But, of course, she wasn't a wild animal, nor have any humans been for thousands of years. (Come on: eating cooked meat is "unnatural.")

And yes, I do deny our "connection to the rest of the planet." I've never been fond of commune-with-nature bullshit. Nature is random and impotent; it's there for humans to use, not obey.

I live in a state that gets regular tornadoes, massive lightning storms, floods, five-year-long droughts, and all sorts of nasty things on a pretty much daily basis. The main resevoir of water for this area is nearly bone-dry. But human mastery over nature has advanced to an extent that nobody here notices anymore. Our agriculture industry isn't fazed by either floods or droughts; we still manage to feed most of the country without trouble, and, as a whole, we're doing quite well.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people in Bangladesh, who live much more in-tune with nature, died when their country was struck by big waves. Thousands of more will starve to death because their agriculture is shot to hell, and thousands more will die from diseases that, in the West, are considered nothing serious at all.

Conclusion: until nature magically sprouts a pizza tree in my dorm room (the fruit contains natural vaccinations against flu, by the way), raises an umbrella of fig leaves over my head whenever it rains, and generally makes my life better, to hell with it.

This stuff here ^ is so preposterous, I don't know what to say. It's a discussion for a whole other thread, really, if this is how you actually feel, Asurai. You're an intelligent guy, although I know you're supposed to be this reactionary capitalist - be that as it may - but there are limits to technocratic arrogance. Nature can fuck shit up for humans, sure, but you can't call an ecosystem that advanced "random and impotent".

Hey Asuri,umm I got some news for you buddy... whether you want to believe it or not the Earth is our mother! She feeds, clothes, and shelters us. Where the fuck do you think all the materials for your "advanced technology" come from? Mars? If she wanted to, could destroy us all. It is very arrogant not to appreciate what gives you life. Your food either comes from a plant or something that eats plants. Even is the food you eat is way over-processed it still comes comes from nature and is only tampered with by man.

And as for the tsumani victums... They are poor and can't afford the warnings we can recieve. You are lucky to live where you live and have the things you have. But are you thankful for your random place on this planet? No.

Have you ever even thought about how random life is? It took alot for us to make it to the point we are at. And guess what? Nature made it happen! :shock:

I also find it amazing that you think we are above everything else. Yeah we humans are fucking spectacular!!! We poison our own food and water with our lovely man made chemicals. Not to mention it is not just our water and food...the animals also have to drink the chemicals we dump in the water. And live with our pesticides.

Our great technology will also lead to some really terrific viruses too. You want to know why? We chop down the redwoods and the rainforrests, They hold up our ozone layer. With a depleted ozone layer comes sperratic weather patterns. Sperratic weather patterns allow viruses mutate quicker. Man are we wonderful!!! Not only that the ice caps are going to melt quicker too, When they melt to a certain point, the Earth will shift on her axis and we will be dumped into a new ice age. Though it might not happen tommorow, it will happen alot faster thanks to mankind.

So, you wanna hate nature? Go ahead!!! Be an arrogant human and don't respect what nutures you.

"Humanity is a plague that will eat itself alive" ----Christian Death

Alright, I'll go through this point-by-point.

No, the earth does not feed us. Feeding us would mean that the ground automatically raises up enough food for humans to consume without human intervention. As any farmer will tell you, humans have to work our asses off to get the ground to produce enough food to keep humanity alive.

No, the earth does not clothe us, for the same reasons. I've never seen a t-shirt tree. Even the most basic savages had to put forth their own efforts to produce clothing for themselves. There's a reason that you don't see animals wearing fig-leaf clothing.

No, the earth does not shelter us, again for the same reasons. Even bloody ANTS, who are infinitely below humans on the scale of intelligence, don't get automatic benefits from "mother earth" -- they have to use what organizational talents they possess to maniuplate nature to their needs. Holes don't just open up in the ground spontaneously to serve as homes for them.

That's the point. They have less technology than we, ergo they are more at the mercy of random occurences. And yes, I'm quite thankful for my 'random' place on this planet, but thank you for putting words into my mouth.

Wrong. Whether life arose from entirely natural causes or was designed, I neither know nor care, but you and I both know that "nature" did NOT bring us to the point where we are now. From the cave to the Empire State Building, humans are where we are because we refused to bow to random tragedies as "the will of nature." From the invention of fire to the present day, humans have been manipulating nature to our ends, to our great benefit.

We poison our own food and water. I would advise you to look at population graphs and note that as science increases (including pesticides and chemicals, GASP), the human race grows -- ie, less of us drop dead at young ages. If you're above thirty years old -- the pre-industrial life expectancy ;-- go drop to your knees in thanks to the nearest sooty smokestack or chemical plant that you can find.

Debatable, but because of modern medicine, less people are dying because of those viruses. Hell, we're basically immune to the Black Death. So, even if there are more viruses, they're less dangerous to us by far.

Shouldn't you be GLAD that there are more viruses, by the way? They're natural, after all, and I would think that you would thank humans for increasing natural life.

Hey, the earth is going to blow up eventually, no matter what we do. (In a few billions of years, the earth will stop rotating, and various lunar-solar forces will tear the moon and earth into cosmic dust.) By the way, the earth is CONSTANTLY shifting on its axis and has been since long before man came onto the scene.

But the fact that there will be an eventual ice age doesn't justify abandoning technology and condemning thousands of generations of humans to barest subsistence and savagery until then, particularly when it will happen, eventually, whether or not we live as savages. Besides, by the time that there's another ice age, we'll have advanced to the point that we'll be able to save both ourselves and the rest of the ecosystems without much trouble.

I don't hate nature, I simply don't care about it one way or another.

Nature doesn't nurture me, by the way. My father works to put food on
the table; fruit doesn't spring out of the ground whenever I'm hungry.

"Arrogant human." That's a really cute insult, since "arrogant" would imply an undeserved pride. I'll make a deal with you: when nature creates a Victorian mansion, complete with modern air-conditioning and a heating system, I'll stop being an arrogant human. When an animal can solve an algebraic equation or write a book, I'll stop being an arrogant human.

Nature, by its definition, is without a guiding intelligence. It is therefore random. Advanced ecosystems are caused simply by the random chance that animals suited to live in certain enviornments live, while all of the others without the necessary ability die off in that area, causing the appearance of a fine-tuned, organized system.

But touche -- I withdraw my calling it "impotent," and apply the term instead only to those humans who bow to nature. As history has shown, civilizations that manipulate nature to their ends have been far better off than those that simply accept occurences as the mystical "will of nature" or "will of the spirits" -- if the latter could even be called civilizations.

Define better off. Some of the most peaceful and seemingly happy cultures are the most primitive, to me that would indicate that the exact opposite of what you said is true. In my opinion longer lives and more stuff does not equal better quality of life and it is that quality of life that makes someone better off.

On history showing civilization manipulating nature and being better off, that’s not entirely true. History shows mass extinctions in large population areas, in every part of the world, and we also do not have a definitive cure against the black death, plague still happens (treated bubonic is a 1 to 15 percent mortality rate, septicemic 40 percent, and pneumonic plague 100 percent mortality rate if not treated in 24 hrs) but the transport vector is known (thanks to modern science) and in advanced civilizations it can be controlled to a (somewhat) satisfying degree. So an argument can be made for both sides.

None of this really has anything to do with Terri Shiavo, aside from the argument resulting from natural death, which was rather thin and uncooked to begin with. I don’t see any of the recent post either furthering or halting the idea of assisted suicide, and as such, needless fodder for an otherwise interesting topic.

Very true. But compared to the mortality rates during the pre-industrial period, both in exposure and in fatality, that's lower by a very significant amount.

Allow me to quote from The Enemies of Columbus by Thomas Bowden:

Underlying every achievement of Western civilization has been a restless intellectual ambition, a striving for depth and breadth of knowledge, all aimed at understanding the world and how best to live in it, all made possible by a scientific view of the universe . . . .

