Disagree. Just got 3 titles from gog.com that will see me for the next 5 years. BTW, all 3 I have purchased years before when they were new. But could not miss the chance to get all the expansions, manuals, cards, soundtrack, no DRM (this is heaven!!!), low price, ensured compatibility with modern OS. Am I going to give this games to other people (upload them on the net)? No. I want gog to live long and prosper....
Or, what would you say about the latest Planet earth from BBC that, upon the DVD release years ago, shipped 15 episodes that cost small fortune to make over 3-5 years period for 45 Euros, postal from UK to mainland Europe included. 10 minutes after I ordered them I persuaded 4 colleagues to do the same and refused to another 3 to copy it for them once I got it.
That is how you make business and that is how you make a bloody pirate (being born and raised as dirt poor east-European, piracy comes naturally to me) pay and encourage other people to pay too. There are a few colleagues at work with gog accounts already (I am rather good in convincing people though in this case it is not really necessary as every nerd wets himself upon hearing "no DRM").
So, bullocks to the industry, the lying bastards!!
P.S. It warms my heart that the content industry with their actions adds considerable acceleration to the collapse of the Western economy. In a few short years people will simply not have the disposable income to feed the pigs with their outrages prices and business model. Then they won't make less money, instead they'd be dead (and good riddance)...
Is there anyone with two brain cells left, apart from die hard libertarians, who supports the idea of private policing and armies? I mean it boggles my mind it really does. So corporations are buying governments. The solution? Remove the goverments! WTF?
MAFIA shill: - I think that G.O.D. is fully entitled to receive the fruits of His work! And surely his product is way superior to any cheap derivatives! I mean, look at "insert name of hot celebrity here"!
Anti-MAFIA dude: - G.O.D. should do well to promote his products without the help of the corporations! That is why He is starving - have you seen the contracts? Go indie, G.O.D. !
Anonymous coward (agent from the North Korean propaganda center): - G.O.D. does not exists! This is a plot of the imperialists to destroy our perfect society!
Anonymous coward (die-hard right-wing): - The case with G.O.D. is going to be used by the government to enact more control and further slide us into Communism!
(former) Atheists: - I did not believe in G.O.D. But now that He has manifested Himself through His lawyers I find the situation outrageous! We find Him destitute; His work stolen by pirates! I ask: where are all those "religious" leaders now! They claimed for thousands of years that they they were doing His work and they could not protect the dearest possessions of every intelligent being - His Intellectual Property?! Ridiculous! I demand that all due compensations as defined by the lawyers be paid by all religious organizations in the world!
Since when science says that intelligence cannot induce evolution? I don't think any scientist would be surprised as you suggested. God-like intelligence will certainly be aware of the laws of nature and be able to create whatever....the issues with the God hypothesis lie elsewhere. Who is the evolutionist who says that "intelligence did it" is not a hypothesis to be considered? Of course it is - this is where Darwin (and the ones before him) started. "Argument of design" rings a bell? It used to be called proof, not argument, that should tell you a great deal. The important thing is that evolution offers simpler explanation, supported by facts and does not require meddling intelligence, thus avoiding the other issues of introducing creator with a capital "c". Besides, the whole history of the universe is a story of complexity bred from simplicity (few forces, matter/energy) and time. Life is no exception. No surprises, really..
Anyway, soon we will see Ridley Scott's view on this issue. As far as I understood Prometheus is exactly about intelligence meddling with biology/evolution.
Better judgment of risks would be nice too. Actually, this one kind of falls under anti-irrational-fear anyway...
The Zeitgeist guys also claimed that the gene for intelligence has almost insignificant impact and can be compensated by more engaging environment. There is wisdom in that phrase "Still exercising all muscles except the important one?" in that you can and should exercise the mind, preferably always. Can't remember where it was from.....the Matrix?
US and UK are mostly protestant, right? So is the Netherlands. Do I need say more...it's about culture, no so much about religion. Though I certainly think that from all popular religions Christianity has it very wrong when it comes to sexuality....
