From: oispeggy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Peggy Brown)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Singin' Those Apocalypse Blues
Date: 15 Dec 92 15:16:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Dec15.010325.17173@u.washington.edu>, grimoire@byron.u.washington.edu (John Greer) writes...

>Well, this isn't really the direction I'd hoped this thread would go, but 
>hey -- I bow to the will of the Lords of Flame, so to speak.

>In response to my suggestion that the collapse of our current industrial
>civilization is a possibility (not, please note, a certainty), and that
>we as human beings and (maybe not parenthetically) magicians might want
>to think about ways of surviving it if it happens, there have been some 
>critiques of the whole notion.  Josh posts a set of arguments that
>some technologies presently in the works, at some stage or other, will
>save our cookies.  Peggy talks about "vision" and accuses me of being
>pessimistic.  "My name is...", whom I'll abbreviate MNI here for the sake 
>of sanity, simply refuses to accept the problem and insists that there
>will be some way out because, well, there has to be.

>Josh's point of view is at least reasonable, and he may be right  --
>though I don't propose to bet my life on it.  There are some possible
>technological fixes which, if they were developed fast enough and put
>>into place efficiently enough, might do the trick.  The fact that
>none of these technologies has yet been proven, and that the world
>is thus left relying on a pig in a poke, does tend to give me pause;
>so does the fact that most of these are being worked on at a snail's
>pace, or (in the case of fusion) has been being ballyhooed for four
>decades as "just around the corner" despite progress at rates of
>glacial slowness.

>Peggy, on the other hand, is indulging in the common superstition that
>wishful thinking and optimism are omnipotent in the universe.  She
>decries what she calls "pessimism."  Is it pessimism to recognize the
>existence of a significant threat and want to take steps to avert it?

>I'm reminded about the guy who was tired of waiting for the elevator
>up on the 50th floor, and didn't want to go down the stairs, and so
>went to the nearest window and jumped out.  Someone else, horrified,
>called after him as he sped toward the sidewalk, "But what will you
>do when you hit the ground?"  The guy shouted back, "Pessimist!"

>Civilizations do fall, despite all the optimism -- or should it be
>called arrogance? -- in the world.  Endless amounts of vision will
>do no good at all if it's founded on willful ignorance of the
>situation.  Furthermore, it's precisely this kind of thinking --
>the airy assumption that there are no limits and no obstacles that
>can't be muscled through -- that has done more than anything else 
>to get us in our current fix.

>[stuff deleted] 

>-- John Michael Greer
>   grimoire@u.washington.edu
****************************************************************

[original Peggy]

  (Regarding stuff Josh said.)
**The vision comes first, then the action. 

  (Regarding stuff John Michael Greer said.)
**And with this sort of pessimism, we'd still be in the 
**dark-ages.  
******************************************************************

That was a flame?  It made a simple, obvious point (which I still 
think is valid BTW, but don't care enough to defend it).  Did not 
attack you.  Why are you having such a fit?  Get a grip.

I get the impression you'd prefer something like this?

"John Michael Greer started a scintillating discussion about the 
Apocalypse.  His comments have all been totally brilliant and 
insightful.  What a guy!  What a thread!  What a ceremonial 
magician!"

How's that.:)

- Peggy -
Newsgroups: alt.magick