Daniel

It is kind of difficult to say. I will admit, for humanity to continue to evolve, we need to realistically address the fact that we fully have the capability to destroy ourselves. Unlike previous ages where the best we could do was wage bloody wars, we now can literally destroy every human alive if someone decided to do it.

You guys a depressing. I'm not sure how the majority of you are so much more pessimistic than I am, but it is weird. And depressing. But it is interesting to see who really lacks faith in their fellow human beings.

Yes, and in fact it seems all of them are still giving me the same error: "The error returned was: Sorry, but you do not have permission to use this feature. If you are not logged in, you may do so using the form below if available."

This has only been the norm for a few generations. I'd say life from the year 1900 and beyond has significantly improved over life 1900 and before. However, with that said, the 20th century yielded the greatest number of man caused deaths through improved effectivness in war weapons, genocide, etc. It is plain and simple to me to see that life has never been better for humanity, at least in the first world countries. We have toys and comforts never known to man in any time previous to now. We have medical advances, technological advances and general knowledges that exponentially surpass mankind even as early as 100 years ago, let alone thousands of years ago. With that said, I think it is important to note a few potential problems that could be catastrophic. 1) Our technology has made us increasingly isolated from one another (at least in the first world countries), which hardens our opinions in regards to differences, and makes it easier for us to hate each other. This reduces over all empathy, which is not good. 2) With easier access and justification of hate, we also have the realistic potential to destroy ourselves. As Phee mentioned, everyone always thinks the end is near. A thousand years ago religious zealots thought the end times were dawning and four horseman would appear, etc. The difference between then and now is that we actually CAN destroy ourselves. We need no beasts, angels or horseman to bring about the Apocalypse. I do not want to suggest that I think we are doomed, but the potential is absolutely there, and the political climate of the world could evolve into another Cold War type of situation that could get nasty. Or worse, an all out World War III situation centered on the Middle East that could be catastrophic. Or something even beyond imagination, who knows? I think if these points are ironed out, mankind could in the next 1000 years reach an enlightened age that is vastly beyond even our most wild and vivid imaginations. When I think of the rate of progress we are achieving, and think about the difference between man now and man 1000 years ago, it almost hurts my brain to think about all that could happen by the year 3007. But, we desperately need wisdom to come along with our knowledge and progress. Klaatu, barada, nikto.

Not when I break out my Shaolin Iron Buddha's Palm Fist Technique it doesn't.

I just threaten to kick their ass. That usually takes care of the problem.

Seems I am still unable to delete some of the pictures. I'll try again later.

What you're proposing might qualify as a goth club!

Alessandro Bosetti, "Her Name"

Someone on my Livejournal friends list posted this the other day. I am not sure what it is from, but it sums it up for me nicely: It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "YES!" It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have, I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know and how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in empty moments. Ultimately, I'm interested in being inspired. Inspire me, show me a new world outside of my own.

Well, I have never looked particularly "freaky", having no love for the face makeup or big hair. I had super long hair for years and have always worn solid black. Since living in Detroit (since 2000), I have never had problems. Well, some work related obstacles with the long hair (corporate-ville), but those were minor. The black has never been a serious problem, particularly with my current employer, where I technically work in the big music business. In Indiana, I dealt with a lot of weird prejudice, but not anything overtly provocative. The biggest thing I dealt with there, that I do not deal with nearly as much here, is walking down the street or in a grocery store and getting proselytized by Christians wielding Chick Tracts. Which I always welcomed, being Serious Atheist that I am. I have only dealt with two such scenarios since living here, but it was a weekly occurrence in Indiana. I have some rather grand and hilarious stories I can spin from those days. Ahh, the memories. Anyway, from my observations, Detroit in general seems much much more jaded to all that shit. I have a Cthulhu Fish (like a Jesus fish, but it says Cthulhu, and has wings and tentacles) on my car (as well as a black "support ribbon" that says "Beware of the zombie apocalypse). I don't even get comments about it. In Indiana, my car would have been flat out vandalized.

murder by death, "in bocca al lupo"

I wouldn't discourage links in hard to find, "hidden" places, as they still contribute to Page Rank on Google. Particularly for topic relevant sites (goth resource pages, bands, radio stations, etc). They may not yield many direct hits to this site, but they will boost your Google Page Rank, which will yield direct hits. Really, you should be pushing people to post links to your site on every page they possibly can. If you want to use Myspace to your advantage, make an "official" DGN account, and use it to post bulletin updates, changes, and so forth, with direct links back here. And then ad the shit out of people from the Detroit area. My experiences with advertising on Myspace have shown that you get almost all traffic from links in Bulletins, but simply not many on any part of the profile. However, I suspect if you had a lot of people posting links on their profiles, you may get a trickle of hits as a result.