You mean it did not work for a man whose genes can be found in 8% of the population of Asia? What exactly did not work for him?
BTW, it is said that only during the days of the Mongol empire a virgin could walk all the way alone from the one end of the empire to the other and remain a virgin. I'd say this guy left his mark in the world, no?
Easy. Enjoy life, enjoy all those little pleasures that are either immoral or you get fat/sick from them. Drop dead before the onset of senility. QED.
Every single male from my extended family during the last 2 generations has dropped dead from heart attack/stroke way before they turned into barely moving lump of protein requiring 3 nurses, 2 iPads and a mobile toilet to "live". Me, with my pack a cigarets a day - I am expecting the same fate. Long life is not as nice as people think...so no, I have covered that angle (ergo, no need for children to take care of me).
If am wrong, I've covered that angle too - as a scientist and a person with enormous interest in all kinds of subjects I keep my mind very busy, so no senility for me. Thus, when the body really starts giving up but the mind is still clear...well, meet my little friend - 2L bottle with compressed nitrogen and a face mask. You cannot fire me, I quit! (bonus: no (grand) children will be hurt by my action).
Correction: like magic, not like religion. Big difference in the approach and the mind set. Magic is inesplicable but useful. It's a tool, not a master.
And perhaps to explain why after the winter the temperature jumped within a week from minus ten to plus twentyfive. In eastern Europe that is. Having information from three generations the mutual conclusion of my family is that the weather is more unstable and unpredictable. Dude, really..... it's simple termodinamics. Grow up....
Well, all I wanted to say has already been said in the posts above. So I will share an observation that might or might not be relevant here.
Remember the ordeal of the Chilean miners not so long ago? As they started to pull them out BBC had live coverage. I just happened to be watching when one of the miners emerged. What he did first was the opposite of what I expected. As his wife rushed to him with outstretched arms to hug him, the man dropped on his knees (leaving his wife suddenly frozen) prayed and then got up and kissed his wife. I said to my wife "Now, there is a guy I don't know anything about and I have only observed one act from him. But I will never, ever want to know him or speak to him".
Later I forgot about it until Christmas time when I was watching the annual BBC show called "The most annoying people of.... year". Suddenly, among all those celebrities (mostly), businessmen and politicians (occasionally) that are objects of the satire, a familiar face - the same miner! Turns out he was annoying people so much that he made it into the list! First, he annoyed the hell out of the other miners for so long and with no escape for the poor fellows. Annoyed them by demanding everyone to almost constantly worship and pray plus endless preaching. You know, he annoyed one of the most religious people in the world in a situation where even atheists would feel inclined to pray. Wow! Then after the rescue, he went on a kind of evangelical rampage, (ab)using his celebrity status as one of the survivors. He was tolerated for a while and eventually sort of told off, as far as I remember.
And since I might have completely drifted off-topic, let's do the whole hog - I strongly recommend you to read the latest and most profound attempt to describe another very famous ordeal of a group of people - Nando Parado's "Miracle in the Andes". The whole theme about belief and religion in this impossible conditions that runs through the book is astonishing and moving. Amazing stuff!
Hey, I liked that! Jumping from one topic to another via some common link. Recently, I read a whole book written in this style and it was the second time in my life I had so much fun reading a book (first was hhgttg). It was called "Etymologicon" and you need only read the preface (available online) to know what are you dealing with.
Anyway, I have to go and change the subject of this post now, from "speculation" - it being that this fired guy might have been annoying as the miner, to "The idle thoughts of an idle fellow". Which is - you guessed it - another book by....
People are indeed nice, because they have learned via evolution (social or biological) that cooperation is more productive overall than fighting (just ask military people what is the reason for professional armies and how many soldiers shoot in the air during battles). However, the civilization system that we build promotes and rewards above else cheaters and sociopaths. And thus, the level of psychopathy is proportional to the wealth/power. Being anti-human is a requirement to become very powerful in our paradigm.
Just make a search on "iterative prisoner's dilemma" and you will see that as long as defection is not rewarded WAY higher than cooperation (it should be higher though - one time cheating is usually profitable) people tend to cooperate. Make the reward for defection really big and well....people will cheat.
