h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dearest Jen,
We shall call you the magical Jenny for creating Utopia. I am happy to hear that all is well and believe in miracles. The Lord moves in mysterious ways. I was not shocked to hear your tales of abusive woe and not at all shocked to hear Willem chime in that women are not the only victims of these traumatic stressful times. I thank the Lord for Happy and the h2g2 for giving us this forum to share our love and understandings with each other on a global basis.
Many many loving and utopian thoughts are being created on your strife and survival.
Don't Worry Be Happy!
Worlds of Love,
JLC the TTP
Pssst: ignore this magical posting who says he can break fragile things, who could be so beastly, this is not a part of Utopia and is an effort to negate it.

Copy of a posting I made in another forum - I thought it may be of intrest to some of you here.

A prayer for peace never goes amiss - in the UK in the week befrore Rememberance Sunday (last Sunday) there is a tradition of wearing Poppy's (or Plastic Poppy's made by disabled ex-servicemen) and last week I wore mine, when you do this there are times when you notice it and you remember what it signifies and a little silent prayer for peace is made.

I truely do belive that with time the human race can learn to heal its dfiffferances, I am study history as a hobby and if you look back you can see progress has been made - there is still a very long way to go but I think we are on the right path.

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Hiya everybody. It's funny how I keep finding Harry Potter everywhere nowadays - and I haven't even read the books!

Happy, I'm glad to know that you think we will manage to solve the problems in time. I think so too - I think humans tend to underestimate their own capabilities, and humans often fail to see the ways in which things really ARE getting better. We'll see.

One thing that I also believe is that knowledge is power. A very important part of bringing about Utopia or something close to it would be combating ignorance, teaching people right, intellectually empowering them. There are so many wrong things that people believe, so much knowledge that ought to belong to everybody but are in the hands (and heads) of a privileged few. And then there's the knowledge that mankind sorely needs but still doesn't have. I think that people ought to know more history than they do, on average. Many people today lack perspective, and a good understanding of history is a good way to get it. Another good way to get perspective is to study cosmology and astronomy. And I also believe that the natural world should be studied: everything from subatomic particles to the living creatures that inhabit the planet alongside us humans. But most people live in tiny little worlds with themselves at the center, blissfully unaware of the gigantic, weird and wonderful greater world "out there" not to mention "in here".

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Hi, guys. I am currently developing some new online habits - such as working in the morning from 4 to 7 a.m. Still adjusting to that, so at the moment forgive me if I'm seeming a bit dull ...

I would really like it if we can make h2g2 into a practically complete and useable guide to everything, geared towards people of all ages and backgrounds. Personally I am going to be putting up a crapload of entries, mostly about animals and plants. Also at some stage I am going to organise them into some kind of order and link them together and to other "animal and plant" entries. But there's also other subjects I'm interested in and know a bit about, but I'll first get down the stuff that I'm more confident with.

The Internet has great promise. But it is still in a very rudimentary form compared to what it might be. For instance there is currently very little info on it about sivatheres. If none of you know what a sivathere is, then check out THIS:

http://www.h2g2.com/A473960

This is not for the edited Guide ... yet!

Let me humbly state that here you have the most complete and detailed entry on sivatheres ON THE ENTIRE WEB, and the picture is also the most apt illustration you'll find anywhere! Unless you have a search engine better than Google. And I will be adding at least two more illustrations tomorrow or the day after that. Next I'll be writing an entry on libytheres. There's a grand total of four web pages that even MENTION libytheres, and none of them have a single illustration! I'll try to give MY entry at least two.

I will post another longish piece to the noticeboard soon. I still want to talk about human culture and language, and human potential in general. Briefly, there are six levels of human needs:

1. Physiological: food, water, comfortable environment
2. Safety: shelter against threats, freedom from fear
3. Belonging: being loved, having friends, fitting into a group
4. Self-esteem: being secure about yourself, your nature, your abilities
5. Self-actualization: being able to fulfil your potential, developing your abilities to their utmost, doing what you do best without hindrance
6. Self-transcendence: growing beyond egocentrism, finding ultimate peace and freedom by expanding your awareness to include everything around you, attaining complete harmony between your own self and the universe with every being in it.

The needs on one level depend on the needs of the preceding levels. So when people don't have enough to eat, the other points are moot. And this is the sorry situation we have at this moment on the planet:
more than half of the six billion humans alive find themselves struggling even to make it past the very first item on the list! That gives you an idea how far we are still from Utopia.

One brief comment on the useability of the Internet - When I first Used the internet 14 years ago it was text based - no hyperlinked WWW, no seach engines & an email could take a weak to reach its destination we have come a long way - but if we compare the development process of the internet to that of aviation I think that with the introduction highbandwidth connections we are just reaching a stage equivilent to the pre WW I Rotary engined Biplanes. The internet we will be using in 15 years time will be as differn't from this as that which I used 15 years ago is.

Or even MORE different!

