Humanity.
I realise that's a bit of a big subject to be trying to cover, but I'm going to give it a crack anyway. I've just spent last night in the pub with a bunch of people younger than me, and their enthusiasm was a depressing foil for my own miserable cynicism. I've just posted this to my ever-so-typical 'blog' thing, but I'm going to rewrite it here for you lovely people, as it seems very appropriate. That and it's quarter past 7 in the morning, I'm now stone cold sober and I still can't sleep.

I hate people younger than me. They have absolutely no idea how to interact in a social setting. Or, rather, they do, and they do it far too fucking well, which is the crux of the issue. I was happy spending a quiet evening in the pub yesterday watching the football, only for one of my regular drinking companions to bring along his 'mate from work', a curious entity who is almost guaranteed to be some sort of cunt. This 'mate from work' swiftly found his 'mates from college' and proceeded to get them all drinking with us as some sort of scheme to him chatting one of them up. He worked his short-arsed effeminate charm and copped off with her while I missed most of the football and the closest I got to anything all evening was a very pretty woman telling me I have a Jewish nose, which I'm not sure is either a back-handed compliment or a precursor to genocide.

Then someone was sick on a table and it was all over.

It may have dawned on people who regularly interact with me that I don't like people very much. Drinking and football, yes, but people tend to rile me up a bit. I wouldn't disagree with that assumption, but I have to admit that I reserve a special, gilt-edged place of carefully-selected loathing for this precocious little shit and the sheer joy in the world view that is "People around the world are getting killed. We should end the violence and strive for world peace".

Here's the thing: There won't ever be world peace, because people enjoy being shits to each other. Like it or not, there will always, always be some cunt wanting to bomb some other cunt for some stupid cunty reason. It has been going on since the first time one primordial hunter-gatherer whacked another primordial hunter-gatherer around the head with a bone for stealing his fire, and so it has progressed down the ages through rocks, spears, crossbows, trebuchets, flintlocks, muskets, cannons, machine guns, howitzers, tanks and tactical smart bombs. Deep down, on the same prehistoric level that tells us who to fuck and when to shit, there is something that loathes all other human life, because, well, they might steal our mate, or our food source, or might run faster than us next time the sabre-toothed tiger popped in for another round of toast and spleen. When resources are plentiful we can mostly behave ourselves, but we still fight over religion, we fight over territory, and we'll even fight wars over football matches if we really run short of things to have a scrap about. When resources aren't, like with oil at the moment, we fight over every last drop until it all runs out, and then we'll probably fight over who wasted the most.

See, this is the reason humans are the dominant species and not guinea pigs - guinea pigs are happy to live in the jungle making little burrows with their tiny front paws and eating flowers with their giant heads, and they squeak and they jump and they're happy little bundles of fluff and wonder, and then a snake eats them. We're ugly sinewy polluting little shits, but snakes don't eat us, because we've got knives, and we'd kill the fuckers. Then we'd go back to killing each other, probably now using the snake as some sort of makeshift flail to beat back the enemy until he goes right ahead and invents the Glock semi-automatic and shoots us in the tits. I'm not saying it's good, I'm just saying that it Never. Fucking. Ends. The only way you could stop war, stop shootings, stop stabbings, etc is if you took everyone's arms off at the shoulder, and even then there'd only be a lull in the fighting long enough for one side to work out how to fire a machine gun with your tongue or beat a man to death with your eyebrows.

This goes all the way from continent fighting continent, right the way down to two blokes having a punch-up in a pub. It will go right up to planet fighting planet if we ever find anyone out there ready to have a barney with us. It's just in our nature. It's what we're good at. Some precocious little cock organizing a few thousand people on YouTube to declare that world peace might just be a good idea means absolutely shit-all, because everybody wants world peace on their own fucking terms. There are people out there who will only accept world peace when we've all converted to their particular brand of Islam, there are people out there who will only accept world peace if we all just stop eating meat, there are people out there that will only accept world peace when we're all fundamentalist Mormons living fifteen to a room in Salt Lake City, and there are people out there that just won't accept world peace at all. As great an idea as it is in theory, the first country that lays down it's arms in a declaration of world peace will promptly be invaded by every other country on the planet, will probably get it's population killed for being so stupid, and will deserve it for being the first country to ever be conquered by Vanuatu. It might be a nice concept, but like many nice concepts, it is one that is ultimately, forever, doomed to fail.

