Welcome back! Join us for the first meeting of the new semester in our regular place at the regular time! Once again, we’ll be meeting at Fisher Student Center in the Sunset Beach Room (#1025), which is conveniently located a few steps away from the water fountains and bathrooms across from the UNCW Bookstore.
Minutes
- Talked about the new semester and educational goals.
- Discussed being a provocateur or a passive observer.
- Discussed life goals, what it takes to feel accomplishment.
- Shared clips from a live performance of Steve’s band in 1996: 99¢ Special — Mother
- Talked about heritages, Mongolia and Tuva, throat singing.
- Played a clip from Mongolian metal band: The HU — Sell the World
- A discussion on burial methods, including the Tibetan practice of sky burial in which bodies are brought to the top of a mountain to be fed to vultures.
- Also mentioned was The Tibetan Book of the Dead, but not discussed. The book serves to explain how to guide the deceased through various stages they encounter by forcing blood flow and speaking to the corpse. The concept is that the recently dead are still attached to their corpse and can be communicated with.
- Mentioned was the Jewish death rituals in which the corpse is placed in a white sack and buried in a simple pine coffin, the benefit of this being that the body will be accessible to insects to be consumed, serving to give back to nature what came from nature, similar to the concept of a sky burial.
- Some chose to be composted after death, but the legality of doing so is limited to a handful of states. A clip from Caitlin Doughty’s YouTube channel Ask A Mortician was played demonstrating a human composting facility.
- Discussion of attending funerals of friends and family, how it’s so much worse to see the body of someone that died far too young, and celebrations of life that some choose to hold.
- Gnostic faith was discussed, specifically the idea of there being a demiurge that was responsible for creating the universe. As part of the discussion on Gnosticism, the online comic Kill 6 Billion Demons was looked over.
- In revisiting Machiavellian philosophy, including his book The Prince, and how several of the world’s most power people have studied Machiavelli, Robert Greene’s book The 48 Laws of Power was suggested for reading. Discussion of being aware of what is possible is important to study such things, as part of knowing what to look for when it comes to someone attempting manipulation.
- Tangent to Michael Picard’s YouTube channel Professional Douche in which he trolls for what some might consider good, including attending a Men’s March Against Abortion with a megaphone and shouting, “Her vagina, our choice!” Also, his trolling of congressman Matt Gaetz who was embroiled in a sex trafficking scandal involving a 17-year-old girl. Also brought up was a clip in which Gaetz was on Tucker Carlson’s show and Gaetz said “17-year-old woman” instead of “17-year-old girl.”
- Gaetz referring to a 17-year-old girl as a woman lead to a discussion on the disturbing legality of child marriages in the US, including five states having no minimum age. Only as recent as 2023 have laws begun to ban child marriages in ten states. The Wikipedia page states, “In Florida, 16,400 children, some as young as 13, were married from 2000 to 2017…” as well as looking at child marriage data between 2000 and 2015, “There were 51 cases of 13-year-olds getting married, and 6 cases of 12-year-olds getting married.”
- The topic of people marrying the dead and one woman who married the Eiffel Tower was brought up. Referenced was a performance artist seeking to marry a long dead poet through the French posthumous marriage laws. This lead to asking whether marrying someone who was dead and never known by the deceased should be allowed, given that consent cannot be given by the dead.
- As a whimsical turn, the question of marrying non-human animals was brought up, and the topic switched to the ability for apes to communicate with humans versus humans that are mentally less capable of communication, whether by being brain dead or just diminished mental capacity. The question was asked whether great apes that have demonstrated communication skills could consent to marriage. This lead to the unfortunate truth that Koko the gorilla wasn’t as proficient at communication as portrayed, and that the raw footage was not made available to be studied.
- Not discussed was the tragic story of a study in dolphin-to-human communication in which a dolphin fell in love with his female handler, their sexual relationship, and his eventual suicide when they were separated.
- In discussion of apes, the evolutional divide caused by the widening of the Congo River resulted in two divergent species with differing mental attitudes. North of the Congo River chimpanzees came to be warlike and violent towards strange chimpanzees, while south of the Congo River bonobos lived far more peaceful lives, choosing sex over violence. The theory is that south of the Congo River had more resources, so the need for competition wasn’t as great as for the chimpanzees. Bonobos are considered the closest relative to humans, and are also one of the few other animals that performs oral sex and well as homosexual acts. Bonobo societies are matriarchal, which is also uncommon in the animal kingdom and counter to chimpanzee societies.
- Revisiting a topic from a previous meeting, the question of whether it is moral to rear children when it will almost certainly result in them having serious health issues or disabilities. Specifically, Warwick Davis’ family was used as an example in that he and his wife both have a type of dwarfism and chose to have children. One of their children died 11 days after birth, and during another attempt they suffered a miscarriage at 19 weeks. They did successfully bring three children into the world, all with dwarfism, all who will have to contend with greater social and health issues.
- A return to throat singing, a clip from the Tuvan band Alash was played.
- The Dalai Lama was discussed, including the process of finding the next Dalai Lama which essentially results in the religious leaders effectively stealing a baby and raising it as the reincarnated Dalai Lama. The child has no say in this and is raised to believe that they are indeed who the religious leaders declare them to be. Also mentioned was that the Dalai Lama had a home in Ithaca, NY that he stays at occasionally, as well as the Dalai Lama’s Library and Learning Center.