At 20,000 feet, no less. I can hear some honking right now. They've been arriving in my "backyard" for a few days now. Spring is in the air, as it were. Magnificent creatures. I like to watch them flying territorial loops, practicing touch and go landings on the river with each loop.
Last year while riding a bike path that parallels a section of the old Erie Canal I had a run in with a Canada Goose that was taking advantage of the path for a bit of sunning. He wasn't moving until he was ready, and I wasn't going by until he moved. You don't argue with a goose.
So I joined him. It was very pleasant. Eventually he hopped into the canal and I rode on my way.
I believe a flock of Whooper Swans still holds the visually confirmed altitude record though (according the Guiness boys and all web sources I find). 29,000 feet. Just cruising over Ireland, outbound from Iceland to their wintering grounds in Scotland, or maybe Japan.
We've been getting a few Trumpeter Swans around here lately, which is welcome sight, given that they were hunted to extinction in these parts.
If I ever bump into a swan on the bike path I'm not only not going to argue with it, I'll probably think it's a good sign that it's time to turn around and head the other way. Fast.
Duck homing is pretty precise. I have ducks and geese in my "backyard" (the Mohawk River) who manage to find the exact same favorite pool every year from whatever far flung warmer clime they spend it in (the bastards).
The problem as I see it is that pigeons are dogs and ducks are cats. Tell a pigeon to carry something through antipigeon fire to save the regiment and the otherwise intelligent animal will say, "Oooooooo, Oooooooo, can I? Pleeeeeeeeeese!"
Whereas you to try to tell a duck that and he'll say, "Yeah, right Sparky. Blow me. Why don't you just run along and carry it yourself? Or maybe ask that stupid pigeon. I'll bet he'll do it. A pigeon will do anything. Just ask that Skinner dude."
Which is why no duck has ever won a Crouix de Guerre. On the other hand no duck is standing on his remaining leg stuffed in a museum either.
The ducks like it that way.
That isn't to say that a duck won't oblige by carrying a message, but it'll go when he wants, where he wants.
If that happens to coincide with your needs, fine and dandy, if not, well, tough noogies.
Actually, that's a working pace for a pigeon. They were working hard, but not really what you could call "trying." Birds are fast.
Mind you a duck will overhaul a pigeon. That fat body is all wing flapping muscle. A duck is built to fly fast, high and for days at a time if needed. A duck in fear of its life can break 100 kph in level flight. An Eider just trying to get somewhere in a hurry for no particular reason has been clocked at 76 kph. That's the current officially confirmed record.
Nevermind the falcon that eats the pigeon creating packet loss.
I have no idea what the achievable bandwidth of a duck is though. They could deliver data intercontinetally. Having to wait through migratory periods would probably kill it pretty good.
Because when you open up a spreadsheet you see a nice piece of graph paper, and people know how to use graph paper to do things.
It is a simple, obvious and accessable tool usable by the masses who are never going to learn how to normalize a database or pay someone to do it for them.
Here's a use for a spreadsheet you might not have run across before. Composition of structured verse. It actually works quite well as a writing/ editing tool.
Spreadsheets are Swiss Army Knives. The tools on a Swiss Army Knife are rarely the best tool for the job, but any kid can pick one up and use it to accomplish something crude but useful. That's why Swiss Army Knifes exist in the first place.
Most people are never going to rise above the level of using their computers like a Swiss Army Knife.
No, I don't think he was a Ted Kennedy type, but he certainly probably would have been a New Dealer. He got run out of England for advocating the overthrow of the monarchy and giving all men over 21 the franchise, instituting Social Security, minimum family income standards.
Then he nearly lost his head in France for advocating not Chopping off the King's head. Only Monroe saved his life at the last minute.
While in prison he wrote the first scholarly attack on the truth of Christianity and the Bible, The Age of Reason.
Do you see the trend here? He escapes prison in England for advocating overthrowing the King and ends up in prison in France for advocating sparing the King.
He wrote books entitled things like Common Sense and The Age of Reason, and of courst The Rights of Man.
