A supposedly new millennium and nothing changes...

[Dene Bebbington]

I guess it was too much to hope that the "new millennium" (still the
20th century for those who can count) would change anything. Already the
newspapers over here (at least the Daily Mail, anyway) have started TV
advertising of their horoscopes for this year.

Sigh, the more things change the more they stay the same.

--
Dene

[Tim Stevens]

Dene Bebbington wrote:

Unfortunately, you can be sure that they will shortly be followed by more
psychic predictions and fundamentalist clap-trap about new end of the
world
dates.

Things stay the same because people stay the same: they want easy answers
for everything and don't want to have to think critically or skeptically.

Sigh, indeed.
--
- Tim

******* Aspera ad Astra *******

[Ric Carter]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Stevens"
> Dene Bebbington wrote:

> > I guess it was too much to hope that the "new millennium" (still the
> > 20th century for those who can count) would change anything. Already
> > the newspapers over here (at least the Daily Mail, anyway) have
> > started TV advertising of their horoscopes for this year.
> > Sigh, the more things change the more they stay the same.
>
> Unfortunately, you can be sure that they will shortly be followed by
> more psychic predictions and fundamentalist clap-trap about new end of
> the world dates.

All of which dates and predictions will be wrong, but that will stop
neither the soothsayers nor their audiences. Fortunately, the real,
serious BELIEVERS of this crap are a small minority of the population
of the western world -- were it otherwise, we'd have seen mass self-
and other-destructive behaviours. [Flashback to cartoon of James Watt
running around, screaming, "JESUS IS COMING!! CUT DOWN ALL THE TREES!!"]

> Things stay the same because people stay the same: they want easy
answers
> for everything and don't want to have to think critically or
skeptically.

I'm re-reading an old cold-war thriller wherein the author [Richard
Hoyt] makes the same point re: Marxism - ideology means that you don't
need to THINK about a problem, just apply the ideological answer. Of
course, answers - spiritual, political/economic, whatever - are easy
to generate, and they need be connected to reality only by appearance.