Reasoning With Misanthropes

More than once I have tried to reason with people who love it when "Mother Nature" wreaks havoc upon the "arrogant" elements of mankind who dare to do things like build bridges and create flying machines. One recently went so far as to say, "down with people, Mother Earth will have her revenge". WTF?

Such conversations are best defused and dropped because those who claim to hate humanity get extremely angry at the drop of a pin (an item invented and made by humans). Usually the words "greedy" and "corporation" enter the discussion. Not always in that order. If you are lucky "The Rich" will get mentioned. Makes me want to change my name to Richard, marry a woman with an eastern european accent then instruct her to tell anyone who calls, "The Rich is unavailable. He's out defying new taxes.

Guess you had to be there.

It is this hurricane that has me thinking. First, we are not victims of nature. Neither are bears, oak trees or anything else.

Anyone knows if you live near a big river, it may flood. If you live in CA you may be there for a big ass earthquake that topples everything, if you live in hurricane land, that friggin big blow is going to visit. And for God's sake, realize that if your city is surrounded by water and built below sea level, you just might find yourself in over your head if a storm comes. It is up to you to know how you will react. So sad that people actually believe master government is going to take care of them and make it OK. Let's get off the manor and quit being serfs. It is the plantation mentality being shoved down our throats in a clever backhanded manner.

Anyway. We are part of the universe, life, nature, and what is. And what is is not a static or overly stable system. Nature is like that. Nothing pristine and peaceful to it in the grand scheme of things.


That is why birds build nests--the environmentally unaware little bastards. They actually commit unnatural acts like assembling mud, sticks and anything else their greedy little beaks will carry to build a place to lay eggs. Why? Because the damned things will fall and break if they just sit on the branch dropping those babies out, expecting them to somehow stick to the limb.

They make use of nature to protect themselves from elements in their environment to promote their survival. Some species run their course and disappear. Do you think other species give a damn? No, they don't.

Beavers radically screw with their surroundings for their own greedy selfish purposes. I bet Mother Earth is going to kick their little beaver butts, but good! How dare they soil the pristine benevolent Nature just because they are hungry? Dams!! The nerve of them. Down with beavers!

That is the character of life. Everything does what it can to make it easier to thrive in an often hostile environment. Humans are no different. But humans have the capacity to use their heads to change how they cope, and to examine the side effects. They often don't do it, but if most of the prevailing religions and political philosophies would take a sabbatical, I believe you'd see that such sane practices would be the norm and possibly the concept of being free AND responsible would catch on. As it is, neither of those concepts is in fashion.

Where people go awry is when they do things that may give a quick bump in the wealth department but have impoverishing consequences down the line. That is because myopia and small minded greed, envy and avarice are contagious. But this does not mean that brilliant invention and use of resources is automatically wrong. Plastic, in and of itself is Not evil. Neither is steel, or fiberglass or concrete.

I know, I'm either preaching to the choir or talking to a brick wall.

What I was really wondering is why things like buildings in seriously vulnerable hurricane zones always get built back pretty much the same way instead of trying new methods and designs which anticipate the inevitable. The same happens in ice storms. Power lines get coated with ice, they fall down, power goes out and it gets put right back waiting to do the same thing next year.

The usual excuse is that it is too expensive to do anything different. That is BS. Good engineers are supposed to be there to work within given parameters to solve the problem. You can find ways that are not so expensive, then when proven, that will be the norm until something better is figured out.

In construction this is tough because of vested interests in the status quo, backed by government enforcement of the status quo. Be sure to turn the evil eye on unions as well as those greedy corporations because they are built on a structure of not changing how things are made or done. I only include them in the mix. I do not hold the others in the system blameless. All pieces of the short sighted, destructive scheme.

Anyway, I have been thinking of a number of ways to radically change how a few things are done, and I believe if my ideas were put into practice, the result would be a house on the Outer Banks of NC which would withstand not only a tremendous storm surge bigger than any in history, but also substantial winds of double or more the force they are getting tonight from Irene. And it is highly unlikely the place would flood.

Maybe my ideas wouldn't totally work, maybe they would. I know it can be done, and I do not think that the cost need be prohibitive. I suppose it would not be as natural as just living naked on the beach and dying in the hurricane, but I don't think it would destroy the planet or earn the retribution of Mother Earth, whoever that bitch is.

PS: it might be cool to live naked on the beach until the storm hits, then go inside the clever dwelling and ride it out