After all wealth is tight with survival chances and longevity so there is a very good biological incentive to seek wealth. The system rewards bastards, so we tend to become bastards.
Just to add a point about China and Russia. I don't know what is the stance of China with respect to Iran, but before the Russian elections last week Putin published enormous "letter" outlining his platform and very clearly stating his opinions about all kinds of domestic and international issues. On the subject of Iran the message was clear - Russia will not tolerate Iran with nuclear weapons, period. However Russia will not lightly agree on military intervention as a "solution"; in fact they will oppose it at every turn. "Reasons for this position" - asks Mr. Putin - "look what happened everywhere where there was an intervention".
The second in the world-record list of "people falling from the sky" is more bizzare. I read it in the "book of general ignorance". The name was Alkemade and he served on a British bomber during WW2 (the name is Dutch though). He fell 6km if I remember correctly by himself (not sitting on the plain chair or something), landed hitting trees and finally snow, had a cigarette and walked away...
I hear that when I buy, say an album, I actually purchase a personal license to listen to this music for life, right? So, if I bought a vinyl of say, The Rolling Stones, why am I not getting the tape, the disc and the MP3 for exactly the price of production and transport and not a single cent added profit? I purchased the hardware necessary to play these different standards over the years, in order to help innovation and move the wheels of progress (so I can enjoy higher quality performance). This has little to do with the contract about the content.
I am gonna risk an outrage with this, but my reasoning is that on global scale the biggest kid is the worst. Property of our system, it seems. Locally, sure, it is much better to live in a freer country (personal experience here). Somehow though, when thinking about humanity at this point in time I do not perceive China as worst country than the US. Perhaps if in the future China becomes the dominant country I will consider them worst just because they are the big one and in the system we live in somehow the big one can never resist screwing the smaller ones, never mind how the big one treats its citizens.
The things I hold dearest in a society (and data shows that these things correlate with positive societal development), well, the US is not exactly the champion in some (like violence, inequality) and others are in decline (human rights, free speech). I also favor the idea of different societies and groups within societies that live and let others live. That is not the US either. But wait, wasn't the original idea more or less on the right track?
Now that would be really interesting - if the the original idea of the US was preserved. Imagine all the states diversifying in culture over time, because of the free movement of people, a luxury that tribal people did not have. We have inherited in good measure the intrinsic distrust towards other cultures from the tribal times but with the development of civilization an issue of friction and ability to do great harm emerges that did not bother our ancestors. The idea of independent states with free trade and movement of people between them, with one very big stick in the hands of tightly controlled representatives that only take care to keep the peace between the states, if necessary, defend against outsiders and promote said freedoms, is quite good I think. It would be interesting social experiment too - it would allow for different cultures to test themselves against stability, progress and sustainability in conditions where they would not have to constantly waste resources in fighting the guy next door.
Alas, what I see and what I get from history is, that things tend to aggregate in our civilization system. Maybe because power tends to aggregate, I don't know. Look at the EU - it is already going too far trying to "harmonize" the domestic laws. This is the wrong direction, I think. Free trade and movement is good enough. And peace, of course, but that goes without saying. Is the aim to create singular global culture, so that there are no wars between cultures and countries anymore? If yes, I am not sure at all it is worth it or whether it would work...
Marxism is a textbook example of hijacking a big name by politicians. Marxism has never been implemented by any "communist" country. Only one village in China has ran on Marx's most important principle - "the means of production belong to the people producing the wealth" (i.e. the people working in a fab are the owners of the fab, they are the shareholders) and it was a resounding success (google "China richest village").
Again - none of this self proclaimed hypocritical communist states ever implemented the most basic principle of Marxism. Marx was "communist" in exactly the same way Wagner and Nietzsche were "nazis" if you get the analogy.
Supposedly educated people in the west have no clue of what Marxism is. People don't even know the basics that are described in the Wiki article. They are forever brainwashed to reject without a second thought anything that is "communist" even though Marx claimed that his socially responsible society will emerge first in a well developed western nation...
