Sandwiches and Mortality

[hommedeterre]

Last summer I fell in love with the concept of the (technological) Singularity and transhumanism I read about in Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity Is Near". I'm still hoping for it to come true. Extending my lifespan and abilities would be desirable. Maybe immortality is a bit much, but I fused my, at the time, concerns with the environment in the

Comments

[bassdrumdreams]

Great post! I'll have to look at this singularity subject of which you speak. Sounds interesting!

Thinking about the distant future seems to make everything either really good or depressingly pointless. The same with mortality.

[myprettycabinet]

I'm terrified of death. Always have been. When I was five I only ate eggs and drank tap water for a month because I was convinced that was the only way to avoid food poisoning.

And, I like your honesty. I feel the same way, that life is pointless without obtaining fame. It's like verification, or validation. I think of people married with kids at 23 in Idaho or wherever and I honestly can't understand why they don't want more. I know it's very asshole-ish of me, but I can't help it.

[itsalljustaride]

MV Tuscan sammiches are awesome.

three questions

[rksdf]

what is a tuscan sandwich, and what is martha's vineyard (as I assume they don't fly sandwiches in from the island off the coast of Massachusetts)? And why do you think [something related to the sandwich] will soon be impossible?

/B/

three answers

[hommedeterre]

1. A Tuscan sandwich seems to have differing ingredients. What I'm accustomed to has crustyish sun-dried tomato bread with mozzarella cheese, red pepper, red onion, garlic, lettuce and...not sure. I just focus on that stuff I guess.
2. Martha's, as it's called for short, is a great deli/beer-liquor store in Grand Rapids. That would be great if their sandwiches were flown in though.
3. I'm concerned about a coming energy crisis and how it will relate to food production and transportation.

Re: three answers

[rksdf]

Energy crisis! It will be interesting times, potentially scary. Sandwiches flown in from Marhtha's vineyard would probably be soggy or un-fresh when they arrived, and so it's better to get it made locally at your Martha's vineyard, I should think. Good luck with those other things. And as much as the rest of the world does for sustainability (i.e. if we all took our heads just the tiniest bit out of our asses and stopped consuming quite so much), I think we're still fucked until China collapses. Its collapse is inevitable and will occur soon, but perhaps not soon enough to counteract some of the negative effects of their (putting it mildly) substantial consumption of natural resources.

/B/

[opal_antlers]

What kind of camera are you looking for? Digital? New? Because I have an old camera that I don't use anymore that just uses film, but I was going to give it to the salvation army, but you could just have it. It comes with zoom lenses and filters and stuff. I think its probably a pretty top notch camera. Its kind of bulky, though. Its an oldie

[itsalljustaride]

"The happiest country in the world is some third world country in Indonesia or some place, but the reason for that was because it had the strongest sense of community and family."

Are you thinking of Bhutan (between China and India)? They are famous for their use of the "happiness index" rather than using traditional models of growth like GDP, etc. Unfortunately, while that's great in theory, Bhutan also has this bad habit of repressing ethnic Nepalis along with some other things that make one say, "hmmmmm".

[opal_antlers]

"The tiny nation of Vanuatu, one of the "happy isles of Oceania", has topped this new index by the UK-based New Economics Foundation (NEF) aimed to measure the environmental efficiency of global progress with its "Happy Planet Index" report."

It might have been this country. There are also a lot of sites that claim Denmark is the happiest country. I'm not sure which country it was.