Yes it is interesting to see you rationalize your ego based blathering. I see you've given up trying to back up anything you say, and continue to do nothing more than attack. You seem to think your opinions don't require proof.
Have you heard of Freud's concept of projection? It's an ego defense mechanism. What one can not accept in one's self, one projects onto others.
Why is it so important for you that others see you as intelligent and well informed? And, given that that is obviously so important to you, can't you see that your actions induce quite the opposite impression in people?
The definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over, hoping for a different result. In light of that bit of wisdom, I'm going to end this conversation. Rather than replying, which would only confirm my hypothesis, I suggest you take a minute to calm down and reflect on just what it is you hope to accomplish here, and whether your choice of actions are achieving your intended outcome.
You can continue your tailspin into the ground, that's what you can do. Everyone can see you desperately spinning the truth to attempt to prop up your faltering ego, but no one appears to be buying it. What good are your feelings of superiority if no one else shares them?
Perhaps I should have said, people did not primarily think of themselves in terms of their nationality, but as residents of their locality. But whatever, you can't seem to cite any sources that back up your claims or refute mine.
Ad hominems are the last resort of the loser in a debate. And cynicism is the refuge of the lazy.
You've lost and you know it. In the immortal words of Phil Hartman, playing Frank Sinatra on SNL, "I've got CHUNKS of guys like you in my STOOL."
I've lived in Europe and all over the US. I lived in Chania, Greece for a year. Crete isn't exactly rich. And I read those wiki articles you linked to years ago. You haven't told me anything new, original, or insightful, sorry to burst your bubble.
Please explain how the poor in 'any time period' were nationalistic before the rise of nationalism? Got any citations for that? Before the 19th century, people did not think of themselves as 'English' or 'French.' They were Londoners, or Parisians.
Who was shouting? Who had their eyes closed? Wasn't me. Who resorted to name calling to make a point? Wasn't me. I understand where you're coming from though. It must hurt to lose a debate as badly as you just did. Don't worry, you'll get over it.
I don't have core beliefs. I'm a cynic, but not in the modern sense. I don't know anything, but I suppose a lot. I hold beliefs in accordance to the weight of evidence supporting them, and change my beliefs as new evidence dictates.
Perhaps I was unclear in my characterization of nationalism. It wasn't the then-current crop of ruling class assholes who invented it, it was the bourgeoisie who wanted to replace the ruling class. The rise of the merchant class created nationalism. Perhaps it is wrong of me to characterize the middle class bourgeoisie as 'rich,' but I feel they had a frustrated owning class attitude.
Lets just say, I don't think nationalism developed from the poor of the world. As I said, to the poor, one lord and master is much like the next.
I worked with Food not Bombs in San Francisco during its heyday in the early nineties. We served seven meals a week, feeding one to two hundred homeless and hungry people, even when the cops were cracking down hard on us. Everyone involved was sober, we had to be to avoid the cops!
We fed people in the UN plaza, and in front of city hall. We would plan diversionary servings to draw the cops away, then quietly serve people where they weren't looking. Sometimes, we would wade into the reflecting pool and serve from there, because the cops didn't like getting wet to catch us.
Green Day did a benefit concert for us and raised $40,000 for the San Francisco and East Bay Food not Bombs. We used some of our money to buy bicycles and collapsible carts. I must have biked thousands of miles picking up food and dropping off soup and bagels. It was great fun.
The point of Food not Bombs is not just to feed people, it is to feed people in a public setting, drawing attention to the fact that people go hungry in America.
I don't need to ignore you, that would be counterproductive.
If you need to believe that I am simple minded, foolish, or naive, go right ahead, it really doesn't bother me. But you might want to examine your reasons for thinking that.
Eh, it's like the story about the Very Low Tide. A man was walking along the beach during a very low tide, where thousands upon thousands of star fish were exposed and lay dying in the sun. He came upon a boy throwing the starfish back into the ocean. "Silly boy," he said, "You'll never save all the starfish!"
"Yeah," replied the boy picking up a starfish and tossing it back, "but I saved that one."
Nothing can possibly be unnatural. It is important to remember that there is more to nature than competition. Cooperation is at least as important (although some would argue that cooperation is simply a competitive strategy.) Altruism is real, and genetically selected for, because it provides clear benefits to organisms that practice it.
Human nature is complex, and can not be defined outside of the environment humans are enmeshed in. If everyone has the means to punish unfairness and selfishness in others, and cooperation is rewarded, most people will be cooperative. On the other hand, no one likes being taken advantage of, so if people see unfairness and selfishness going unpunished, they will be selfish and unfair themselves.