Contrast this breadth of intellectual endeavor with the constricted mental outlook of the savage, whose world view is dominated by animism, the primitive notion that everything in the universe is inhabited by powerful spirits, that Nature remains mysterious. The anxiety that necessarily results from such superstition induces cognitive paralysis . . . . It is the savage's lot to see one of his tribe's crude boats vanishing over the horizon and feel dread that the water spirits might prevent its return -- to take that dread and turn it into a frenzied dance of supplication -- to take that dance and make it into a ritual, to be repeated generation after generation -- to invent a new ritual for every danger, for every wild animal, flood, famine, drought, or illness that threatens his existence -- and finally, to have nothing to pass on to the next generation but a pile of arrowheads and a vision of the future that differs not from the past. Immobilized by superstition, the savage society is helpless before the forces of nature, and consequently its members cannot control the course of their own lives.

The point in this is simple: it is better to be rich, healthy, and safe than to be poor, sick, and afraid . . . The importance of being at one end rather than the other [end of this spectrum] is not a matter of subjective preference; it is the difference between life and squalid death. People who fail to civilize themselves are doomed to live in filth, hunger, and fear -- and to die before their time....[They do not realize] that laser surgery is preferable to a shaman's spells.

. . . Now, consider pre-Columbian Indian life [the best example of savage society]. Not having developed an Aristotle of their own, these Indians had neither discovered the laws of logic nor formed a concept of natural law. Instead, they believed the universe to be ruled by fickle, inscrutable spirits that required unflinching obedience to mind-numbing rituals and taboos . . . . Virtually all of these Indians were either hunters, gatherers, fishers, or planters, still mired in the stone age. They were miserably poor, not only by today's standards but by those of 15th century Europe. All Indians, chiefs as well as warriors, were subject to a variety of economic and physical catastrophies (such as floods, famines, pestilence, and epidemic disease) that modern societies have tamed or forgotten.

...The spiritual lifestyle of the Indians was anything but relaxed and simple. Indians lived "in a world of anciety, frustration, inadequacy, and vulnerability, in which the spirits control everything," writes anthropologist Peter Farb. Because they did not understand natural law, Indians lived in constant fear that fickle gods and spirits might take away the things they depended on for life: plants, animals, rain, even the sun. The Aztecs, for example, believed that they were chosen by the gods to feed the sun, which required human blood to fuel its daily race through the sky. So they waged war on neighboring tribes, capturing thousands of prisoners and marching them one by one up to altars...

By contrast, modern Americans live in relative serenity due to their understanding and acceptance of natura law. They have no need to trouble themselves about supernatural beings that interfere with their mastery of the enviornment; they can confront the natural world with confidence that their efforts to investigate and control nature will meet with success over the long run. The resultant feeling of being "at home" in the universe is an achievement of Western civilization, not Indian or savage culture.

...Indians who lived for centuried atop massive reserves of petroleum needed the European immigrants to show them how oil could be used to light a lamp or run an engine. Likewise, although the Aztencs had applies the principle of the wheel to children's toya, Indians continued to carry their meager possessions on their backs or drag them across the ground on long poles. Indians toiled long hours to produce enough food to keep themselves alive; there was usually not enough surplus to permic much division of labor. If Indians produces less garbage, it was only because they produced less wealth. On the other hand, they would think nothing of stampeding a herd of bison over a cliff, taking what they needed, and leaving the rest of the dead animals to rot.

The enviornment that the Indians were unable to master, mastered them, as famine, disease, drought, floods, and malnutrition regularly left the survivors helpless and afraid. Describing certain pre-Columbian tribes, Jake Page writes, "It was, over the centuries, a hard life. We know from burials that a man of forty-five would be worn down, old; and the average life expectancy was less than that. We know that childbearing women suffered more severely from malnutrition than their men, and children more than their mothers. Not infrequently, people died from diseases arising from what we now know to be poor sanitation."

...Modern industrial nations, on the other hand, have truly built paradise by controlling nature to serve human ends . . . .The vibrant economies of the nations adhering to Western values -- including, increasingly, the nations of the Pacific Rim -- have banished famine within their borders, attained ever improving standards of living, and created the wealth and leisure necessary for intellectual ferment and the emergence of great art. Natural disasters, though they still occur, are far less deadly and costly due to the protection made possibly by modern technology.

Thank you, my dear, although I really don't know why you should be glad to have me back. But thank you for the welcome.

And get on MSN sometime, curse your lazy hide. :evil: :wink:

monkeys cn do simple math, I think. . .and they've been doing fabulous work wiht gorillas teaching them sign language.

They say Dolphins are incredibly intelligent as well. My backup for this one will be that they have sex for pleasure, but that ust indicates a well thought out reproductive system.

Not that I'm negating your comments, or anyone else's. Just thought I'd point it out.

Sorry Asurai, but I'm gonna take a hatchet to your lengthy quote. This guy sees things so black-and-white, it's almost funny, albeit in a profoundly tragic way. He'd probably make a good holocaust-dissenter too.

Yeah, but what's cooler? The latter, of course. :wink: But, hey, being a cynical Randian capitalist is also pretty cool, right?

Go on, say it - "Genocide, schmenocide... they were all gonna die anyway. Those pox-infested blankets only sped up the inevitable! Nowadays we don't worry about that kinda stuff, we have medicine now. I'm so glad I'm not a poor person. I barely even notice my pesky humanity anymore! Hooray!" That's pretty fucking cold, man.

No, really. Please go on believing that the "tame and forget" tactic is gonna work out for the best. After all, those who forget history is in no way doomed to repeat it.

Of course not, they've got TV now...

You can laud the industrial revolution all you want for making our modern lives so comfortable, but don't ignore the fact that the way to Western Civilisation is paved with blood and guts. It ain't no paradise by a long shot. Maybe it looks like that from the office in the Ayn Rand institute, but people are still being crushed under the wheels of "progress" every day. All Thomas Bowden can say is: "Tough luck. Take comfort in the thought that your blood is OIL for the MACHINERY OF FREEDOM!"

I'm not gonna glamorize the Indian life, which was surely hard and full of danger, but surely even one as un-PC as you would have to agree that the shit really hit the fan when the greedy and dishonest white man came around. Basically this Thomas Bowden is defending a tragic and shameful genocide and condescending the culture of a people that was, philosophically and morally, superior to the one of the men that came to usurp it.

Oh, and sorry for hijacking the Schiavo-thread. Maybe this could be split?

Asurai, that quote fills me with disgust and revulsion on so many levels........

Yes to the second, thanks for the first. I'd wanted to reply (and hope to soon) but was side tracked on a different thread.

Really, you have to take something like this in context, which Asurai's source didn't. There are relationships that propell each other forward. For example, ideas spread dissent, dissent spreads fights, fights propel war, war stimulates technology with advances in construction, machinery, medicine, and their practical applications. The western hemisphere was at a sever disadvantage (due to small pox) by the invasion from the east, and never had a chance to (even partially) recover before it was fully entrenched.

What his source is saying, in a way, is native people of the Americas were stupid and not nearly as advanced as their eastern counterparts. That is, without a doubt, a lie. Native American technology is of the order grandiose, and rivals the best offering of North Africa on into the Middle East. And not just their buildings and culture, but their politics.

Or are we forgetting where Franklin received inspiration?

this http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/deepj...lizations.html was a decent show depicting the possibility of technology overstepping the bounds of civilization, and if any of you do watch it...do not have a drink in hand or near the mouth on the monkey nut cracking ending.

I snaffed my shorts it was so fucking funny!

Nice tittle change, who came up with that gem?

Who do you think? :roll:

Clichés are clichés for a reason...

And please allow me to go through your argument the same way.

Yes, and no. You're using black and white arguments, and they don't work here. The earth -does- feed us. And before humans learned how to cultivate plants for food, it essentially -did- automatically rise from the ground.

Yes, alot of people starved to death before they figured out how to cultivate, but the environment supported what it could support. If resources were stipped, everyone suffered, people died, and the ecology of the area snapped back into place.

All we did was make it work more efficiently to support a larger number of people. It still comes from the earth.

Again, black and white arguments. all the fibers we wear started on, or in the earth. Cotton from plants, the chemicals for synthetics even started from an earth-based source. Leather, suede, come from the skins of animals. No, animals don't wear clothes. They have fur, or scales, or whatever nature intended them to have to protect them in the environment they live in.

