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On Fri, 05 Oct 2001 17:01:37 -0700, David Honig
At 09:20 PM 10/5/01 +0000, auto301094@hushmail.com wrote:
FOOD 1. List 12 edible USA plants. 2. List 8 edible tropical plants.
This is what happens when you make a survival test for the whole planet ---who the fsck needs to know what tropical plants to avoid *and* has to worry about the livers of polar bears?
For one, somebody who wants to boost their odds of not being found by deciding to opt for a 100% randomization of their "bug out" location. I got the idea from Thomas Schelling, actually: don't remember the piece but "Strategy of Conflict" ought to be a good place to start. ha. Work through the math of it and it makes fiendishly good sense. Not so practical for escaping a terrorist attack, but it could prove really useful in other circumstances I'm sure you can imagine. Anyway, wouldn't you enjoy knowing you had a better chance of making it no matter what kind of environment you found yourself in? If you had no money, no food--rock-bottom flat on your ass in the middle of nowhere--that you could still manage to have resources within yourself to pull through? I find that infinitely appealing. Diogenes had it right all along...you can quote Nietzsche and Ayn Rand as much as you please but the Stoics and Cynics still have a lot to offer. Even further off topic, here's a passage from www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/latergreeks.html you might find interesting: Cynicism After Plato and Aristotle, the concerns of the philosophers moved further and further from metaphysics, epistemology, and anything resembling modern science, to the issue that had always concerned the ancient Greeks the most -- ethics. What is it to be virtuous, to have character, to live the good life, to have "arete" (nobility)? Antisthenes (445-365) was the son of an Athenian citizen and a Thracian slave girl. After starting his own school, he came to recognize that Socrates was wiser than he. He went over, students and all, to learn from the master. Antisthenes is the founder of cynicism. Cynic comes from the Greek word for dog, originally because Antisthenes taught at the Cynosarges (Dogfish) gymnasium, which had been set up for the poor of Athens. Cynicism involves living the simple life in order that the soul can be set free. It is a back to nature type of philosophy, ala St. Francis of Assisi. By eliminating ones needs and possessions, one can better concentrate on the life of philosophy. Cynicism makes virtue the only good, the only true happiness. You cant control the world and lifes ups and downs, so control yourself! Inhibit your desires! become independent of the world!...Rejecting civilization, cynics tended to withdraw from society, even to live in the desert. In this, they may have influenced early Jewish and Christian monastics. Cynicism wasnt entirely negative (from todays values perspective): They strongly encouraged individualism, believed that all men were brothers, were against war and slavery, and believed in free speech. They also believed in free love and the legitimacy of suicide! The most famous of the cynics was Diogenes (412-323), a student of Antisthenes. He saw himself as a citizen of the world ("cosmopolitan"). There is a famous story that has Alexander the Great finding him sleeping in the sun and announcing "I am Alexander the great king!" Diogenes replied "I am Diogenes the dog!" Alexander asked if there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes just asked him to move out of the sun. :) ~F. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Hush 2.0 wl8EARECAB8FAju/tnUYHGF1dG8zMDEwOTRAaHVzaG1haWwuY29tAAoJEKadvsVlUK4P 8s4AoJiBADVnm8pIgGQEWz73ksMFUX/bAJ99jr1oCqbetceY8mZiOT6OhCvmww== =WEhz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----