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 daytripper23
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Registered: 06/22/05
Posts: 3,595
Loc: 
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Think of it this way:
A. We create an extremely large portion of our reality through technological and social constructs. This in fact only makes us more ignorant to a holistic understanding of nature, because our sagacity cannot keep up with the advent of technology.
B. Furthermore our tools and technologies have a more and more abstract relation to nature as science continually progresses. Nowdays it is only natural to understand these concepts and constructs only in relation to each other. Maybe if we witnessed the urges, goals and desires of all those who contributed to the invention of television, we might expect to understand how and why the television relates to nature itself. But instead we treat it as it is just there, as if it is nature itself. In this sense we have lost even the abstract connection. Isn't our current environmental situation testament to this? So of course they were wiser than us.
They no doubt they had a more complete understanding (A), and might even be considered to have a better understanding as well (B) because theirs was real while ours is most often completely disconnected from reality.
Of course this considers that they did not have to deal with the complexities that we do, and they were only "superior" in this way on a social level.
Edited by daytripper23 (06/22/07 05:31 AM)
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thedudenj
Man of the Woods
Registered: 08/18/04
Posts: 14,684
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tee hee you said wholesome and i had the most wholesome camping trip once
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"You all are just puppets... You have no heart...and cannot feel any pain...""
you may think thats pain you feel but you must have a heart to feel true pain and that pain wont be yours
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thedudenj
Man of the Woods
Registered: 08/18/04
Posts: 14,684
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 Re: The Ancients  [Re: thedudenj]
#7078468 - 06/22/07 04:49 AM (16 years, 9 months ago) |
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dont use sophisticated for the mayans they were above sophism i hate sophist and its sad they are still here today. those bastards got socrates killed with the wickedness
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"You all are just puppets... You have no heart...and cannot feel any pain...""
you may think thats pain you feel but you must have a heart to feel true pain and that pain wont be yours
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daytripper23
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Registered: 06/22/05
Posts: 3,595
Loc:
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Re: The Ancients [Re: thedudenj]
#7078503 - 06/22/07 05:10 AM (16 years, 9 months ago) |
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OMG they killed Soc!
Quote:
thedudenj said:
those bastards
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daytripper23
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Registered: 06/22/05
Posts: 3,595
Loc:
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Man wholesome truly is a shitty word. All better!
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 PhanTomCat
Teh Cat....
Registered: 09/07/04
Posts: 5,908
Loc: My Youniverse....
Last seen: 15 years, 1 month
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Quote:
figgusfiddus said:
Apparently you account for it with the assumption of magic spiritual powers. In reality, the Mayans simply showed evidence of extremely sophisticated mathematics... for their time.
Who is making the assumptions here....? 
Quote:
Jesus, why does everyone, when they hear on the History Channel, "Civilization X did this thing that was actually pretty impressive for their time," think "ALIENS! No, wait, maybe magic!"
Everyone....? 
Again, I thing it makes people curious more than anything else....
Quote:
So you know, the Mayan calendar was NOT as accurate as the modern calendar. How does it fit into this conversation at all?
Of coarse it's not, we have MUCH better tools for measuring and viewing the heavens....
How does it not fit into the thread topic....? 
>^;;^<
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I'll be your midnight French Fry.... 
"The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...."
>^;;^<
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Archemetis
newbie
Registered: 06/21/04
Posts: 200
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
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what about the dogon of africa? they have more knowledge about the sirius star system than we do at this time. it took our technology until 1995 to even recognize there are indeed 3 stars, sirius a, b, and c. they knew about these stars and their eliptical orbits and how many years their obbits are, ect. they told these things to 2 french scientists in the 30's, and its well documented. over the years our science has been discovering that the dogon were correct about these things. it goes on and on. for ancient people they knew a hell of a lot about stars that our state of the art telescopes are just figuring out. and there is much still that we cannot verify, though the dogon's track record has been spot on so far.
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group
Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,441
Loc: Under the C
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The Dogon myth has been debunked.
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
Registered: 07/18/03
Posts: 7,991
Loc: Cave of the Patriarchs
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Re: The Ancients [Re: Icelander]
#7079962 - 06/22/07 02:27 PM (16 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said:
Quote:
Ravus said:
Nowadays, we are more arrogant and less compassionate than the Ancients. Some of the exceptional figures such as Siddhartha had true knowledge of the human mind, and learned how to replace attachments with compassion, which many people do not even care about anymore. Though the Ancients had wars and deaths just as we do, I couldn't see World War II happening among those cultures. People used to realize life was too valuable to kill off 2% of the human population because of politics half-way around the world.
