Which do you feel is more important for yourself individually or for those around you: knowledge or stability? Knowledge can be such things as experience or learnedness while stability ranges from financial to familial stability to even possibly mental stability in this case.

Which do you value more and why?

4405016 Knowledge. I can use it to crush my enemies.

4405016
Knowledge. I can use it to gain stability. Good job, lifestyle, hopefully family stability.

4405016
Where life decisions are concerned, having one tends to lead to (and require) the other. Knowledge qualifies you for work with a more stable stream of income, while having a secure lifestyle gives you time to educate yourself and remain competitive in the marketplace. It's not really possible to separate the two.

4405031 Eh, I never tried to separate them, rather I asked which do you value most.

4405041
In general terms and where basic principle is concerned, I would sell your mother's soul for the right kind of knowledge. Yes, I'm that kind of scientist.

4405044

4405016 I already have knowledge I'm going with stability

4405067

I already have knowledge I'm going with stability

I already have knowledge

4405030
4405016

Knowledge. I can use it to gain stability. Good job, lifestyle, hopefully family stability.

See, I'm kind of the opposite.

Just know enough to work on stability, then you can focus on knowledge like crazy.

Then there is the side of the coin: ice cream.

4405064
Nothing can stop ze march of ze progress.

Seriously though, it's kind of ironic. I've been a bit obsessed with learning and knowing things since I was a child, enough that I made it my literal business. In a fundamental sense, though, I understand that really knowing the truth about something, except in very limited circumstances, is impossible. We can only ever approximate. The contradiction is enough to make anyone go a bit crazy.

4405088

Then there is the side of the coin: ice cream.

Damn right it is.
4405089

The contradiction is enough to make anyone go a bit crazy.

Well, to be fair, I never did say that I believed anyone who joined this group was sane in the first place.

4405016 I value insanity over all else. Because without insane people the world would be a dull and boring place.

4405097 I prefer to call them "deviants": Julius Caesar, Albert Einstein, and Mahatma Ghandi are prime examples of how the world can be influenced by those who think outside the box.

4405096
Good point. Really though, imagine living like that. You know you're condemned by yourself to inevitably fail at the one thing you've ever really cared about, forever - and that you still wouldn't have it any other way. And people wonder why I think life is one hell of a giant joke.

4405112
Ghandhi was crazy in the bad ways, too. He liked to sleep next to naked underage girls, to prove his "purity." Perverted old fucker.

4405016
Knowledge, everything must be known. Besides, there is such a thing as being too stable.

4405115 What the fuck are you on about? Matter of fact, what the fuck are you on period? Meth? Kush? You've gotta be smoking something right now.
4405118 He didn't choose the thug life...

4405130

Besides, there is such a thing as being too stable.

Okay. How?

4405135
Sleep deprivation, mostly. Sometimes, government work really sucks. I miss having weekends.

4405139 Well, government work can't be outsourced and it's kind of a necessity in ensuring countries run without any hitches. You should just be catching a few extra Zs instead of speaking all philosophical and shiz, to do the opposite isn't very healthy.

4405016 The presence of one brings the other.

4405156
Sadly, outsourcing doesn't pay the bills. Oh well.

4405016 Knowledge, I'd take knowledge above all else. Stability means nothing to me and is never guaranteed anyway.

4405138

A nation that is 'too stable' will be unable to change. Without change, there is stagnation. Where there is stagnation, there is decay.

4405336 There is truth to that I suppose, although I tend to see the words "stability" and "stagnation" as two different things.