Miranda Sex Garden

I have a major problem with people approaching discussion in the fashion you propose people should. Not that I don't think you can discuss however you want, but your expectations of other people are unfair and misguided. I also think you have a very bent misinterpretation of what it means to be open-minded. This will sound arrogant and haughty, and that is fine because what I am saying is true and the point doesn't change. But, personally, if I engage in a discussion/debate, I am generally very well informed on the issue, else I wouldn't pose a lot of opposition. In case you can't tell by my low post counts in relation to my board membership longevity (I out date the vast majority of posters here), I am selective in what I post about. Generally, when discussing a topic I have 1) Researched it 2) Given it a huge amount of independent throught and 3) Have likely engaged in similar debates with people just like you in the past. Otherwise, I just read and observer. This becomes more and more true for broad philisophical topics like religion or "where did we come from?", as I have been involved in/witnessed more of these discussions than most people have had hot meals. Having a lot of information doesn't make anyone less open-minded. In fact, my mind is actively seeking NEW information. I look for it and suck it up like a dry sponge. The problem is that very, very often, particularly on boards that do not specialize in topics (i.e., this board. I post on a number of "philosophy" only communities, for example, where forums are broken down by specific branches of thought), I am very rarely introduced to something new from the posters. It does happen, but it is comparitively rare. There are a few people here I can think of that introduce me to new insight regularly, and thankfully, at least one of them generally opposes me. One of them I haven't seen for ages, which is too bad. Your observation that people believe they can't be wrong is probably fallicious. The truth is, they probably aren't willing to concede to elementary replies. This all means a number of things. For example, I can generally anticipate most replies to any comment I make. Because I often correctly anticipate your reply, I generally have a reply already composed. In fact, my insight on these matters is often enough that I could write a whole mock topic thread on behalf of everyone else for a number of subjects. On this board, I can tell you who is going to have what opinion, how they will say it (content as well as style), who will get mad at what comments, who will stop posting after certain things are brought up, and ultimately, when the thread will get moved to the 'moderators' section. I could conceivably take stands in total opposition to my own view point and help push onward a challenging and interesting conversation thread. Actually, I do this more than people may realize. It is all like a chess game to me. Some people are better players than others. No "bridge is drawn", but if you expect to have an impact and want people to concede to you, make a genuine effort and challenge us with something new. I will shoot down the standard replies, but am very interested in hearing something new and insightful. Now to me, someone with your view point (that is, people who believe anyone who is certain they have discovered the truth behind a matter is immutable and closed-minded) is just a wheel-spinning conversationalist who is primarily interested in the social value of the topic, vs actually using the conversation to become wiser or more knowledgable. I mean, denying truth for the sake of remaining "open" is a LACK of wisdom (and coinicidentally, truly closed-minded. Not coming to a conclusion when faced with coherent information shows some lacking of assessment). Worrying about kindness/politeness is social concern, where exchanging solid information (unvarnished truth) is more appropriate for a real enlightening conversation. To me, personally, this sort of conversation is 80% to learn, 20% for social value. I try to not project emotion positively or negatively, and just discuss. I suspect the scales are tipped much differently for you. This is all fine, but I find it a bit dubious to even engage in debates when this is the set of priorities and values. I define an open-minded individual as someone who actually listens to what is said, analyzes it, and makes a judgement regarding the information. That judgement may be disagreement. That person making the judgement may already have a wealth of information on the subject that vastly exceeds your own. One cannot articulate a whole lifetime of knowledge, experiences and perspective in one conversation. It is simply fallicious to assume hearty disagreement is closed-minded. It could be you that is lacking, not the other person. I define a closed-minded individual as someone who is specifically focused on their own issue. My favorite example of closed-minded vs. open-minded is this: An open-minded individual assess the facts, situation, etc, and builds a view point from them objectively and fairly. A closed-minded individual holds a view point, and then seeks out supporting facts, information, and perspective to support their view point. I believe any view point can be argued and supported with research, including racism, homophobia, and many other hateful agendas. But when you look at it without bias, you come to a more fair conclusion. Again, it is fallicious to assume someone with a wealth of knowledge, experience and fair conclusions to be closed-minded, but it is fair to say they are difficult to challenge if you have but an elementary knowledge on the topic at hand. What is sad is that politics, unlike religion or other abstract philisophical topics, can largely be supported with research and objective information. Those conversations should never be taken too personally, but too many people choose to. The hardest thing to teach people is perspective. Information exchange is easy, but to get someone to step inside your world is genuinly difficult. And often, views differ because of perspective, not information. A good conversation I had with some friends a week or so ago consisted of how to 'affect' people's perspective. Not so much changing them, because that is hard and unfair. But, how do you get people to question their own perspective (note, not necessarily their views), and genuinely try to look outside of themselves? That is tricky, and probably grounds for a different thread entirely.

I've been carrying around a number of books and more studying, vs actually reading. These include a number of Zen books, and a Wing Chun compendium, which is absolutely fantastic.

So, what you are saying is anyone who has a viewpoint they stand by is closed-minded? You believe anyone with an established belief or an opinion is automatically biased? You think someone with replies to your questions/statements has "pulled up the drawbridge"? Please clarify.

No input from you, Troy? Or is quoting enough, you think?

This place has too much of a "private clique" reputation with it already. Posting an "old members only" forum would be... bad. As far as the topic goes, I don't make many new posts here at all. If I have personal shit I want to talk about, I post it on a filter on my Livejournal. With Livejournal, you can control who says what, and you can disable comments if you want, screen them so only you can see them (unless you unscreen them), and you have much more control. Troy, that sounds like what you are looking for. On a message board, you have no control over who is reading it, who will reply, etc. Message boards are sort of cool, I guess, but on any board I've ever spent a lot of time on, there is always two or three people who get on my nerves, and they always seem to reply to everything I say. And they get on my nerves because they say stupid shit. There is no doubt that I am one of the people that gets on a lot of other peoples' nerves as well, but I am cool with that. The point is, here, you have no control, and posting personal shit that publically has a lot more potential reprocussions. You should just get a Livejournal and use that for personal shit. Then, only the people you trust can read it. You can even control what people on your "friends list" can see certain posts, by making custom filters. Obviously, I've been through a lot, with Laura(nvayne) dying. I posted a little about that here because she knew a lot of people here, used to post here, and incidentally, I met her via this board. But, I ramble on about the situation elsewhere. Mostly because I don't want to sour every random person's mood that rolls in here, but also because I am not comfortable with half of the people on here, and don't feel they need to know anymore about it than they may already.