Adele, Are you asking me?
Ya,
I was just wandering what you were kinda like to say that. I personally would never think of it as being 'the way to live'. So, I really am intrigued.
Adele, It was just a jest in responding to Craven's thesis on temperature and wealth. I think the associate issue to be addressed is temperature and health. In that vain, I thought a little cash in pocket, and beach-bum sounded ideal; watch nikkid women and sip on a margarita or somet'n. Sounds like an ideal way to spend a few years in retirement.
Why not, there are several island cultures that the description "beach bum" would be appropriate for. This is not disparaging, actually envying.
Hmm............. now I am entertaining the thoughts of being a 'surf' board. :wink: But not so much the 'board'. (bored)
haha
Soooo, now I will let ya'll get back to the subject at hand and try not to stray again.
adele
Adele, Stray all you like; that's what makes A2K a fun place to visit - although some people complain. Everything in moderation is okay in my books.
Well Craven m'dear - I can almost "hear" those little cogs
and wheels grinding away being determinedly "productive"
thoughts at this very moment in time. It worries me.
Heaven forbid that you should do something so unbelievably
unacceptable as to simply ... "be"
(So, yes, I do admit that I contend that "being" has value,
vitality & importance)
This, by your standards must be akin to murder in the first
degree .... since the twin towers of productivity and wealth
are the idols we are essentially discussing here. I can not
make any kind of "acceptable" or "technologically proficient
enough" comment on your premise - though by reading it
it certainly sounds as though you have given it a great deal
of thought - so I guess it must be quite important to you.
However - it is not extremely important to me. It certainly
IS an interesting topic of conversation - and since we are
here to converse on A2K.... and, you know, I have noticed
that some contributors appear to be ranked and/or taken far
more seriously than some others, and while I don't claim
to understand the true reason for this, I do sort of
assume that there is (in place) a social ladder based upon
one of several things, such as:
1 Wealth
2. IQ
3. Importance - ie. one's "role" -"position" in outside world
4. Looks???? questionable because we can only
seeing whatever each person wants to use as
an avatar.... although these certainly were
the guiding social interactive features in high
school & college & grad school etc.
**However, out in the REAL world - and into work & jobs
& promotions and such things - their is ONE decidedly
serious and debilitating drawback that is just virtually
impossible to overcome. Sex.
Sex is far more important than climate if you happen
to be born as a female. Females truly are most highly
discriminated against in ALL climates, be it hot or cold !!
And on an "relatively" equal scale. This, I am sure has
been proven (by now) to everyone's satisfaction.
Just as with the cases of how "third world" countries who
have lower levels of mechanization and industrialization.
and consequently - also have lower levels of productivity,
they tend also to appear in the more tropical climates.
Look at Mexicans, for example - they seemed (to me)
to be some of the most pleasant, happy & easygoing
people I ever met. In fact, the moment I entered the
American airport upon my arrival back in the USA:
(the US being held, I assume [at least the northern part]
as the prime example of high levels of productivity and
of wealth) I noticed the "rush-rush attitude", and the most
rude & unseemly behavior so characteristic of Americans
(at least - to the people from other countries) and this is
the very thing which causes Americans to be disliked by
peoples of many foreign countries. Courtesy & good
manners simply can not be replaced by productivity,
industrialization & wealth. After all - just look at Bush.
No one likes him, and he is the epitome of the arrogant,
rude & uncivilized behavior by which all Americans are
apparently being judged. Now, it is true that many
Mexicans are very poor, and so they try to get into the US
to get jobs where they can make more money - even though
this is illegal, that does not seem to make one whit of a
difference to the apparent proprietors of these industrialized
companies, be they northern or southern.
Now - as for the eating of a heavy meal, I think that living
in a northern or southern habitat; eating a heavy meal will
always make one sleepy - because - it did exactly the same
thing when I lived in New York & Pennsylvania - as it does
to me now that I live in Florida. Go figure?
babs,
But what does female/male issues (that I'm willing to concede) and other issues of human prejudice have to do with the level of industrialization of a country?
I must have done a pretty lousy job at articulating my thoughts because past the first page most people have not addressed anything I was talking about.
Craven, For what it's worth I surmise that your hypothesis "temperate climates foster technology" is probably accurate.
But that leads to another question
. Is playing the technology game worth the trouble?
Are we happier because we are warmer? Are we better persons because we can fly to Denver any time we want?
Human nature being what it is I don't think that we can put the techies back in the womb. It happened, for better or worse, regardless of what we may think about it
akaMechsmith - I think our lives are made immeasurably more "spacious", if you will, by things like warmth and comfort - eg I have only in recent years had airconditioning, and the difference it makes to my life in summer is huge. I think we tend to question the utility and positive effects of technology only when we have it, and have forgotten, or never known, what it was like before. I think the difference is not so much whether we can fly to Denver or not, but whether or not our lives are dominated by the daily struggle to keep ourselves (and our homes and cities) clean, fed and sheltered - once an enterprise that took up, in unceasing toil, the lives of countless people in a constant daily grind.
This is not to suggest an unquestioning acceptance of technology - there are many downsides, as we discover daily - and it is possible we temperate zone folk have exchanged life-grinding toil for the luxury of the possibility of having the space and energy to be neurotically unhappy! - however, I would rather not spend entire days washing clothes, weaving cloth, cleaning up after the rich, stepping over sewage in the streets, grinding corn etc.
Mech,
In regard to your "quality of life" question I wholeheartedly agree.
Right now I wish to return to a third world nation and leave the most wealthy nation on earth!
I preferred the life I led in the less advanced Brazil to living in the US.
Craven, When are you going back to Brazil? I'm looking at brochures for a Antarctica cruise that usually starts or ends in Brazil.
Prolly not for a long while. I have a few things to accomplish first.
It's nice to live in a third world country, if you've got some money. If you don't, it's hell.
I've learn to distrust all those happy fantasies about poor countries. Sound to me like all those patronizing "good savage" theories.
"Your life must be soooo happy!", said the overweight American tourist, while soaking in the pool, next to his piña colada.
"Yes, very happy, sir; I have a job, sir", answered the man who was raking the leaves next to the pool.
Amen! Things is, in Brazil I had money.
I still like Craven's theory, but not because the temperate regions are temperate. The coldest winter I ever saw was in Omaha, Nebraska, and the hottest summer was in Wichita, Kansas. They are only temperate on average, which is something like saying a lake has an average depth of 4 feet. It may, but don't suppose you can wade across.
I was reading about the changing middle class in India these days, with the younger generation getting quite flash with their new-found 'wealth'. One dude was a McDonald's manager who was making enough money to play golf every weekend at a private course, and owns a sweet pad and car. Mind you, that's in India. I don't know too many McDonald's managers here who have those luxuries. When your income is $9000 or so a year in a country where $400 is about average....well, wealth all seems relative to me.
In the third world McDonalds is a luxury for the middle class and up. Wealth is definitely relative. I make more money now than I did in Brazil if you consider the exchange rate. But in Brazil I never worried about money went out every single night and had a maid...
I remember when they opened the first McDonald's in Moscow. The lines were going around several blocks in a country where the average income today for professionals is $100/month.
.
I must finish my thought: I have never in my life spent one week's pay for a big mac.
