Toms "nothing special about 2012"comment
steve
lot of people there is. this was indeed a fascinating period of history,
for america and europe where very deep into the industrial age, and the
inventions seemed to be coming fast and furious..yet as people they
seemed tobe trying to cope with the new changes and yet maintain some of
the victorian traits that made these people so special..there seemed to
be at the time nothing we couldnt do..and many people were coming to
america in search of that dream, and in many cases giving up all they
had to have that chance. my point simply comes down to this, this wasnt
"just another ship that sank" as you like to stte it tom, but it was the
marvel of its field for its time.and on that maiden voyage, there were
many of our relatives, many people to whom we were distantly related
to, on that ship, filled with excitement at the possibilty of coming to
america, and thrilled with the idea of being on the worlds marvel of
ships. so when the seemingly unthinkable happened, a sudden loss came to
us all..not just the loss of lifes, but the loss of a sense of
innocence. i think that is what you fail to see..this was about our
fathers and mothers, grandparents, in some cases great grandparents, and
the loss of an age of innocence which i dont think we ever, even
partially recovered..so yes, when 2012 rolls around, it will have far
more impact than just another date..you may feel it to be just another
date, tom, but, i wonder of you have any heart at all when you say
things like that
Tom Pappas
> lot of people there is.
I agree completely. A lot of people also celebrate the "New Year" each trip
around the sun, too. But the moment that marks the end of one year and the
beginning of the next is a totally arbitrary choice. It might as well take
place on August 19. If New Year's Day coincided with some astronomical
event, such as the Winter solstice, it might make a little more sense. But
why do we commemorate the day when the Earth reaches the same point in its
orbit when something happened on a previous rotation?
And the centennial anniversary of any event still derives most of its
significance from the fact that we chose the number of fingers we have as
the base of our numbering system. If we had, say, four fingers on each hand,
we would have celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Titanic tragedy 36
years earlier. Some people just seem to like round numbers.
this was indeed a fascinating period of history,
> for america and europe where very deep into the industrial age, and the
> inventions seemed to be coming fast and furious..yet as people they
> seemed tobe trying to cope with the new changes and yet maintain some of
> the victorian traits that made these people so special..there seemed to
> be at the time nothing we couldnt do..and many people were coming to
> america in search of that dream, and in many cases giving up all they
> had to have that chance. my point simply comes down to this, this wasnt
> "just another ship that sank" as you like to stte it tom, but it was the
> marvel of its field for its time.and on that maiden voyage, there were
> many of our relatives, many people to whom we were distantly related
> to, on that ship, filled with excitement at the possibilty of coming to
> america, and thrilled with the idea of being on the worlds marvel of
> ships.
Titanic was a "marvel", but the Great Eastern was much more important in the
history of steam navigation. Titanic was no more than the next size/luxury
step after its predecessors in much the same way that the 777 succeded the
767 - it was a variation on a theme. And Titanic's size doesn't make her
unique anyway, because at no time in history has there NOT been a "largest
ship in the world." Lusitania and Mauretania were easily her equal in
luxury, and could beat her cross-Atlantic times by a day.
And every ship that sank between the 16th century and the present day on its
way to America was carrying immigrants who had bet everything on the outcome
of the voyage. I think you're responding to the production values in a
movie, not the tragedy of history. If you really had that much empathy, then
you would observe the anniversary of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
every year.
so when the seemingly unthinkable happened, a sudden loss came to
> us all..not just the loss of lifes, but the loss of a sense of
> innocence. i think that is what you fail to see..this was about our
> fathers and mothers, grandparents, in some cases great grandparents, and
> the loss of an age of innocence which i dont think we ever, even
> partially recovered..so yes, when 2012 rolls around, it will have far
> more impact than just another date..you may feel it to be just another
> date, tom, but, i wonder of you have any heart at all when you say
> things like that
There was no innocence in the 19th Century. It was one of the most
rapacious, exploitive periods in man's history. It began with
institutionalized slavery in much of the world and ended with the Robber
Barons. Read about the Imperialism practiced by the European powers in its
colonies around the world and talk about innocence. Find out about John D.
Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie hiring private armies to kill their own
workers. It is no accident that labor unions and communism arose about the
same time, and out of the same conditions.
You have no way of estimating how much heart I have.
Kimberly Dickson
related
This is totally true. Just had to comment because this one really good
friend of mine's great-grandma was going to sail on the Titanic. He told me
that she couldn't make it, though, but I don't remember why.
Kim
steve
another..thank you for sharing that
Tom Pappas
> related
> > to, on that ship.
Speaking of distantly related...
Whether you accept the Genesis version or the Olduvai Gorge scenario,
everyone on this planet is related to every other.
I am related to everyone on this newsgroup ........ auggghhhh!
--
"But this script can't sink!"
"She is made of irony, sir. She can, and she will."