He was a man possessed by certain ideas of fairness and reason, even where those ideas flew in the face of what everyone "knew was true." His principle dogma was the abandonment of dogma.
Thus he is the most misunderstood person of the period. Even in the context of New Deal socialism it isn't really fair to call him a statist. He hated the ruling classes. He would have been more in tune with the distributionism of Chesterton. Everyman with three acres and a mule.
He is one of those remarkable individuals who never corrupted his beliefs to go with the flow, even at the risk of his life, but can appear to be a corrupt statist from a particular context, and with Paine you always have to take context into consideration because he always relied on reason instead of dogma, and when the axioms change the conclusion changes. When he argues for Social Security it's a reasoned argument based on the idea that the taxes belong to the people, not the King. Anti government pork.
He'd get thrown out of any modern political party, including the Libertarians. Ironic since he's the founder of modern Libertarian thought.
And the further irony is that his writings can be used to support the dogma of any modern political party, as per the site you point out, which I'll have to keep my eye on.
You remember the scene at the end of Lawrence of Arabia where Feisel remarks to Allenby that they're both really glad to be rid of Lawrence?
Paine was the pen to Lawrence's sword, at least as portrayed in the movie they would have made a good team, and been equally dispossed of in the end.
You really have to read him to understand, and if you want to do so without letting ideas of modern politics get in the way The Age of Reason is the place to start. We grew up in an age where questioning the veracity of the Bible is commonplace, so it isn't shocking, and gives a good idea of his thought processes.
Project Gutenberg is your friend. It would be your friend if he were contemporary. He donated The Rights of Man to the public domain so that anyone might be able to afford a copy. He was an open source "file sharer."
Ted Kennedy would have held out for a better contract.
I'd have thought that someone like you would prefer Go to chess.
You've got me pegged pretty well. I much prefer Go, but I've got a chess computer worth a crap, and a bright 13 year old down the street who's starting to give me a bit of trouble, so I think it's time for a tuneup. I never done book learnt my chess beyond Bobby Fischer's book and if I don't play a lot I start to lose it.
I'll probably teach him Go one of these days. Smells like a next winter project though.
To employ one's guts one must first have the new idea. Ideas are hard. Novel ideas are hardest. When you have hundreds of people thinking of novel ideas in one given area for a number of years all the obvious ones get used up pretty damned fast.
Then novel ideas get a damned sight harder.
It's said that every sitcom is just a rewrite of something from I Love Lucy. I think that's an exageration. I think every sitcom is just a rewrite of something from I Love Lucy or Burns and Allen.
Shakespeare lifted every one of his stories. He rewrote them beautifully, but none of them were his original idea. Disney is famous for lifting ideas. As I recall The Lion King was the first Disney original. It's also pretty damned derivitive.
Quick. Come up with the next idea that's going revolutionize the world as we know it. It's out there somewhere. All you have to do is think it up. Easy peasy.
What's the most common question aspiring writers ask of established novelists?
"Where do you get your ideas?"
"I send a check to a post office box in Schenectady and they send me back an idea."
That's exactly the same question game developers get asked.
Maybe they should try the same answer. I could use a post office box people send money to. Not that I have any novel game ideas. I'm stumped myself, and I'm reasonably bright, creative and interested in games.
Sure, there's a great deal of fiscal timidity in the market. You want to make money, not lose it, so there's a natural inclination to go with a winner.
Especially if you can't actually think of something new.
New and good.
That's even harder than new.Not all ideas are created equal.
And quite frankly I don't really mind if they don't have an idea. I'd be perfectly happy if they just made improved versions of the best games extant where such is possible, and leave 'em alone where it isn't. I don't need a godzillion games. I don't have time to play a godzillion games. A solid half dozen with infinte replay would be spiffy.
But that's not what they do. They feel compeled to come up with a new game, can't think of anything decent, and either pump out crap or crapize the good game instead of putting out a solid update.
Smacks. Has the suggestion of. Similarities to. Smells like.
Not "is."
