[ExI] plastic turkeys

[John Grigg]

 bill w wrote:

> I had a symbolic encounter this morning with a plastic turkey.  A
> commercial on TV for a hardware store showed an open BBQ grill with a
> turkey, surely plastic.
>

Plastic! Well, that's blasphemy! Lol


> Now somebody had to make that and perhaps a lot more of them.  If you
> asked an employee of that factory about his job, he might say that it paid
> pretty well, kept his family fed and housed, and he was glad to have it.
>

I bet that pretty good pay is only true of his managers, and not the rank
and file workers... And we can safely assume he works in China or Vietnam.

Who do you thank if you are an atheist?  All of us here have substantially
> above average intelligence. to which we credit our abilities in STEM (I'll
> go ahead and include psychology in that as iffy as that may be.), and
> perhaps other fields.
>

 Well, be thankful for family and friends, especially if they have treated
you well. I unfortunately do not have substantially above average
intelligence. I have been tested by Mensa and I was a little below what
they require for a basic membership. And I am not a stem worker, despite
coming from a family of engineers on my father's side.


> We could thank our parents who gave us the genes, but they were not likely
> to be thinking of our IQ scores at the time.
>

I am actually frustrated with my mother because she attended Columbia
University, but did not find a father for me there, who would have most
likely provided quality genes for high intelligence. Instead she found a
"bad boy" who was tall, handsome and entertaining, a war vet, but of very
average intelligence, though street smart. And yet I did not even inherit
his movie star good looks, despite him being my sperm donor, and the one
who most likely constrained my intellectual abilities. His brothers were
all very bright, but not him. One of them is even in the IBM Hall of Fame.
But then I must remember that every conception is a big roll of the genetic
dice... I could have come out very different, in either a good/superior or
a sad/horrific way...

At least among Asians, considering a potential mate's intelligence, and
what they can contribute to the intellect of future children, is common
thinking. And we wonder why they may one day dominate the world...


> We could call it luck, but since that is simply a statistical rarity, it's
> kind of redundant.
>

I am amazed how many people take credit for what the universe bestowed on
them. I want to take away fifty IQ points, send them back in time, and see
how they do without much intellectual ability...


>
> So we are kind of stuck without anyone or anything to thank that we are
> not making plastic turkeys, not that there is anything whatsoever wrong
> with that. Just a thought.
>

 Thank the god AI at the far end of time who may one day resurrect you,
despite all of your homo sapiens sapiens limitations... And then light
votive candles
 in front of the icons for transhumanist Saints Anders Sandberg and Eliezer
Yudkowsky.

I have lived in the third world now for about a year, and am just shocked
at the amount of poverty and deprivation that I see. Over-population is
such a serious problem, along with pollution, corruption and violence.
There are many people here who would be very grateful for a job making
plastic turkeys. And to them you would be rich. But ironically, to the
Chinoy families who rule/misrule the Philippines, you Bill, are a total
poverty case!

  John

On Fri, Nov 20, 2020 at 1:11 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 10:57 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 11:41 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Who do you thank if you are an atheist?
>>>
>>
>> Friends and family for supporting you and tolerating you. Yourself for
>> putting you where you are now, if you're happy with that.
>>
>>
>>> We could thank our parents who gave us the genes, but they were not
>>> likely to be thinking of our IQ scores at the time.
>>>
>>
>> No, but they put a lot of time, money, and effort into raising you.
>>
>> -Dave
>>
> Good thoughts, Dave   I would add 'putting up with oneself', as I am hard
> to live with at times, and have had very bad habits that were not easy to
> break.  So I am thankful to myself as well as parents, teachers and so on.
>   bill w
>
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