Lateralus

200 word essay? Introductions are usually longer than that.

ignorant He's absolute right though. All you have to do is control your horny urges and only have intercourse with someone you can trust doesn't have it. Wouldn't it be better if you could just go with your urges if you wanted to? Keeping AIDS as some kind of abstinence encouragement is disgusting (not that I think you're advocating that).

I would also say that people have the universal right to live in a healthy environment too. Yes, and that's why you're entitled to a vaccination. Doesn't mean you can demand other people to get a vaccination. Without mandatory vaccinations, many diseases would not be wiped out. They are vital to the public health, just like smoking bans in public places. There's no doubt that it would be medically beneficial, but the right to control what goes in to your own body is paramount.

An obsession with sex is morally correct? :shock: Not to mention he was a massive coke head. Not that there's anything wrong with coke or sex.

I agree that tool use was the initial step, but I would think intelligence comes before writing. Language is too much of an intricate system for anything lacking intelligence to master. I probably wasn't specific enough. By "in the context of the human experience" I meant the intelligence to build cities and cure diseases, etc. The kind of "super intelligence" the OP talked about. On some level it takes intelligence to use tools, too. Language really is something special. Homosapien can't have changed much physically in the 150,000 or so years it's been around, but in the even shorter amount of time we've had advanced communication things have changed at a frantic pace.

Wasn't he the one who thought of existentialism? I haven't even heard of that term since last year, but I must admit it's probably the most interesting and enlightening concept I've ever heard. His work was definitely the foundation that existentialism was built upon. I don't think the term was coined until after he had died. Interestingly, unlike most existential thinkers, he was a fairly devout Christian. Much of his work is shows his struggle to reconcile existentialism with faith (Ivan and Alyosha arguing in The Brothers Karamazov) and he eventually identified with what would now be called Christian Existentialism.

Oh god, this is a hell of a question. Einstein comes to mind; relativity is no small feat. How a person's mind can conceive of something as abstract as that is beyond me. For insight into human existence I nominate Dostoevsky. Everything you need to know about life is in The Brothers Karamazov. Gutenberg for inventing the printing press! The collective inventors of the written word! Bah, I don't know.

I think I remember mentioning the Encephalization Quotient to you the last time you brought this up. Obviously whale and elephant brains are larger that human brains, but that doesn't make them more intelligent. Brain to body mass ratio is a better indication of intelligence than brain size alone (I listed a few examples for dinosaurs last time I posted this, can't be bothered now). Why is it surprising that dinosaurs were never as intelligent as we are now? Evolution doesn't tend towards intelligence, it tends towards fitness for survival. Are you surprised that crocodiles or sharks or any other ancient species don't use tools, given the time they've had to evolve?

You need either a blog or something more interesting to say.

Camus is a better prose stylist than Sartre; he's much nicer to read. Sartre's philosophy and ideas are possibly better developed. Dostoevsky is definitely untouchable.

I used to put away quite a bit of Buckfast. Sometimes it tastes great, but mostly it's foul. If you drink it cold it's actually quite nice. Unfortunately, when I was a lad my bottle was always inside a sweat heated jacket while I was running from the police.

I read around 4 or 5 books a week. I want to be a writer, so it's just like research for me. Lately I've been doing a lot of re-reading. In the last few weeks I've re-read 'The Old Man and the Sea' by Hemingway, 'Crime and Punishment' and 'Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky', the complete Kafka, and am currently re-reading 'The Satanic Verses' by Rushdie. I've also been on a foray into the drunk and decadent American writers such as Charles Bukowski ('Barfly', 'Women', 'Factotum') and John Fante ('Wait Until Spring, Bandini' and 'Ask the Dust'). My grandpa has also just given me a book of essays by Lytton Strachey which I'm very much looking forward to reading. I think the fantasy novels that most people here seem to love are trash. Granted, I can't judge each individual book as I haven't read them, but I find the genre completely unappealing.

People like to get drunk, what's the big deal? If you don't mind the bad taste and your aim is to get drunk then buying cheap booze seems like the smart thing to do. My favourite alcoholic drink is scotch with a little water, but I'm also partial to white and rose wines, gin, and the darker premium lagers. I never really got into ales or stouts.

Yes, it's Metallica with an orchestra. Why should that get boring faster than a normal Metallica record? In my opinion it really gives the music something that it normally lacks. If Metallica is meant to sound flat or not doesn't mean much to me, it just doesn't sound good. The Outlaw Torn from that CD is incredible.

I thought Ike's letter was the best part. Everyone at school is a f****** idiot and if one more person talks to me about that Susan Boyle performance of Les Miserables I was going to puke my b**** out through my mouth."

Is weight training part of gym class in America? Everyone seems to know what they can lift. I've never done a squat in my life.

Why are you for allowing people to have potentially dangerous ideas but against people using potentially dangerous substance? Legality is really no issue here. The fact that alcohol is legal is a tired example, but it's a damning one. Religion isn't potentially dangerous except for the ones that literally say "KILL KILL KILL"(and yes, these religions exist. They are known as cults.) The line between religion and cult does not exist. You're right when you say religion is not potentially dangerous, but only because it's actually dangerous. Not all of the time, and not in all cases, which is also true for drugs. Drugs might be bad for your health, but that's a personal matter, not a legislative one. The current dangers that exist are because of prohibition (or amplified, such as health issues due to cut drugs), not because of drugs.

Why are you for allowing people to have potentially dangerous ideas but against people using potentially dangerous substances? Legality is really no issue here. The fact that alcohol is legal is a tired example, but it's a damning one.

No; the rational is that which is guided by the intellect. Experimenting to see the outcome is definitely an intellectual activity. I'll admit that rationality is difficult to define since there's no real standard for it, but I don't see any irrationality in rubbing amber with fur, for example. Counterintuitive and irrational are also not the same thing.

I think you're confusing irrational with experimental.

Sounds like Nietzsche. Truth stems from untruth, morality from immorality; the rational from the irrational.

High Society is a great film.

Well done, you've learned the secret. Existence is unbelievably dull. The only thing you can do is use that as motivation to try and keep your mind alive. People with this mindset probably aren't as happy as those without, but it has inspired many people to greatness. I'll be damned if I'm going to spend my life working in an office spending all my time doing something I hate. Also, you'd probably enjoy some existential ideas and novels. Read anything by Sartre or Camus, and Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky.

Jesus, Roky Erickson is great. I'd never heard of him, so a big thanks for that one. What do you think of the first two UFO albums? I haven't listened to them in a few years, but I remember them being pretty special. Flying, The Coming of Prince Kajuku - All that good stuff.

Life would be better if drinking and smoking were good for you, women said what they meant, and you didn't accidentally sit on your balls once or twice a year.