Again, black and white. Those ants would not be able to burrow, if there was nothing to burrow in. Your house would not be built without the trees for the wood, the clay for the bricks, or the ore for the steel and copper.


Yes, that makes you more -fortunate-. It does not make you "better".

But nature -did- enable us to develope consciousness, reasoning, and opposable digits. Without any of those things, we would not exist as we do today.

And that is a double-edged sword.

We have succeeded in prolonging life, but not in slowing down reproduction to compensate. We've succeeded in forcing the earth to produce more "efficiently", to the point we are begining to reach a negative return. We have suceeded in developing industry to enable first-world countries to live easier, at the expense of the water, air and plant-life. And it -does- effect the rest of the world.

Yes. And again, we have a double-edged sword. With people not dying from disease, they're living longer, but they are still reproducing at the same rate. This puts a stress of the ecosystem. And when any ecosystem is stressed, and can no longer support the life in it, several things begin to happen. Violence, disease, famine, and death...it's the natural prograssion to keep the balance. But, in the human part, disease is being fought, so people aren't dying from disease. The system is becoming unbalanced. Famine exists, even within the richest countries. Violence is obvious all around us.

Hell, there's a reason that hunting is necessary, now. We killed off most of the natural predators 200 years ago, and there aren't enough wolves to keep the deer population under control. It has become our responsibility to thin the herd. Kudzu in the southern US is encroaching at an alarming rate, destroying the indiginous plant life there, because it has no natural enemies. It's not native to this part of the world. The rabbit population in Australia exploded because the natural pradators for that animal didn't exist at the time. When you fuck with nature, she fucks back. Humans are just too damn arrogant to see that.

And the White colonists were practically immune to smallpox when we came over here. It damn near wiped out the natives, though.

We will not be immune to new virii. It's a living organism, and evolves, and mutates. The virii become immune to -us-. And as we systematically destroy our environment, the natural protections we enjoyed from certain virii will also be destroyed.

This is true. But there is no reason we should hasten the Earth's demise.

I agree with you there. But at the same time, I think we need to take better care of the environment in which we live in now, so that we won't be foreced to live that way, when it does happen.

At the rate we're going, no we won't. And I'm not talking more advanments at the cost of the environment, but advancements that -work- with the environment.

Perhaps you should.

Neither does it appear out of nothing to sit on the grocer's shelves.

You're right.

And it is undeserved.

Think about it. It already has.

Sorry Asurai, but I feel that your pride has you cornered right now.

Even if Dragon Liver's (that's what it means, right? :D ) arguements can be debatable, her last sentence "owned" you right there and then (in my opinion).

Lemme explain. I thought for a long time and couldn't make up my mind on a number of people (some Rosicrucians, to be precise) who are oposed to the use of vaccines as they believe them to cause unbalnce to the natural ecosystem. As humans, we are part of a natural ecosystem and everything we do is therefore natural.
Earth balances itself. Like the rabbitt vs fox population keeps itself in check.

But think of lost civilizations, fallen empires, slaughtered nations, whole cultures erradicated forever.
Armies of specific human ethnicities, cultures, creeds and ways of life have already disappeared forever (like those huge white english hounds that Bull Terriers descend from).

Yes, there are 4 original latin nations (Italy, France, Spain and Portugal) and a whole lot of derivates (the whole of South & Central America, Guinea, Prince Islands, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique [where I was born], Goa, Indonesia, Macau, Philipines, East Timor, etc) but still, the roman empire is no more.

The Dodo bird is no more, the tasmanian tiger is no more, the lusitanian Linx is no more, the Iberian Linx is almost gone, the North african Lion and Iberian Bears are no more.

You can feel nothing at all by that and argue its a natural process, even if done by humans, as we are animals who are part of this environment.
Hang on.
Are we?

Because the rabbits sure as hell ain't part of the Australian natural environment. Maybe some other animals endanger local ecosystems when wrongfully introduced into them (this one is really an unsubtle way to talk about your bloody past, but fuck it).

What I mean is, if we don't switch to solar real soon, we're never gonna get on those spaceships and get the fuck out of here to other places we can dirty up and destroy.

Don't like the idea of a female nurturing mother nature?

Good, 'cause neither do I and the whole thing stinks of new-age hippies and wiccans to me (even if they are COMPLETELY right), not to mention I grew out of the Edipian phase a long time ago, so I don't like the idea that everyday I'm contributing to fucking my mother.

Try these ones on for size then:

We're all on the same boat. If it sinks, you die before you can make a raft out of the pieces. And why would you wreck a boat for a raft?

Don't shit where you eat. If you don't clean up after yourself, you'll end up eating where you shit, cuase even if you conquer, exploit and kill all other people (I'm being subtle again), you'll still run out of space sooner or later. Again, why would you do that when modern science enables you to clean up after yourself and feed yourself better now than at anytime in history.

Smart evolution means that I can buy butter at a supermarket, eat it and recycle the plastic. What's the use of having science make me a mechanical butter churner? None. It's misuse of brains and equipment. But some idiot wants it because he thinks it's his god given right.

I had a dream, but I traded it in for a way of life I can't afford but hold on to desperatly out of sheer arrogance and pride who won't let me admit I'm just plain wrong, like Bush on drilling in Alaska-

Think about shiting on your food, 'cause thats what Europe did (why do you think you came to be?).
In Portugal, I don't eat where I shit, but it's so close I can smell it all the time. We were able to slow down to a near stop before I ran out of space (subtle). But we look around and a lot is wasted, barren an desolate.
And it's really sad if you guys do that in the US, because you have some of the largest and most beautiful dinner plates. Sad to see you want to shit on those.

I know I'm pushing it a bit and know that what I wrote can be interpreted as provocative.
Yes, I'm provoking you, and you know I'm doing it to melodramatically emphazise a point.
For those who don't know, Asurai does believe in all he wrote (to an extent) but wrote it in a way to shake things up a bit. There's no lamer discussion than one where everyone agrees, and no more pointless one than one where everyone refuses to listen to eachother.

Asurai, am I wrong? If I am, I'm gonna spend the rest of my life brainwashing you into being one of the pussy hippies (because there is a kind of hippy who's not a pussy at all [me]).

Hey Sternn, see? That's how you argue with americans.
I basically said evrything you did and implied all the things you did, but no one is gonna flame my arse for it.
They'll argue for their "way of life" untill they'reblue in the face and living on igloos made out of McDonald's styrofoam, but it won't get bloody.

You too are provocative, and a whole lot more than Asurai.
I know you were pushed. I know you only got personal when your arguements were just dismissed and ridiculed instead of debated.
But no one can be as one-sided as you are.
There are things you just love about the US, but because you never show your appretiation, people almost assume you just hate everything about them, when it's not true.

You got on the nerves of your opponents and are right on the money on many issues, I'll give you that, otherwise you'd simply be ignored instead of flamed.

But the way you make your points these days have lost you a lot of credibility.
Dude, even I get annoyed. I start to read one of your posts, and even I, who agree with you on most things (although your opinions are rather more extreme than mine) can't help but think you won't post about anything you dislike unless it involves the US or Bush (I also hated Clinton, although I thought he was funny [Bush is funnier, but tragically funnier]).

To the other members of this borad, sorry for derailing this last bit.

I would hardly call a culture that had not yet invented the wheel "grandiose."

And receiving inspiration from some source is not the same as learning from that source. Franklin may have received inspiration from American Indian sources, but without his thorough education in European science...

And no, the source was not saying that they were stupid.

Touche and true. Americans are well-noted as being arrogant people who respond only to like arrogance.

I must go, but I'll be back shortly for a longer response.

By the way -- I've heard it said that the most difficult thing for a person to do, is realize what it is about himself that is obvious anyone who's spoken with him for more than five minutes. If you could tell me what it is about the way in which I make my arguments that loses me credibility, I'll certainly try to rectify it.

Last question, to everyone else -- what's wrong with black-and-white? It's simple and clean: there's a right answer that we need to try to find, then there's everything else that we need to disregard.