And BTW, wasn't there an article on/. from leading economy researchers from the west saying "Marx was not wrong after all"?
And they generally don't have even basic comprehension or appreciation of exact sciences or rather the scientific method as a system of thought. I have often confused such people with simple logical problems about the world's economy. They are baffled and can't see even the smallest errors or inconsistencies in their own filed!!
Politicians are generally the same (most in the West are lawyers, I read on/.). How come that our system awards the greatest power to people that are so disjoint with reality? It must be a property of the system, a requirement if you wish. Ironically the only suitable quote that comes to me at this moment is from a politician (US president - J. Carter AFAIR) - "If you live in a dream world you will wake up in a nightmare".
And I remember a hilarious moment from the UK version of the TV show "the Apprentice" where Alan Sugar said to a theoretical physicist who he was firing "This is the real world, honey (meaning the business world), not your protons and electrons". Which is both a wise observation and factual truth and the most stupid statement of the century! I always smile when I remember this...however Sugar should realize (maybe he knows it) that the comprehension and more importantly, the use of the scientific method gives you a direct advantage in almost, perhaps even all walks of life.
What is this lunacy that apparently possesses the majority of us humans - "our way or the highway"? What are this economy laws that are portrayed as inevitable and unbending as the laws of physics? That is what I hear day and night - our way is the only way, anything else inevitably means abandonment of civilization and "going back to the caves".
What BS!! I don't know how the new paradigm will look like (how could I - it will be the result of changed minds, old minds cannot contemplate the consequences of a paradigm shift). But I know for sure that either there will be a new paradigm or there won't be humans.
Slashdot Mirror
Who cares? All cities in all time and space are mere shadows of Amber. At least we know who is the copyright holder...
Disagree. Just got 3 titles from gog.com that will see me for the next 5 years. BTW, all 3 I have purchased years before when they were new. But could not miss the chance to get all the expansions, manuals, cards, soundtrack, no DRM (this is heaven!!!), low price, ensured compatibility with modern OS. Am I going to give this games to other people (upload them on the net)? No. I want gog to live long and prosper....
Or, what would you say about the latest Planet earth from BBC that, upon the DVD release years ago, shipped 15 episodes that cost small fortune to make over 3-5 years period for 45 Euros, postal from UK to mainland Europe included. 10 minutes after I ordered them I persuaded 4 colleagues to do the same and refused to another 3 to copy it for them once I got it.
That is how you make business and that is how you make a bloody pirate (being born and raised as dirt poor east-European, piracy comes naturally to me) pay and encourage other people to pay too. There are a few colleagues at work with gog accounts already (I am rather good in convincing people though in this case it is not really necessary as every nerd wets himself upon hearing "no DRM").
So, bullocks to the industry, the lying bastards!!
P.S. It warms my heart that the content industry with their actions adds considerable acceleration to the collapse of the Western economy. In a few short years people will simply not have the disposable income to feed the pigs with their outrages prices and business model. Then they won't make less money, instead they'd be dead (and good riddance)...
Is there anyone with two brain cells left, apart from die hard libertarians, who supports the idea of private policing and armies? I mean it boggles my mind it really does. So corporations are buying governments. The solution? Remove the goverments! WTF?
MAFIA shill:
- I think that G.O.D. is fully entitled to receive the fruits of His work! And surely his product is way superior to any cheap derivatives! I mean, look at "insert name of hot celebrity here"!
Anti-MAFIA dude:
- G.O.D. should do well to promote his products without the help of the corporations! That is why He is starving - have you seen the contracts? Go indie, G.O.D. !
Anonymous coward (agent from the North Korean propaganda center):
- G.O.D. does not exists! This is a plot of the imperialists to destroy our perfect society!
Anonymous coward (die-hard right-wing):
- The case with G.O.D. is going to be used by the government to enact more control and further slide us into Communism!
