Preserved Topic: Destruction is always easier than Creation

Destruction is always easier than Creation.

I don't want to splay my ideas out. But I am looking for your ideas on this.

easier to deal with the known then deal with what yet is to be?

A truism. Plain and simple.

Think how easy it is to criticize a new web page. Then compare that to how much work would have to go into creating a good one.

Think how many times you've wasted time trashing someone you didn't like instead of finding ways to build up a relationship with them.

Which is harder? Building and governing a nation or blaming all your troubles on a neighboring one?

I spent hours building a sand castle on the beach when I was much younger only to have two older boys come by and wipe it out in less than a 30 seconds.

Always is a strong word but I think in this case it applies.

. . : newThing

Once knew a guy who destroyed a piece of 'art' he created rather than sell it...which he was being forced to do. (legal stuff)

That wasn't at all 'easier' ... well I don't think it was.

Mmm. Entropy. Sorta.

I agree, but creating is much for fulfilling.

Woah! Warjournal, you posted inbetween the time when I hit the "submit reply" button and the time the page loaded.

I think destruction comes from the need to resist change. People always fear change becuase it is unkown, like the person said before. To try for peace and understanding, takes a real effort, especially when your constituents don't agree with you. Being a true and honest, forgive me, politician is very difficult. Because it's your job to make sure that you do what is right for your people, and at the same time do what they want so you can stay elected. I don't envy the people that have the power to make the decisions that effect our lives. At the same time though, I always wish that they would have the determination and the moral soliderity to do what is right. Chnage is difficult though, and for the groups of people who know only war and hatred for their neighbors, after awhile it just comes naturally. So, to me destruction is a pattern. A horrible cycle that plays through repeatedly until the PEOPLE want to change. When they learn that there is another way, and that their neighbors are not that much different, maybe then the world will know peace, if only for a short while.

John D.

I'm not entirely convinced that destruction is easier than creation...I think it mostly depends on how one defines creation. If one watches a child, one sees that creation comes rather easily, and that destruction does not. Later in life, it becomes (seemingly) easier to destroy than to create...maybe it's a learned thing...

Funny, when I first read the topic I thought, ?Maybe, but destruction can also be a form of creation?.

Destruction is a power display. To destroy, to ruin, to remove purpose, to take . Although creation is also a form of power, the power to give birth, to enlighten, to make . Although each has it's bad side and each can be use to accomplish it's opposite.

By destroying something you could be making a political statement in an abstract way hance creating art. A lot of performance art involves destruction.

On the other hand, Hitler was an extremely creative person, yet he used his creations for mass destruction.

So, as with almost everything in life is all comes down to context.




[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 04-12-2002).]

Good point. By the way, please forgive the late night melodrama from my last post. I normally don't like to write that way, but at 3am, here on the east coast of the world, and after a few Hornsbys' I really couldn't tell. Funny now that I read it sober and awake it's just not as coherent as I remember. Strange how things happen that way...


John D



[This message has been edited by john_dough (edited 04-13-2002).]

(Just to play the devil's advocate)

It is easier to create bad habits than to destroy them.

mobrul

That's a good point, mobrul. I see human beings born as morally neutral. I think that it is far easier to do evil as opposed to good and that is why without proper upbringing, we would all be at each other's throats.

So I guess I would lump bad habits as destruction and good habits as creation. Perhaps that's a different thing altogether.

Destruction is a form of creation.

Nothing can be created or destroyed by the laws of thermodynamics, so it is ever of mutable change. It can be said that the "destruction" of a created article is actually the creation of what it is to become.

It didn't exist that way before you laid hands (mind soul) on it, so it's "created" by your touch (thought existence).

Slippery slope kids, comparing life to art is like....dancing about architecture.

DG - doesn't the laws of thermodynamics refer only to energy that cannot be created nor destroyed?
i do agree with your point though, destroying an ordered construction, well, i guess you're creating a mess.


so, murder is the precious art of creating a corpse then, not destroying a life?




- - r e i t s m a - -
(tifkab)

Well DG put it in context...and to the point, as usual. Brings to mind that much of 'creation' is due to 'destruction' i.e. the materials used in most creation are produced at the expense (destruction) of the earth...but I guess it really only boils down to how one sees it...one thing, viewed from two separate sides...thanks, DG, for the insight...

reitsma - I don't think he was literally comparing the process with the laws of thermodynamics...more, that irregardless of the 'change' to the object(s) in question, it(they) remain(s) (only in a changed state). Therefore, when one speaks of 'creation' or 'destruction', it is really just words for the same thing, and largely depends on the observer to which one it is...



[This message has been edited by WebShaman (edited 04-15-2002).]

I will destroy everything, I will create a monument to non-existence!


[This message has been edited by Arthemis (edited 04-22-2002).]

so if destruction is required before creation can occur, where does entrophy (sp?) come into it? ~Vp~

If you mean entropy.. Just because something new is created, doesn't mean it uses all of what was destroyed. Entropy is the waste. But of course, entropy is usually just used to describe wasted energy during chemical reactions, and usually released as heat.

exactly, so therefore, due to entropy, the whole process must eventually come to an end?

looking at the different meanings for entropy, we see that it can not only be "the amount of thermal energy not available to do work", but also "A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system" which is what i was alluding to when i said "destroying an ordered construction, well, i guess you're creating a mess."
so, even though you can pull a 'perspective' argument on it, there is still, generally speaking, distinct acts of either creation or destruction, in which the destruction can be seen to increase the entropy of that 'closed system', for example, smashing a watch to pieces with a hammer.
sure, something is created, but it has somewhat degenerated from its previous form.
in this case, it is easy to make the distinction - if one has to say whether destruction or creation has taken place here, it would clearly be the former.
and in reference to that specific object (the watch), the creation of this object was far more complex than its destruction, which could be seen as the creation of a new object, or set of objects.
This is where another definition of entropy comes into play - as each destruction is further destroyed, we see the "Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society" - where we end up as just whole bunch of smashed up watch pieces.


- - r e i t s m a - -
(tifkab)

Adam: You are correct, Suh....save for one niggling problem.

Thermodynamics says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, merely changed. However, the particle/wave theory of matter gives up that matter itself is merely transmuted as energy in any reaction (measure the carbon content after "burning" wood...now add the heat release along with the sound waves....and we reach balance).

Since we view the Universe as a closed system (arrogant fuckers we are) then it's given that matter cannot be created nor destroyed either...only changed to energy, or recycled as another form of matter.


Now quit physics-jacking the thread

Oh, and vp...the law of entropy has given way to a lot of nihilist theory. There are a great deal of physicists who believe that there ultimately is an "end".

We won't see it

so its all self sustaining then DG? A continuoius cycle? Fixed? Unending? Self replicating without loss of any kind?

::edit:: ok

[This message has been edited by vogonpoet (edited 04-17-2002).]

:edit: The points been made.




[This message has been edited by Osprey (edited 04-17-2002).]

Well, I certainly like destroying thing...

"People who think they know everything are really just an annoyance to those of us who really do"

-counterfeitbacon