4 ms·
Good point. However, I think the miracle is exchanged for another one if you believe that civilization was built not on a mountain of crap, but through the effo
by doctorstupid 11y ago
Good point. However, I think the miracle is exchanged for another one if you believe that civilization was built not on a mountain of crap, but through the efforts of the few who put true rigor into their contributions. Science, philosophy, art, politics, religion and so on have been developed by a relatively minuscule handful of individuals throughout the ages. These greats have built us the walls of civilization which have been filled with crap from within. In my opinion civilization is not built upon a mountain of crap, but is the very walls keeping the crap in place. That these walls are strong enough is the true miracle.
- sametmax 11y ago"civilization is not built upon a mountain of crap, but is the very walls keeping the crap in place" is my new favorite sentence.
- icebraining 11y agoI find it hard to reconcile that view with the historical examples. For example, assuming you agree that Newton made such contributions, how do you fit his thirty-year dabble in alchemy with the concept that such individuals put "true rigour" in their works?
- doctorstupid 11y agoI have confidence in the rigor of Newton's alchemy.
- jawilson2 11y ago"Yep, this doesn't work."
- rayiner 11y agoA handful of people invented the internal combustion engine, but thousands of engineers and hundreds of thousands of factory workers and mechanics, of various shades of competence, designed and built the actual engine in your car. A handful of singular individuals penned the broad outlines of our Constitutional structure, but it's the masses of people that built the system and keep it running. The difference between say Bangladesh and the United States is not the ingenuity of their respective founding documents, but the file clerk at the American courthouse who wouldn't even think of taking a bribe, versus his counterpart. Big ideas mean nothing without execution, and it's the plebes that do the execution. Every great endeavor lives and dies by the virtue of the rank-and-file people undertaking it.
- selimthegrim 11y agoWord. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/world/asia/bangladesh-court-islam-state-religion.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/world/asia/bangladesh-cour...