> Hakeeb A. Nandalal wrote:
>
> (and how does one pronounce /that/ name?)
Hah-keeeeb; A. (as in A1 steak sauce); Nan-dah-lal;
> > Man didn't choose His nature : Nature did.
> > Even young children know that a spanking or
> > being put in the corner like "Dennis de Menace"
> > awaits misbehaviour. With adults we turn the
> > screws a little and we get floggings and jail.
> >
> > Man is a killer, even the old guys from Israel knew that,
> > that's why they concocted the "10 Commandments" to keep
> > people in line : they figured if they said that "God
> > said so", people would behave. Over time, commandment
> > breakers noticed no punishment was forthcoming and
> > started to experiment.
> >
> > Our earthly solution was to bring down the wrath of
> > God and call it "Man's Law". Seeing that Man is God,
> > it all fits in nicely.
>
> Well said. Love the conclusion! Gives yet another good reason to
> beleive that man /is/ God!
Thank you, thank you very much (picture Elvis saying it).
> Here's some new material to think about:
>
> I was thinking today, as I stood at market, trying to peddle my wares,
> about marketing policy. Both me and my dad believe that ultimatly it is
> /never/ good to cheat or lie to your customers. Bad word of mouth. No
> repeat business. But the guy next to me today was doing it. A customer
> came and bought six bags of carrots from the man. After the lady had
> gone, he told his wife (in slightly too loud a voice: if I overheard,
> who else did?) that in each of those six bags there was a "bad" carrot.
> Since he was short of carrots, he has decided to spread them thinner by
> splicing a few bad ones into the mix. He probably managed to get an
> extra bag or two, and hense an extra 4 or 8 dollars. Now, normally, no
> one would ever catch on to him, right? What's one bad carrot amoung
> many? It's almost to be expected, seeing as they are last years'
> carrots. But the lady who bought six bags. Now then. She will have
> six bags, each with one bad carrot. One is chance. Two is coincidence.
> Three or more: proof. She'll know. And he knows it. That is the
> chance he took. My question: since this man was 50+ years old, how many
> times has this happened to him in the past? Has he ever had to deal
> with the unhappy customers? (or do they simply avoid him?) Why does he
> continue doing it? And the big question: how does he manage to get to
> sleep at night? I mean $10 is good and all, but that a fairly low
> contract to sign with the Devil. I couldn't do it.
I would have to say that within the Carrot Man's blob of memetic jello,
he's operating within "reasonable" parameters of business. Obviously
within your blob of memetic jello, he's a crook. Depending on which
jello filter we use, each of us is a God or the Devil. To show you how
current this thread is, I'll use an example from today's news :-
The Southern Baptist church has voted to boycott Disney for condoning
the Gay "lifestyle". From one view, Disney is being Christian-like for non-
discrimination and love and all that. From the SBs point of view,
Disney is the tool of the Devil. Go figure.
Back to the Carrot Man : if the world were populated by like-minded
"businessmen" (and I'm inclined to believe it is), then his method
earning revenue would be revered. In the news recently, Food Lion
sued ABC for exposing FL's practice of recycling bad meat and a lot
of kids may have been infected with Hepatitis from fruits that were
supposedly from California but were really from Guatemala. Business
tends to follow the path of least resistance in earning a quick buck.
Hollywood tends to churn out bad but high-grossing movies rather
than good movies because they realized that people prefer not to
think.
> Comments?
Yeah : each of us has to be "true" to his/her own blob of memetic jello.
The key to being a crook or a killer is to not think of your victims
as "people". Distance yourself emotionally and you can do wonders with
the "things" that buy your wares.
I recently saw the movie "The Vanishing". After saving a child from
drowning, the "bad guy" decided that he needed to prove to himself
that he could do something equally evil : so he kidnapped a woman
and buried her alive. At the point of kidnapping her, she was no longer
a person to him but rather a "subject" as perceived by his particular
maniacal mental state. It is my belief that that McVeigh asshole worked
himself into such a mental frenzy that the people he killed were
merely "subjects" for his particular demonstration against a faceless
"government" that he so badly wanted to punish. The scary thing is he's
not the only one with his head in that weirdly coloured blob of jello.
It is also my belief that he has since shifted memetic gears : if he
was still true to his original cause he'd raise his fist and say
"Yeah I did it - take that you federal bastards!". Instead immediately
after he was caught he probably thought : "What the hell was I thinking?"
-----------------------------
Hakeeb A. Nandalal
nanco@trinidad.net
http://www.caribinfo.com/als/
-----------------------------