It’s all of that wonderful, tragic, painful, beautiful gray area that makes life so interesting. Sometimes I wish I could see things only in terms of black and white, that would certainly make things easier and a lot less painful, but most of the time I’m glad I don’t. It is that gray that gives me compassion, that allows me to coexist with others whose views differ from my own, and that truly gives life meaning. If everything were in black and white we would be incapable of truly deep thoughts, there would be no philosophy, no wisdom, only cold hard facts and logic.

Really? No Natives of the Americas had discovered the wheel?

None?

Hmmm, so how did the Aztecs and Myans move tonage of rock to construct gigantic cities? What now unknown device akin to a sledge could do that?

Was it Wonder Twin Power perhaps?

Could be.

And what else...an entire floating city? Hmmm, that's just science fiction shit, right? Right?

Ummm, no.

Come on man, quit it.

Oh, and then there is this, which looks rather wheelish, but I believe the makers did something really stupid and improved on the design a bit. Sadly, it's almost run out, so use it while you can.

But yeah (insert heavy sarcasm) Pre-Columbian civilzation had no concept whatsoever of the wheel.

Bah.

What? Besides having no clue what you just said, I have no idea how you got it from that quotation.

Basically, the point is: it's better to be healthy and safe than sick and afraid. If you disagree, then by all means say so.

Philosophy is hard facts and logic.

Who is still crushed under the wheels of progress every day?

The only people that I can imagine you to say, would be the poor (I don't use the term insultingly; I was and still am dirt-poor) who are laid off by industry. But they're people getting screwed by regression, not progress.

(Just to note: Ayn Rand's a bit to extreme for even my tastes; the entire "anything done for yourself is good; for others, evil" thing never appealed to me. But she did know a lot.)

I would be interested to hear, though, how the culture of the Aztecs was "philosophically and morally" superior to that of the British. The one cut out the beating hearts of captives to please the Sun; the other invented the theory of individual rights and Social Contract.

Neither I nor Bowden support genocide. In the book, he strongly condemns, say, the actions of the Spaniards, as I do now.

Of course. The latter is totally ubergothic. 8)

You've always been nothing but kind to me, so I regret any offense done to you. If you can refute any of the statements, I would be glad to retract them.

Xnguela:

Don't worry about it. I'll talk to you once you get it working again -- if you still wish to speak with a cynical, Randian capitalist, of course.

I'll be back shortly, again, then I'll get to the longer quote. Goody goody gumdrops and rainbows.

Tstone:

The Aztecs knew of the wheel and used it for children's toys. There is absolutely no archaeological evidence that they knew of any other use for it, to the best of my knowledge. Saying that "they must have had the wheel, because they built stone temples" is a non sequitur; we know very little about the methods used to build those temples.

The image is a round stone without any way to connect it to something else. A wheel, to be functional technologically, must be able to be connected to an axis of some sort. A round stone does not equal a wheel; it could be any number of other things. Perhaps they used it to offer still-beating human hearts to their gods. </ad hominem>

Still, even if they did, it doesn't particularly matter much. To say that even the most advanced American Indian culture was "grandiose" in terms of science and technology, compared to even the least advanced Western European civilization, is an absurd comparison.

I’ll just say this last about the wheel, and be done with it. Yes, Pre-Colombian civilization had the wheel, the whole fucking world had the wheel, but like much of the Eastern cultures the Western world learned that the practical use of a wheeled transport, without a road system to travel by, was rather stupid. And like many of their Eastern counterparts, learned and developed new methods of conveyance, which at the time, was more ergonomically suited to their needs. Trekking through jungle, mountain, swamp, and ice; the early inhabitants used sleds, slings, canoes, kayaks, developed snow shoes (now there’s a concept) for drudgery over long snow fields…and that’s quite enough. You get the picture.

And your assumption, that by default since they didn't use the wheel in that manner makes them less advanced than their Eastern Counter parts, is also absurd. Do me a favor, go and look up the use of the wheel in the Eastern cultrues of the same time frame, and see how many advanced Eastern civilizations which had, also, abandoned it. Gads, don't be so thick headed.

post script. We should also take into account the beasts of burden avaiable to the inhabitants at the time, which could have been employed to haul a wagon. Imagine, if you wheel, a team of Tapirs hooked up to a wagon, hauling fresh quarried mountain off to the construction site.

:shock:

How much mountain could a mountain-tapir surmount if a mountain-tapir were mounted with quarried mountain?

Tstone, I don't recall saying that Western civilization was better than the alternative because they had the better use of the wheel. And yes, the snow-shoe is a very creative, useful invention. Given time, the American Indians would have developed their own science, technology, and industry.

But, since we're debating pre-Columbian American Indian culture and contemporary European civilization, allow me to make a simple comparison: the sum total of all American Indian achievements of science in the year 1491 is VASTLY inferior to the sum total of all Western achievements of science. As we go farther on in the centuries -- skip ahead to, say, 1800 ;-- the gap only increases.

Of course resources are important and essential. Even I'm not so ignorant to assert otherwise, but of the two -- human genius and natural, undeveloped resources -- the first is infinitely more important.

A pristine, undeveloped, natural enviornment, no matter how lush, cannot possibly feed enough people to allow them any division of labor, which is the basis of all civilization and human achievement.

An utterly barren waste, devoid of resources, can nonetheless, with the proper application of human ingenuity, feed a large nation. Case-in-point, Israel. Israel has turned deserts into farmland by using modern agricultural science. Consequently, it has a division of labor in that all of its population isn't engaged in looking for food sixteen hours per day, and Israel is therefore one of the most advanced countries in the world.

Human genius in a place devoid of natural resources, can provide for many more people than hunting-and-gathering in a lush enviornment. Both are important, but the one is more important than the other.

And without the intervention of the human mind, they would still be useless plants and chemicals. The improvement of human ingenuity provides by far the larger part of its value than the natural component.

Black-and-white is good. Nobody has ever discovered a shred of truth by viewing things as shades of grey.

And again: even in the most resource-rich enviornment, nature provides only raw materials. It cannot provide shelter for ants unless the ants force it to.

So, I clarify my position: insofar as nature provides raw materials, I respect it, but nature has never done anything good for humans without human intervention forcing it to do so. I think that you and I can be in agreement on that point.

I did not say that I myself am better because I live in a technological society rather than a savage one. I said that a technological society is better than a savage one. I'm fortunate that I live in the better society, not "better" because I had the good fortune to be born here.

Now we're starting to get into the main problem that I have with Nature-followers: how do you define "nature"? As resources, as the physical laws, as some abstract entity, as the enviornment, or as the sum total of everything? (Which is just saying that everything is due to everything, which really isn't a position at all.) I've met people who hold each different positions, and each definition leads to a completely different concept. "Nature" as a concept is nearly impossible to properly define.

So, depending on your definition, no, nature did not enable us to develop consciousness and reasoning. If you subscribe to the atheist position, then life is simply a chance phenomenon -- and to define chance and probability as nature, I think, is a far too wide definition of the word "nature." If you subscribe to the deist position, then life is designed, which is a concept entirely outside pure "nature" (by some definitions).

And even if you're completely right (not likely, since I, arrogant as I am, don't even consider myself completely right), we can owe no debt of gratitude or respect to random chance.

Meaning, how dare we evil humans not die when we're supposed to? How dare we contribute to creating more life?

You're right, though: we've forced the earth to produce more efficiently. We're nowhere near a negative return, though; the majority of habitable land is still uninhabited, and a very great deal (I don't know exactly what percentage, but it's probably about 50%) of farmable land is still unfarmed. And even in China, agricultural science is still advancing so that we're getting larger returns of food for less and less effort, space, and resources.

As long as we don't nuke everything, we and the earth will be fine.

I don't consider keeping people alive a double-edged sword.

Our ecosystems are not stressed. None of those things that you've mentioned are happening in any severe quantity.

Judging by the price of wheat and beef (really damn low), I would say that the supply is up, which means that our ecosystem remains quite capable of supporting us all. The only places where this is not the case are the less advanced, inaccessible places (which are, correspondingly, still very underpopulated, which in turn means, again, that the ecosystem there is not stretches thin).

More food for humans, then. Venison makes several good meals for an entire family. So, this imbalance doesn't risk destroying us, particuarly since deer are nearly unheard of near the farms that produce food for us. Let them eat grass in the woods, and let us eat them.