Although really nothing has changed either. There is suffering and compassion now as there was then, and our technology will not help people find inner peace unless people come to understand their minds as the Ancients did.
There is no way you could know if the ancients were less arrogant and more compassionate then we are. There are a few people (just like then I imagine) that are very very compassionate and not arrogant in the world today. Most are not, just as in the past it seems.
We can wage wars with weapons of mass distructiveness that were unknown to ancient people and I'm thinking thats about the only difference.
The level of destruction is what I was referring to. What does the possession of tens of thousands of atomic bombs that could destroy all multicellular life the world over say about our level of mindfulness compared with those before us who would never have conceived such a notion?
As our warfare has grown more sophisticated, so do we lose touch with reality. Fighting in the ancient world was brutal, and the soldiers saw everything, all the death and destruction they inflicted. Nowadays, we have missiles to fire from thousands of miles away, and all we see of life's suffering is a blip on a screen. Virtual reality atrophies the sense of empathy in the brains of those who would need it most.
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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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thedudenj
Man of the Woods
Registered: 08/18/04
Posts: 14,684
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Re: The Ancients [Re: Ravus]
#7080048 - 06/22/07 02:51 PM (16 years, 9 months ago) |
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sigh does any one fucking know where the term sophism came from or what a sophist is, it just further shows ignorance of most people in this world...
any who wholesomeness rules
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"You all are just puppets... You have no heart...and cannot feel any pain...""
you may think thats pain you feel but you must have a heart to feel true pain and that pain wont be yours
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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what about the dogon of africa? they have more knowledge about the sirius star system than we do at this time
This is bullshit.
The Dogon don't know anything that science hasn't known for about 150 years. They don't even have the mathematics to describe an ellipse, let alone an orbit.
it took our technology until 1995 to even recognize there are indeed 3 stars, sirius a, b, and c. they knew about these stars
More bullshit. The Dogon believed until recently that Sirius is a binary star, not a triple star. This is what they told anthropologists in the 30s. Now that science knows it to likely be a triple star, they've changed the song and call it a triple star.
they told these things to 2 french scientists in the 30's
This is the first thing you've got right so far: two French anthropologists. They visited with the Dogon in the 30s. That's about 80 years AFTER Europeans knew that Sirius is a binary star.
Now, given that the binary nature of Sirius has been known since the mid 1800s, and given that the Dogon have had contact with Europeans for longer than that, where do you think their knowledge of Sirius came from? Hmmm??
And although they know of the four large Galilean moons of Jupiter, they somehow are unaware of the other 60 moons that orbit Jupiter.
And they know about the rings of Saturn, but not about the rings of Neptune.
This is pretty much the same thing European astronomers knew a century ago.
I could go on, but why? True Believers will reject this with an ad hominem and the rest already understand that the Dogon garnered their knowledge of Sirius from Europeans with telescopes, not reptiles with space ships.
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Republican Values:
1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.
4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: The Ancients [Re: Ravus]
#7080370 - 06/22/07 04:07 PM (16 years, 9 months ago) |
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The mindfulness is the same IMO. The ability to produce the product changed with our technological abilities. If you took an atomic wepon back in time you can't say many warrior types along with common folk would not have welcomed it. It's the sage types, IMO, who were few, as is true today, that really covet peace. At base, the mindset of the average human has not changed IMO.
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
Edited by Icelander (06/22/07 04:07 PM)
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thedudenj
Man of the Woods
Registered: 08/18/04
Posts: 14,684
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Re: The Ancients [Re: Icelander]
#7080474 - 06/22/07 04:36 PM (16 years, 9 months ago) |
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the albino shape shifting lizard people lol
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"You all are just puppets... You have no heart...and cannot feel any pain...""
you may think thats pain you feel but you must have a heart to feel true pain and that pain wont be yours
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Mushmonkey
shiftlesslayabout
Registered: 09/25/03
Posts: 10,867
Last seen: 5 months, 28 days
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Re: The Ancients [Re: Ravus]
#7080756 - 06/22/07 05:54 PM (16 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ravus said:
Quote:
Icelander said:
Quote:
Ravus said:
Nowadays, we are more arrogant and less compassionate than the Ancients. Some of the exceptional figures such as Siddhartha had true knowledge of the human mind, and learned how to replace attachments with compassion, which many people do not even care about anymore. Though the Ancients had wars and deaths just as we do, I couldn't see World War II happening among those cultures. People used to realize life was too valuable to kill off 2% of the human population because of politics half-way around the world.
