Bordered
I was at a tech seminar downtown this afternoon and it bored the hell out of me so I decided to leave early. Not wanting to be stuck in the traffic that was building up, I decided to wait it out at Borders the bookstore.
Usually the first place I would head for is the business section which was what I did. I wanted to see what the famous Wall Street gurus are saying now that they'd all been taken to the cleaners by the recession. I mean its just amazing to see how back in 2005, these guys were spinning bestseller after bestseller on how to make a million bucks. Now very same guys are on their way to bankruptcy, brought down by the tricks they taught their readers to follow. Man what a joke.
And as I suspected, the "how to make a million bucks" shelves have no new titles. Some old and familiar ones were going at 20% off. Wonder which idiot is going to buy them even at 80% off, now that they've been conclusively proven to be bad ideas.
Then I wandered around and found myself at the World History section. I think I was driven there by an old question that I never found an answer to, and the question is, why does man kill each other.
So I came across a book by Niall ferguson entitled "The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred". He mostly wrote about the turn-of-the-century wars in Europe, Russia, the US, a little about the middle east, and a smattering about the Japanese in world war 2. He basically lays out why he thinks the 20th century is man's most brutal century.
Err.. say what? The 20th century was man's most brutal century? Haha, what were you smoking Mr Ferguson? World war 1 & 2 was a picnic compared to the time of ancient imperial China where it was reported that the emperors massacred up to half a billion of their own people. In those medieval times, that's what, 30% of the world population killed in a couple of thousand years?
These were not foreign enemy combatants unlike the casualties in those European wars. These were their fellow countrymen, civilians mostly, and many were put to death for really, really stupid reasons. How about burying thousands of them alive in one afternoon together with their dead emperor just so that they can all serve the big boss in the hereafter. Or dying in the process of building some giant silly monument? Stuff like that.
Its not just the Chinese emperors. You got people like Alexander, Tamerlane, Genghiz, and all the other "great" conquerors who took millions of lives as they swept across entire continents, sticking their swords into anyone who crossed their paths.
No, world wars 1 & 2 are just tiny chapters in man's history of violence and if I may predict, they sure as hell won't be his last.
What's proven beyond any doubt is man's love of killing his brother. What's harder to ascertain is why. What is that common thing that connects all these violent chapters of man throughout the ages? And why is it, despite the age of enlightenment, reasoning and science, that things have not changed.
That was the explanation I was looking for.
Well, it seems none of the books at Borders answered that question so I had to leave the store empty handed.
6 comments:
I like to share with you what i have been told. The world will be getting worsen as the years pass by. Ten years from now will be more chaotic compared to today. (Remember this, so that 10 years later you will sigh, "That fella blogger Eagle said is not wrong"). This is fixed. The ending will be much worst of generally. The reasons are because people are getting more "tainted". We have heard of people saying many many thousand years before Chris time, there was a heaven on earth, haven't we? At that point of time, characters of human being are very divine and pure. Slowly, slowly the degree of divinity lessen thru mixer of impurity in the soul till today. The world cycle also liken season spring, summer, autumn and winter in a macro time frame. By now reasoning & science inventions will never helps. Instead science are eventually used for destruction. After destruction, all things will start a new again. Heaven like again, eg the lost Atlantis
The world is full of surprises. Man is without a doubt the world's most violent creature. Guess what's the 2nd most violent creature? I was told its the cute house cat. This was measured by its propensity to destroy any living creature smaller than them that crosses its path. Cats also kill not for food but for amusement. Still, man wins by a mile because cats don't kill each other. Man does.
Yeah I think man is less satisfied today than ever before because they are exposed to much more messages (via ads, etc) that tell them how inadequate they are compared to their more "perfect" counterparts. Having more sophisticated laws don't seem to work to prevent us from killing and stealing from each other. Last time, a person can kill at most 20-30 people a day with his sword. Today with modern weapons, he can kill a million or two a day while sipping coffee a thousand miles away.
My theory is that man has a self-destruct gene. Its just a theory. I need to find proof.
And by the way, I think man is still around despite his self destruct gene because we are breeding at a faster rate than we can destroy ourselves, thanks to medicine, lower mortality rates and so on. So if left to our own devices, without laws and technology etc., I think our planet population would only be about 30% of what it is today.
well , for me its all about control ..
Alexander, Tamerlane, Genghiz, and all the other "great" conquerors ..yeah sure they took millions of lives
but they're not thattttt powerful . You still have hope , you have the opportunity to fight back .There is still hope for a better tomorrow .You can run away because there is not such thing as passport and Identity card .
Today , the top "man" are tooo powerful with their sophisticated systems , they are in control of our lives , and what we think .
running away from your country ? that is illegal without a passport .
If America decides to start a war against Malaysia , what can you do about it ? nothing . it is hopeless.
My martial arts sifu always told me that the best way to win is not to fight. In fact my first lesson was how to run. He said it was for stamina building but years later, I began to see quite a different picture.
But that's the difference between your Sunday morning tae kwon do lesson and a Buddhist monk teaching you martial arts. One focuses on how to hurt. The other on how to heal.
Funny u mentioned lust for power becoz that was precisely why I left the corporate world. I had barely joined a few yrs. It freaked my mom & dad out but I was determined I didn't want to end up like those guys in suits.
The survivalist in me tells me I can choose my own battles physically and mentally, even in the most hostile environments. The thing is whether I can live with the consequences of my choice or not. Some people can leave their families behind - legally or illegally - to look for opportunities in distant lands I've personally met a few Malaysian illegals in New York myself. But some people would rather die than leave their families. Its a hard choice but ultimately its still a choice.
Same thing about wars. We can't stop it but we can be a refugee. There's a price to stay and a price to go. Life's like that.
yeap i agree , its whether you can live the consequences of your choice..
Personally , i cannot take the immigrant lifestyle lah..
see cops have to run , you have to know an "insider" ..cannot sleep peacefully at night..
not my style :) i rather stay here..
when i was in NY Chinatown , there was a guy offering transport to New Jersey like 10 USD per person . And it was like a van all covered with loads of immigrants all squeezing in. Whoa , just like the movies
Whoa, 10 bucks from NYC to NJ? That's cheap! Try taking a yellow cab and see how much it cost.
Btw I hear they got the same "service" running from San Diego to Tijuana Mexico and back, in vehicles fast enough to outrun border patrol over the southern California desert, hehe.
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