It's true; Bruce Lee never really mastered any traditional martial art.
Many Chinese practitioners consider Wing Chung kind of a "dumbed down" martial art - because it's simplified, and easier to master. It focuses on basic combat techniques, (more than traditional Kung Fu/Chuan Fa/Wushu styles do), and has a lot less of the "ornamental" type of meditative forms.
And Bruce Lee never really fully mastered Wing Chung either. (though he did study with the legendary master Ip Man). Bruce Lee was simply an exceptionally talented athlete. His parents were actors. He was also a very talented dancer. Very dedicated and hard working. When he came back to America, he started his own martial arts school, and developed his own style, and it was really based on a broad set of concepts. He had already gotten a wide reputation in the martial arts community, and had studied with a lot of the big players, and learned at least the basics of many different styles, and the simplicity of Wing Chung still appealed to him. So that's why JKD has a lot of elements of Wing Chung - but is really just another chapter in the overall American Mixed Martial Arts movement.
20 years before Bruce Lee, just about every American since WWII who came back from Asia with any kind of Martial Arts experience, was trying to open a school. There was huge demand. But few had real credentials - and few had any ability to "sell" a set of Asian philosophy to an American market. So many traditional martial arts were mixed and matched and re-created. (particularly in the Ed Parker family of Kenpo styles). And after that, all of these schools engaged in turf wars, suing each other over trademarks, and the like.
Some of these mixed arts are actually very effective, and worthwhile.
But Bruce Lee was really innovating. He was putting a lot of thought into re-inventing fighting. You can go on to youtube and look at what the practitioners at his school are teaching today. It's pretty different than most other arts. And these guys seem to fare well at these Ultimate Fighting things. (I wouldn't say that they *dominate* like the BJJ guys did, for a while).
Chuck Norris just did his traditional styles, kicked some major ass in tourneys in the 70's, did some hollywood, and retired to run his chain of schools. That's the life.
Jackie Chan? He's a lifelong actor, stuntman, producer. Just extremely talented. He basically invented the "drunken boxing" style - which is completely ornamental pantomime. (but entertaining). And now, he's kind of becoming a tool for the PRC ruling party, making propaganda films and history revision pieces. Sad, because I otherwise really like him.
I think that, in general, because of the popularity of UFC and MMA type fighting spectacles, a lot of traditional martial arts schools are having trouble attracting as many students as they used to, back in the 70's and 80's. People don't want to learn all the super complex forms and katas and combinations, they don't want to do all the rote memorization. They don't like the pajamas or the bowing. They seem to prefer the "big tough jock" aspect of MMA, and the simple focus on sparring engagement (which - in a lot of traditional styles, is often neglected; mainly because it's so dangerous to practice without going full-bore with safety equipment and rules).
That's okay - but I guess the point is, these are two different disciplines. They appeal to two different personality types. And neither one is going to make you an invincible super-warrior. It takes the training of the system, at a good school, with a good teacher, plus, a lot of natural talent, plus, drive, determination, and frankly, luck (to avoid injuries - so you can maintain continuity).
I think that either path can lead to the same end. As long as one doesn't limit one's self.
Okay - well, it's not just the "well trained" aspects of Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee (etc) - but they are (were) very talented athletes as well. A lot of these UFC competition fighters are also VERY talented athletes. You take an average joe, who does not have a lot of natural talent, but maybe some good dedication, puts in a lot of effort - that average joe is going to do well after training in a traditional martial art. Up against an average joe who is not trained. Or even a "big tough guy" - who doesn't train, or may focus only on a limited style like boxing. (or BJJ - which is a popular, and effective - but very limited fighting style).