We're still here, and all of those disasters have yet to make a dent in our numbers.

Killer bees have no natural enemies in this state, and they're all over. We're not starving to death from enviornmental collapse because of it, though. A general rule of thumb is that it's a lot harder to fuck with nature in any real degree than most of us think.

*blinks* This is true, irrelevant though it is to our current discussion.

Simple hygiene prevents the contraction of most virii, regardless of whether it's a mutant strain. Good nutrition builds a healthy immune system, which is highly useful against even a mutant virus. So, yes, I'm appealing to a natural, innate defense against mutant virii.

But at the same time, bacteria are tiny, fragile little things. They're easy to kill, no matter how new or unknown, once we find a way to do it. Simply heat -- taking a very hot bath, for instance -- kills great numbers of microorganisms. And eventually, we'll find a scientific cure against mutant virii. The little bastards don't have god-mode.

I agree with you here. Slash-and-burn operations, I'm sure that we agree, are a waste of natural resources. There are more responsible and, in the end, cost-efficient ways to take what we need.

There is no living creature yet discovered that is capable of doing anything better than humans, once we set our mind and resolve to the problem. If you can find an example which I cannot refute, then I will admit that human pride is undeserved.

That's a beautiful sentiment, but, in my cold and black-and-white way, I demand proof and examples.

No matter how beautiful, a cave does not equal or even approach a Victorian mansion complete comfortable furniture, plumbing, and electricity. Not to mention running water for reasons of hygiene.

You just blew my mind, man.

Maelstrom,

Sorry that I didn't respond to you directly, but there's not much that I can argue with you about. I'm against "shitting where we eat" -- I simply think that the enviornment is more resilient than we give it credit for, and that human interests come before those of trees.

But, as I mentioned, I'm against things like slash-and-burn operations and strip mines; let there me no mistake about that.

Then I must have misunderstood you, and beg your pardon. It appeared to me, in the context of your original quote and the manner it was writ, that savages of the West were begging to be conquered, due to many factors, but mainly to an inferiority and ability to comprehend advanced ideas.

Now onto comparable technology, which goes back to my original argument that technology is moved by strife and war. Were the conquers more technologically advanced than Pre-Colombian civilizations? Yes, with maybe an exception to astrology, and math. Here again, one has to balance the existing technology of the peoples, and determine if there was a demand for new technology.

Economics plays a role in every part of life, and if an argument can be made that Pre-Colombian’s of the Americas were lesser skilled, an argument can also be made that their then skills provided for their needs, and anything further would pose an economic challenge, which could (feasibly)allow an aggressor an advantage. The old, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, argument.

Economics pushed Spain, Portugal, Dutch, English, French and Sweeds into global conquest, which few non-competing civilizations escaped from. Yes, we are now talking about Colonialism. Economics, I believe, would have propelled the natives of the Americas into a comparable technological state, had they not been so completely and utterly decimated. The circumstances were now (then) favorable for the expenditure to adapt new techniques and knowledge, and many scenarios cross my mind and I do wonder what could have happened and what they could have become, if only they had had…a better immune system, or at the least, previously been exposed to small pox.

Meh.

And you know my stance on Colonialism, Asurai. Combined with Catholicism; the greatest evils perpetrated on humanity. Though I also know we have both to thank for our current system of existence, I also believe all of this, everything which we now know to be true, would have been discovered (albeit not as quickly) and realized without the previous two factors.
Comfort and peace have a price, and that price is mostly paid in blood. And I’m ok with the precept, but it’s when greed comes in…and then everything goes to hell.


p.s. I know I said the earlier would be my last thought on the wheel, but I would like to add that the world did not fully realize this ergonomically terrific idea (who remembers the old Sega game I just ripped off?) until the late 1800’s, and before then it was largely in concept (as the great Mayan civilization which once flourished realized it as) a mere child’s toy.

p.p.s. glad you liked the Tapir quip 8)

I gotta say, the tapir quip was bloody brilliant.

As far as citing human sacrifices as evidence of barbarism, and of technilogical infancy, I don't follow. It's a religious and cultural thing. The aztecs were firmly convinced that their gods gave blood to mankind to bring life on this planet, with the provision that it was a temporary loan man had to pay back. If man didn't pay, the sun would die.

Basically, they thought man's life was due to the gods, as a return payment. Without the sacrifice the gods would suffer and the world would end.

in terms of development and civilization: They had advanced math engineering, health care (evidence of Surgery and dental care were found on excavated remains), art, all the bells and whistles. The steps of the one of the pyramids is a prime example. The stone quetzalcoatl is placed so that the sun's rays flow up the snake as the sun rises, I believe on midsummer day.

In 400AD, with around 200,000 inhabitants Teotihuacán was the sixth largest city in the world. Trading relationships were established with Monte Albán in Oaxaca and the Gulf Coast - there is little evidence of any hostility during the years of prosperity. (You will not see any depictions of warfare or human sacrifice in the carvings and murals at Teotihuacán). http://www.pennyjohnson.com/web/Mexi...1/Pyramids.htm
The mass sacrifices described by the spanish began after a drought and famine caused their priests to claim that the gods were angry at being neglected. His words are preserved in the library at paris, I believe. I read a translation of the speech years ago. It happened a few hundred years before Cortez landed in Mexico.

You can't confuse cultural and religious beliefs with the technilogical advance or lack of progress of a people.

I think there are alot of things you and I agree on, but I see you enjoy being provocative! :P

Let me assure you, I'm no "tree-hugger". I see no reason NOT to exploit our natural resources for the betterment of mankind. But, again, we also need to replace what we take, because those resources are not indefinate I also don't buy the crap that PeTA puts out that cow farts are reducing the ozone layer).

However, I disagree with you, when you say that we're not seeing the results of that wanton exploitation. Slash and burn aside, look at places like Love Canal. Look at studies on "Cancer Clusters". There's more, but I see no point in digging it all up. You'll either look for it yourself, if you're really interested, or you'll dispute my claim and leave it at that. ;)

As for the lack of food....well, the US is supposedly the richest nation on Earth, yet we have -HUGE- numbers of people starving to death right here.

re: the advancements Isreal have made in cultivation...Keep in mind, the ME (including Isreal) was once a very lush area of the world. Quite fertile. Until the Romans salted the earth.

And philosophy, by it's very nature, -cannot- be black-and-white. :P

Usually. I don't sit here and think, "Hm, I'm going to go piss people off with my ideas," but it usually just turns out that way.

Oh, good. I apologize for assuming that you were like that; I'm just tired of arguing with people who look at me like I'm a monster because I use wooden furniture.

And yes, we need to replace what we take, at least to a certain extent. Requiring lumber companies to plant so many seedlings for so many trees cut down seems reasonable.

True, but this is due more to economic inequality than to the enviornment being unable to sustain our numbers. The total amount of food-stock in circulation in the US is more than enough to feed 300 million people if perfectly distributed, but some people hold more of it than others. (I do NOT advocate wealth redistribution, by the way -- as though anyone here could accuse me of that.)

[quotere: the advancements Isreal have made in cultivation...Keep in mind, the ME (including Isreal) was once a very lush area of the world. Quite fertile. Until the Romans salted the earth.[/quote]

True, but most of the salting was centered around population centers like Jerusalem. Long before the Romans came along, there were vast stretches of desert, including the Negev and Sinai. Israel has, to some extent, claimed some of this barren land as farmland.

I hate modern philosophy for just that reason.

Philosophy is the ultimate science of black-and-white. It is the search for absolute truth that transcends all other petty concerns and circumstances.

And Aristotle is on my side :P. Roughly paraphrased: "A is A, always has been A, and always will be A. If it ceases to be A, then it is not A.

"That which is not A is not A, nor will it ever be. If it ceases to be not A, then it becomes A."

Aristotle was always very black and white: something either is, or it is not. There is no in-between on anything.

Nah. I'm an evil capitalist, not a rabid white-supremacist. Sorry that you got the wrong impression, though.

I'm afraid that I don't follow. Why would anything further produce an economic challenge and allow an aggressor an advantage? I've always thought that it would be the exact opposite, but I'm likely misunderstanding you.

