None of our accomplishments. The great things we do as humans.

World trade center. Library in Alexandra. etc.

I’m asking why people fight to live longer, and you think I’m concerned about the finiteness of life? No. I didn’t say it would have meaning if we didn’t die. My point is, what does life mean? Why want to live forever?

You don’t even begin to address the question.

Good, different perspective. I like it

My understanding of what you said:

I may not leave a legacy, but I WILL leave a mark.

Things exist outside of our observation, but they aren’t interpreted until we see them.

Yeah, interesting, isn’t it?

But, that also means that you don’t have to live up to anyone else’s idea of what your life should be. You can make your own path, your own meaning, and fuck the people in funny hats who try to tell you otherwise. You are you and no one else gets to define what that is.

Oh but you do. Unless you want the men in funny hats to take you off and put you in a funny jacket in a padded room, or place you in a room with bars instead of walls.

EVERYONE else’s idea of what your life should be is the standard, and if you deviate more than the standard deviation you will suffer the consequence of eeking out existence with very few choices.

Read “The Politics of Experience” by RD Laing.

Someone tell me why I need bottles. Wine and Steam are giving me all the compatibility I need. Is it better?

It’s not valuable, it’s a convention. You may as well use conch shells or Bitcoin. Don’t matter what it is, it doesn’t have value until we all agree it has value

Paper money isn’t worth anything innately. Gold isn’t either. Not diamonds. Nothing has innate worth except food, air, drinking water, and possibly shelter.

That we know of.

Him and what story? Anyone interested in elucidating?

Great, discussion over.

That covers recent history. What about Egypt, or the Roman Empire?

You didn’t mean increase in quality of life for everyone in the world, just for the people under that government?

There’s a lot of candidates in “human history”.

I’m pretty sure there was no comparative research involved in your assessment, but you might look at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_life but there’s no mention of China there at all.

Probably because Wikipedia is orientalist and just a Western megaphone. But you quoted them, so maybe not.

That’s a bold statement, what’s your source?

And you are impartial, saying someone you do not know has an “orientalist” bias. Throwing out pejorative words, linking to lengthy fringe arguments like a Trump supporter telling me to watch Hannity.

I see you’re defending your heroes by parsing words and cherry-picking books and news and rallying your arguments (and propaganda) to defend them. I expected nothing less from you; it’s exactly the same thing a Trump supporter would do.

Carry on, comrade. Enjoy yourself. You have the evangelistic fervor of a Baptist preacher.

I could find books that say the Nazis are great guys too. Doesn’t make it right.

Don’t forget, most of the countries in Europe bad also. Oh, and Japan very bad at times.

“Oops! I killed 15 million people, but it was an accident. My bad. Who knew forcibly moving all the farmers to the city and making them work in factories would cause a famine?”

-Mao, probably

PS: 15 million is the low end number. 15-55 million is the commonly accepted number, with some estimates as high as 70 million.

At some point you’d think he’d look around and notice.