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Re: Diane's email: "can" vs. "must"
Posted By: Tranio, on host 198.36.174.1
Date: Wednesday, July 19, 2000, at 12:43:21
In Reply To: Re: Diane's email: "can" vs. "must" posted by gabby on Tuesday, July 18, 2000, at 22:57:06:

> > Some people think that the pre-industrial world was somehow nicer and more leisurely. The simple fact is that life in almost every age of the world before this one was brutal and short. Disease was rampant, work was physically back-breaking, and the average life expectancy was half or less what it is today.
>
> There was yet another excellent article in World Magazine's millennium edition in which the author compared life in developed countries now to previous periods. It boils down to the interesting fact that most Americans below the poverty line live better than royalty of just a few centuries ago. Food quality and price, sewage, medical technology, literacy and education, and many other things have skyrocketed, as we all know without me saying so.
>
> >You have to go back to the Garden of Eden (if you believe in such things) to find a time when life was "better" in any qualitative way than it is today.
>
> Tangent time. While the Garden of Eden was perfect, does that necessarily mean life was easy? That is, is perfection effortless? That would seem to make effort imperfect. Nah, I think I'm wrong here. "Not easy" isn't the same as "difficult."
>
> gab"I can just argue with myself, because this discussion is currently on the 134th page."by

Sorry, I can't allow you to believe that you're just going to sit here and argue with yourself, that would be sad. Perfection may or may not require effort. I would depend upon your definition. Any place or scenario which could be labeled as "perfect" would either have to be perfect for only a single individual and their personal ideas of perfection, or able to constantly change itself to mold around everyone's individual concepts of perfection. My idea of a perfect reality would more than likely differ somewhat from yours, as would yours from the next person, and so on.
Perfection is subjective. One person may feel that sitting around having other people peel grapes for you, while you simply bask in the shade of a palm tree is perfection. Another could strongly argue that such a life would be boring and mundane, far from perfect, and longing for the perfect feeling from achieving a goal through effort.

Tra "a perfect reality would need to be either like the Nexxus from Star Trek: Generations, or a virtually created one." nio

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