I can probably agree with you on the bit about Colonialism (if by colonialism we mean imperialism), but Catholicism? I think that that's a little bit of an exagerration. Through all of the centuries, all of the inquisitions and pogroms, the number of those killed by the Church has never even begun to approach the number of those killed during fifteen years of Nazi rule.

Yea, that's the point. Slaughtering 10,000 captives every year (five times the number of people that died during the ENTIRE Spanish Inquisition), on average, is just a teency little problem.

And you're right: it was their culture. Which, while saying nothing about their level of technology, says very effectively that their culture was fucked up and cruel.

I'm not going to give them a free pass on that because "it's their culture." The fact that they considered mass sacrifice a-okay says a lot about their moral development, if not their scientific development.

...all with an average life exspectancy of about 30 years. Yea, they had great health care.

This is true. Astronomy is among the first of all arts learned by any civilization, and I would be rather surprised if even the Aztecs were without it. But I would be more impressed if their great feats of engineering, the temples, hadn't been used to cut out thousands of beating human hearts on a yearly basis.

And remember: the level of engineering achieved by the Aztecs, was slightly below that of the Egyptians more than 2,000 years before Columbus sailed. So there's still quite a large achievement gap there.

The rest of the American Indians were even more worse off.

Is it any better to slaughter people by the thousands for entertainment, like the romans did in the Circus Maiximus to the criminals, barbarians, christians (not catholics) than to do it for religious beliefs?

As for the wheel, it simply had no use in rainforest terrain and in the Andes. It's just impractical. A sledlike cart would suit the environment a lot better.
Necessity is mother to industry (invention or imagination). Their technology was perfectly adequate to their environment, where they were light years ahead of the West in biotechnology (shaman or medicine-man's knowledge and use of herbs and infusions and mind-altering substances) and architectural techiniques (Notre Dame is trully beautifull, but aside from some vitral colors we still cannot reproduce to this day, but Machu Pichu is a lot older, mechanically unexplained and impossible to reproduce to this day in its masonry techniques if not just the enigma on how they got the boulders up there in the first place).

The actual age of some of the Pyramids in South America and Egipt is still an ongoing debate. Remember I'm not giving props to south americans on rock size, quarring techniques and transportation logistics. I'm talking deep masonic knowledge here. I'll try to find a picture of what I'm talking about.

Bring it on. I'm on Fire.... :D (baby's on fire, better throw her in the water...)

I prefer Marijuana, beer, a steak and a blow-job to Ecstasy, Coca-Cola, Big Mac and a porn video. And with that phrase alone, I win and you're all my bitches. :D




p.s. sure, I'll have a coke, burger and a wank as often as anyone else, but I know where my priorities lie and don't doubt my preferences for a second. :P

I was afraid that bit might have come across unclear because after writing it, reading it, forgetting about it and searching for porn instead, then coming back…I was a little unclear myself as to what I meant :}

Basically, this is it (it’s not a hard concept) say team A and Team B are producing a comparable product. They are meeting profit levels, customers and worker are happy, everything is good. Both may be able to utilize newer technology, both may be able to improve output and make everything more efficient, but both will have to spend money to do that. If either company A or B makes an unwise choice, spends too much money, then they are now in a situation where they stand to loose customers, which effects profits, which effects employees, which effects the life span of the company.

If neither company makes a move to upgrade or spend money on R&D, if both stay with comparable technology and are selling a comparable product, both can be sure of some level of safety and longevity, as long as the market for the product is sustainable.

Company C comes into the area, selling the same type of products, with less overhead, and more profit. Company A and B are now forced to retool just to be competitive, just to stay alive. Meanwhile, Company C sells a portion of their ageing technology, which is no longer viable to them, to company A and B, which strengthens company C’s overall standing and solidifies it as the heir apparent to the entire market, and they can now dole out pieces to Companies A and B as they C fit.

Economically terrific.

Apply the same principal to government, civilization as a whole, and we can hypothesize why Pre-Colombian technology was where it was, and why Eastern Technology was where it was.

One existed in a more competitive market, was more (economically) volatile, and the fruits of those labors equal progression.


You know, it’s a thin line for me between Colonialism and the expansion of Catholicism (during this epoch) because with the one I tend to think of British influence, and with the other I tend to think Catholic influence over the British, Germans, Spanish, Swedish, French, blah blah blah blah blah blah. So I guess I should have said Colonialism, and the expansion of Catholicism during Colonialism. Yeah, that would have been clearer.

Sorry.

I was gonna say I preferred T-bone steak to Big Mac's, but then I thought about it and left it at steak! :D

*pulls out SNL skit book and adapts greek accent*

TStone; You like the T-bone?

TStone; You want more T-bone, no?

*calls greek brothers from kitchen*

TStone; Hey BStone, he likes the T-bone.

*BStone slaps towel against hand and smiles at Mael*

BStone; You, ah, like the T-bone?

BStone; You want that I should give you more of the T-bone, no?

*BStone looks at other brother GedStone smirking*

BStone; He likes the T-bone.

GedStone; He likes the T-Bone?

*GetStone turns to Mael, he too is all smiles*

GedStone; You like the T-bone. *nodding*

GedStone: TStone, he like the T-bone!

*TStone nods affirmative, smilling from ear to ear*

TStone; We gonna get you some more T-bone. You wait right there.

TStone To BStone; Get him some more T-bone.

BStone to GedStone; He's got to have more T-bone, let's get him some more T-bone.

GedStone to Mael; You wait, I'll get you some T-bone...

The tapit tongue twister was great, but this is brilliant.

Thanks, T-man.


Er... I think I'll just have a happy meal, thanks... :roll:

:D

-Yu wanta da tói dat gouz wid it? :shock:

Pissing people off, and yanking chains is two different things :p

Okay, maybe not. But pissing people off, and getting people to talk are. ;)

Pish! I love good wood furniture. And no apology needed. I admit I sounded like a tree-hugger. It wouldn't be the first time, either. I just acknowledge the "source" of what we have.

Agreed! But at the same time, I do believe we should preserve the "old growth" forests, as well. Not just for the ecology, but becuase we can't really replace them.

Yes, I agree. And no, I don't believe in "wealth redistibution", either. Another name for that is Communism. I'm more of a Socialist (after a fashion). On the other hand, I also don't agree with a corporate CEO buying a new Jag every year, or a Learjet every 5, while his employees down on the line (who are -also- helping make his company prosper) are working 2 jobs just to keep a hovel over their heads, or worse, paying someone in a 3rd-world country $2.00 a day, and a couple of chickens, just so they can have a bigger profit margin. However, this is not all the fault of the CEO, or the shareholders, but also the unions, who've stopped working for labor rights, and become politicians just wanting to line their pockets (And helped price American labor out of the market), as well as the consumer who demands cheaper goods, and the credit card companies who make it easy to get into debt, thus creating a false economy, and......well, I think you get my drift. It's all relative.

And you would not be the first to accuse me of over-thinking an issue.

Buddhism is not exactly modern philosophy. :p (Yes, I'm just being contrary)

There are a gazillion philosophies. Your own personal beliefs will dictate which one you chose to follow.

Doesn't everyone? :D


Oh and forgive me Asurai, but I gotta take one more shot at you: Philosophy is thinking about thinking.
It's closer to art and meditative religion than science. I mean, we're still asking the same questions we did thousands of years ago. Philosophy would have progressed a wee bit more if it were scientific and not a completely subjective thinking matter.

:P

Touche! :D

The ceremonies the Indians performed were just as meaningful to them, spiritually, as the many ceremonies that the catholics still perform today. I don't see much difference between the two, actually. It would be awfully rude to hunt an animal without giving thanks for it, no? Don't the christians say grace before meals, giving thanks for the bounty on their plates?

The part about the water spirits preventing boats from returning? Just laughable. If their boats went over the horizon and came back on a regular basis, they wouldn't have feared 'water spirits'. They did fear things that they'd never seen or weren't familiar with.



Wow, I never realized that the "savages" had a choice between laser surgery and shaman spells, back then!

Yabadabadoo! I never heard of them being likened to cave men before.Miserably poor? Didn't the Aztecs wear gold jewelry?Or maybe the author is suggesting, in his bigotted way, that it is better to be materialistic than to be able to make do with what nature provides and not ask more than your share?Greed is to be commended?