Corey Ann Doyle
>friend of mine's great-grandma was going to sail on the Titanic. He told me
>that she couldn't make it, though, but I don't remember why.
I have to back that up, my great aunt and her cousin (not quite sure what the
heck his "title" would be) were on the ship and perished....
It's like someone saying that the anniversary date of the bombing of Pearl
Harbor is irrelevant...
Corey Ann
Chewb...@aol.com
Collide With Destiny http://www.coreyann.com/titanic
Kate http://www.coreyann.com/kate
"His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular
interest to you..."~Rose
Kimberly Dickson
> Harbor is irrelevant...
For me, this is a very important part of my family history. My mom was born
the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Since my grandparents and my mom
are Japanese-Americans, they were forced from their home when my mom was
about 4 months old, and they had to re-locate to Colorado. The whole
incident affected my grandparents so much that my grandma never talked about
it, and my grandpa finally did about two years ago. Mom said that that was
the first time he's ever talked about it.
Kim
Dr Nancy's Sweetie
> maybe to you tom, there is nothing special about 2012, but to me and a
> lot of people there is.
The word "special" can mean different things. You seem to be using it to
mean "emotionally important", where others might use it to mean
"intrinsically out of the ordinary". But emotional import is not always
attached to things that are actually extraordinary. For example, 28 is
what mathematicians call a "perfect number"; but not many people get
all weepy about the 28th anniversary of something.
On the other side, many things are emotionally important even though they
aren't actually intrinsically extraordinary. One example here is the 100th
anniversary of things. But there's nothing magic about the number "100"
that makes it a special number. It's just that people like round numbers,
and divide long time spans into years. But those are just emotionally-
comforting preferences: they've got nothing to do with anything that
exists outside of us.
For example, Friday, 3 June 1994, was 30,000 days after the sinking of
Titanic. That's got FOUR zeros in it. Did you have some memorial of the
sinking on 3 June 1994? Sunday, 10 February 2008 is 5,000 weeks after
the sinking. Got any plans? Probably not.
Why not? Well, because those spans of days don't have any emotional
resonance: people form large quantities (of time, or volume, or power, or
objects, or whatever) into chunks, because it's easier to think about them
that way. Because we make chunks this way, we usually see 100 years as
being an important anniversary, and 30,000 days, or 5000 weeks, as not
particularly important.
This is why we celebrate birthdays instead of "1000 day" days, or "three
month" days, or other such numbers. We've gotten used to using years for
our large chunks. We pick 10- and 100- year chunks as important because we
like zeros -- they look neat. We may talk about "The Eighties", but there
was nothing magic about 1/1/1980 which usered in a new era, and nothing
magic about 1/1/1990 that ushered it out.%
--
% Note that these endpoints were picked because the year would be said
with "eighty" in it, not to insist on a "zero point" for a calendar.
--
If our ancestors had counted using only the fingers (that is, ignoring the
thumbs), we'd probably have a base-8 number system. Our decades would be
eight years long (though we'd represent the number using the digits "10"),
and our centuries would be sixty-four years long (being represented with
"100"). Some computer scientists are amused when their birthdays are
powers of two, because computers use a base-2 number system and so those
numbers have lots of zeros (for example, 32 is represented as "100000").
If the planet moved faster about the sun, what we call a "year" would be a
shorter period of time, and the 100th anniversary of the sinking would fall
a different number of seconds after it will. But it's not the number of
seconds we care about, or the span of time -- it's the number of *years*.
So yes: because of cultural influences like using a base-10 number system,
and because of what are apparently innate human tendencies to chunk large
amounts of data and prefer round numbers, many people feel an emotional
weight to the 100th anniversary of things that they don't feel to other
spans of time. But that doesn't mean there's anything *intrinsically*
extraordinary about a span of 876600 hours.
Mr Pappas's remark merely noted that we attach emotional importance to
numbers because of those cultural influences and preferences to chunking
and round numbers. Isn't it odd that one date is seen as important, and
another as not important, when there's not really any actual difference
between them except for a few zeros?
Darren F Provine ! kil...@copland.rowan.edu ! http://www.rowan.edu/~kilroy
"Maturity is reached the day we don't need to be lied to about anything."
-- Frank Yerby
steve
and not everything humans do is based on ryhme or reason..i think the
important thing to remember about marking the 100yr anniversary is,
while the people who were directly affected by the event live it and
observe im sure on an almos daily basis, the reason such dates as a 100
year anniversary are iportant, is that they manage to make those not
anywhere near s attatched reminded and educated to the events that
happened years ago..and say what you will about it, but any way you can
educate people who otherwise may not be aware is a good thing..education
and history play important aspects of who we are as people..respectfully
steve
Just...@webtv.net
just a date? How about your wedding anniversary? Dates mean a lot to
me. I always think about my loved ones on the anniversary of their
death. I celebrate birthdays and my anniversary.