Admittedly the boy is 16, so he probably doesn't realise this. Also, all my concerns at the fact that when I was 16 all I could think about was where I could sneak off to have my next wank rather than trying to organize world peace can be left for another post. At 16, you really don't have the mental faculties to rationalise the idea that the only reason we're not all still cavemen clutching rocks and leading charges at the next tribe over is because we've made the tribes bigger and now call them countries, or religions, or football teams, and have delegated the charging and the killing to what we now like to call 'armies'. At that age, world peace still seems like an attainable in-our-lifetime goal.

In many ways, I'm jealous. In many other ways, this entire post is about that jealousy. Jealousy of the teenager in the pub, for whom everything is attainable and nothing is impossible. For whom life is but a constant roundabout of the proverbial wine, women and song, where the sun is always shining and there is no sign of the great yawning chasm that is the daily grind, the Black Dog that can and will slowly consume us all. Jealousy, too, of Trevor Dougherty, the boy from the Youtube story, for whom the same thing applies on a much larger scale. For whom the impossible dream of world peace can be attained if enough people can just see that we don't need to kill each other.

For whom the sad but inescapable truth hasn't yet dawned: We don't need to, we just seem to really fucking like to.

We're all bastards.
( Shegetz Chris Kamara's comedy moustache, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 7:15, 14 replies)

Win
*Click*

And if this isn't in the newsletter I'll kick your head in.
( ogwen69 has returned from Reddit, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 7:33, closed)

Depressingly Accurate
In the words of limp bizkit:

"Its a fucked up world, its a fucked up place, everyone is judged by their fucked up face"

If you think enough about the world it really makes you wonder if its all worth it, and it might be easier to just jump off a damn bridge.

But I like WoW too much.. :P
(ldwater otherwise known as a 'jive turkey', Mon 30 Jun 2008, 9:08, closed)

I started a reply earlier
but it got too long and I felt it deserved its own space. Although it's sorta related and similarly heavy.

Great post.
( morrybyte made a subtle namechange at, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 9:35, closed)

It's OK, you can console yourself...
...with the simple and inevitable fact that their enthusiasm will be crushed under the weight of the tedium of daily existence while their optimism will be chipped away inexorably by the steady encroaching of the depressing truths you describe, until they are either numbed into the sort of mindless drone that our society needs in order to grind on, or they kill themselves.

Yay!
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 9:41, closed)

*Click*
A+
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 10:07, closed)

I think that instead of being a worldly wise figure with a well-rounded adult view of the world
you come across as a churlish depressed teenager yourself.

"the first country that lays down it's arms in a declaration of world peace will promptly be invaded by every other country on the planet, will probably get it's population killed for being so stupid, and will deserve it for being the first country to ever be conquered by Vanuatu."

There are a number of countries with no standing armies.

The idea of world peace may be a pipe dream right now but the point is, rather obviously, that campaigning for world peace helps reduce the likelihood of world war. It was the constant anti-war campaigning, for example, that helped end the Vietnam conflict.

Cynical, defeatist attitudes just make you a pathetic doormat for the next self-serving politician.

I'd rather be an idealist than a doormat.

And the idea that the human race owes it's dominance to warfare is a ridiculous over-simplification. It owes it's dominance to tool use and the increased brain power that came with it. After that humans are probably best served by their ability to trade - you know, the thing that you can only really do successfully in peacetime.