I know no term that means "possibly primed with a hair trigger for cognitive dissonance by being equiped with multiple mutually opposed ideas all held to be true and refusal to logically juxtapose them in order to avoid such dissonance, or possibly even exhibiting signs of actual dissonance, but it's hard to tell sometimes from just reading a forum post, although statements along the line of, "Why don't you just shut up? You cheese eating surrender monkey," are certainly suggestive, but are perhaps being misinterpreted.
That's a pretty long sentence to type for a fairly simple concept. "Smacks of cognitive dissonance" is simple, short, and I believe makes myself understood in most instances.
My ignorance of such a term does not, of course, mean that such does not exist. I may well simply be ignorant. I am about a good many things. I'm open to suggestion.
Unless it causes cognitive dissonance, of course. Then I'll likely just hit you and yell, "Shut up," as most people around here do.
In both cases they were sacrificial delaying tactics. There's some question about how really valuable the action at the Alamo was, Sam Houston probably would have had his army together anyway, but of course that's only in hindsight, but I don't think there's any question about Thermopylae. The Spartans held the Persian's advance for five days, allowing the Athenians time to make their, ultimately successful, defensive preparations. They were a pawn to be sacrificed, and they knew it.
Nor were they exactly defeated. A Greek traitor showed the Persians a way around the pass and attack the Spartans from behind. There were about 10,000 Spartans. 300 of them volunteered to hold the pass to the last man, allowing the Spartan army to retreat intact despite being encircled by a larger force.
It was an absolutely brilliant bit of strategy and off the cuff tactics and the reason the Peloponnesian Wars are still studied in the war colleges. The battle was "lost," but the war was won as a consequence.
The Battle of Bunker Hill bears certain similarities.
With any more such victories we are lost.
The Athenians, of course, sacrificed Athens itself to gain the ultimate victory.
See also Pete Seeger's song The Phoenix and the Rose.
Many of the greatest strategic wars have been on the losing side. The retreat of the Nez Perce is still taught at West Point. You should read some Chief Joseph. Brilliant man and a fantastic orator.
I don't buy the Inca thing. Until fairly recently it was thought that the Inca didn't practice human sacrific at all. The Spanish didn't report any and they loved to point that stuff out. The Inca did a better job of hiding their religious practices than anybody else though. The Spanish never did find Machu Pichu. Now we know better from the archeological record, but the only sacrific I know of is the sacrifice of female children, one at a time, raised for the purpose as "vestal virgins", and this was done by exposure on a mountain top.
The Indian practice of sacrific by burning was pretty terrible, considering the circumstances and the victims. One of the good things to come out of the British occupation was the end to this practice. The Indians were far more repressive to Indians than the British ever were. Nobody likes being a vassal state though. Although many Indian states were vassal states to other Indian states before the arrival of the British.
Ah, the complications of colonial geopolitics. Didn't work out for Rome in the long run either. American politicians could learn a few things by reading Gibbon. Those of them that can actually read English.
"What did the Romans ever do for us?"
The subjucated are always ungrateful wretches. I don't know what's wrong with them.
By the way, northeastern American Indians commonly practiced suicide by self immolation. The fire acted as a ritual purifier. Reading Fenimore Cooper makes no sense unless you understand this, to the extent that Fenimore Cooper makes sense. See Mark Twain's criticism of same.
Simply as a point of fact I'm "Way smarter" than the average of any group you care to name. As an example, I'm smart enough not to belong to MENSA. What a silly idea for a social group. My wife was a member. Mostly they sit around wondering why smart people like them can't seem to get along.
Hey, Sparky, it's because you're a smart Boston Liberal and he's a smart neofascist. Get a clue if you're so smart. Smart doesn't mean "like minded," just minded, for sufficiently small values of minded.
If you want to have fun why don't you join a group of stupid people who are into what you are?
If I were of a mind to be facetious I'd say that brings us right back to Slashdot.
It isn't an issue of their being willing to have me as a member. More a case of they haven't figured out a way to keep me out yet.
