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Originally Posted by tim
On the one hand, I think that the human spirit likes to strive for something higher. And risk carries a certain thrill. If we accomplish, it gives us a sense of improvement n and worth.
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You make a good case, tim. It seems to me that the average human feels a need to excel and rise to different levels of ability and status. It can be beneficial, as you have said, because it ensures our progress and survival as a species. After all, if we didn't have human ambition, we would be in a sorry state of affairs. Without it, we could easily find ourselves without the advanced medical system that we have, or we could find our modern luxuries (microwave, television, Internet etc.) to be curiously absent.
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On the other hand, we sometimes don't assess risk well and run right into things aloof of the potential consequences, or mindlessly thinking (in our pride) we can handle whatever arises with ease.... until it's too late and we're in trouble.
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Again, I have no choice but to agree with you. The human ego is a powerful thing and our ambition can lead us into oneupsmanship. We we get to that point, we are so focused on besting someone that we forget how many things could go wrong, or even be fatal. I tend to think that there is a certain line that we have to draw between the fault of the chemicals and firing of the brain, and the responsibility of the man to correct that situation in the brain with simple thinking.
Such is the nature of the common man, I'm afraid.
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Why don't we learn? Maybe we do individually. But, even then, it is hard work and a comedy of errors in continual falling and getting back up to "try again."
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True, but one would expect that after seeing the dangers and consequences of certain things, people would tend to stay away from those practices.
If a man put his hand in a box and drew back a bloody stump, you wouldn't reach in there as well, would you?
Please, tim, come back and discuss it further. I'm starved for this kind of interaction.