...The spiritual lifestyle of the Indians was anything but relaxed and simple. Indians lived "in a world of anciety, frustration, inadequacy, and vulnerability, in which the spirits control everything," writes anthropologist Peter Farb. Because they did not understand natural law, Indians lived in constant fear that fickle gods and spirits might take away the things they depended on for life: plants, animals, rain, even the sun.

Constant fear?No.



Serenity? Ha! Only if you consider it serene to worry about how you're going to stretch the few diapers you have til payday and pay bills + rent + food.

Not if they didn't need the lamp or engine.What good would it have been to have a lamp when they already had fire to see by?An engine would've only warned the buffalo of their presence and scared them off.

The indians only worked as hard as any other farmer to grow what they needed.Hell, they taught the pilgrims how to feed themselves, thereby insuring their own doom,unfortunately.What need did they have of wealth?They had everything they already needed. The original DIYers.

Western civilization's sanitation wasn't much better, if at all.

It's hardly paradise.Unless that's refering to all of the wonderful pollution we produce.



It's not yourself that I have a problem with, Asurai, just this author's thinly veiled supremisist leanings.It's quite obvious from his writing that he thinks indians were nothing more than drooling nit-wits afraid of their own shadows.Other than that, I have nothing useful to add to the other debate going on as I agree with points on boths sides.

:D

Plus, I've spent almost 2 hours on this response between changing and feeding kids and whatnot.If I don't leave off I'm going to get a headache.[/i]

Firstly, I'm curious as to what, in your case, is the difference between a Socialist and a Communist.

Secondly, I probably agree. A corporate CEO is entitled to make a substantial amount of profit more than the average Joe working the line, but some amounts are simply exploiting. After all, as you said, they help him to produce the wealth that the company obtains; for all of his planning and organization, he could make hardly a dime without good, hard workers. But at the same time, without the CEO producing wealth and making the company rich, the company wouldn't be creating the jobs that are necessary for the workers to live on. No profit for businessmen, no jobs for workers; no jobs for workers, no profit for businessmen. They're both interconnected to a very significant degree, so neither should screw the other over out of what they deserve.

The unions? The unions today suck.

Oh, no worries about that. I usually do the same, to the extent that most people get utterly sick of listening to me ramble on and on about the minor points and differences of things. (I believe that things are basically black-and-white, but it usually takes me a long, long time to get there.)

Sigh. Sadly true in most cases.

Not particularly, no, and you'll not find me justifying that particular bit of Roman civilization either. (Although sentencing murderers to fight each other to the death is cool.)

This is true, but it was the Western tradition, not the Indian knowledge of herbs, that gave rise to modern medicine. Most of the Western civilization in, say, 1492 was nothing more than potential, but its potential quickly turned into sciences far more advanced than anything else in the world.

And I'm grateful to the shamans for passing down the uses for, say, water boiled with marigold flowers. (I think that that was them, at least.)
It's cheap and easy, if slightly less effective than its Western equivalents.

You suck, Mael.

But beer is a Mediterranean thing.

I forgot to mention that those roman atrocities (as we perceive them today) were contemporary to the Apian Road, the aqueducts, military technology and strategic planning, the republic, the senate, roman law, literature and philosophy and all the things we like about them.

And Nietzsche was a mysoginist sunovabitch, but does it undermine his writings?

Blood and evolution somehow walk side by side even when the 1st doesn't contribute directly to the latters' growth nor is it always rationally justifiable.

The Arabian and subsequent Ottoman empires were ahead of the West in all forms of science and technology, but it still didn't prevent them from turning back on it and burying all their heritage in the sand (besides destroying vestiges of former civilizations - the pyramids survived out of sheer size).
I mean, look at them now.

Believe it: the dark ages can happen again. They happened before in the West and it's happening now in the Middle East.

As with individuals, it's not what you say, think and have. It's not what you're capable of. It's what you do with all of it that matters in the end.

Remember that shitty Armaggedon flick? The Ruskie goes: "My uncle is very important man. He make the chip that goes on tip of ICBM and finds Washington, NY and LA." or something to that effect.
Not exactly technology put to good use, huh?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have saved many lives, if you insist on seing it in that skewed a perspective. Has the US apologized for murdering civilians to save soldier's lives?
'Cause that's what it came down to. Machiavel was just plain wrong: the ends do NOT always justify the means.

Difference between Socialism and Communism?
Quite simple, really. In the original Marxist theories, it's sort of a foreplay to Communism.
Sound scary? Not really.

Theorettically, communism is a society without hierarchy and ruling government bodies. There is a state and it's composed of the territories inhabitants as well as the territory itself. Communism is a state of affairs where the workers control the means of production directly according to the communities needs and the state exists no more.

Do notice that our industrial/economy driven society pushes us to make shit we never needed and never really will, adding to the toll on natural resources.
Market laws practically force any "rational" CEO to overproduce or underproduce and make cutbacks in order to keep a stable market.

The value of a modern man's work is now subject to market speculation and pure unadultered greed instead of the actual value of what he produced in terms of its benefit to society.

Socialism is the acknowledgement that society can never immediately jump from one state of affairs (monarchy, dictatorshit, imperialism, republic, economy and what not) to Communism.
Therefore, a middle ground is needed = the state represented by a governing body elected by its peers (worker's unions).

Modern day socialism focuses on what the Left forgot when the Berlin Wall came down:

-People are still being exploited to the point of practical slavery, from Madagascar to India and red China.

-People are being repressed (often by people who refer to themselves as "socialist" - Castro and China again as well as many US backed "governments").

-People are being tortured and killed along with their whole family for speaking their mind on what they think is wrong, from Angola, to Nigeria, to Zimbabwe, the Whole Middle East.

Fuck, man, people are starving to death outside your country, and people are going hungry in yours, and don't you dare say they're all lazy bastards sucking on uncle Sam's tit, 'cause it ain't so, as some members here can personally vouch for.

There are still way too many voiceless people at home and abroad for us to pat ourselves on the back for our great achievments.
There is a real need for a real left. Evolution will go nowhere without a "roadmap". Like that one? :)

Unlike what you might have been led to believe, REAL socialism is not about censorship (you know, like you have in the states for "National Security Reasons" or in so called communist countries) of any kind. The last guy who tried to pass a law to allow for state secrets was thrown out on his arse. We were lied to for too long to ever allow it again. The difference between us and the US is that we are aware we were lied to.
It shames and embarasses us to admit it, but it's not like we can deny it.

Socialism today isn't about a single party system (in PT, the socialist party just won the elections and you can bet your ass no one here wants a single party system and it won't happen).
Socialism is about Society. It comes from social. Replace Social with Civil, and you'll get an idea. Communism is about community (yeah right).

I don't believe in communism because people aren't all the same, don't need the same and don't deserve the same.

But I AM a socialist because if I believe all people are NOT equal, I also believe they are all equal when they are born and HAVE THE RIGHT TO THE SAME OPPORTUNITIES in life.

The unassumed gay paedophiliac who was the rightwing party leader in the bypartisan government that just fell in PT, held the ministry of Defence and Sea, and put warships preventing the Women On Waves ship from docking in my country to give out free information about voluntary interruption of pregnancy (abortion), child planning and safe sex. I mean, not even fucking Ireland did that (one point for Sternn).

He also opposed the referee on Abortion, wants the Catholic church to be reinstated as official national religion and wants kids to sing the national anthem as something compulsory in all schools.

We were trampled under a nationalistic fascist dictatorship for 60 years, so no matter how natural the school anthem sounds to an american, it sends chills down the spine of everyone here if not sung or heard at a military, sports or official government event.

Sadly, we now associate these national symbols (like the national coat-of-arms that has been my avatar untill my ass took over), as they were imprisoned, tortured, killed or sent to death camps in african colonies.

You like your anthem? Good. Keep it.

Oh, did I mention the US republican party (or one of their associations and think tanks) congratulated the PT minister on the whole warship crap, and are now going to fund him his own rightwing political party after the incompetent and corrupted government he was part of fell?
I mean, the dude goes to France, puts on a blond wig and rents boys for fun - they call him Catherine Deneuve there.