That's a good question, especially since the phrase is of French invention. Ah, the vagaries of geopolitics as expressed through culture. For some reason, after expelling the French, the Mexicans kept the term. Perhaps they liked the percieved grandeur of it. The Spanish have always liked a bit of grandeur.
Ibero-America is now prefered by some to deal with that very issue. If nothing else it'll keep people from saying, "Hey, if it's Latin America, where are the Italians?"
Just where the Romanians fit into this I haven't a clue.
I'll have to get back to you on the title of the atlas. Right now it's locked up in the auxiliary library number two, which is inconvenient for me to get to right now.Watch this space tomorrow.
Auxiliary library number one is that stack of boxes over in the corner. I haven't been building bookcases fast enough. God help me when I have to move again. Ebooks have the advantage of being light and not taking up much space.
No, I am not missing that point at all. I may be one of the few extant Americans who has actually read Thomas Paine. They still make kids read Civil Disobedience in some high schools I'm told, but Life Without Principle is unheard of, because that is the truly subversive work. That shit'll scare the piss out of the average high school teacher and have parents up in arms if their kids start talking about it at home.
Taking Burma again as a case in point, they actually have their own Jefferson and Gandhi rolled up into one and she's the duly elected democratic leader of the nation to boot.
And she's sitting in prison.
Her writtings aren't any help, because anyone who reads her writtings can't do much about obtaining a gun.
The pen will turn people to your side, but if your side is powerless the words are of no use.
Look at Cambodia. They used to have splendid words. The guns killed them all so thorougly that they aren't sure they'll ever be able to recover them again.
It's pen and sword together. No swords, pens are useless. Ieyasu understood that. There was no rebellion of note, because rebellion was impossible, because he gave out free pens, made from the confiscated swords.
My post had nothing to do with opposing the PATRIOT ACT (although it's damned good reason to do so), it had to do with opposing the Khymer Rouge, the Cultural Revolution and Nacht der langen Messer. A disarmed populus is simply helpless in cases like that.The internet can do nothing, unless it is to acquire arms.
Carthago delenda est.
If you wish me to relate it the current situation in America here's something to think about. I now have to consider myself as armed where no one would have thought so in times previous. I am a gentleman. I carry a small pocketknife as befits a gentleman.
They have already taken away my slingshot. Four years in the state pen for possesion if I get caught with one of those. The Supremes say this is ok because I can always just buy a gun, thus my Constitutional right to bear arms has not been infringed. By the same reasoning they can take away guns too, because now knitting needles are considered arms.
Because we do not, as yet, live in a repressive regime such as Burma the internet is of value with this issue, and I am availing myself of it. As are many others. Perhaps my memes will pass on, but as Thoreau noted, voting is merely expressing your opinion that your ideas should prevail, they don't do anything about it, and in an unjust society the only place for the just is in its prisons.
Let the hicks play with their guns, so long as they keep hold of them. I may have need of a few grunts to get me out of prison some day, if I keep all this being part of the liberal intelligensia shit up.
Lord knows, because I'm doing it on the internet, it will follow me forever.
Who's going to be president four elections from now and what will they think of who I am today?
I've read the book as translated by an Iraqi educated at London University. I must say I found it rather tough sledding, mostly due to the quantity of disjointed repetition.
I've been working a bit on my Semetic languages. I suppose I'll have a go at bits of it in the original when I feel up to it, but admit that Omar the Tentmaker is more to my taste.
I can't say I found any special hatred toward the Jews in it. He certainly brings them up a lot, as he does Christians, but seems to be a fairly balanced hater to me. If he had any special pet peaves it would seem to be hypocrites and idolators, and I can at least sympathize with that.
I wish he'd taken a night course in prose composition though.Why is it that so many prophets have trouble keeping track of the narative?
You're missing the point. With a pen I can convince other people (perhaps many other people) to pick up their own swords in support of my stated cause.
No, I'm not missing the point. I'm fully in sympathy with the statement "I care not who writes a nation's laws, let me write its songs."
