last chapter of Anthem


Southern Capitalist

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I find myself reading this daily. Sorry for the long post but to me its great and inspiring writing.

Resources: from: http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/texts/anthem/complete.html

XII. 12.1 It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house that I saw the word "I." And when I understood this word, the book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who had never known tears. I wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind. 12.2 I understood the blessed thing which I had called my curse. I understood why the best in me had been my sins and my transgressions; and why I had never felt guilt in my sins. I understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him. 12.3 I read many books for many days. Then I called the Golden One, and I told her what I had read and what I had learned. She looked at me and the first words she spoke were: 12.4 "I love you." 12.5 Then I said: 12.6 "My dearest one, it is not proper for men to be without names. There was a time when each man had a name of his own to distinguish him from all other men. So let us choose our names. I have read of a man who lived many thousands of years ago, and of all the names in these books, his is the one I wish to bear. He took the light of the gods and he brought it to men, and he taught men to be gods. And he suffered for his deed as all bearers of light must suffer. His name was Prometheus." 12.7 "It shall be your name," said the Golden One. 12.8 "And I have read of a goddess," I said, "who was the mother of the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let this be your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother of a new kind of gods." 12.9 "It shall be my name," said the Golden One. 12.10 Now I look ahead. My future is clear before me. The Saint of the pyre had seen the future when he chose me as his heir, as the heir of all the saints and all the martyrs who came before him and who died for the same cause, for the same word, no matter what name they gave to their cause and their truth. 12.11 I shall live here, in my own house. I shall take my food from the earth by the toil of my own hands. I shall learn many secrets from my books. Through the years ahead, I shall rebuild the achievements of the past, and open the way to carry them further, the achievements which are open to me, but closed forever to my brothers, for their minds are shackled to the weakest and dullest ones among them. 12.12 I have learned that my power of the sky was known to men long ago; they called it Electricity. It was the power that moved their greatest inventions. It lit this house with light which came from those globes of glass on the walls. I have found the engine which produced this light. I shall learn how to repair it and how to make it work again. I shall learn how to use the wires which carry this power. Then I shall build a barrier of wires around my home, and across the paths which lead to my home; a barrier light as a cobweb, more impassable than a wall of granite; a barrier my brothers will never be able to cross. For they have nothing to fight me with, save the brute force of their numbers. I have my mind. 12.13[*] Then here, on this mountaintop, with the world below me and nothing above me but the sun, I shall live my own truth. Gaea is pregnant with my child. Our son will be raised as a man. He will be taught to say "I" and to bear the pride of it. He will be taught to walk straight and on his own feet. He will be taught reverence for his own spirit. 12.14 When I shall have read all the books and learned my new way, when my home will be ready and my earth tilled, I shall steal one day, for the last time, into the cursed City of my birth. I shall call to me my friend who has no name save International 4-8818, and all those like him, Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without reason, and Solidarity 9-6347 who calls for help in the night, and a few others. I shall call to me all the men and the women whose spirit has not been killed within them and who suffer under the yoke of their brothers. They will follow me and I shall lead them to my fortress. And here, in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my chosen friends, my fellow-builders, shall write the first chapter in the new history of man. 12.15 These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else. 12.16 At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of the freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled. 12.17[*] But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning. 12.18 What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word "We." 12.19 When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam had come from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages, from the depth of some one spirit, such spirit as existed but for its own sake. Those men who survived -- those eager to obey, eager to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate them -- those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men -- men with nothing to offer save their great numbers -- lose the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, all the things they had not created and could never keep. Perhaps, later, some men had been born with the mind and the courage to recover these things which were lost; perhaps these men came before the Councils of Scholars. They were answered as I have been answered -- and for the same reasons. 12.20 But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word "I," could give it up and not know what they lost. But such has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them. 12.21 Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word. What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest and in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they, these few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished with their banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for they knew. To them, I send my salute across the centuries, and my pity. 12.22 Theirs is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men. 12.23 Here, on this mountain, I and my sons and my chosen friends shall build our new land and our fort. And it will become as the heart of the earth, lost and hidden at first, but beating, beating louder each day. And word of it will reach every corner of the earth. And the roads of the world will become as veins which will carry the best of the world's blood to my threshold. And all my brothers, and the Councils of my brothers, will hear of it, but they will be impotent against me. And the day will come when I shall break all the chains of the earth, and raze the cities of the enslaved, and my home will become the capital of a world where each man will be free to exist for his own sake. 12.24 For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his life. For his honor. 12.25 And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. 12.26 The sacred word:

EGO

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That is a very humano-centric view. Long after humankind is extinct, the Earth will endure. We were not Here at the beginning nor shall we be Here at the end. In the scale of Cosmic time and process the human race is a temporary blip. Enjoy your blipitude while you have the time to do so. But time is fleeting. The planet has about 1.5 billion years before an ever warming sun boils off the oceans. In about 5 billion years the dying sun will expand and eat her 4 rocky children.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Baal - In the span of a few lifetimes, humanity has gone from horseback to space shuttles, from telegraphs to smart phones. Do you concede the possibility that over the next 1.5 billion years we could potentially change the course that has been set for us by our environment?