Although really nothing has changed either. There is suffering and compassion now as there was then, and our technology will not help people find inner peace unless people come to understand their minds as the Ancients did.
There is no way you could know if the ancients were less arrogant and more compassionate then we are. There are a few people (just like then I imagine) that are very very compassionate and not arrogant in the world today. Most are not, just as in the past it seems.
We can wage wars with weapons of mass distructiveness that were unknown to ancient people and I'm thinking thats about the only difference.
The level of destruction is what I was referring to. What does the possession of tens of thousands of atomic bombs that could destroy all multicellular life the world over say about our level of mindfulness compared with those before us who would never have conceived such a notion?
As our warfare has grown more sophisticated, so do we lose touch with reality. Fighting in the ancient world was brutal, and the soldiers saw everything, all the death and destruction they inflicted. Nowadays, we have missiles to fire from thousands of miles away, and all we see of life's suffering is a blip on a screen. Virtual reality atrophies the sense of empathy in the brains of those who would need it most.
Yes, they saw it up close and personal.
And, though there were some societies that lie as exceptions, you can generally count on any major ancient civilization to have utterly destroyed, or at least to have destroyed as best they could, some other society. Genocide. I'm of course generalizing, but pick an ancient civilization and odds are better than anything in Vegas they were perpetrators of brutality and slaughter up to the very limits of their abilities.
If you gave them an atomic bomb, they'd use it to destroy their enemies.
Why do you think they WOULDN'T? 
We may kill from a distance and be more 'removed' from the actual death, but in general we are also more compassionate towards others.
I can't exactly recall the last time in modern history a first-world military marched into somewhere, slaughtered every living creature and salted the earth so nothing would grow.
Nor the last time we impaled or crucified someone.
Nor the last time we blinded captured enemy combatants and sent them home disfigured.
Nor the last time we created mounds of decaptitated prisoners to strike fear into our enemies.
Nor the last time we sacrificed scores of prisoners to appease the gods so they might grant us good crops.
So if ancient societies saw death up close and personal.. exactly what benefit are you claiming they took from it that makes them less arrogant and more compassionate than we are, that made them value human life more than we? From where I stand it sure seems to be the other way around.
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i finally got around to making a sig
revel in its glory and quake in fear at its might
grar.
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figgusfiddus
Arrogant Worm
Registered: 02/02/07
Posts: 2,126
Loc: Figgus, Fiddia
Last seen: 15 years, 6 months
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Quote:
PhanTomCat said:
Quote:
figgusfiddus said:
Apparently you account for it with the assumption of magic spiritual powers. In reality, the Mayans simply showed evidence of extremely sophisticated mathematics... for their time.
Who is making the assumptions here....?
Quote:
Jesus, why does everyone, when they hear on the History Channel, "Civilization X did this thing that was actually pretty impressive for their time," think "ALIENS! No, wait, maybe magic!"
Everyone....?
Again, I thing it makes people curious more than anything else....
Quote:
So you know, the Mayan calendar was NOT as accurate as the modern calendar. How does it fit into this conversation at all?
Of coarse it's not, we have MUCH better tools for measuring and viewing the heavens....
How does it not fit into the thread topic....?
>^;;^<
The original post opened a discussion concerning why people think ancient societies had a more advanced understanding of the world or universe than do modern ones.
You essentially said, "What about the Mayan calendar?" I said, "The Mayan calendar was advanced, but inferior to the modern calendar, and can be easily explained in a rational manner."
Now, I'm going to try to summarize your response to that, so let me know if I'm doing you wrong. Your reply is, "How can you assume no spiritual power/magic was involved simply because it can easily be explained by mathmatics?" and "This has everything to do with the topic of 'Why do people think ancient societies were more advanced in certain ways?', despite the fact that we have agreed they were less advanced in this respect than modern societies."
Perhaps if people responded to their "curoisity" by thinking about these things and learning more about them, they might actually achieve something other than a half-baked, half-witted, nebulous concept of ancient magic and mysticism. Perhaps if people actually chose to examine their systems of belief, they would find that they are established upon completely arbitrary principles. Ignorance is everywhere, why must we help it along?
Please follow along. I know it's hard. Of COURSE we have better tools, and thus understand more about these things. That's because we MADE the tools! Just as they made theirs. Christ, I give up.
