IamAnAsshole

When people don't agree with me I think they are not listening. I get pissed off and start shouting. You can't enslave me to live your idea of TheGoodLife, I would die first==== You've made up your mind and don't want to be confused by the facts. And I start feeling sorry for myself. Nobody is interested in Truth except me. Everybody else just wants to be right when to learn you must find you are wrong, why can't they GetIt! It's impossible to tell someone something they don't alredy know because they won't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. ====

I went to live in the abandoned mines of aspen mountain as a hermit in 1969 because I thought communication with other human beings was not possible. I thought all the people living ticky tacky lifes in ticky tacky houses offered no real value. I was concerned that my profession, computer science, would be used for evil by the powerful to dehumanize people. After three weeks I realized that everything that was really important to me involved other people. Even a mountains beauty, boy would so-and-so dig that, all my joy and will involed other people. I layed by spring creek in taylor national forest for hours content to be absorbed into the mountain. I had nothing to live for.

I realized that if I chose to live, I'd have to march back to Aspen and become a part of humanity. I savored the bliss I felt laying by the rushing stream for a while longer and then bagan the march back to civilization.

I decided that the best thing to do with my computer knowlege was to use it for humanity. If you can't beat them, join them. I hoped I could help put the power of the computer in the hands of the people. (I am satisfied I've done my part with EIES, WWW and teaching.) I decided to test my hypothosis about human uselessesness. Every time I met someone who seems useless to me, I stoped my travels, I got to know them better, and asked questions like, what is really importnt, or what would you rather be doing. In most cases, within minutes they would teach me something important. I began to realize that other people were cool, I was the jerk.

But 25 years later I still cannot communicate with anyone and here I am trying to actualize a CollectiveIntelligence. How stupid could I be? In well over a decade of teaching objects about 4 of my students really GetIt. Chances are they got it before they started my class. (At least they all learned to write SmallTalk code more or less.) I have no bases to presume I can communicate anything meaningfull to anybody. Nobody understands my InformationPhysics (except wheeler maybe), nobody understands the urgency or relavance of my DeclarationOfInterdependence. I may be a bad teacher but I have 5 children that have to live in this world WE are preparing for them, my mind is open, and God help us, can't we agree on anything==== ====

StarPilot is right, it is hopeless. But I will never give up. I will try and try again and hopefully learn from my failures. Hopefully I can stop abusing visitors to my web site at least... I am a LegendInMyOwnMind.

Well, If you go back in evolution, all higher life evolved from colonies of cells that collaborated to form rings that extended into little worms that took one kind of shit and passed it though the collective extracting nutrients and passing through another kind of shit, effectively an asshole==== We are decended from assholes so it should be no suprise that we are all assholes. ====

Most everybody is selective about their friendships. They choose not to befriend at least 2 out of 3 people they meet. Now if they didn't think they were assholes, they would befriend them, no? Of course they would.. Well, it varies of course, some nice people only call people jerks that call them jerks. Some like everybody but the sand niggers. And for others, just about everybody is a asshole. In any case if on the average the jerk ratio is 2/3 of the rest of the people in the world, than by popular vote, we are all assholes.

-- JimScarver

Jim, I love it. This is one of your best pieces. It sort of reminds me of Ecclesiates where Soloman reveals that he waisted his entire life chasing after his gift of wisdom and knowlege when he would have been much better off asking God to give him the gift of faith.

By the way, I am an asshole big time. Is that like saying "I am a very humble person"? ha ha==== --- BillScarver ====

lol, but a confession of selfrightousness is not exactly humility.... -- JimScarver, the asshole with the answer to the universe and everything, and an army of one crusading for Truth==== :) But life slaps me in the face with my own stupidity all the time. I am, afterall, just a DumbAmimal with AlienIntelligence. I'd like to be rich! (i want us all to be rich) Then I can be considered excentric :) ====

I too am an asshole

And for the same basic reason, piss poor communication skills, coupled with negative attitudes about people. As with the other asshole, maturity has helped a little with the latter problem and very very little with the former.

If people are selective with their friendships, that's a diplomatic way of saying they're exclusive with them. Exclusion from friendship practically implies exclusion from everything else, because practically every opportunity that exists depends on who you know. I've heard that even for getting on the ten most wanted fugitives list it helps to know people. --- LorraineLee

No worries, mate. I'm a Virtual World Class Asshole. I freely admit it. I just like to see a less extreme presentation... When people say the world is doomed, I disagree. When people say all is right, I disagree as well. (although even a die hard Devil's Advocate such as myself do agree, occasionally. :-D) 'WE' get along until WE don't. And WE do like to put off needful conflicts while taking on needless conflicts. Strange HumanAnimals that we are.

I am an 'Optimist about People' and 'Pessimist about Situations'. ie, GoodPeople create BadSituations out of misunderstandings generally, rather then as a power trip or because they don't like each other. Even people that prefer being the BadGuy/IncarnationOfEvil first aren't always the BadGuy.

And I think we are communicating just fine at the moment. Although I can be a bit dense. I tend to take things a 'mite' literal then most.

---StarPilot

Joy==== Joy! Joy! I was afraid I scared you away SP, off to Andromeda on your own... happy to see you. Warp Speed Ahead! -- JimScarver ====

Like I said, no worries. I enjoy a good debate. But you might be thinking I'm the Biggest Asshole, once you read my replies. I know I'm not the Biggest Living Asshole, but sometimes I bet I come close, when I get up on a soap box and I'm playing Devil's Advocate. --Star Pilot

I do get frustrated dealing with classical thinking, I fought with my father for 35 years until he read ANewKindOfScience. I was getting a little bent out of shape, but I got over it. I vented it right here==== ====

I'm an optimist about people and a pessimist about institutions, whatever those are. -- LorraineLee

I'm a pessimist about people, but a optimist about animals, go figure, yes I know we are animals..... I mean people are cool but we just can't GetIt together. -- JimScarver

Why does this thread give me the feeling that all is well in the world? <HappyContentedSigh> See HumanAgentMotivation. BTW I want to GetIt too. --DavidSiegel