These "special" guys - who have a lot of natural talent, they'll kick an average joe's ass any day. You'll see them credit their particular training method because; guess what? They can make a fuckton of money selling lessons, equipment, supplements (etc). Doesn't mean it's all bullshit. Just that you can make up for the fact that you have no talent - by training. But if someone has talent, AND trains, you better fucking carry a gun. Or an asteroid.
well - it's not that your neighbor is tilling his own fields without a tractor. He's tilling his Lord's fields, and giving his Lord 90% of the crop. And his kids are starving to death. And this is not merely a return to the dark-ages, no. Probably, everyone also is suffering from some various health problems from a combination of: 1. Catastrophic loss of biodiversity causing massive loss of ability to grow diverse food sources, resulting in almost universal malnutrition. (seafood diet? we acidified the ocean - NO FISH FOR YOU). 2. Toxic environmental pollutants. 3. Radioactive contaminants from the thousands of untended nuclear power plants that melted down when civilization collapsed (and/or, the millions of tons of improperly stored waste fuel that lit up when its cooling supply boiled-off, and/or, the nuclear warheads we exchanged when civilization collapsed and we decided to "go out fighting"). Plus, we'll also have: Continuous weather-related disasters, caused by climate change (we've long-ago given up on industrialization, but the after-effects will be felt for centuries).
Lack of civil order, public education, and overwhelming widespread ignorance, and religious tyranny? A walk in the park by comparision. Little side-annoyances.
Oh, I suppose some people will maintain stashes of modern weapons. The kings will, at any rate. I imagine that keeping a few machineguns in good working condition over the next few centuries will be VERY useful for maintaining civil order.
well, not unimaginative. Uninformed at best. At worst: willfully ignorant. (ie. you write a paper about renewable energy, and omit facts like those that you've mentioned - then she's obviously writing with a bias)
Pretend that nothing's going to happen and everything's going to be fine for the foreseeable future. (prepare a secret escape rocket and island fortress, for when the riots begin)
Answer: They will work much cheaper with the expertise of a US education, but living in a third-world country, with third-world standards of living, no worker's rights, no environmental protections, no right to privacy, etc.
Back in the 1990's, when the dotcom era was starting, if you could switch on a computer, you could get hired. Maybe you needed a High School diploma, but college was pretty much optional. If you were basically smart, and could learn, you were golden. (well - I was.) The LATE 1990's were really posh. Then the IPO fraud of the early 2000's hit, and it was all flipped upside down. And I did go back to school and earned my degree, and pretty much learned NOTHING I hadn't learned on the job in the past 10 years. But hey. Now I've got my degree, and a moderate amount of job security(?).
The cultural bias against funding and supporting actual academic education in this country runs deep, and dates back to the 1940's and 1950's, (or probably even earlier) - when college campuses were purged of professors with communist leanings. The hatred lives on today.
By that way of thinking, each perpetrator of the LIBOR fixing scandal committed acts which affected millions or perhaps billions of people. Shouldn't THEIR sentence be something then on the order of millions of years of prison?
I *think* that with a Dell laptop I have; (purchased last year) - there is no way to back-rev the BIOS if you update it. You can't set it back to factory. So you could theoretically flash the bios and brick it. This is what the ppl on the laptop forum say. Of course, at Dell's website, they pretty much say don't power it on, or you're taking your life into your own hands. . . .
Science is composed of: Create a Hypothesis. Write a Procedure. Record Data. Test the Hypothesis. Other scientists independently reproduce based on your experiment.
So - if software (part of the procedure) is released closed source. . . then how in hell are other scientists supposed to reproduce the work?
This goes against the most very basic principles of science.
Yeah - the Libertarian Fantasy (TM) is that people can sue, and the lawyers will go to court and make everything all right.
But the fact is - you can't unwind all these transactions that took place over 6+ years based on other transactions based on other transactions based on indices based on a fraudulent rate. Even if you could, it would be a P-NP problem. And if you did, you unwind those transactions, and put all that money back into the original owners' pockets, and how do you compensate someone for, "gee, that $100 you were supposed to have 6 years ago, here it is. I'm sorry it maybe cost you an extra $500 more in fees and financing and who knows what else in the meantime because maybe you could have invested that money in a fund, or invented something or maybe you would have just bought junk food" - or how do you compensate someone for "gee, sorry I took $100 from each of your customers 6 years ago, causing them to not be able to patronize your establishment anymore, so you had to go out of business, sorry for ruining your livelihood, an the economy in general." Or "gee, you know that economic and banking system you though you trusted, well, it was all a sham. Better than communism, though, #amiright?"
