I’m sorry for your pain, and glad you didn’t, so to speak, waste it.
I wonder whether statements like “He’s in a better place” might not be helpful to people who really believe it?
But I also wonder whether people grieving over a death are really grieving over the person’s death, or over their loss of that person. Resentment of “he’s in a better place” might be resentment of making the griever aware that she doesn’t really care if he’s in a better place.
As to humans, well, I suspect the best chance we have of not destroying ourselves is genetic or machine augmentation of intelligence on a massive scale in the near future. We may be smart enough to come up with solutions for our problems, but we aren’t anywhere near smart enough for half of the population to agree on practical solutions to difficult problems. Practical solutions are inherently unpopular. The main message taught by our movies and literature is that you can solve all problems without making compromises, because that’s what people will pay money to hear.
(I didn’t say it was a good chance. I said it was the best chance.)
Of course, we’d then quickly come up with new, more-complicated ways of destroying ourselves more thoroughly.
I’m sorry for your pain, and glad you didn’t, so to speak, waste it.
I wonder whether statements like “He’s in a better place” might not be helpful to people who really believe it?
But I also wonder whether people grieving over a death are really grieving over the person’s death, or over their loss of that person. Resentment of “he’s in a better place” might be resentment of making the griever aware that she doesn’t really care if he’s in a better place.
As to humans, well, I suspect the best chance we have of not destroying ourselves is genetic or machine augmentation of intelligence on a massive scale in the near future. We may be smart enough to come up with solutions for our problems, but we aren’t anywhere near smart enough for half of the population to agree on practical solutions to difficult problems. Practical solutions are inherently unpopular. The main message taught by our movies and literature is that you can solve all problems without making compromises, because that’s what people will pay money to hear.
(I didn’t say it was a good chance. I said it was the best chance.)
Of course, we’d then quickly come up with new, more-complicated ways of destroying ourselves more thoroughly.