I'm arguing that in a nation where one can be uncermoniously put to death for singing, writing songs does not have the impact that it does in a nation where one is allowed to sing.Have you ever had the experience of having to apply for a federal permit to observe a religious ceremony, and then being held under armed military guard while you observe it? I have. It's a sobering experience for one raised in America where one can simply go to church as one pleases.
Would the Turkish soldiers have even been there, far from home, killing and/or getting killed if they weren't first convinced by Somebody Else that they're God's favorite and are supposed to be doing all that?
I've never observed that military conquest really requires any more rationale than wishing to conquer. It's something people like to do.
Would Europeans have had centuries of warfare with each other during the past milennium if Gutenberg hadn't come along and given the Protestant movement a leg to stand on?
Seeing as how they'd already been engaging in millenia of war, yes, I rather think they would have.
Would Stalin have been able to butcher his own people if Marx and Lenin hadn't come along first and made the Russian people more pliable with thier words?
The Russian people were not made pliable by the words of Marx and Lenin. They were made pliable by a couple hundred years of being slavs to the illiterate Tarters, and then slavs to the Tsar.My mother's grandparents were such slavs to the Tsar, that's why I was born in America. One of them crawled across most of Europe at night to get here. Even before being conquered by the Tartars the Russians were known as a pliant people. Anytime a German needed a few slavs he raided a village, because they accepted their status with a fatalistic "Oh well, that's life."
The well known quote "People get the government they deserve" is an incomplete fragment. The context was discussing the peasants of Russia and their status. The implication was they were in that state because they weren't people, and thus didn't bear worrying about.
Russia is essentially an Asian culture, with the Asian point of view toward individuality and fate. The fact that they are to a large degree blue eyed blondes of Nordic descent may mask that fact, but it is true nonetheless.
The peasant accepts his lot as a peasant.
And speaking of others from that time period would Hitler have been able to cause the death of millions if he hadn't been able to write and publish Mein Kampf Or Mao and this own book?
Sure. Alexander, Ghengis Khan, the afore mentioned Tartars, the Huns, they all seemed to do ok along that score without relying over much on anything but speach, and Hitler's power was public speaking. His book was never very widely read (the works of Goebel's is another story).
Or, to be more current and more blunt, I somehow doubt bin Laden knows the first thing about flying an airplane.
Nonsense. That's pure cultural bias. Osama grew up in a household estimated to have a net worth of 5 billion dollars. He is well acquainted with cars and planes and used both in his jobs managing construction projects for his father's company (things like royal palace construction, not tool sheds). He has a degree in public administration and western military training.
His intelligence and education is the one of the key factors in making him such a formibable foe able to evade our every attempt to hunt him down (the money doesn't hury either). He's not some barnyard "towel head."
The people who he sent to America to learn how to fly commercial jets did so in the context of pers
People don't even look at maps anymore. This has reached the point where it's nearly impossible to purchase a good atlas. I have one published by Time-Life in the 60s that's a wonder. It makes the traditional, large family Bible look like a pocket book. It must weigh about 20 pounds. Maps galore, geographical in relief (including the sea floor), political, climate, etc. Each country or region given its own full treatment, not just a "this is Asia," in 8 1/2 X 11.
After the fall of the USSR I went out to look for an updated version and discovered that there's just no market for that sort of book anymore, so they had stopped making them.
I'll have to look again. Maybe now that the map has settled a bit they've given it another go.
Americans these days think "Latin America" and "South America" in conjunction.
If you really want to get them going point out that Texas, California and Florida are Latin American. People who live in Los Angeles, San Antonio or Miami who want to see English become the official language are going to have to think of all new place names.
Nevermind the fact that I don't think one American in a hundred knows that over 200 million Latin Americans don't have Spanish as their first language. Or that the majority of Latin Americans are white Europeans ( perhaps they don't know what "Latin" means?) or that there is a sizable Arab and Japanese population.
Islam still has an endemic genocidal hatred of Jews.
That depends on what you mean by "still." That hatred is historically recent. Islamic countries used to be the safest place in the world for Jews. Certainly all of the truly enlightened Islamics never have had any hatred for Jews. The Torah is their Old Testament, Abraham is held to be the father of the Arab "race" (although there is that casting out into the desert thingy to deal with, which serves as modern religious justification for the hatred. Call me Ishmael.), and Moses is the first of the great prophets.
