We aren't going to make any progress unless we at least pretend to like each other, no?

So now we want people to be phony?

Well... I do pretend to like my boss on a daily basis. It has kept me employed so far.

See? Don't hate.

I also pretend to like my neighbors... no real benefit there though.

Would you prefer the drama of truly hating them?

I guess not, I don't want to create drama.

So by avoiding drama we are progressing?

I pretend to like mine too.... I am not around enough to do much else.

No drama

I never pretend, one way or the other.
What you see is what you get.
If I don't like you, you don't get any
of me :-)

Certainly a fate worse than death!

I'm just wondering exactly why a global society would be a benefit to begin with... vive la difference, I say!

There's that :-)

But the point is, if neighbors cannot
get along, what hope is there for
a global society, where language
obfuscates everything?

I think we are as close, with the
internet, as we have ever been.
Globally.

do we have to start pretending we're having an orgasm too?

My experience and learning of history is that it is really easy to like and support the cause of peoples very far away. You like them, you love them, yet your immediate neighbours you want to mutually make shishkebob out of.

This is not so very true of the US foreign policy and its local popular attitudes, but in Europe, where nations of uniform language inside the country but foreign languages just outside the borders co-exist, the neighbour is always hated and despised, whereas the neighbour's neighbour is your ally.

You see, your neighbouring country's people, like your country's people, hate all neighbouring countries' peoples, and that makes two countries with no common border but with a given country neighbouring both, be hated by the commonly bordered country. Since the country hates you both, but you two do not have a reason to hate each other, since you do not have a border in common, the country automatically gets ganged up by the two of you.

The reason European countries still haven't annihilated each other is that the coutnry between two non-bordering countries has the same set-up with countries on the far sides of the two countries that border and hate it, with the far two countries each hating one of the hating bordering country.

This is possible because Europe has many countries, like a checkerboard, but not so neatly arranged.

Which allows for more confusion, because mapping has a peculiar characteristic of making it possible for three countries to border each other. On the checker board that is not so easily achieved.

So eventually nobody can agree whom to hate, even two allies, because the lines and bonds of allegiances get tangled up like spaghetti at an Italian wedding in Kansas.

This is the only reason people still exist alive in Europe. The unentanglability of the lines of alliance.

This also means that all Europeans love Americans, Australians, Burmese and Caledonians, and Chileans, and Dahomeyans, and Drugianz, and Equadorians, Ethiopeans, ... not Europeans... Fijians, Frankensteinians, Ghanans, you get the picture.

That's one of the biggest advantages of solo sex: Never have to pretend. You ain't going to get mad if you all of a sudden turn 'round and go to sleep, even without as much as kissing yourself "good-night".

Okay. I think I pretend one way, but not the other.

It's good to provide each other with behavioural road maps, in a social millieu, if people are to get along without pretending.

The problem is with us letting our guard down is it leaves us open to hostility that others cannot get past. The sad thing is that take Afghanistan for example, they don't even like each other and the only time they get along is if they have a common enemy. I think the world would be a much better place when more people can rise above human nature. Some do but not enough. What amazes me is how prolific human trash is! We complain rats are fast breeders.

Pretending t like someone is what an Islamic does. People who pretend to like me are using me for their ends. That is not fair to me is it? If they really liked me they would not need to pretend. A society of pretense is just that, a huge Pretense. In a perfect world we would all get along. This is not a perfect world!