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Edited by figgusfiddus (06/23/07 12:30 PM)
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thedudenj
Man of the Woods
Registered: 08/18/04
Posts: 14,684
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well the ancients knew and had the knowledge and choose not to strive for the sky but to love the ground and respect the blance. the goal of this society is lets work quick so we can get ships to leave this planet once we have those lets use the crap out of here til it rots out and there is only death, then just fly somewhere else to do the same. just like the gold towns in california or alaska but on a greater scale
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"You all are just puppets... You have no heart...and cannot feel any pain...""
you may think thats pain you feel but you must have a heart to feel true pain and that pain wont be yours
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figgusfiddus
Arrogant Worm
Registered: 02/02/07
Posts: 2,126
Loc: Figgus, Fiddia
Last seen: 15 years, 6 months
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Re: The Ancients [Re: thedudenj]
#7083539 - 06/23/07 12:38 PM (16 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
thedudenj said:
well the ancients knew and had the knowledge and choose not to strive for the sky but to love the ground and respect the blance. the goal of this society is lets work quick so we can get ships to leave this planet once we have those lets use the crap out of here til it rots out and there is only death, then just fly somewhere else to do the same. just like the gold towns in california or alaska but on a greater scale
Here you go again, generalizing. The "ancients" were not one people, but many people with different cultures that you are generalizing into some halfwit idealistic vision of the Native American crying as someone tosses a can from the highway.
Yes, there are lots of things wrong with the modern approach to life and the environment, but the fact is that our modern approach rose out of older ways of thinking, gradually, with time. Ancient peoples killed, burned, raped, pillaged, and massacred with the best of them. It is human nature to be brutal, careless and monstrous, just as it is human nature to be generous and loving and to be the caretaker of one's surroundings at other times. The point of social progress is the cultivation of desirable characteristics and the discouragement of less desirable ones--such as the tendency to rape and pillage.
There is nothing magical about "the ancients", and there is no great holy wisdom to their ways any more than there is a holy wisdom to our ways. Perhaps you can find valuable nuggets of philosophy in their cultures, sayings, or writings, and by all means, use those! But evaluate them. Just because something is old does not mean it is good, special, or useful. It simply means that it is old. And just because a mystical notion is old does not mean that it is true--it just means that superstitious people thousands of years ago were duped into it, just as people now are duped into their various religions and superstitions. There is nothing more powerful in Celtic mysticism than in Andean or Hindu faith healing scams, televangelism, or pictures of the Virgin Mary found on the markings left by a George Forman grill on a cheese sandwich.
My message to the world: STOP BEING SO FUCKING EASY TO DUPE! Then, maybe, the world can actually focus on its real challenges, as opposed to its imaginary ones. Thank you.
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thedudenj
Man of the Woods
Registered: 08/18/04
Posts: 14,684
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well thats true im talking about the true ancients the ones that had true healers.
just like theres natives today that see that whoa theres kids doing psychedelic drugs lets use our culteral stuff to make money off em in the guies of healing.
the reason why this culture is the way it is, is cause the good ones and true ones left and said fine if you want to live in a word of senseless and meaningless destuction then do it but eventually you will be forced to come around and they left.
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"You all are just puppets... You have no heart...and cannot feel any pain...""
you may think thats pain you feel but you must have a heart to feel true pain and that pain wont be yours
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figgusfiddus
Arrogant Worm
Registered: 02/02/07
Posts: 2,126
Loc: Figgus, Fiddia
Last seen: 15 years, 6 months
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Re: The Ancients [Re: thedudenj]
#7083598 - 06/23/07 12:56 PM (16 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
thedudenj said:
well thats true im talking about the true ancients the ones that had true healers.
just like theres natives today that see that whoa theres kids doing psychedelic drugs lets use our culteral stuff to make money off em in the guies of healing.
the reason why this culture is the way it is, is cause the good ones and true ones left and said fine if you want to live in a word of senseless and meaningless destuction then do it but eventually you will be forced to come around and they left.
R... right. Okay, I have a personal rule where I don't mess with anyone who may be authentically crazy without a reason. You have now convinced me. This is your notice. Please report to the nurse's office immediately. Take care, and stick to your meds.
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thedudenj
Man of the Woods
Registered: 08/18/04
Posts: 14,684
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its ok i went to a hospital and they just say that i play mind games, what ever that means. They said i dont need healing and im not crazy... so i dunno if im not then i must clearing be sane according to MDs any who everything has reason its a matter of do you know the reason. just cause something is unknown to u doesnt mean it doesnt exist. the only place it doesnt exist is your mind. and your mind and the others that dont know. theres ultimate truth and reality. if you choose to live your life off of what you dont know then thats your choice but dont dictate people on it cause eventually it will bite you in the ass
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"You all are just puppets... You have no heart...and cannot feel any pain...""
you may think thats pain you feel but you must have a heart to feel true pain and that pain wont be yours
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