Thanks America. Thanks for looking out for the interests of my country and its people... NOT!

But that's OK, 'cause we already agreed every government just pulls for his country.

And I do believe people get the governments they deserve.
That's why we got ourselves a new one. We deserved better and desperately need a better one. You guys probably don't know just how bad things are on this side of the Atlantic.

We are going hungry again.
Something that hadn't happened since this country was squeezed dry by the dictatorship in order to sell food to both nazis and allies in WW II, and bled dry to fight a few colonial wars in Africa (where my father died).

I hated a couple of things about Clinton on foreign policy (although I'll admit Madeleine Albright has more balls and integrity than the whole Bush entourage), but at least the world economy was running (as the global market is slave to the Dollar), but now...

Really now, for those of you in the US who work: has your life improved anything since 2000 as a result of your current governments actions? Are you wealthier? Are you better off? Are you safer?

Don't think about saying the recession hit when it did and that Bush just happened to be there, seen as the market went under because there are no business dealings without trust.
Trust was undermined by Enron, amongst other businesses who sponsored Bush his 1st term.
Is Bush to blame for this?

And Asurai, a fair days wages for a honest days work applies to both the factory floor worker as well as the CEO, but if they are incompetent, one gets sacked and the other is given a huge finantial compensation.

Guess which one.

When one of them is incompetent, the whole company suffers and might even go under or be bought out and dismembered (as it often does).

Guess which one.

Worker and CEO symbiotic?
Yeah right!
Tell that to your fellow americans who got laid off because a CEO decided that underpaid, exploited and mute workers in the Chinese communist regime was the best way to cut losses and increase earnings (When does the 101st arrive there to do some liberation?).
A CEO's only order of business is to generate wealth for the company and increase it or cut losses and file for bankrupcy (at any cost, workers included).

Welcome to the jungle, we have fun and games...

The world isn't black and white simply because there is no absolute black nor white.
It's all really just different shades of grey.
Sure, a lot of tones can easily be told apart, but many can't (unless you insist on seing things as you want to see them and not as they present themselves).

Oops. I raved on for a while, didn't I? Ah fuck it, tomorrow I'll just post a different angle of my arse and all will be forgotten (what an arrogant sod)! :?

Seriously now, sorry for going off on a rant.

Marx and the Communist Manefesto aside, Communism doesn't work. Supposedly everyone is equal, and everyone is supposed to get the same share of the money, no matter how hard you work, or how brilliant your idea. There's no reason to excell. There's no reason to -try-. Doesn't matter if you do a half-assed job, or a good job, it's going to be the same pay, either way.

On the other hand, Socialism -does- seem to work. At least in some European countries. Socialism is making sure everyone has the same -BASIC- benefits in medical care, shelter, food and education. What you do with that, is up to you. You can be lazy, or you can excell. You can still make a profit, or you can be dirt poor. You still have your -basic- needs covered. You have the option to do something about adding to the basic medical care, basic housing, etc. But you will not be without those needs covered.

It makes for higher taxes, but in the long run, it makes sound economical sense. Hungry, homeless, desperate people, are -dangerous-. History has shown over, and over, and over again, when the lower class is oppressed, and denied their basic needs, they -will- revolt. Every. Single. Time. People who do not have these basic needs covered, do not spend money on other things, because they have to figure out whether to eat, or pay rent. When there is no basic medical coverage, people will put off going to the doctor for something that can be taken care of easily, in the early stages, thus reducing the number of days missed due to illness, and basic medical coverage will also lessen the instances of people using the emergency room for a clinic, and then not being able to pay, thus raising the cost of medical care for everyone, and raising the cost of insurance. Productivity is up, so more money is being earned at the lower levels, and put back into the economy. Basic needs for food being covered means less loss from theft, and better nutrition, which also ties back into health and productivity. Basic shelter covered, means fewer people on the streets and in shelters, and can reduce violent crime (note I did not say eliminate it).

BINGO! I see no reason to make that CEO live off the same wages the line worker does. There is education, and skills involved that create the environment and situation that allows the line worker to have a job in the first place. Its all reletive, though. Without the CEO, the line worker would not have a job. Without the line worker making the product, the CEO wouldn't have any profits.

But seriously, if those CEOs who are getting paid obscene amounts of money (including several million when the shareholders decide that CEO isn't making a good enough profit for them...I mean, get real! Where is the incentive to make that company shine, when you know you'll get a nice, shiney golden umbrella when you get canned?) don't need THAT much, and if -some- of that were redistributed down the line, there would be no need of Unions, nor would there be any need of working two jobs, or to export our jobs to a 3rd world country. Everyone would go away happy, and our economy would kick ass.

They're still trying to cash in on the good they did a couple generations ago, and they ain't doing it. At this point, the unions are nothing more than dead weight sucking the life out of American Industry.

Of course! After all, if you consider something from all angles, and argue your side while covering all those angles, who can argue with you?

Well, except someone else who overthinks stuff. :p

Correction....Many of us here in the US are well aware that we've been lied to.

Mael, your rant was well thought-out, and made very good points. In fact, I read the entire rant to my fiance, and he agreed with everything you said (except the part I corrected above).

Thanks babe, but I suspect your post is something like KY jelly being applied on my ass (see avatar :D ) before Binkie reads my post and buttfucks me for it.

Binkie, if you do stumble onto my post, lemme tell you I'm well aware of how one-sided and subjective it all is (not to say flatout Sternnish), and am also aware there are quite a few faults in my reasonings (I know I had a lot better arguements to tie Bush to the recession, the Tsunami and the killing of Jesus if possible :roll: ), but I did it on purpose to provoke discussion. Once more, sorry for ranting and derailing the thread somewhat.

Brilliant post, Mr. M. It's almost redundant to say I agree with all of it. If all socialists were as clear and incisive as you, the world would be ours. Well, I wish.

But, fuck, this always happens with any interesting political thread. I take some days off, and when I check back in, the thread has grown by several pages, and I've totally lost my angle on it. But that's all well and good, it's been an interesting read.

Maybe I'll get back into this later, I can't focus right now.

And what have they ever given
us IN RETURN?
XERXES
The aqueduct?
REG
What?
XERXES
The aqueduct.
REG
Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true.
MASKED COMMANDO
And the sanitation!
STAN
Oh yes ... sanitation, Reg, you remember what the city used to be like.
REG
All right, I'll grant you that the aqueduct and the sanitation are two
things that the Romans HAVE done ...
MATTHIAS
And the roads ...
REG
(sharply) Well YES OBVIOUSLY the roads ... the roads go without saying.
But apart from the aqueduct, the sanitation and the roads ...
ANOTHER MASKED COMMANDO
Irrigation ...
OTHER MASKED VOICES
Medicine ... Education ... Health
REG
Yes ... all right, fair enough ...
COMMANDO NEARER THE FRONT
And the wine ...
GENERAL
Oh yes! True!
FRANCIS
Yeah. That's something we'd really miss if the Romans left, Reg.
MASKED COMMANDO AT BACK
Public baths!
STAN
AND it's safe to walk in the streets at night now.
FRANCIS
Yes, they certainly know how to keep order ...

... let's face it, they're the only ones who could in a place like this.

REG
All right ... all right ... but apart from better sanitation and medicine
and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater
system and baths and public order ... what HAVE the Romans done for US?
XERXES
Brought peace!
REG

What!? Oh ... Peace, yes ... shut up!


This is something that seems true no matter what. While I'd have a hard time living like my ancestors did, I can't find it in myself to praise the people that brought all of my modern conveniences to me. It seems like a double standard, no? I do kinda feel like the people in 'Life of Brian' at times. You don't like the way things are done, but you benefit from them being done, none-the-less.

You mean the Great Depression? Yeah, that could probably happen again. People are even laying odds that it will. I don't think it will though, but I'm being optomistic.

Yes, actually. I believe it was when Clinton was in office that we went over and officially apologized for that. I don't know if they ever apologized for provoking us by laying waste to Pearl Harbor first, though. It was a shameful thing to have done. Murdering people that are known to be civilians is wrong, period. The US should never have done it.



I'll comment on the rest tomorrow.