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Not really addressing RB's comments, I'd like to note the sun is inexorably getting hotter and in a couple of hundred million years, if so, complex life will cease to exist on this planet. Perhaps in half that time the continents will come together in such a way to cause desert on most land surface. The context of human being is moving much faster, however, than geologic time. Technological change is a growth industry and that growth is exponential. Everyone alive is essentially Cro-Magnon Man. In a thousand years man will still be here but he won't be that thanks to continuing self-evolvement.

--Brant

we missed the boat, folks; it leaves after we leave

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Baal - In the span of a few lifetimes, humanity has gone from horseback to space shuttles, from telegraphs to smart phones. Do you concede the possibility that over the next 1.5 billion years we could potentially change the course that has been set for us by our environment?

This species will not have 1.5 billion years on Earth. As a matter of fact biological species do not have a tremendously long shelf-life.; At best we could last in the tens of millions of years. More likely we will be extinct before that. There are two chances that humanity will get of this planet alive; slim and none.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Baal - In the span of a few lifetimes, humanity has gone from horseback to space shuttles, from telegraphs to smart phones. Do you concede the possibility that over the next 1.5 billion years we could potentially change the course that has been set for us by our environment?

This species will not have 1.5 billion years on Earth. As a matter of fact biological species do not have a tremendously long shelf-life.; At best we could last in the tens of millions of years. More likely we will be extinct before that. There are two chances that humanity will get of this planet alive; slim and none.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Because everything that could be invented has been invented?

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Baal - In the span of a few lifetimes, humanity has gone from horseback to space shuttles, from telegraphs to smart phones. Do you concede the possibility that over the next 1.5 billion years we could potentially change the course that has been set for us by our environment?

This species will not have 1.5 billion years on Earth. As a matter of fact biological species do not have a tremendously long shelf-life.; At best we could last in the tens of millions of years. More likely we will be extinct before that. There are two chances that humanity will get of this planet alive; slim and none.

Ba'al Chatzaf

There has never been a species on this planet that is anything like humanity. We already have the capacity to shape our planet and control our future to a large degree. I see no reason why, thousands or millions of years from now, we may not be able to shape our solar system. The simple fact is we just don't know what the future holds.

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Even if we made it that long, the sun will dwarf, so unless we are planet travelers we nor the Earth will exist if the sun dwarfing theory is true. Species throughout time usually go extinct. This reminds me of the EPA stopping progress over a Salamander or other endangered animal that is almost extinct. Figure if the species is that rare they would place it in a zoo to conserve it. I would think they would be better taken care of, and not hinder progress. Interesting topic we have started though.

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Baal - In the span of a few lifetimes, humanity has gone from horseback to space shuttles, from telegraphs to smart phones. Do you concede the possibility that over the next 1.5 billion years we could potentially change the course that has been set for us by our environment?

This species will not have 1.5 billion years on Earth. As a matter of fact biological species do not have a tremendously long shelf-life.; At best we could last in the tens of millions of years. More likely we will be extinct before that. There are two chances that humanity will get of this planet alive; slim and none.

Ba'al Chatzaf

There has never been a species on this planet that is anything like humanity. We already have the capacity to shape our planet and control our future to a large degree. I see no reason why, thousands or millions of years from now, we may not be able to shape our solar system. The simple fact is we just don't know what the future holds.

Look. The dinosaurs got to the moon before us. Their artifacts are all over the place up there*. Look what happened to them.

--Brant

*it's been repressed by the government

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Even if we made it that long, the sun will dwarf, so unless we are planet travelers we nor the Earth will exist if the sun dwarfing theory is true. Species throughout time usually go extinct. This reminds me of the EPA stopping progress over a Salamander or other endangered animal that is almost extinct. Figure if the species is that rare they would place it in a zoo to conserve it. I would think they would be better taken care of, and not hinder progress. Interesting topic we have started though.

Before the sun becomes a white dwarf it will become a red giant expand out as far as the orbit of Mars. The rocky planets will be vaporized.

Any living things that are still on the rocks will perish. The human race will have perished long before this stage is reached. Once the sun consumes its hydrogen it will start to fuse helium and this will produce much higher temperatures. The oceans on Earth will evaporate away. That means any mammalian life at that point is doomed.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Even if we made it that long, the sun will dwarf, so unless we are planet travelers we nor the Earth will exist if the sun dwarfing theory is true. Species throughout time usually go extinct. This reminds me of the EPA stopping progress over a Salamander or other endangered animal that is almost extinct. Figure if the species is that rare they would place it in a zoo to conserve it. I would think they would be better taken care of, and not hinder progress. Interesting topic we have started though.