I fucking hate the 'ooo look at me I'm so wise and cynical' attitude that seems to pervade the western world. I bet your attitude would chance somewhat were you to be caught up in a real war.
( chenobble rocking his explorer beard on, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 10:10, closed)

Yeah,
I get annoyed when I've gone to the pub for a quiet pint - and a book in my case rather than footy - and some insensitive bastard thinks I want to chat to them.

I tend to put my iPod on, though I'm thinking of getting a t-shirt printed with "Whatever you've got to say - I don't give a fuck, and I don't like you, so sod off. Thanks" on it.

...that was the point wasn't it?
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 10:47, closed)

@Che
Make it and I will buy that t-shirt.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 10:55, closed)

hope
Monday’s are always a disappointment but reading Shegetz’s thoughts regarding humanity was a particular low point – what’s even more disappointing is so many here supported his position. I’d like to reply if I may…

The reason we don’t get 'eaten by snakes' is not simply down to having knives, it is because we have the brains to outwit them, learn from our experience and crucially inform others that snakes might be dangerous.

The size of our brain has been the greatest asset for humans it has also been responsible for some of out worst traits - greed, jealousy, bigotry, racism. Granted a troupe of chimps will display similar characteristics but they don’t posses the big bulbous noggin required to wage their bad boy attitude worldwide. These are also traits that infants are generally free of, but they quickly learn by mimicking what they see around them.

The good news is that even miserable cynics like Shegetz realise that the desire to live in peace is something that is at least in theory a possibility; it would seem however our supposedly superior brains simply haven't evolved sufficiently to allow us to do so.

But there is hope. It will not be wars or bullets that destroy mankind, it will be the effects of continuing to shit in our own nest. It will be this that eventually brings about a catastrophic global cull of humans, which in all reality is our only hope of survival.

Hopefully the few that remain will have the brains to realise how close we became to making ourselves extinct, learn adapt and evolve from there.

But the late Bill Hicks put it far more eloquently than I…

“I had a vision of a way we could have no enemies ever again, if you’re interested in this. Anybody interested in hearing this? It’s kind of an interesting theory, and all we have to do is one decisive act and we can rid the world of all our enemies at once. Here’s what we do. You know all that money we spend on nuclear weapons and defence every year, trillions of dollars? Instead, if we spent that money feeding and clothing the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one being excluded, not one, we could as one race explore outer space together in peace, for ever.”
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 10:56, closed)

I'm reminded of a Dilbert cartoon
wherein Dogbert remarks how wonderful it would be if everyone laid down their weapons and renounced violence once and for all...

..because then he could conquer the whole planet with a butterknife.
(Axeman Jim, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 12:44, closed)

@chenobble

Riposte Alert, Sound the Klaxons!

"There are a number of countries with no standing armies."

A quick perusal of the Wikipedia list of countries without armed forces (admittedly hardly a fantastic source) reveals that the only countries without a defence force are a smattering of islands largely the responsibility of the United States, Andorra, which is protected by the French and the Spanish because it's full of French and Spanish people, and Liechtenstein, which has so few natural resources that the reason they don't have an army is because they can't afford one, making them not a great candidate for invasion.

"The idea of world peace may be a pipe dream right now but the point is, rather obviously, that campaigning for world peace helps reduce the likelihood of world war. It was the constant anti-war campaigning, for example, that helped end the Vietnam conflict."

Politicians shat themselves the first time people started protesting against Vietnam, because it had never happened before. Now the politicians have learned that, for all our shouting and screaming, we generally do bugger-all when it comes to actually getting rid of them. They are well aware of this, which is why records were smashed and then smashed again in the numbers involved in the protests against our military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet we're still there. Personally I didn't protest against the war, because frankly I didn't care, but millions of people did and the government roundly ignored them. Don't even get me started on the hundreds if not thousands of minority groups with guns and bombs that definitely don't give a toss about protests.

"Cynical, defeatist attitudes just make you a pathetic doormat for the next self-serving politician. I'd rather be an idealist than a doormat."

Then you are going to have your ideals jumped up and down on by everyone, at every turn, forever. The entire point of my post was that I am jealous of people who are still young enough not to have learned that your ideals do not matter, and still think they, personally, can change the world for the better.

