking a lot like a disease — comprised of organisms excessively multiplying, mindlessly consuming, and generating waste with little regard for the health and well-being of its host — planet Earth.
Pathogenic organisms are a nasty quirk of nature, although they do have their constructive purposes, namely killing off the weak and infirm and ensuring the survival only of the fittest. They do this by overwhelming their host, by sucking the vitality out of it and leaving poison in their wake. Pathogens don’t give a damn about their own source of life — their host — and they often kill it outright.
This may seem like a silly way for a species to maintain its own existence; afterall, if you kill the host upon which your life depends, then you must also die. But pathogens have developed a special survival tactic that allows them to carry on their existence even after their host has died. They simply travel to a new host, sending out envoys to seek out and infect another organism even as their own population dies en masse along with the original host.
A man dying of tuberculosis coughs on his deathbed, an act
instigated by the infecting pathogen, ensuring that the disease has a chance to spread to others. A child defecates on the dirt outside her home, unwittingly satisfying the needs of the parasites inhabiting her intestines, which require time in the soil as part of their life cycle. A person stricken with cholera defecates in an outhouse which leaches tainted water into the ground, contaminating the village well-water and allowing the disease to spread to other unsuspecting villagers.
In the case of pathogenic organisms that kill their host, the behavior is predictable: multiply without regard for any limits to growth, consume senselessly and excrete levels of waste that grievously harm the host. When this is translated into human terms, it rings with a disquieting familiarity......

Joseph Jenkins

[Maverick1958]

What's your point?

Maverick

[knothead]

Originally Posted by Maverick1958

What's your point?

Maverick

I think that Smack's point was that someone he admired has passed on and that he was bummed about it.

\

RIP Captain Phil Harris.

[smackdaddy]

Look - there are some dudes on the earth that you tolerate. And there are some dudes that you admire. Some are men. Some are tools.

Phil H. was what "man" was all about.

Knot nailed it...as usual. Anyone that thinks they have any place in FC lore should have a moment of silence for this dude...and his sons.

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by knothead

There is a disturbing theory about the human species that has begun to take on an alarming level of reality. It seems that the behavior of the human race is displaying uncanny parallels to the behavior of pathogenic, or disease-causing, organisms. When viewed at the next quantum level of perspective, from which the Earth is seen as an organism and humans are seen as microorganisms, the human species looks like a menace to the planet. In fact, the human race is looking a lot like a disease — comprised of organisms excessively multiplying, mindlessly consuming, and generating waste with little regard for the health and well-being of its host — planet Earth.
Pathogenic organisms are a nasty quirk of nature, although they do have their constructive purposes, namely killing off the weak and infirm and ensuring the survival only of the fittest. They do this by overwhelming their host, by sucking the vitality out of it and leaving poison in their wake. Pathogens don’t give a damn about their own source of life — their host — and they often kill it outright.
This may seem like a silly way for a species to maintain its own existence; afterall, if you kill the host upon which your life depends, then you must also die. But pathogens have developed a special survival tactic that allows them to carry on their existence even after their host has died. They simply travel to a new host, sending out envoys to seek out and infect another organism even as their own population dies en masse along with the original host.
A man dying of tuberculosis coughs on his deathbed, an act
instigated by the infecting pathogen, ensuring that the disease has a chance to spread to others. A child defecates on the dirt outside her home, unwittingly satisfying the needs of the parasites inhabiting her intestines, which require time in the soil as part of their life cycle. A person stricken with cholera defecates in an outhouse which leaches tainted water into the ground, contaminating the village well-water and allowing the disease to spread to other unsuspecting villagers.
In the case of pathogenic organisms that kill their host, the behavior is predictable: multiply without regard for any limits to growth, consume senselessly and excrete levels of waste that grievously harm the host. When this is translated into human terms, it rings with a disquieting familiarity......

Joseph Jenkins

Hard to argue with that. The only hitch in that philosophy is that we, unlike defecating cholera, have the blessing/curse of choice.

[knothead]

Originally Posted by smackdaddy

Hard to argue with that. The only hitch in that philosophy is that we, unlike defecating cholera, have the blessing/curse of choice.

There's the rub.
What are we gonna do about it?

“Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course . . . No more than
one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront
will be lost and the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished.”
1,600 Senior Scientists, November 18, 1992 — World Scientists Warning to Humanity

[Maverick1958]

Knothead, I was referring to your tirade about mankind. Damn it is easy to be misunderstood here. By the way your argument sounds much like a couple of fleas arguing over who owns the dog. The earth will be here longer than you so quit worrying about it, you don't have ANY control over it anyway. If that is not enough for you, there is always Haiti....

[knothead]

Originally Posted by Maverick1958

Knothead, I was referring to your tirade about mankind. Damn it is easy to be misunderstood here. By the way your argument sounds much like a couple of fleas arguing over who owns the dog. The earth will be here longer than you so quit worrying about it, you don't have ANY control over it anyway. If that is not enough for you, there is always Haiti....

I actually knew that Mav.


What did happen to Mars, anyway? Our next door neighbor,
the Red Planet, apparently was once covered with flowing rivers.
What happened to them? Rivers suggest an atmosphere. Where is it?
Was Mars once a vital, thriving planet? If so, why does it now appear
dead? Could a lifeform on its surface have proliferated so abundantly
and so recklessly that it altered the planet’s atmosphere, thereby
knocking it off-kilter and destroying it? Is that what’s happening to
our own planet? Will it be our legacy in this solar system to leave
behind another lonely, dead rock to revolve around the sun? Or will
we simply destroy ourselves while the Earth, stronger than her
Martian brother, overcomes our influence and survives to flourish
another billion years — without us?
The answer, if I may wildly speculate, is neither — we will
destroy neither the Earth nor ourselves. Instead, we will learn to live
in a symbiotic relationship with our planet. To put it simply, the
human species has reached a fork in the road of its evolution. We can
continue to follow the way of disease-causing pathogens, or we can
chart a new course as dependent and respectful inhabitants on this
galactic speck of dust we call Earth.

Joseph Jenkins

[Maverick1958]

Damn, I'm unemployed and don't have that much time on my hands. Knothead you rock! Maybe you could use some of that time and intellect to figure out how to fix the economy. Just a thought.