Before the sun becomes a white dwarf it will become a red giant expand out as far as the orbit of Mars. The rocky planets will be vaporized.

Any living things that are still on the rocks will perish. The human race will have perished long before this stage is reached. Once the sun consumes its hydrogen it will start to fuse helium and this will produce much higher temperatures. The oceans on Earth will evaporate away. That means any mammalian life at that point is doomed.

Ba'al Chatzaf

What is the point? Human life is not worth living? Nothing is worth anything because it won't last billions of years? Is that why you need to ride your bicycle 20 miles each day to avoid being depressed?

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Before the sun becomes a white dwarf it will become a red giant expand out as far as the orbit of Mars. The rocky planets will be vaporized.

Any living things that are still on the rocks will perish. The human race will have perished long before this stage is reached. Once the sun consumes its hydrogen it will start to fuse helium and this will produce much higher temperatures. The oceans on Earth will evaporate away. That means any mammalian life at that point is doomed.

What evidence do you have in support of this prophecy of doom? We are notoriously bad at making even short-term predictions. Few, if any, from a century ago could conceive of something like the internet or modern commercial flight. How can you say with certainty that the distant future of our species will keel over and die without anything to say about the matter? This is religion masquerading as wisdom, or worse, science.

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Before the sun becomes a white dwarf it will become a red giant expand out as far as the orbit of Mars. The rocky planets will be vaporized.

Any living things that are still on the rocks will perish. The human race will have perished long before this stage is reached. Once the sun consumes its hydrogen it will start to fuse helium and this will produce much higher temperatures. The oceans on Earth will evaporate away. That means any mammalian life at that point is doomed.

What evidence do you have in support of this prophecy of doom? We are notoriously bad at making even short-term predictions. Few, if any, from a century ago could conceive of something like the internet or modern commercial flight. How can you say with certainty that the distant future of our species will keel over and die without anything to say about the matter? This is religion masquerading as wisdom, or worse, science.

How about all of nuclear physics for the past 70 years for a starter. The physical theories on which these predictions are based have been massively corroborated by measurement and experimentation. Also mainline stars like our Sun have been observed in various stages of of dying. This is not eco phreak alarmism. It is solid nuclear physics and astronomy. We are doomed. Live with it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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How about all of nuclear physics for the past 70 years for a starter. The physical theories on which these predictions are based have been massively corroborated by measurement and experimentation. Also mainline stars like our Sun have been observed in various stages of of dying. This is not eco phreak alarmism. It is solid nuclear physics and astronomy. We are doomed. Live with it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

But on what basis can you claim that humanity has no chance of altering this future scenario? It seems entirely plausible to me that technology could advance to the point where we could prevent any or all of the above from occurring as set in motion by our natural environment. How can you claim that we have no chance of preventing our sun from dying with any more degree of certainty than someone who claimed that man would never leave the earth a century or two ago? Why do you believe it impossible that humanity will colonize other planets and solar systems over this time period?

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The only conceivable thing that might be done by intelligent beings tens of millions of years from now to save the Earth from an over-heating sun--I'm not talking about its death dance 4 billion years in the future--is to put up some kind of filtering shield. The physics are not to be stopped and if we had such power be sure someone would really fuck things up and push the wrong button at the wrong time. (Project X exponentially multiplied.)

Modern man just got here and already has big, bad bombs. What he has to worry about aside from the killer asteroid or comet is not the nuclear reactor that is the sun, but himself.

--Brant

the environmentalists are more right than they know though mostly they fight the wrong battles for the wrong reasons--ironically, we need them

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We need over one-hundred million years for the age of mammals to match the age of the dinosaurs, two-hundred million for the age of man to do the same. (This discussion needs some serious perspective.) We can hardly imagine the human world of the next thousand years. A thousand years ago no one could imagine today, but now we have the added fillip of not knowing what human beings will even be like inside and out. What we should know is we might have the ability in the next few hundred years to transmogrify humanity.

--Brant

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We need over one-hundred million years for the age of mammals to match the age of the dinosaurs, two-hundred million for the age of man to do the same. (This discussion needs some serious perspective.) We can hardly imagine the human world of the next thousand years. A thousand years ago no one could imagine today, but now we have the added fillip of not knowing what human beings will even be like inside and out. What we should know is we might have the ability in the next few hundred years to transmogrify humanity.

--Brant

The result of that is Not Us.

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We need over one-hundred million years for the age of mammals to match the age of the dinosaurs, two-hundred million for the age of man to do the same. (This discussion needs some serious perspective.) We can hardly imagine the human world of the next thousand years. A thousand years ago no one could imagine today, but now we have the added fillip of not knowing what human beings will even be like inside and out. What we should know is we might have the ability in the next few hundred years to transmogrify humanity.

--Brant

The result of that is Not Us.

Sin loi!

--Brant

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