"And the idea that the human race owes it's dominance to warfare is a ridiculous over-simplification. It owes it's dominance to tool use and the increased brain power that came with it."

Tools like rocks, spears, crossbows, trebuchets, flintlocks, muskets, cannons, machine guns, howitzers, tanks and tactical smart bombs? You are right, the human race does owe it's dominance to tool use, but a large amount of that tool use is, was and always will be for killing things. We're good at it, it's what we do, and it's the reason why the human race, while not particularly 'built' for being a dominant species, have managed to get there and stay there - because we will take our tools and we will use them to kill anything that threatens that dominance. The downside is we also use them on each other at a phenomenal rate.

"After that humans are probably best served by their ability to trade - you know, the thing that you can only really do successfully in peacetime."

My point was not that there will always be conflict between everyone - in fact I specifically said there wasn't - but the fact remains that if you think there is a way of making everyone on the planet happy enough for there to never, ever, be another war, you are deluded, because there's plenty of people out there who's ideals clash horribly with one another (fundamentalist Islam and revisionist Zionism for one, I'll let you think of some others).

"I fucking hate the 'ooo look at me I'm so wise and cynical' attitude that seems to pervade the western world. I bet your attitude would chance somewhat were you to be caught up in a real war."

I'm not saying war's great, I'm saying that it's inevitable. If one erupted outside it would just prove my point. Churlish teenager? No, even if I was apparently compared with Limp Bizkit. Depressed? I'm too busy to be depressed about it, same as I'm too busy to think I can change the world.

Melancholy, because I remember when I wasn't, and life for me was also wine, women and song? That'd be about right.
( Shegetz Chris Kamara's comedy moustache, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 13:28, closed)

Brings to mind
this quote from Homer (the ancient dude, not the Simpson)

Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing sooner than war.
(Impuritan, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 14:52, closed)

I was going to post an intellectual reply...
but I'm still giggling at the idea of beating another man to death with my eyebrows!
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 15:31, closed)

ok...
Standing armies: True, most of them are small and relatively insignificant, but thanks to the peace treaties they've formed with their neighbours they don't have to worry about being invaded. You'll notice that this is not something that's common to all human history but something that's come about with modern diplomatic processes.

Protest: I think both Bush's and Blair's popularity demonstrate what happens when politicians ignore popular opinion. Protest is a good political tool to help sway public opinion, it might not stop the polital act but it can change what they do in the future. Bush has the lowest popularity rating of any incumberent president. He didn't get that by people sitting back and letting him get away with it.

Idealism: I like the way you think it's some sort of black and white system - either some sort of perfect idealist utopia or a dark world of corrupt political machinations when actually it's somewhere in between. The reason it's somewhere in between is because when people do uncaring, nasty things there are people willing to pull them up on it rather than lie down and let them do it. You said yourself that mankind became dominant by fighting, why did you stop?

Tools: We do use tools to kill things such as predators - it was a sensible precaution to protect the early tribes. Killing predators and hunting is a very different thing to war, and generally speaking, killing other members of the same species is not a good recipe for long-term species dominance.

Clash-of-ideals: Absolutely there are people with very different ideals, but it wasn't so long ago that most countries refused to accept members of non-state religions to practice their faith and atheists were jailed. Now we have fairly peaceful co-existence in quite a few parts of the world - it's called progress.

Too busy: You dismiss the people who are fighting the good fight as teenage idealists but I'd like to see you dismiss the great work of people like Amnesty and the many other charities, pressure groups, political parties and educational establishments as hopeless. People who've gone through childish idealism, through teenage cynicism and out the other side to a more rounded, long-term viewpoint - one person can't save the world tomorrow, but a lot of people making their voices heard can move the world in the right direction, one step at a time. And that seems like something worth fighting for, however busy you are.

That sounds like a far more grown-up viewpoint to me.
( chenobble rocking his explorer beard on, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 17:02, closed)