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Old 12-09-2010, 12:55 PM   #5
Clodfobble
UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 20,012
I'm reading (actually listening to) Orson Scott Card's The Worthing Saga right now, and like most of his books it has some pretty lengthy philosophical themes. This one is that without suffering--both emotional and physical--there is no impetus for growth, either as individuals or as a society. If our neighbor has no suffering in his life, then we have nothing to empathize with, and cannot really love him. Great human advances almost never come out of tropical climates where food is plentiful. Perhaps we are hardwired not only to choose an enemy to hate, but to be an enemy to someone who has none.
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