Tom Pappas
news:27922-3A...@storefull-105.iap.bryant.webtv.net...
> Dates mean a lot to
> me. I always think about my loved ones on the anniversary of their
> death. I celebrate birthdays and my anniversary.
>
How nice for you.
DrJimmy
over the
anniversary of a ship sinking, one of which you knew no one aboard? Do you
cry every
January over the space shuttle and stop and kneel down every November 22nd?
My God, the people in this group are a little overboard....heh.....over this
Titanic..
DrJimmy
One is a sinking, that affected the familes of 2000 people, fine.
But comparing it to an event like Pearl Harbor day? To compare it to 5 years of
a War between
the US and Europe? You've got to be joking! No matter what, I doubt that most
people know
December 7th, 1941 as a major historical date more than 4/14/12
I think of April 14th as the day Lincoln was shot more than I do "Titanic Day".
All due respect, other
than the familes that were felled due to an "accident".....I see no historical
importance in relation to
what is one of the top 3 days in US History and World History...
DrJimmy
witnessed the event, or lost a IMMEDIATE family member, do personal,
private dates in ones life compare to the date of a media event? You
weren't on the damn ship!
If it weren't for movies, you wouldn't even give two craps about the
Titanic sinking! Why don't you cry over the
Edmund Fitzgerald as well! Is the date coming up soon for the Aaron
Burr/Alexander Hamilton duel? Gonna plan
a 'family meeting' when the Hindenburg disaster rolls around? Is that
another tear jerker for the Justme family to discuss
and hold hands before dinner problem that we all have to talk about while
we eat our meatloaf???
Do you REALLY base your feelings on the date that the titanic sank??? does
it REALLY rank as high as your 'loved ones"? is it REALLY something you
mark down on your calendar???
If so, I think you have some really deep soul searching to do.....
Janelle Roberts
obviously aren't the sentimental type...i'm not really that way
either...but, what's the harm of simply 'thinking' about the people who
perrished in the sinking? (movie or no movie) just like you would wonder
about any other date in history...i dont think people are calling for
'family meetings' as you put it... just remembering. no harm done to
anyone.
as a thought... i do think about the challenger disaster on january 28....
i think it's one of those 'where were you when it happened...' type of
dates...
--
cheers...
"DrJimmy" <drj...@iamdigex.net> wrote in message
news:3A4024F6...@iamdigex.net...
Just...@webtv.net
sinking wasn't important. I was asking him if he felt this way about
birthdays, etc. I can't quote him right now, but check on it, and you
will know what I mean. It was just a question, geez.
I in NO way consider April 15 as important as my kids birthdays, etc.
In fact, usually when I think April 15, it's Oh no, are my taxes
filed?????
DrJimmy
Janelle Roberts wrote:
> i don't understand the aggressive tone of these replies Dr. Jimmy.... you
> obviously aren't the sentimental type...
I define sentimental as something that actually applies with a direct impact on
my life today after
an even in MY life happened earlier in my years. I remember that the Space
Shuttle blew up
and it made me sad. If it happened 80 years before I was born than it's just
another historical
fact that I read about.
> i'm not really that way
> either...but, what's the harm of simply 'thinking' about the people who
> perrished in the sinking? (movie or no movie) just like you would wonder
> about any other date in history.
Thinking about the people and what happened that night, and going all out and
proclaiming it
a world stop and pray five minutes for the souls of the departed is not what it
is, try spending
more of that energy on the people alive today that need help, not over some rich
trash that
sank 80 years ago.
> ..i dont think people are calling for
> 'family meetings' as you put it... just remembering. no harm done to
> anyone.
Yeah....right...Im sure glad im not the son of a wimpy :justme: type who is
obligated
to show his "womanly" side and grow up as gay as Cody Griffith will....
>
>
> as a thought... i do think about the challenger disaster on january 28....
> i think it's one of those 'where were you when it happened...' type of
> dates...
Gee.....and WHERE were you in 1912?????????????????????????????
SEE THE DIFFERENCE????????????? GOD!
DrJimmy
making it seem like Tom should
have to praise it as well and is evil if he doesn't place it in his
obligatory kneel and pray calendar. I think
Tom is just saying what I am saying......talking about the ships history is
one thing, as it is intriguing what
happened that night, and the communication attempts, but to get all mushy
over total strangers I feel is
just too much emotion dedicated to souls that have enough emotion thrown to
them from the immediate
families... I'd rather get more deep and devoted to closer personal
tragedies in my own family then make
sure that I am praying for some people I never knew.......the world is way
too big for that.......you aren't
expected to do more than human.
Tieta...@webtv.net
thanks (you did mention that you pray), do you ask the Lord to help
those in this world that are less fortunate than you, even though you
don't know them.
Or is the world far too big for that...or you too small?