(former) Atheists:
- I did not believe in G.O.D. But now that He has manifested Himself through His lawyers I find the situation outrageous! We find Him destitute; His work stolen by pirates! I ask: where are all those "religious" leaders now! They claimed for thousands of years that they they were doing His work and they could not protect the dearest possessions of every intelligent being - His Intellectual Property?! Ridiculous! I demand that all due compensations as defined by the lawyers be paid by all religious organizations in the world!
Religious organizations:
- Holy shit!
Since when science says that intelligence cannot induce evolution? I don't think any scientist would be surprised as you suggested. God-like intelligence will certainly be aware of the laws of nature and be able to create whatever....the issues with the God hypothesis lie elsewhere. Who is the evolutionist who says that "intelligence did it" is not a hypothesis to be considered? Of course it is - this is where Darwin (and the ones before him) started. "Argument of design" rings a bell? It used to be called proof, not argument, that should tell you a great deal. The important thing is that evolution offers simpler explanation, supported by facts and does not require meddling intelligence, thus avoiding the other issues of introducing creator with a capital "c". Besides, the whole history of the universe is a story of complexity bred from simplicity (few forces, matter/energy) and time. Life is no exception. No surprises, really..
Anyway, soon we will see Ridley Scott's view on this issue. As far as I understood Prometheus is exactly about intelligence meddling with biology/evolution.
Well done, you beat me to it! But why you are not modded up is a mystery....
Economic stick? I think the stick has slightly different nature [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures]
Better judgment of risks would be nice too. Actually, this one kind of falls under anti-irrational-fear anyway...
The Zeitgeist guys also claimed that the gene for intelligence has almost insignificant impact and can be compensated by more engaging environment. There is wisdom in that phrase "Still exercising all muscles except the important one?" in that you can and should exercise the mind, preferably always. Can't remember where it was from.....the Matrix?
And end up with majority libertarians? [in J.E.J. voice] Noooooo!!!
Joke aside, every libertarian I know is a clever person. I still think their idea won't work though.
US and UK are mostly protestant, right? So is the Netherlands. Do I need say more...it's about culture, no so much about religion. Though I certainly think that from all popular religions Christianity has it very wrong when it comes to sexuality....
You mean it did not work for a man whose genes can be found in 8% of the population of Asia? What exactly did not work for him?
BTW, it is said that only during the days of the Mongol empire a virgin could walk all the way alone from the one end of the empire to the other and remain a virgin. I'd say this guy left his mark in the world, no?
Easy. Enjoy life, enjoy all those little pleasures that are either immoral or you get fat/sick from them. Drop dead before the onset of senility. QED.
Every single male from my extended family during the last 2 generations has dropped dead from heart attack/stroke way before they turned into barely moving lump of protein requiring 3 nurses, 2 iPads and a mobile toilet to "live". Me, with my pack a cigarets a day - I am expecting the same fate. Long life is not as nice as people think...so no, I have covered that angle (ergo, no need for children to take care of me).
If am wrong, I've covered that angle too - as a scientist and a person with enormous interest in all kinds of subjects I keep my mind very busy, so no senility for me. Thus, when the body really starts giving up but the mind is still clear...well, meet my little friend - 2L bottle with compressed nitrogen and a face mask. You cannot fire me, I quit! (bonus: no (grand) children will be hurt by my action).
Rationality - can't beat it! So join it!
Correction: like magic, not like religion. Big difference in the approach and the mind set. Magic is inesplicable but useful. It's a tool, not a master.
And perhaps to explain why after the winter the temperature jumped within a week from minus ten to plus twentyfive. In eastern Europe that is.
Having information from three generations the mutual conclusion of my family is that the weather is more unstable and unpredictable.
Dude, really..... it's simple termodinamics. Grow up....
Well, all I wanted to say has already been said in the posts above. So I will share an observation that might or might not be relevant here.
Remember the ordeal of the Chilean miners not so long ago? As they started to pull them out BBC had live coverage. I just happened to be watching when one of the miners emerged. What he did first was the opposite of what I expected. As his wife rushed to him with outstretched arms to hug him, the man dropped on his knees (leaving his wife suddenly frozen) prayed and then got up and kissed his wife. I said to my wife "Now, there is a guy I don't know anything about and I have only observed one act from him. But I will never, ever want to know him or speak to him".