Now your getting the idea

The internet will be an enormous global brain, linking the hopes and dreams of all the people on the planet. Roving webcam robots will be controllable from anywhere in the world, and a group of cyber-people will wear Total Audio Visual Suits, allowing anyone who logs on with them to see and hear what the TAVS see.

Tea will be delivered by robots wired up to the web, who will hoover the floor on thier way to you. And there will be a hotel on the moon, serving drinks and fine food under a canopy of stars and the earth-set.

And we will all live happily ever after.

or develop a major case of Technophobia

Jenny, I like the idea of "guerilla gardening". I have contacted those guys, and I will be keeping an eye on what they're doing and regularly informing them of what I'm doing. I also have a project going over here, a little different, because my key idea is that humans should try to bring maximal biodiversity and ecological integrity back to the areas where they live and have influence. My own plant cultivation is aimed at wild plant species, especially threatened ones. I am also busy developing a detailed system of how this should be done. It is not enough just to plant some plants. They have to be the right kinds, in the right proportions, in the right places, and in all of this you have to consider animals and birds as well. So the system will be different for different places - the plants emphasised in the UK will be native British plants, and those emphasised in America will be native American plants, and the same for Africa, Asia and Australia. So my aim is also to encourage people to learn as much as possible about the wild animals and plants of their own countries, and about ecosystems in their full detail. Not just those that exist today, but also those that existed in the past. For instance there was a time not so long ago when there were wolves, bears, bison and wild cattle in Britain. I say bring 'em back. Humans managed to wipe out the native European wild ox, the Aurochs, but there are still cattle in Scotland quite close to those wild oxen and if left to go wild and to multiply they could easily develop into an ecological replacement. Another goal would be to make it possible to accomodate as many different kinds of wild animals in and around human areas as possible.

Here in South Africa we are doing quite detailed research on many of the above concepts. In our game reserves for instance humans live right next to animals. Houses and tents are strengthened to protect them against the inquisitive efforts of elephants, lions and hyenas. And people are taught basic principles such as not leaving food unprotected out in the open. If they do that, monkeys will grab it and eventually the monkeys will learn to get their food in this way. This causes the double problem that the monkeys forget how to find food in the wild, and cause an extreme problem for humans by raiding their homes to find food. Monkeys can be incredibly bold, resourceful and aggressive. So humans need to act very disciplined or they will find themselves incapable of peacefully co-existing with monkeys. So it is with many other species also.

Another system that is promising exists in India. If farmers' livestock are killed by tigers, they are paid money by the conservation authorities to replace the value of the cattle that they've lost. In that way they have no reason for killing the tigers. I think we need a similar system here, because many farmers are still losing livestock to leopards and lions and they always overreact. They set out poisoned baits and these kill not only the leopards and lions but also jackals and other small scavengeres, eagles and vultures. And in fact the loss of stock is always quite small and easily compensated.

It is funny but it often seems to me that it would eventually prove easier for humans to accept large wild animals than to accept each other. Humans are extremely afraid of other humans, especially if there are differences between them such as appearance or language or belief systems. In a way this is sensible because humans ARE the most dangerous creatures on the planet. But it is also incredibly sad. People also overreact towards other people. And the other people overreact back at them. This is a never-ending cycle of distrust and violence and destruction. The only way to break out of it is if we can cultivate a new spirit in ourselves towards other people - one of acceptance, of trust, of tolerance. We need to fight against fear. In a previous posting I talked about fear - it is natural to be afraid, but we must never allow ourselves to be ruled by fear. Instead we must concentrate on love - disinterested, unqualified love that goes out to all other living beings. This is, at present, a way of thinking that is very foreign to the mindsets of most people. But it is a very, very powerful way of thinking, and it will become more prevalent among people, it will grow and intensify and eventually I hope become established among all people.

I looked at that David Icke website. Quite interesting, there are things he says that seem good and allright: fight racism, fight heartless globalism and the money power and corrupt politicians. But then it also goes into these weird conspiracy theories and cultivates an extremely fearful idol in the form of shapeshifting alien/human hybrids trying to control and dominate us. That is classic paranoid schizophrenia. Now this is a much more subtle and complicated problem than most people would realise. We can simplify it by calling it "crazy" but that would not tell us anything about what it is and what to do about it. Thing is, Icke is intelligent and can justify his delusions quite eloquently and convincingly, to himself as well as to others. They merge imperceptibly with many of our beliefs about the real world. It is not easy to pinpoint the border where the world of make-believe is entered. After all, the average person does not know what is REALLY going on behind the closed doors of the political and business world. Incredible as it seems it's not such a big step going from shady deals and conniving to turning into reptiles and sacrificing humans. And many people believe in life in outer space, and the possibility of aliens visiting us - it's not such a big jump to aliens that are evil and manipulating us towards their own ends. I mean how many sci-fi flicks have there been about humans fighting aliens? Even when people realise that it's just fiction some of the ideas stick at the bottoms of their minds.