I thought of bringing up the issue of Buddhism being the only religion that I'm aware of that does not, and never has, espoused any sort of oppression, but I wanted to think a bit harder about it first and see if I could come up with another ( I haven't) and because, as an expressed Buddhist, it might smack a bit of being self serving.
In the case of Buddhism itself there are certain practices of Japanese Buddhism that might seem a bit on the oppressive side to an American or European, but aren't really in context. For instance we are culturally attuned to thinking of being struck as "punishment." In Japan where striking a child at all is nearly unthinkable they have no such inherent association, per se.
Although, I'll point out, that the point of nonviolence isn't to achieve any other goal other than refraining from violence.
It's a belief, not a tool.
This doesn't at all alter the fact that in the right time and place it can also be a very effective tool if one is a nonviolent activist, rather than pacifist.
I've also pointed out, which turned out to be even more controversial, that Europe itself is Asian, moreso even than India.
I discovered this fact while my age was still in the single digits by the simple expediant of looking at. ..an atlas. A good one. In relief. You can walk from France to Kamchatka without experiencing any undue hardship. The early Russian settlers of Siberia carried boats across the Urals. Walking to and from India to anyplace else in the world presents certain difficulties. Hence all the brouhaha around the Kyhber Pass over the centuries.
I like maps. I can read them for hours. Reading a proper relief atlas can teach you more about most historical events than all the prose in the world. I fully concur with the wag who noted the "old men" of Versaille needed to be given a text on elementary geography.
Look at an atlas. You'll find out why Iraq invaded Kuwait. Indeed virtually had to give it at least a try sooner or later. The "old men" fucked up.
Or, more than likely, really didn't give a shit about causing a future tribal war in Arabia.
Cognitive dissonance is not always concious. The imbalance may be felt and expressed without any knowledge that one's beliefs and actions are being dictated by the imbalance caused by the dissonance, because one way to deal with cognitive dissonance is to repress the knowledge, leading to abnormal psychological states with no observable cause.
A subtler form of cognitive dissonance by repression is that of avoiding the conflict altogether by refusing to acknowledge two things you know as facts are in conflict with each other. The "imbalance" never occurs because you don't allow it to. If you allowed yourself to conciously "put two and two togther" that would cause imbalance. So you don't.
Like someone lecturing on Native American culture claiming that they had no beasts of burden before the arrival of Europeans and then going on to describe Inuit culture.
Explicitly pointing this out to them can make them feel very "itchy."
Or imbalanced.
Which can make them angry rather than feeling any state of dilema.
Because they're in a state of cognitive dissonance.
An awful lot of anger is unconcious cognitive dissonance. People prefer to hit something than come to a new conclusion.
Please note that I did not say "thinking the internet can free Tibet and Burma is cognitive dissonance."
In some people who believe that and something else opposed to it, it may be.
Losing a battle is not losing the war. Just as losing a pawn is not losing the game. Remember the Alamo. I do. I've been there. Sometimes losing a pawn guarantees the game.
How you lose it is what's important.
It would have mattered a good deal in the larger scheme of things if they had only been armed with pens. Likewise the Alamo.
Then why did you write a message with something about attacking Asians instead of attacking Iraqis?
We are all capable of making technical error when working quick and dirty. Does all of your code run first time from prototype?
I never said anything about Celts. I said "some." Your argument is a. ..strawman.
It is also, by modern historical study, discounted, as the only source for the idea is a clearly propagandistic writing of Julius Cesear. There is no evidence to back it up.
Buring prisoners seems to be a Christian European practice, historically.
While you are at it, get an atlas. The Arabs of Iraq are Asians. ..
Yes. I know. In fact, I've made, and had to defend that very point, right here on Slashdot, when I've pointed out that every major European religion is of Asian origin, and thus European culture is essentially Asian culture, all natively European religions having effectively been extingished.