How much you know of me from so little evidence! I bow before your all encompassing wisdom, oh cynical goat.
You certainly have gone to a lot of effort to convince me to believe something negative about myself. Why is that so important to you, who do as little as possible, and see yourself above the fray? Maybe your cynicism is a mere excuse, and people who are not cynical threaten your self image?
Cooperation is no less natural than domination. What's your point? Tribalism evolved from peeing on bushes?
There are two cultures in the world. The culture of feast and the culture of famine. You don't even know what the first one looks like, do you? Read 'The Continuum Concept' for a look at what non starvation oriented human societies look like. Look at the bonobo chimpanzees of South Africa for an animal example.
Everything does NOT try to get as big as it can. The universe is NOT total war of all against all, that is a culture of famine concept. And it is a self reinforcing, self fulfilling concept.
Tell me, what victories over oppression have you achieved? Your attitude tells me that, if you were to achieve any, YOU would be more than happy to be the next oppressor. YOU know better than anyone else, YOU have the True Knowledge and everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot.
I've actually done concrete things to make the world a better place working as an organizer for Food not Bombs, Homes not Jails, and the IWW. What have you done, besides being an insufferable, self aggrandizing jackass?
Funny how none of your examples ended up benefiting the poor, and simply ended up trading one set of oppressors for another. But that couldn't have been on purpose, nope.
Who benefits from nationalist sentiment in China and Russia? The rich. Oh, sure, not EVERY rich person, some get skewered by it, but it is still part of the owning class game, a manipulation of the populace, to get them to cheer on their own oppressors.
"He may be a greedy, oppressive bastard, but he's OUR greedy, oppressive bastard!" is the sentiment that nationalism encourages. Really, it's a means of getting the oppressed to lay down their lives defending their oppressors from other oppressors.
How did Nationalism evolve from feudalism? How did feudalism evolve from tribalism? Who's interest did both events serve? How is a sense of national identity complex?
NAFTA let goods and money flow as if there were no borders, but not poor people. Mexicans with no money still somehow manage to get into the US, disproving your second point. H1-B visas are an example of unfair regulation of the labor market, not a free market.
A real free market requires regulation in order to remain free, but the regulations need to favor the less powerful. Currently they do just the opposite.
1.) Nationalism is an invention of the rich intended to make the poor support the interests of the rich. To the poor, one lord is much the same as the next, why should they care who rules them?
2.) Ah, I see. Rules on paper make a free market. Rules that let the rich move their business wherever labor is cheapest, but does not let labor move where the pay is the best.
3.) You've just described how the free market is supposed to work.
I agree we've had bureaucratic corporatism for a long time. I also agree that an unresponsive Fed is a big problem. Ideally, I'd like a Fed that was similar in scope to the EU. I guess I'm a Republican when it comes to states rights. The current interpretation of the commerce clause is an abomination. But I'm a socialist at the state and particularly local levels.
Current scientific experiments in games theory have shown that your 'moral hazard' issue is more complex than you make out. Most people are perfectly capable of being either selfish or cooperative, depending on what they see people around them doing. A small percentage will always be cooperators, while an even smaller percentage (less than 5%) will always be selfish. Nobody likes being taken advantage of, so if people see selfishness rewarded and cooperators taken advantage of, they will be selfish. Therefore, a system that assumes people are selfish will actually encourage selfishness.
Finally, Obama is not my guy. I suspected he would be a corporate centrist, and IMHO, that's what he's turned out to be. I voted for him because he seemed like the lesser of two evils. McCain just seemed to throw his personal values out the window during his campaign, and his pick of Palin clinched it for me. There was no way I could accept having that airhead an old man's heartbeat from the presidency.
heh, cool. Sorry about being a dick. It's just, well, Obama is no socialist. He's barely left of center. He's not doing anything different than McCain would have done (well, the Republicans hate the UAW, so McCain might have let the auto industry fail just to spite them.)
Even if Obama was a socialist, so are most other wealthy democracies. Socialism isn't communism, you know. People still own property, there are still rich people and poor people. Here in America, the focus is on individual achievement, making sure nothing stands in the way of personal success. In socialist democracies, the focus is on collective security, making sure no one is left behind.
I think individual effort should be rewarded. But I don't think it should be rewarded on the scale it is. Without society backing them up, no one could possibly be a millionaire, in fact, the accumulation of wealth is a function of society, not the individual. If you disagree, go to a deserted island by yourself and see how much wealth you can accumulate.