The problem with Icke is not so much one of delusion as one of attitude. It is again the "fear" and "distrust" attitude, the "us" and "them" attitude. Personally I say there is no external enemy. There is no global conspiracy. There are no powerful, evil people or beings out to get me or anybody else. I don't want to hurt or harm or destroy anybody. If the leaders of a country are corrupt, I don't want to punish them, I want them to become honest. If they have to be removed from power, so be it, but afterwards you will still be concerned about them and protect their basic human interests, needs and wants, and you will allow them all opportunities to redeem themselves and regain positions of responsibility. If you destroy a powerful, abusive organisation, you need to have safety nets ready to catch the people who have been dependent on that organisation. Because, even though those people have been doing harmful things, they are still as human as you and me and they still deserve the fullest respect and consideration. If a person commits a crime, there is no sense in punishing the person - how on earth will it make the wrong thing that was done right if the criminal suffers? Much better to teach them new and true respect for life and liberty and property and everything else, because they can still be good and socially responsible people. The problem is not WHETHER to do that, it is HOW to do that. The social structures of most countries do not allow effective rehabilitation of criminals, and even if they could afford to do it, they wouldn't know how. But if we realise that rehabilitating criminals makes more sense than punishing them, and if we believe that this is not impossible, we have a goal to work towards.

And if there are intelligent extraterrestrials out there, we must have the same attitude towards them. We must consider them to be intrinsically not-evil, as we are intrinsically not-evil. There is not really a thing such as an intrinsic drive towards evil. There is just the fact that most beings focus first of all on their own interests, and will tend to react actively, if needed forcefully, to protect those interests. All the evil I know of arises from such an attitude. The way to overcome that is to make interests not conflict! Manipulate interests towards harmony, so that the interest of the one is not a threat to the interest of the other. Teach people/beings about shared values. Take this to the ultimate conceivable level. Then you have cancelled out evil with an equal but opposite amount of good, properly directed, without any violence or destruction.

Wow. you have excelled yourself. One one hand it reads like absurd idealism, on the other hand you are entirely right.

I'm going to take this rant, cut it into chunks and post it on the noticeboard, with some exapansions and links of my own. I'll keep your words as yours and mine as mine, and try to get some good headings and links and hopefully some conversations going.

Lots of love...

from purplejenny

Hi, just called in for a non Nestle, fairtrade bar of on my way back from the Noticeboard. I put a notice up about British native plant species and the importance of finding native sources of native species. Why is everything always more complicated than you first think?

I have only skimmed through a few of the previous postings - did you know they had discussed reintroducing wolves to Scotland, Case? It didn't get a good reaction locally and I don't know whether the project was dropped or not. We criticise other countries for their falling numbers of bears and wolves but try to bring them back here and see what happens. But at least it was thought of.

A robot that hoovers will cure my Technophobia . The only time in my life that vacuuming was a tolerable way to spend time was when it was an alternative to exam revising. And that's long in the past, thank goodness.
Wz.

hello wazungu.

welcome to the utopia cafebar, which is whatever we want it to be.
Here you can get good food and drink, put things up on the noticeboard, and hopefully meet other people who are thinking about Practical Solutions for a Utopian Future.

Please have some cake, and one of my special hot chocolates.

make yourself comfortable, and try to have a nice time.

love from

purplejenny

I heard a nice quote today and I thought it appropiate to this forum:

'Change a person and you change the world'.

You betcha, Happy! But, you know, you change a person just by caring for and being involved with that person! The recipe for Utopia is in fact just so plain and simple and easy! If only more people tried it!

Look, you being such an internet "buff", you certainly know of lots and lots of really interesting sites with info relevant to these crazy discussions of ours! So if you know about any, why not tell
us and put up some links? Anything about happiness, about optimism, about world politics, about human rights, or the environment, or about basic human values!

Wazungu, please visit regularly! About the wolf introductions: was the project accompanied by a measure like compensating farmers financially for stock losses? Just because something failed the first
time doesn't mean it cannot be tried again. I have often thought that every success is worth 99 failures. That is the principle that keeps me going!

Take care, everyone!

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The topic doesn't really matter, just the company...

Longish brown hair for an old guy, almost red in a bright sun, jeans and a washed-out military style khaki shirt, he looks like he's been out on the kibbutz for too long. Black Greek fisherman's cap with a badge from an army battalion pinned to the crest. He closes the door a bit too loudly, just to shut out the traffic noise, and leans against the frame for a moment as his eyes adjust.

"Dude! Fancy meeting you here." He moves into the warm darkness of the bar, passing the occasional patron. "Pillow, you OK? JLC, wow. Long time no hear..." Up to one end of the real bar, emptyness to one side, a vacant stool to the other. Jenny looks up with just a bit of a wary eye over whatever she's reading. There's a KG6 commemorative plate with the crumbs from some cake between them.

"Listen," he says, "I've heard this is a coffee bar, but my tolerance for humans and my protein levels are really depressed just now, and I need a Newcastle and an order of fish and chips, heavy on the fish. Make that two Newkies, maybe three. Have you got any tarter sauce to go with the vinegar? Oh, and, umm, well, do you have a smoking section?"

Phil--