Which, despite personally being an adherent of Asian religious thought, I think is a great cultural shame. Many European religious cultures were quite lovely compared to what replaced them.
Yes, I am quite familiar with Gandhiji. I'm making a book charka right now. I'm also familiar with the concept of nonviolent resistence. My stepfather was a concientious objector in WWII. That was a pretty radical idea at the time. I myself am a Buddhist and Thoreauian.
You might find this hard to believe, but the British in India were not a repressive regime, as these things go. Gandhiji spent some time in prison.
He didn't disappear in the middle of the night. That would have ended his nonviolence campaign in a flash.
That's what happens in truly repressive regimes. Like Mao's China.
You are right about the intelligensia though. Sam and John Adams were intelligent and well educated.
They were smart enough to realize to start stockpiling guns and powder years before the revolution broke out. Which was possible only because they didn't leave in a repressive regime.
Repressive regimes don't fear words. That's an entirely democratic concept. Repressive regimes simply kill everyone who speaks.
Without fear.
You don't have to kill everyone in the country. You just have to decimate them (look it up if you have to. I know the meaning of the word because I spend a good deal of my time reading history). People fall into line.
It might even surprise you that about 10% or so of the population likes living in a repressive regime. Always have. Always will.
. ..even though I thought his "beating up arabs" part was a bit off.
As it happens, I agree. That was a weak bit of rhetoric, well below what I'm capable of, and I even paused a bit on that issue before I hit the submit button.
Mind you, that doesn't mean I don't believe it's not true, just that I could have phrased it rather more eloquently, but this is Slashdot, after all. That's an element of the Web as well (although not the internet). Web forums such as this support quick and dirty, type it fast and get it out, writing.
If I had constructed it as an op ed essay for print, or Kuro5hin, I would have posted it two days from now--and only my "stalkers" would have even read it.
Yes, that's what the pen is for. Instigation. By itself it does nothing. Sam Adams was able to pass out broadbills inciting the people to oppose the government, but on the back of some of those broadbills was an unobtrusive little bit of paper that said what amounted to, "Please start stockpiling guns and powder. Eat this after you've read it." The real history of the American Revolution is about how they went about such stockpiling. The Battle of Bunker Hill was only "lost" because they hadn't managed to stockpile enough powder.
But you have to remember that the government has just as much access to whatever comminications technology exists. In a represive regime considerably more access. That even applies to the internet. The invention of telegraphy, telephony and radio allowed "the people" more ready access to communicating with other over broad geographic areas to form networks that otherwise would not have been possible, but it also allowed the government to better orginize itself. Soldiers and policeman have radios and know how to use them. The history of communications isn't the history of freedom, it's the history of dictatorship.
What's more, all of these technologies allow the government greater ability to monitor and attack dissident groups. You can eat the paper. A whisper in a back alley doesn't even require that. Telephones can be taped. Radio can be freely intercepted. The internet can be monitored and traced.
As an example from current events, people traded music freely before the internet, without fear and without reprisal. The internet didn't bring the free trade of music, it brought the most virulent repression of trading we've ever seen, right up to the law being modified to support that repression. In the country that traditionally stands as the model for freedom.
The internet, in its way, actually incites and enables repression.
If you wish to trade music freely you can still just do it the old fashioned way. It works. It's easy. It's invisible.
The same goes for inciting revolution. It happens with whispers in back alleys, not using a technolgical medium. I've experienced this first hand as an American traveling behind the Iron Curtain. The black market took place right out in the open to Americans, invisible to the KGB.
"Pssssssssttt, Hey. American. What do you want for those Levis you're wearing? You want to change some money? I'll give you 10% better than the government bank."
And when it's time for the shooting to start the whisper is, "Hey, start stockpiling guns and powder."
You'd have to be an idiot to do that over the internet. The black Ford Falcons would be there in a jiffy.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, there's always the line from the Howlin' Wolf song (300 Pounds of Joy) to fall back on:
"I was built for comfort, I wasn't built for speed."
