Patrick Moore dies

[amateur51]

I once had to visit the department of Astronomy at Cambridge, but resisted the temptation to do this

"no, don't tell me"
"hang on a minute"
"I know..................... Aquarius ? " (in a triumphant tone of voice)

[ahinton]

Nevertheless, the issue of prejudices is germane to the subject of discussion, for all we know informing some of the posts that won't have any of it! It's good to have it aired given its prevalence on these threads!

Fwiw I don't believe warlike tendencies to be characteristic of young men as a whole; our civilisations, leavened on the judaeo-christian ethic of human separation, intra-, inter-personal, and from "lower orders" of the evolutionary chain, concomitant with language's way of dividing into categories, coupled with brutalising circumstances and upbringings, in part in consequence, not to mention an economic system success-predicated on change for profit's sake being ascribed to the natural order of things, and the associated mind-**** should be enough to make the sanest and wisest among us wonder how any of us survive mentally intact. The drugs of work for work's sake, mass consumer conformism, nationalism, religious literalness, celebrity worship as god or inadequate parenting substitutes do, of course, "help".

Indeed - for some, but not for me. Writing music doesn't, at all; I'll carry on doing it, though...

[Lateralthinking1]

Nevertheless, the issue of prejudices is germane to the subject of discussion, for all we know informing some of the posts that won't have any of it! It's good to have it aired given its prevalence on these threads!

Fwiw I don't believe warlike tendencies to be characteristic of young men as a whole; our civilisations, leavened on the judaeo-christian ethic of human separation, intra-, inter-personal, and from "lower orders" of the evolutionary chain, concomitant with language's way of dividing into categories, coupled with brutalising circumstances and upbringings, in part in consequence, not to mention an economic system success-predicated on change for profit's sake being ascribed to the natural order of things, and the associated mind-**** should be enough to make the sanest and wisest among us wonder how any of us survive mentally intact. The drugs of work for work's sake, mass consumer conformism, nationalism, religious literalness, celebrity worship as god or inadequate parenting substitutes do, of course, "help".

I largely agree. Human characteristics are all about economic and social contexts. Incidentally, my post might have implied that warlike women do not exist. I do not believe that. They would have to be outside a so-called system for that to be the case.