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Maybe you didn't realize it; but you've given us a rather succinct re-telling of the Mexican fisherman story

I second that. This story, http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/fisherman.html, is what convinced me that working 80 hour weeks wasn't worth it, no matter how impressive my resume looked, or my responsibilities were, nor where I got to travel on the company dime, nor who was patting me on the back. I left that corporate world eight years ago and took a job, still in I.T., making 30k less per year but only working 35 hours a week on average. I'm still there, working 35 hours a week. I live in a 80k house, almost paid off, and drive old cars that I work on, and I earn (and use) 300 hours of time off each year.

The good life is out there, even for I.T. workers, if you're willing to go find it.

Although I know what you mean, I think "self actualization" is a term that has always been somewhat poorly defined to me. But I digress...

Actually, I think you've somewhat painted yourself into a corner with that last definition. Because I think it is very possible for someone to be "successful" ( = self actualized) in the current workforce. I know plenty of folks who might be considered self actualized that have low paying jobs. And they meet your requirements for the three areas of happiness - jobs, good social structure, and go to church, etc.

It reminds me of the story of the Mexican Fisherman

Since I read it, I must point out your arguments are very much taken out of context.

I didn't try to hide the context, linking to an easily searchable text. I will attempt to elaborate on the context as I understood it:

"There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience."

This is very much like the Creationist argument that Darwin said the eye was too complex to have evolved. Marx isn't saying this, he's saying that his opponents(the rich) will accuse Communism of this. He's arguing that such thing should not be used by one class to suppress another.

And yet the historical experience of communism abounds with religious persecution, so much that it is a defining characteristic. His argument appears to be not that communism won't abolish religion but that religion is a "class antagonism" that must be abolished, that is he justifies the abolishment of religion rather than denies it.

The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention

To continues the quote "and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class. ", he is arguing that education is influenced by the ruling class and that education should be free and public for all. He is arguing that home schooling. should be replaced with equal public education for all. In this manner western education is very inline with the communist manifesto. One could make the argument that his form of public education is inline with that found in the U.S. constitution.

I thought the quote "The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education" adequately covered that. Indeed since freedom of religion has become widespread all statists have sought to replace it with another method of public indoctrination, compulsory schooling being the most prevalent. I agree that western education is very in line with the communist manifesto, something that in no way validates communism but should instead cause us to seriously question our chosen method of education and who it is really designed to benefit. I recommend investigating the work of John Taylor Gatto, starting with The Six Lesson Schoolteacher. There's a collection of quotes from his essays here: http://www.noogenesis.com/game_theory/Gatto/Gatto.html. One of his books is available online and audio files of his speeches also, both are linked from the wikipedia article. I've heard it said "It's hard to agree with everything he says, but it's hard to ignore what he says".

Most of the evils of communism are not exclusive to communism. The differences between the various forms of totalitarianism are minor compared to their similarities. Indeed the evils of totalitarianism could be said to be good things that are taken to extremes. I'm not an anarchist, I think it's a good thing to have a government. Just not an all controlling one, yet they all seem to have the tendency to grow into that role.

"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists."

He's speaking more of inheritance and child slavery. He's not talking about abolishing the family but looking at children as something other than people who can make profit for you and carry on your wealth. Additionally he argues that capitalism has already destroyed the family for the poor, looking around at the U

I will agree the it has not been proven the universe is infinite, I do not agree that there is no basis in religions that the universe is part of God. You see it in many places and its not to large to leap that a creator God created the universe from itself.
some examplse are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VishnuThe Hindu God Vishnu which wikipedia describes ad "as the All-Pervading essence of all beings, the master of and beyond the past, present and future, the creator and destroyer of all existences, one who supports, sustains and governs the Universe and originates and develops all elements within."

The Christian God is described as the Alpha and Omega. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_and_OmegaWikipedia quotes Clement of Alexandria saying "the Alpha and the Omega of Whom alone the end becomes beginning, and ends again at the original beginning without any break"

The Wicca religion Goddess is said to contain and conceive all

Perhaps I should have said its is dangerous to anthropomorphize God instead of the infinite.

I would argue hat if God exists then God would be a superset of all the is, and there fore you can not apply human logic to God because humanity would be constrained by the universe which they can experience.
It is possible though that God is not a super set and encompasses nothing outside of the universe. I would still argue that is impossible to completely understand the universe. You would need to observer the entire universe from start to the present to truly understand it and obviously that is not possible.

There is a classic atheist argument that asks the question "If there is a God then why are there so many religions? They can not all be right"
the best answer to that is the blind men and the elephant. They all touch the elephant in different places and all think its something its not. see here .http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/blind_men_elephant.html

To anthropomorphize god would be a similiar mistake. To say God "thinks", "acts", etc constrains the idea of God.

I'm sure my argument has not been the most coherent and many people will nit pick on this or that. It's just my opinion that one does a great disservice to oneself to anthropomorphize God/the infinite/the super-other whatever you want to call it. Especially if its used to justify or refute the existence of such a God.

Exactly. The problem is that for hazardous materials, what is best for a single entity (person/company) is not what is best for the entire community. This is what is known as the "tragedy of the commons". For those who aren't familiar with this phrase, it's worth-while to read about it.

This is a problem inherent in the capitalistic system. I'm not advocating socialism, but pure capitalism is not a valid economical system as these problems so simply demonstrate. A mixture (which both the US and most of Europe already has - although definitely in different percentages) is a reasonable compromise./p

Exactly. The problem is that for hazardous materials, what is best for a single entity (person/company) is not what is best for the entire community. This is what is known as the "tragedy of the commons". For those who aren't familiar with this phrase, it's worth-while to read about it. In many ways, it is similar to the more familiar prisoner's dilemna.