Later I forgot about it until Christmas time when I was watching the annual BBC show called "The most annoying people of .... year". Suddenly, among all those celebrities (mostly), businessmen and politicians (occasionally) that are objects of the satire, a familiar face - the same miner! Turns out he was annoying people so much that he made it into the list! First, he annoyed the hell out of the other miners for so long and with no escape for the poor fellows. Annoyed them by demanding everyone to almost constantly worship and pray plus endless preaching. You know, he annoyed one of the most religious people in the world in a situation where even atheists would feel inclined to pray. Wow! Then after the rescue, he went on a kind of evangelical rampage, (ab)using his celebrity status as one of the survivors. He was tolerated for a while and eventually sort of told off, as far as I remember.
And since I might have completely drifted off-topic, let's do the whole hog - I strongly recommend you to read the latest and most profound attempt to describe another very famous ordeal of a group of people - Nando Parado's "Miracle in the Andes". The whole theme about belief and religion in this impossible conditions that runs through the book is astonishing and moving. Amazing stuff!
Hey, I liked that! Jumping from one topic to another via some common link. Recently, I read a whole book written in this style and it was the second time in my life I had so much fun reading a book (first was hhgttg). It was called "Etymologicon" and you need only read the preface (available online) to know what are you dealing with.
Anyway, I have to go and change the subject of this post now, from "speculation" - it being that this fired guy might have been annoying as the miner, to "The idle thoughts of an idle fellow". Which is - you guessed it - another book by....
People are indeed nice, because they have learned via evolution (social or biological) that cooperation is more productive overall than fighting (just ask military people what is the reason for professional armies and how many soldiers shoot in the air during battles). However, the civilization system that we build promotes and rewards above else cheaters and sociopaths. And thus, the level of psychopathy is proportional to the wealth/power. Being anti-human is a requirement to become very powerful in our paradigm.
Just make a search on "iterative prisoner's dilemma" and you will see that as long as defection is not rewarded WAY higher than cooperation (it should be higher though - one time cheating is usually profitable) people tend to cooperate. Make the reward for defection really big and well....people will cheat.
After all wealth is tight with survival chances and longevity so there is a very good biological incentive to seek wealth. The system rewards bastards, so we tend to become bastards.
I hope I am clear enough.
Just to add a point about China and Russia. I don't know what is the stance of China with respect to Iran, but before the Russian elections last week Putin published enormous "letter" outlining his platform and very clearly stating his opinions about all kinds of domestic and international issues. On the subject of Iran the message was clear - Russia will not tolerate Iran with nuclear weapons, period. However Russia will not lightly agree on military intervention as a "solution"; in fact they will oppose it at every turn. "Reasons for this position" - asks Mr. Putin - "look what happened everywhere where there was an intervention".
Hard to argue against, isn't it?
All these years of torturing and burning must account for something! Are they fire-proof as well?
The second in the world-record list of "people falling from the sky" is more bizzare. I read it in the "book of general ignorance". The name was Alkemade and he served on a British bomber during WW2 (the name is Dutch though). He fell 6km if I remember correctly by himself (not sitting on the plain chair or something), landed hitting trees and finally snow, had a cigarette and walked away...
I can't say it better than this man [Bertrand Russel]:
http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
Tell me about it!
I hear that when I buy, say an album, I actually purchase a personal license to listen to this music for life, right? So, if I bought a vinyl of say, The Rolling Stones, why am I not getting the tape, the disc and the MP3 for exactly the price of production and transport and not a single cent added profit? I purchased the hardware necessary to play these different standards over the years, in order to help innovation and move the wheels of progress (so I can enjoy higher quality performance). This has little to do with the contract about the content.
I am gonna risk an outrage with this, but my reasoning is that on global scale the biggest kid is the worst. Property of our system, it seems. Locally, sure, it is much better to live in a freer country (personal experience here). Somehow though, when thinking about humanity at this point in time I do not perceive China as worst country than the US. Perhaps if in the future China becomes the dominant country I will consider them worst just because they are the big one and in the system we live in somehow the big one can never resist screwing the smaller ones, never mind how the big one treats its citizens.