The free market is a decent system, but it requires regulation in order to stay free. People can corrupt the free market just as easily as they corrupt any other system. The free market also has specific cases where it breaks down and fails to operate correctly. Natural monopolies, imbalance of information, and externalities all skew the free market. Vast accumulations wealth in the control of very few individuals also breaks the free market, as wealth itself can skew the functioning of the market.
People aren't rational. They can be influenced and manipulated, and they often make irrational decisions, especially around life and death issues. Any basic necessity is a life or death issue: food, water, shelter, and medical care are simply too important to leave to the free market. People simply can not make rational decisions about purchases when their life is on the line.
With the dawning of the information age, there are now other signaling pathways besides price signaling that can keep allocation of resources efficient. Chile, under Allende, was experimenting with such a system when he was overthrown by a US lead coup. It was an advanced cybernetic communication and control system that let citizens participate in direct democracy, allowed factories to measure demand directly, and let people and their elected officials communicate easily.
There are plenty of valid critiques of socialism, you really don't have to descend into equating it with fascism and totalitarianism. Hell, the USSR called itself a Republic, should we tar and feather our own form of government because of that? Then why tar and feather socialism just because some totalitarians called themselves socialists? As I said, most other wealthy democracies are far more socialist than we are, and their citizens report a higher overall satisfaction with life than our own citizens claim.
Sigh. I keep giving him the benefit of the doubt, but it's obvious that to him, this is some kind of a game, where there are winners and losers. It isn't about sharing knowledge or discussion at all. It's about not losing, and as long as he doesn't admit he's lost, in his mind he's the winner.
Wow. Someone knows how to draw lines. Neat. Unfortunately, those lines are mere speculation, and mean nothing in the real world. Seriously, that is the dumbest unsourced graph I have ever seen.
However, the stock market has rebounded 10% since Obama took office. How ya like them apples? Suck it up and say "Thank you, Obama, for getting us back on track." Because you don't want America to fail, right? You are happy that Obama's plan is working, right? Yeah, right.
I followed your advice and cut my feet to shreds on broken glass. Not being a superhero, I am now unable to walk and and am a sitting duck for the terrorists. Thanks a lot oodaloop.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes it is interesting to see you rationalize your ego based blathering. I see you've given up trying to back up anything you say, and continue to do nothing more than attack. You seem to think your opinions don't require proof.
Have you heard of Freud's concept of projection? It's an ego defense mechanism. What one can not accept in one's self, one projects onto others.
Why is it so important for you that others see you as intelligent and well informed? And, given that that is obviously so important to you, can't you see that your actions induce quite the opposite impression in people?
The definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over, hoping for a different result. In light of that bit of wisdom, I'm going to end this conversation. Rather than replying, which would only confirm my hypothesis, I suggest you take a minute to calm down and reflect on just what it is you hope to accomplish here, and whether your choice of actions are achieving your intended outcome.
You can continue your tailspin into the ground, that's what you can do. Everyone can see you desperately spinning the truth to attempt to prop up your faltering ego, but no one appears to be buying it. What good are your feelings of superiority if no one else shares them?
Perhaps I should have said, people did not primarily think of themselves in terms of their nationality, but as residents of their locality. But whatever, you can't seem to cite any sources that back up your claims or refute mine.
Ad hominems are the last resort of the loser in a debate. And cynicism is the refuge of the lazy.
You've lost and you know it. In the immortal words of Phil Hartman, playing Frank Sinatra on SNL, "I've got CHUNKS of guys like you in my STOOL."
I've lived in Europe and all over the US. I lived in Chania, Greece for a year. Crete isn't exactly rich. And I read those wiki articles you linked to years ago. You haven't told me anything new, original, or insightful, sorry to burst your bubble.
Please explain how the poor in 'any time period' were nationalistic before the rise of nationalism? Got any citations for that? Before the 19th century, people did not think of themselves as 'English' or 'French.' They were Londoners, or Parisians.
Who was shouting? Who had their eyes closed? Wasn't me. Who resorted to name calling to make a point? Wasn't me. I understand where you're coming from though. It must hurt to lose a debate as badly as you just did. Don't worry, you'll get over it.
I don't have core beliefs. I'm a cynic, but not in the modern sense. I don't know anything, but I suppose a lot. I hold beliefs in accordance to the weight of evidence supporting them, and change my beliefs as new evidence dictates.
Perhaps I was unclear in my characterization of nationalism. It wasn't the then-current crop of ruling class assholes who invented it, it was the bourgeoisie who wanted to replace the ruling class. The rise of the merchant class created nationalism. Perhaps it is wrong of me to characterize the middle class bourgeoisie as 'rich,' but I feel they had a frustrated owning class attitude.
