You would think that no one interesting lives on the planet anymore. And of course, the rationalists will always say that someone like me has watched too much news and has become jaded because of the quantity I have consumed.
It must be a short trip for me then, to Depression!
I notice Momofuku Ando being remembered yesterday, as the inventor of packet noodles. I noticed that because of the doodle, on Google.
Funny because, I also remembered eating Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup from a WWII supply crate of the type that used to be parachuted into the jungles where my dad was hanging out during that particular episode. These used to come in 'softpacks' of cardboard. In fact, they even had little accompanying tins made of two metals fused together that, when a ring-pull was lifted, and a hole punched at the top, boiled the water that was sealed inside them through a chemical reaction process.
I'm not sure I understand what the exact difference is, between 'Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup' (dry powder plus dry noodles) in those small portable containers - and Ando's Ramen invention.
The Campbell's version happened a lot earlier than Ando's soup.
Same as the Younger Dryas Stadial happened a lot earlier than most biblical accounts of The Great Flood, and in fact, there were two or three earlier, shorter but also pretty 'great' floods before THE Great Flood.
Plato's account of the YDS - in his Atlantis story - is dated by his Egyptian priests telling the story to exactly the correct historical (or really, pre-historical) time. And moreover, he also says the people were given warnings beforehand by smaller flood and earthquake events, though the people paid no heed.
Of course, HE says this thing was all about gods and men; not science and happenstance.
I go by the RAND Corporation's hypothesis about the decline effect of uncovering unusual phenomenon - once you observe something in a way that is known both to the doers and the done-to or the observers, the phenomena subside, although they don't immediately disappear altogether. James Randi's challenge about Twilight Zone phenomena on the other hand, is a little different to the way RAND approaches things; he has a very narrow and constructive framework for his observations. His structure for looking at things doesn't allow for 'shades' of 'event' and so, he always observes an immediate 'stop' rather than a decline.
And by this I am not talking about observing that there is emotional content synchronicity in media reporting. I am specifically talking about going too far in exposing those who act, let's say more or less covertly in assassinating people like De Margerie and Nemtsov, and more than that, I am really specifically speaking about those who turn around and enact some retribution, or some real justice, or who take control away in order to restore by discipline, the errant leaders, back to the path of decent behaviour. The media generally does not like to face difficult facts.
Plato, I believe, couches his story about something he clearly knew to be factual, as a myth, on account of both the political dimension of it, and of people's expectations - whether of creating fear of some disastrous future, or endless demands of 'the gods' and thus a futile obsession with religion and 'the gods' as opposed to actually doing things to make something you want, happen.
Politically, there was an implication at that time, that leaders were in some way divinely appointed, but also that they were nonetheless capable of miscreant ways. And hence, the general public would always use their leaders as a 'sink' for their malaise of any kind - and never look to themselves as really responsible for anything.
Hence, it was a myth, that a great pre-Athenian society once ruled but went off the rails because of the leaders.
Plato makes his point clear that each individual carries a kind of personal responsibility for their own futures and for the happiness of their own lives. He says that some people survived the Great Flood.
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