No compensation amount in the world is feasible to undo what has been done. Next, we need to talk about - how to we stop it from happening again. Make examples of these guys? Saddle the banking system with so many rules that it can no longer function efficiently or effectively?
I think that when you look at how dogs are descended from wolves, and not really by a normal evolutionary process, but, instead, through a rapid process of breeding-out aggressive traits, (because the non-aggressive wolves, who became domesticated dogs, were better at surviving near human communities, or even within human families) - I think that this shows that homo sapiens LIKELY also went through a similar process.
Hunter-gatherer humans who did not socialize, were not selected for their non-aggressive traits, and were not as successful as the socialized humans. I don't know how this could possibly be experimentally proven. I suppose that there's less pressure on the socialization aspect of humanity now, than in early agrarian societies. (we're less reliant on others now, I think. Society actually actively protects individual anti-social aggression. If you're a human, as long as you don't get caught committing a dire crime, we probably won't even kill you. Just imprison you.)
That said: I *do* believe that this means that human beings are more or less "hard wired" towards more social cooperation than most of us think. I think it has been a great tool of survival - the "domestication" of the human species. Now it will be our collective undoing.
When their food companies tainted the food supply with melamine, two executives were sentenced to death, and 15 other managers were given stiff jail terms. The company was also fined. (but it wasn't much of a fine, in the big scheme of things).
Slashdot Mirror
It's true; Bruce Lee never really mastered any traditional martial art.
Many Chinese practitioners consider Wing Chung kind of a "dumbed down" martial art - because it's simplified, and easier to master. It focuses on basic combat techniques, (more than traditional Kung Fu/Chuan Fa/Wushu styles do), and has a lot less of the "ornamental" type of meditative forms.
And Bruce Lee never really fully mastered Wing Chung either. (though he did study with the legendary master Ip Man). Bruce Lee was simply an exceptionally talented athlete. His parents were actors. He was also a very talented dancer. Very dedicated and hard working. When he came back to America, he started his own martial arts school, and developed his own style, and it was really based on a broad set of concepts. He had already gotten a wide reputation in the martial arts community, and had studied with a lot of the big players, and learned at least the basics of many different styles, and the simplicity of Wing Chung still appealed to him. So that's why JKD has a lot of elements of Wing Chung - but is really just another chapter in the overall American Mixed Martial Arts movement.
20 years before Bruce Lee, just about every American since WWII who came back from Asia with any kind of Martial Arts experience, was trying to open a school. There was huge demand. But few had real credentials - and few had any ability to "sell" a set of Asian philosophy to an American market. So many traditional martial arts were mixed and matched and re-created. (particularly in the Ed Parker family of Kenpo styles). And after that, all of these schools engaged in turf wars, suing each other over trademarks, and the like.
Some of these mixed arts are actually very effective, and worthwhile.
But Bruce Lee was really innovating. He was putting a lot of thought into re-inventing fighting. You can go on to youtube and look at what the practitioners at his school are teaching today. It's pretty different than most other arts. And these guys seem to fare well at these Ultimate Fighting things. (I wouldn't say that they *dominate* like the BJJ guys did, for a while).
Chuck Norris just did his traditional styles, kicked some major ass in tourneys in the 70's, did some hollywood, and retired to run his chain of schools. That's the life.
Jackie Chan? He's a lifelong actor, stuntman, producer. Just extremely talented. He basically invented the "drunken boxing" style - which is completely ornamental pantomime. (but entertaining). And now, he's kind of becoming a tool for the PRC ruling party, making propaganda films and history revision pieces. Sad, because I otherwise really like him.
I think that, in general, because of the popularity of UFC and MMA type fighting spectacles, a lot of traditional martial arts schools are having trouble attracting as many students as they used to, back in the 70's and 80's. People don't want to learn all the super complex forms and katas and combinations, they don't want to do all the rote memorization. They don't like the pajamas or the bowing. They seem to prefer the "big tough jock" aspect of MMA, and the simple focus on sparring engagement (which - in a lot of traditional styles, is often neglected; mainly because it's so dangerous to practice without going full-bore with safety equipment and rules).