Lets just say, I don't think nationalism developed from the poor of the world. As I said, to the poor, one lord and master is much like the next.
I worked with Food not Bombs in San Francisco during its heyday in the early nineties. We served seven meals a week, feeding one to two hundred homeless and hungry people, even when the cops were cracking down hard on us. Everyone involved was sober, we had to be to avoid the cops!
We fed people in the UN plaza, and in front of city hall. We would plan diversionary servings to draw the cops away, then quietly serve people where they weren't looking. Sometimes, we would wade into the reflecting pool and serve from there, because the cops didn't like getting wet to catch us.
Green Day did a benefit concert for us and raised $40,000 for the San Francisco and East Bay Food not Bombs. We used some of our money to buy bicycles and collapsible carts. I must have biked thousands of miles picking up food and dropping off soup and bagels. It was great fun.
The point of Food not Bombs is not just to feed people, it is to feed people in a public setting, drawing attention to the fact that people go hungry in America.
Which Food not Bombs did you work with?
I don't need to ignore you, that would be counterproductive.
If you need to believe that I am simple minded, foolish, or naive, go right ahead, it really doesn't bother me. But you might want to examine your reasons for thinking that.
Eh, it's like the story about the Very Low Tide. A man was walking along the beach during a very low tide, where thousands upon thousands of star fish were exposed and lay dying in the sun. He came upon a boy throwing the starfish back into the ocean. "Silly boy," he said, "You'll never save all the starfish!"
"Yeah," replied the boy picking up a starfish and tossing it back, "but I saved that one."
Nothing can possibly be unnatural. It is important to remember that there is more to nature than competition. Cooperation is at least as important (although some would argue that cooperation is simply a competitive strategy.) Altruism is real, and genetically selected for, because it provides clear benefits to organisms that practice it.
Human nature is complex, and can not be defined outside of the environment humans are enmeshed in. If everyone has the means to punish unfairness and selfishness in others, and cooperation is rewarded, most people will be cooperative. On the other hand, no one likes being taken advantage of, so if people see unfairness and selfishness going unpunished, they will be selfish and unfair themselves.
Shut up, voice in my head! Oh yeah, you shut up!
How much you know of me from so little evidence! I bow before your all encompassing wisdom, oh cynical goat.
You certainly have gone to a lot of effort to convince me to believe something negative about myself. Why is that so important to you, who do as little as possible, and see yourself above the fray? Maybe your cynicism is a mere excuse, and people who are not cynical threaten your self image?
Cooperation is no less natural than domination. What's your point? Tribalism evolved from peeing on bushes?
There are two cultures in the world. The culture of feast and the culture of famine. You don't even know what the first one looks like, do you? Read 'The Continuum Concept' for a look at what non starvation oriented human societies look like. Look at the bonobo chimpanzees of South Africa for an animal example.
Everything does NOT try to get as big as it can. The universe is NOT total war of all against all, that is a culture of famine concept. And it is a self reinforcing, self fulfilling concept.
Tell me, what victories over oppression have you achieved? Your attitude tells me that, if you were to achieve any, YOU would be more than happy to be the next oppressor. YOU know better than anyone else, YOU have the True Knowledge and everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot.
I've actually done concrete things to make the world a better place working as an organizer for Food not Bombs, Homes not Jails, and the IWW. What have you done, besides being an insufferable, self aggrandizing jackass?
Funny how none of your examples ended up benefiting the poor, and simply ended up trading one set of oppressors for another. But that couldn't have been on purpose, nope.
Who benefits from nationalist sentiment in China and Russia? The rich. Oh, sure, not EVERY rich person, some get skewered by it, but it is still part of the owning class game, a manipulation of the populace, to get them to cheer on their own oppressors.
"He may be a greedy, oppressive bastard, but he's OUR greedy, oppressive bastard!" is the sentiment that nationalism encourages. Really, it's a means of getting the oppressed to lay down their lives defending their oppressors from other oppressors.
How did Nationalism evolve from feudalism? How did feudalism evolve from tribalism? Who's interest did both events serve? How is a sense of national identity complex?
Your analysis is weak. HAHA!
NAFTA let goods and money flow as if there were no borders, but not poor people. Mexicans with no money still somehow manage to get into the US, disproving your second point. H1-B visas are an example of unfair regulation of the labor market, not a free market.
A real free market requires regulation in order to remain free, but the regulations need to favor the less powerful. Currently they do just the opposite.