This is a problem inherent in the capitalistic system. I'm not advocating socialism, but pure capitalism is not a valid economical system as these problems so simply demonstrate. A mixture (which both the US and most of Europe already has - although definitely in different percentages) is a reasonable compromise.

Exactly. The problem is that for hazardous materials, what is best for a single entity (person/company) is not what is best for the entire community. This is what is known as the "tragedy of the commons". For those who aren't familiar with this phrase, it's worth-while to read about it. In many ways, it is similar to the more familiar prisoner's dilemna.

This is a problem inherent in the capitalistic system. I'm not advocating socialism, but pure capitalism is not a valid economical system as these problems so simply demonstrate. A mixture (which both the US and most of Europe already has - although definitely in different percentages) is a reasonable compromise.

There is a much cheaper way to do this.
Simply purchase a polystyrene head (of the sort used for placing wigs and hairpeices)

Slice down the middle with a hot wire and hollow out the ear canals for two microphones and embed these in the head. Glue back together and jack the trailing leads from your head's "ears" into your favorite recording equipments. And .... Play ...

It works , its cheap and simple, and best of all no fraunhoffer licensing fee's

here are some examples (including mp3's) of the technique...

Binauraul Holophonic Sound

Nick ...

I'm always critical of legislating common sense.

Well, it's not always in the individual interest of the person making the purchasing decision to get something with an open format. For instance, right now, it's probably in many people's interest to get some closed format microsoft product for whatever reason. (true, all things being equal, open is better....but here in the real world everything else is not equal) Microsoft has no strong incentive to open their format, because enough people will buy their product with their closed format.

Now if a bunch of people agree as a group to only buy software with an open format, there becomes a much stronger incentive for Microsoft (or whoever) to open the format. Then everyone benefits.

Basically it is a prisoner's delimma or tragedy of the commons situation, where people acting toward their own individual self interest often create an undesirable result. A little enforced cooperation benefits all.

I'm always critical of legislating common sense.

Well, it's not always in the individual interest of the person making the purchasing decision to get something with an open format. For instance, right now, it's probably in many people's interest to get some closed format microsoft product for whatever reason. (true, all things being equal, open is better....but here in the real world everything else is not equal) Microsoft has no strong incentive to open their format, because enough people will buy their product with their closed format.

Now if a bunch of people agree as a group to only buy software with an open format, there becomes a much stronger incentive for Microsoft (or whoever) to open the format. Then everyone benefits.

Basically it is a prisoner's delimma or tragedy of the commons situation, where people acting toward their own individual self interest often create an undesirable result. A little enforced cooperation benefits all.

I think the theory of learned helplessness is what we're looking at here.

It's interesting to note that around the same time Seligman had a similar study in which the dogs were allowed to jump between to fenced areas which were alternatingly administered with an elecric shock, approximately 95% of the dogs would give up after realizing their attempts to avoid the pain were futile. Perhaps being forced to play Painstation long enough would lead to similar results.

Your reply suffers from a lack of vision. You see "private schools" and you think of a private monopoly, as our "public schools" are a monopoly now. But what we are talking about is de-monopolising.

An effective school is not something that requires large sums of money. Absent government regulations like we are trying to repeal, the barriers to entry are quite low. Many many people are home-schooling their children now, and on average doing a great job even measuring by the tests the monopolists devised! In a world with seperation of school and state, you would not be forced to send your child to Pinkerton High, you would have an almost infinite range of choices. The catholics still have their own schools, despite decades of assault on them. With the end to the assault, more would come into being very quickly - religous and secular. Any one of the people who are now home-schooling their own children could easily (and in almost all cases would be glad to) open their doors to their neighbors children, perhaps for a small fee to help them defray their expenses, just so they can do what they love doing - raising children in a stimulating, natural educational environment.

One of Mann's primary goals was to produce a population that would willingly work in factories - the free people of these united States in those days generally would not do so for more than a couple years - to save a nest egg and start their own business.

Please, read more on this before you make up your mind, a great place to start is with the writings of John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991. Several of his pieces are available on the web, links and short excerpts are here.

It seems unlikely because you don't know the real history. It's still true. In the early 1800s Alexis de Tocqueville visited America and found that "There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare." That was a full 30 years before the first cumpulsory indoctrination camps were founded in this country.

My grandfather, born in 1901 (he died recently) in quite possibly the poorest county in the country, had a 6th grade education, dearly paid for by himself and his parents not "given" to him by a public school system. That 6th grade education was superior to what most college grads have now, he could read and write not only english but also latin, well, and a very small amount of greek. He knew more history than many history professors I have met, and could do algebra geometry trig and even a little basic calculus in his head. This was the sort of school system that the prussian model mandatory public system displaced in many areas, even poor ones.

Actually by the time he was born the prussian model had already been implanted in the US by Horace Mann and his ilk, so he was actually fortunate to have been born in such a poor and "backwards" area where such "enlightened" instutions had not yet penetrated. He went to a one room school, where students were not segregated from each other to prevent the natural mentoring of older students with younger ones, where "socialisation" was not twisted by unatural "class" divisions, where students were not expected to march from class to class in pavlovian response to bells timed to ring every time some real learning began, and where a child that finished a years work in a couple weeks was given the next years work with a smile and an 'attaboy' instead of being regarded as a dangerous threat to regimentation and class boundaries (as I was.)

Anyhow, enough ranting from me, don't believe me. The fact that I am a survivor of the youth concentration camps we call schools doesn't necessarily mean I am any more qualified than you to understand them, as you are doubtless in the same spot. Read what John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991, has to say, and only believe him if you find that what he says makes sense. I think it does.

You can find excerpts from and links to much of his work on the web here and it is, imhop, required reading for anyone concerned about what is wrong with our schools and how to fix them.