That's okay - but I guess the point is, these are two different disciplines. They appeal to two different personality types. And neither one is going to make you an invincible super-warrior. It takes the training of the system, at a good school, with a good teacher, plus, a lot of natural talent, plus, drive, determination, and frankly, luck (to avoid injuries - so you can maintain continuity).
I think that either path can lead to the same end. As long as one doesn't limit one's self.
Okay - well, it's not just the "well trained" aspects of Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee (etc) - but they are (were) very talented athletes as well. A lot of these UFC competition fighters are also VERY talented athletes. You take an average joe, who does not have a lot of natural talent, but maybe some good dedication, puts in a lot of effort - that average joe is going to do well after training in a traditional martial art. Up against an average joe who is not trained. Or even a "big tough guy" - who doesn't train, or may focus only on a limited style like boxing. (or BJJ - which is a popular, and effective - but very limited fighting style).
These "special" guys - who have a lot of natural talent, they'll kick an average joe's ass any day. You'll see them credit their particular training method because; guess what? They can make a fuckton of money selling lessons, equipment, supplements (etc). Doesn't mean it's all bullshit. Just that you can make up for the fact that you have no talent - by training. But if someone has talent, AND trains, you better fucking carry a gun. Or an asteroid.
well - it's not that your neighbor is tilling his own fields without a tractor.
He's tilling his Lord's fields, and giving his Lord 90% of the crop. And his kids are starving to death.
And this is not merely a return to the dark-ages, no.
Probably, everyone also is suffering from some various health problems from a combination of: 1. Catastrophic loss of biodiversity causing massive loss of ability to grow diverse food sources, resulting in almost universal malnutrition. (seafood diet? we acidified the ocean - NO FISH FOR YOU). 2. Toxic environmental pollutants. 3. Radioactive contaminants from the thousands of untended nuclear power plants that melted down when civilization collapsed (and/or, the millions of tons of improperly stored waste fuel that lit up when its cooling supply boiled-off, and/or, the nuclear warheads we exchanged when civilization collapsed and we decided to "go out fighting").
Plus, we'll also have:
Continuous weather-related disasters, caused by climate change (we've long-ago given up on industrialization, but the after-effects will be felt for centuries).
Lack of civil order, public education, and overwhelming widespread ignorance, and religious tyranny? A walk in the park by comparision. Little side-annoyances.
Oh, I suppose some people will maintain stashes of modern weapons. The kings will, at any rate. I imagine that keeping a few machineguns in good working condition over the next few centuries will be VERY useful for maintaining civil order.
"renewable" within the context of our closed-system planet, and our human lifespan.
2nd law of thermodynamics says there is no such thing as "renewable" energy - period.
well, not unimaginative. Uninformed at best. At worst: willfully ignorant. (ie. you write a paper about renewable energy, and omit facts like those that you've mentioned - then she's obviously writing with a bias)
I've got a more politically-viable plan:
Pretend that nothing's going to happen and everything's going to be fine for the foreseeable future.
(prepare a secret escape rocket and island fortress, for when the riots begin)
I've got an idea.
Let's murder all the Economists FIRST.
oh, pish posh. long before any significant amount of people start actually starving to death, they'll be nuking eachother to death.
I agree that this is the case.
But dammit, would you please freaking get on with the burning already? This "we're Rome, and we're gonna burn like Rome" stuff is getting tedious!
Answer:
They will work much cheaper with the expertise of a US education, but living in a third-world country, with third-world standards of living, no worker's rights, no environmental protections, no right to privacy, etc.
wow - and I'm fresh outta mod points.
Back in the 1990's, when the dotcom era was starting, if you could switch on a computer, you could get hired.
Maybe you needed a High School diploma, but college was pretty much optional. If you were basically smart, and could learn, you were golden.
(well - I was.)
The LATE 1990's were really posh.
Then the IPO fraud of the early 2000's hit, and it was all flipped upside down. And I did go back to school and earned my degree, and pretty much learned NOTHING I hadn't learned on the job in the past 10 years. But hey. Now I've got my degree, and a moderate amount of job security(?).