The things I hold dearest in a society (and data shows that these things correlate with positive societal development), well, the US is not exactly the champion in some (like violence, inequality) and others are in decline (human rights, free speech). I also favor the idea of different societies and groups within societies that live and let others live. That is not the US either. But wait, wasn't the original idea more or less on the right track?
Now that would be really interesting - if the the original idea of the US was preserved. Imagine all the states diversifying in culture over time, because of the free movement of people, a luxury that tribal people did not have. We have inherited in good measure the intrinsic distrust towards other cultures from the tribal times but with the development of civilization an issue of friction and ability to do great harm emerges that did not bother our ancestors. The idea of independent states with free trade and movement of people between them, with one very big stick in the hands of tightly controlled representatives that only take care to keep the peace between the states, if necessary, defend against outsiders and promote said freedoms, is quite good I think. It would be interesting social experiment too - it would allow for different cultures to test themselves against stability, progress and sustainability in conditions where they would not have to constantly waste resources in fighting the guy next door.
Alas, what I see and what I get from history is, that things tend to aggregate in our civilization system. Maybe because power tends to aggregate, I don't know. Look at the EU - it is already going too far trying to "harmonize" the domestic laws. This is the wrong direction, I think. Free trade and movement is good enough. And peace, of course, but that goes without saying. Is the aim to create singular global culture, so that there are no wars between cultures and countries anymore? If yes, I am not sure at all it is worth it or whether it would work...
If only that was true!
Marxism is a textbook example of hijacking a big name by politicians. Marxism has never been implemented by any "communist" country. Only one village in China has ran on Marx's most important principle - "the means of production belong to the people producing the wealth" (i.e. the people working in a fab are the owners of the fab, they are the shareholders) and it was a resounding success (google "China richest village").
Again - none of this self proclaimed hypocritical communist states ever implemented the most basic principle of Marxism. Marx was "communist" in exactly the same way Wagner and Nietzsche were "nazis" if you get the analogy.
Supposedly educated people in the west have no clue of what Marxism is. People don't even know the basics that are described in the Wiki article. They are forever brainwashed to reject without a second thought anything that is "communist" even though Marx claimed that his socially responsible society will emerge first in a well developed western nation...
And BTW, wasn't there an article on /. from leading economy researchers from the west saying "Marx was not wrong after all"?
And they generally don't have even basic comprehension or appreciation of exact sciences or rather the scientific method as a system of thought. I have often confused such people with simple logical problems about the world's economy. They are baffled and can't see even the smallest errors or inconsistencies in their own filed!!
Politicians are generally the same (most in the West are lawyers, I read on /.). How come that our system awards the greatest power to people that are so disjoint with reality? It must be a property of the system, a requirement if you wish. Ironically the only suitable quote that comes to me at this moment is from a politician (US president - J. Carter AFAIR) - "If you live in a dream world you will wake up in a nightmare".
And I remember a hilarious moment from the UK version of the TV show "the Apprentice" where Alan Sugar said to a theoretical physicist who he was firing "This is the real world, honey (meaning the business world), not your protons and electrons". Which is both a wise observation and factual truth and the most stupid statement of the century! I always smile when I remember this...however Sugar should realize (maybe he knows it) that the comprehension and more importantly, the use of the scientific method gives you a direct advantage in almost, perhaps even all walks of life.
A different one. Is that so hard?
What is this lunacy that apparently possesses the majority of us humans - "our way or the highway"? What are this economy laws that are portrayed as inevitable and unbending as the laws of physics? That is what I hear day and night - our way is the only way, anything else inevitably means abandonment of civilization and "going back to the caves".
What BS!! I don't know how the new paradigm will look like (how could I - it will be the result of changed minds, old minds cannot contemplate the consequences of a paradigm shift). But I know for sure that either there will be a new paradigm or there won't be humans.