1.) Nationalism is an invention of the rich intended to make the poor support the interests of the rich. To the poor, one lord is much the same as the next, why should they care who rules them?
2.) Ah, I see. Rules on paper make a free market. Rules that let the rich move their business wherever labor is cheapest, but does not let labor move where the pay is the best.
3.) You've just described how the free market is supposed to work.
But how will the rich hold on to their power and privilege if there is a real free market in labor, and workers can move wherever pays the most?
I agree we've had bureaucratic corporatism for a long time. I also agree that an unresponsive Fed is a big problem. Ideally, I'd like a Fed that was similar in scope to the EU. I guess I'm a Republican when it comes to states rights. The current interpretation of the commerce clause is an abomination. But I'm a socialist at the state and particularly local levels.
Current scientific experiments in games theory have shown that your 'moral hazard' issue is more complex than you make out. Most people are perfectly capable of being either selfish or cooperative, depending on what they see people around them doing. A small percentage will always be cooperators, while an even smaller percentage (less than 5%) will always be selfish. Nobody likes being taken advantage of, so if people see selfishness rewarded and cooperators taken advantage of, they will be selfish. Therefore, a system that assumes people are selfish will actually encourage selfishness.
Finally, Obama is not my guy. I suspected he would be a corporate centrist, and IMHO, that's what he's turned out to be. I voted for him because he seemed like the lesser of two evils. McCain just seemed to throw his personal values out the window during his campaign, and his pick of Palin clinched it for me. There was no way I could accept having that airhead an old man's heartbeat from the presidency.
heh, cool. Sorry about being a dick. It's just, well, Obama is no socialist. He's barely left of center. He's not doing anything different than McCain would have done (well, the Republicans hate the UAW, so McCain might have let the auto industry fail just to spite them.)
Even if Obama was a socialist, so are most other wealthy democracies. Socialism isn't communism, you know. People still own property, there are still rich people and poor people. Here in America, the focus is on individual achievement, making sure nothing stands in the way of personal success. In socialist democracies, the focus is on collective security, making sure no one is left behind.
I think individual effort should be rewarded. But I don't think it should be rewarded on the scale it is. Without society backing them up, no one could possibly be a millionaire, in fact, the accumulation of wealth is a function of society, not the individual. If you disagree, go to a deserted island by yourself and see how much wealth you can accumulate.
The free market is a decent system, but it requires regulation in order to stay free. People can corrupt the free market just as easily as they corrupt any other system. The free market also has specific cases where it breaks down and fails to operate correctly. Natural monopolies, imbalance of information, and externalities all skew the free market. Vast accumulations wealth in the control of very few individuals also breaks the free market, as wealth itself can skew the functioning of the market.
People aren't rational. They can be influenced and manipulated, and they often make irrational decisions, especially around life and death issues. Any basic necessity is a life or death issue: food, water, shelter, and medical care are simply too important to leave to the free market. People simply can not make rational decisions about purchases when their life is on the line.
With the dawning of the information age, there are now other signaling pathways besides price signaling that can keep allocation of resources efficient. Chile, under Allende, was experimenting with such a system when he was overthrown by a US lead coup. It was an advanced cybernetic communication and control system that let citizens participate in direct democracy, allowed factories to measure demand directly, and let people and their elected officials communicate easily.
There are plenty of valid critiques of socialism, you really don't have to descend into equating it with fascism and totalitarianism. Hell, the USSR called itself a Republic, should we tar and feather our own form of government because of that? Then why tar and feather socialism just because some totalitarians called themselves socialists? As I said, most other wealthy democracies are far more socialist than we are, and their citizens report a higher overall satisfaction with life than our own citizens claim.
Eh, too soon to tell. We'll see, won't we?
Sigh. I keep giving him the benefit of the doubt, but it's obvious that to him, this is some kind of a game, where there are winners and losers. It isn't about sharing knowledge or discussion at all. It's about not losing, and as long as he doesn't admit he's lost, in his mind he's the winner.
Wow. Someone knows how to draw lines. Neat. Unfortunately, those lines are mere speculation, and mean nothing in the real world. Seriously, that is the dumbest unsourced graph I have ever seen.
However, the stock market has rebounded 10% since Obama took office. How ya like them apples? Suck it up and say "Thank you, Obama, for getting us back on track." Because you don't want America to fail, right? You are happy that Obama's plan is working, right? Yeah, right.
You seem to be looking for dignity in the wrong place. This is the Internet. We don't do dignity.
I followed your advice and cut my feet to shreds on broken glass. Not being a superhero, I am now unable to walk and and am a sitting duck for the terrorists. Thanks a lot oodaloop.