The Oil Drum

I will try (note the word, try) to keep this as short as possible given it's range...(I often build my own thinking in writing, so be forgiving, as I center my own ideas and write more for the purpose of clarifying my own logic and thinking than to persuade anyone else!)

 I do have to use one sentence to extend a Thank You for what has been a fascinating and thought provoking dialogue that has been enjoyable and pushed me to reexamine "core assumptions, goals, and for lack of a better word, aesthetic and value choices in evaluating my own future action.  You have been a worthy partner in assisting me on that needed task! :-)

#On you point concerning my remark, primitivists and "yearnings for dark age"...for those (not you apparently!) who desire the "dark age" let me stress that is their right as a person to make that choice.  My discussion is whether the "dark age" should then be given to others as an absolute scientific certainty, instead of an aesthetic or value choice, which I see it as until proven otherwise.  I think we have the right to question that.

# forced to follow "THE SPEED OF CHANGE".  I agree with you absolutely.  I live in a rural area, and am not forced to. I think the first study for our young designers and planners should be HUMANE design, humane pace.  The cars and other toys are to serve the humans, not the other way around.

#"puzzled to see so many believers in an afterlife freaking out about death. Why should they care?"  That is very personal indeed.  Mother Teresa, obviously devout, fed the poor.  WHY?  They were going to die and go to a better place.  And yet, if she (we) could not show the gratitude for the place we have, and show the desire to have others enjoy what time they have on it, would we deserve the better place?  It is the core of that tradition and faith, human service and reduction of misery  (if you have not, check out Dr. Albert Schweitzer
http://home.pcisys.net/~jnf/
It is more than just humanitarianism, art, music, philosophy, study of culture, medicine, it is (opinion here) transcending beyond just life and death (perhaps because it is about values and aesthetics and PURPOSE, yes, man is more than yeast. again, opinion and aesthetic call here :-)

#"It's the dopamine Roger, just the dopamine, you are hooked on hope the goose bumps prove it.
Being addicted is NOT an optimal condition as explained by TLS."

Perhaps.  But for me, it was self created thought (you would be surprised how difficult to do nowadays in the noise and rush you yourself describe!), and taught me the power of creation for the pure joy of creation (something else that stays with me, I like to see stuff, APPROPRIATE, BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN stuff built.  It's harder than it looks!  (plus, my self made dopamine was cheaper than the purchased stuff!  :-)

if NATURE VALUES something...."I don't think so."

You are certainly correct, that's an opinion/judgment call, all but impossible to prove.  I am just going by what I can see....there seems to be always change (so existence/universe may "value it",  there seems to be life (so existence/universe may value it) and the "death, decay and apoptosis" you mention seems to be exactly as you say, "necessary conditions for ongoing life."  But why would the universe value ongoing life?  And yet, here's this whole magnificent system to keep it running!
(aside, I have always been thrown by the sureness of "entropy" and winding down, and reduction to simpler and simpler levels until you get cold dark "static" nothing, but what we see in existence at all levels is the opposite, complexity, movement, heat, pressure, action, life...it seems to run against the grain of logic of "entropy"....what writer once said,
"The Universe is not only stranger than you imagine, it is stranger than you can EVER imagine."  But your right, it's an aesthetic and value call, NOT a technical scientific one.  So much of what matters is though  (when you watch your grandchild play and laugh...I only have nephews and a niece, but it works there too :-)...I assume it's more than the dopamine, either way, blessings....

"Why do you need the backing of Nature, God or any other "authority" for your values?

That one is too simple for me.  I got here too late.  The universe, the world, mankind, existence had already done so much!  I knew I didn't know enough to build my own values from scratch, and (a) why waste the beautiful (yes, on occasion faulty!) work of all history, culture, and nature, the sheer beauty of it?  
 (b) Why not join in a millennia old culture, and have community with the ideas, art, artifacts, and philosophy of the centuries and the nations of all humankind.  Me trying to build my own values, my own culture by my own "values" would be like me trying to build Chartres Cathedral out of 2X4's and concrete blocks from out behind the garage!
:-)

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit9/0940.jpeg

In the days of beaux arts architecture (close of 19th century), it was considered proper to "sanction" a facade or design, by showing in the presentation of the work the prior facades, arrangements, columns, and proportions in he history of architecture.  New things could of course be added, introduced, attempted, but first, the building had to be "sanctioned" in so much as possible this way.  The Boston Public  Library for instance has a facade and arrangement that was boasted in the presentation to be sanctioned thrice, by three prior facades.  It many daring new features, but it had the stamp, the communication, the community, with the old VALUES.  Again, as you point out, it is a choice, a  matter of opinion, value and goals, not science or proof that this works better.  But it does for me.  The loneliness of being cut off from this civilization, this culture, would be  among the great losses to me, compared to that, oil and technology would be NOTHING.  When W. H. Auden talked about the goal of "unity retained with variety achieved" he was most certainly not just talking about this century, but about the cultural and artistic unity over centuries (the first time I heard Beethoven's 9th century, I did get tears...I said "WHO would have thought that even possible to do in music?!"  :-)  Now the tears I got when I read the architecture critic Vincent Scully's tow back to back essays on art and architecture of Gothic Cathedrals, and then American Shingle Style houses!  (just by way of example)  Are you beginning to guess that as much as I like writing and discussing technology, applied science and the design arts, I am a Liberal Arts Major?  That guess would be correct.  I started out in the machine shops and sheet metal fabrication shops, and moved over....

I must close, I have gone a bit long.  Allow me to say this, though:

So many here at TOD and other like minded forums speak of the horror of wasted resources, of wasted fuel, of the "throw away" plastic society with disdain, and rightly so.

Yet they seem to see no tragic lose in throwing away a culture of centuries, severing the connection with ideas, art, beauty and values that took thousands of years to build,  leaving us adrift, culture less, surely becoming the yeast and monkeys they love to ridicule.  I know that is overstating it, for rhetorical point, (as you rightly mentioned in your earlier remarks about "black vs. white" thinking, more present in written rhetoric than it would be in contemplation or face to face discussion)

So we are where we began.  This culture, like all, will certainly someday pass from the scene, so why save it at all?  

Just as any member of the family, it seems a good idea to keep it around at least long enough for all the members of the family to get to meet at least for awhile!

And you have been an excellent TOD correspondent, and done a great favor in helping me to re-center and bring myself back closer to the core of why this whole discussion is important and fascinating to me!  Again, thank you for  a great discussion, and I only apologize for in some cases going long in posts, and reevaluating, clarifying,  and rededicating my  ideas here on TOD at such length.  But, they are freebies for the taking for anyone who might find it interesting, and through the miracle of modern science, it consumed no  ink or paper!

Roger Conner  known to you as ThatsItImout