The cultural bias against funding and supporting actual academic education in this country runs deep, and dates back to the 1940's and 1950's, (or probably even earlier) - when college campuses were purged of professors with communist leanings. The hatred lives on today.
Most insightful post: the way of things, and all of human nature - ever.
By that way of thinking, each perpetrator of the LIBOR fixing scandal committed acts which affected millions or perhaps billions of people. Shouldn't THEIR sentence be something then on the order of millions of years of prison?
Yes
The other thing is;
Even if you're not malicious, and just curious. . . you never know if you're in a honeypot. Or a FED's honeypot.
I provide upside-down-ternet for free!
Did they NOT have fires during the thousands of hours of test-flights?
I *think* that with a Dell laptop I have; (purchased last year) - there is no way to back-rev the BIOS if you update it. You can't set it back to factory. So you could theoretically flash the bios and brick it. This is what the ppl on the laptop forum say. Of course, at Dell's website, they pretty much say don't power it on, or you're taking your life into your own hands. . . .
In MIDDLE SCHOOL, I took a science class.
Science is composed of:
Create a Hypothesis.
Write a Procedure.
Record Data.
Test the Hypothesis.
Other scientists independently reproduce based on your experiment.
So - if software (part of the procedure) is released closed source. . . then how in hell are other scientists supposed to reproduce the work?
This goes against the most very basic principles of science.
Yeah - the Libertarian Fantasy (TM) is that people can sue, and the lawyers will go to court and make everything all right.
But the fact is - you can't unwind all these transactions that took place over 6+ years based on other transactions based on other transactions based on indices based on a fraudulent rate. Even if you could, it would be a P-NP problem. And if you did, you unwind those transactions, and put all that money back into the original owners' pockets, and how do you compensate someone for, "gee, that $100 you were supposed to have 6 years ago, here it is. I'm sorry it maybe cost you an extra $500 more in fees and financing and who knows what else in the meantime because maybe you could have invested that money in a fund, or invented something or maybe you would have just bought junk food" - or how do you compensate someone for "gee, sorry I took $100 from each of your customers 6 years ago, causing them to not be able to patronize your establishment anymore, so you had to go out of business, sorry for ruining your livelihood, an the economy in general." Or "gee, you know that economic and banking system you though you trusted, well, it was all a sham. Better than communism, though, #amiright?"
No compensation amount in the world is feasible to undo what has been done.
Next, we need to talk about - how to we stop it from happening again.
Make examples of these guys?
Saddle the banking system with so many rules that it can no longer function efficiently or effectively?
I think that when you look at how dogs are descended from wolves, and not really by a normal evolutionary process, but, instead, through a rapid process of breeding-out aggressive traits, (because the non-aggressive wolves, who became domesticated dogs, were better at surviving near human communities, or even within human families) - I think that this shows that homo sapiens LIKELY also went through a similar process.
Hunter-gatherer humans who did not socialize, were not selected for their non-aggressive traits, and were not as successful as the socialized humans. I don't know how this could possibly be experimentally proven. I suppose that there's less pressure on the socialization aspect of humanity now, than in early agrarian societies. (we're less reliant on others now, I think. Society actually actively protects individual anti-social aggression. If you're a human, as long as you don't get caught committing a dire crime, we probably won't even kill you. Just imprison you.)
That said: I *do* believe that this means that human beings are more or less "hard wired" towards more social cooperation than most of us think. I think it has been a great tool of survival - the "domestication" of the human species. Now it will be our collective undoing.
it's probably already happening again.
I like China's approach.
When their food companies tainted the food supply with melamine, two executives were sentenced to death, and 15 other managers were given stiff jail terms. The company was also fined. (but it wasn't much of a fine, in the big scheme of things).
well, that, and the Caber Toss. . .
For me, it was "The Andromeda Strain".
Book? WAY better than the movie. .. I actually got to work at Vandenberg Air Force Base. . . :)
(then.
Tons of "mind-control" pathogens to work with.
Toxoplasmosis parasite comes to mind.