KFG
At 20,000 feet, no less. I can hear some honking right now. They've been arriving in my "backyard" for a few days now. Spring is in the air, as it were. Magnificent creatures. I like to watch them flying territorial loops, practicing touch and go landings on the river with each loop.
Last year while riding a bike path that parallels a section of the old Erie Canal I had a run in with a Canada Goose that was taking advantage of the path for a bit of sunning. He wasn't moving until he was ready, and I wasn't going by until he moved. You don't argue with a goose.
So I joined him. It was very pleasant. Eventually he hopped into the canal and I rode on my way.
I believe a flock of Whooper Swans still holds the visually confirmed altitude record though (according the Guiness boys and all web sources I find). 29,000 feet. Just cruising over Ireland, outbound from Iceland to their wintering grounds in Scotland, or maybe Japan.
We've been getting a few Trumpeter Swans around here lately, which is welcome sight, given that they were hunted to extinction in these parts.
If I ever bump into a swan on the bike path I'm not only not going to argue with it, I'll probably think it's a good sign that it's time to turn around and head the other way. Fast.
KFG
Duck homing is pretty precise. I have ducks and geese in my "backyard" (the Mohawk River) who manage to find the exact same favorite pool every year from whatever far flung warmer clime they spend it in (the bastards).
The problem as I see it is that pigeons are dogs and ducks are cats. Tell a pigeon to carry something through antipigeon fire to save the regiment and the otherwise intelligent animal will say, "Oooooooo, Oooooooo, can I? Pleeeeeeeeeese!"
Whereas you to try to tell a duck that and he'll say, "Yeah, right Sparky. Blow me. Why don't you just run along and carry it yourself? Or maybe ask that stupid pigeon. I'll bet he'll do it. A pigeon will do anything. Just ask that Skinner dude."
Which is why no duck has ever won a Crouix de Guerre. On the other hand no duck is standing on his remaining leg stuffed in a museum either.
The ducks like it that way.
That isn't to say that a duck won't oblige by carrying a message, but it'll go when he wants, where he wants.
If that happens to coincide with your needs, fine and dandy, if not, well, tough noogies.
KFG
Actually, that's a working pace for a pigeon. They were working hard, but not really what you could call "trying." Birds are fast.
Mind you a duck will overhaul a pigeon. That fat body is all wing flapping muscle. A duck is built to fly fast, high and for days at a time if needed. A duck in fear of its life can break 100 kph in level flight. An Eider just trying to get somewhere in a hurry for no particular reason has been clocked at 76 kph. That's the current officially confirmed record.
Nevermind the falcon that eats the pigeon creating packet loss.
I have no idea what the achievable bandwidth of a duck is though. They could deliver data intercontinetally. Having to wait through migratory periods would probably kill it pretty good.
KFG
Spelling Vichy, perhaps, mon frere?
.
Travail, famille, patrie, epellation
KFG
Because when you open up a spreadsheet you see a nice piece of graph paper, and people know how to use graph paper to do things.
It is a simple, obvious and accessable tool usable by the masses who are never going to learn how to normalize a database or pay someone to do it for them.
Here's a use for a spreadsheet you might not have run across before. Composition of structured verse. It actually works quite well as a writing/ editing tool.
Spreadsheets are Swiss Army Knives. The tools on a Swiss Army Knife are rarely the best tool for the job, but any kid can pick one up and use it to accomplish something crude but useful. That's why Swiss Army Knifes exist in the first place.
Most people are never going to rise above the level of using their computers like a Swiss Army Knife.
However much it might annoy us.
KFG
No, I don't think he was a Ted Kennedy type, but he certainly probably would have been a New Dealer. He got run out of England for advocating the overthrow of the monarchy and giving all men over 21 the franchise, instituting Social Security, minimum family income standards.
Then he nearly lost his head in France for advocating not Chopping off the King's head. Only Monroe saved his life at the last minute.
While in prison he wrote the first scholarly attack on the truth of Christianity and the Bible, The Age of Reason.
Do you see the trend here? He escapes prison in England for advocating overthrowing the King and ends up in prison in France for advocating sparing the King.
He wrote books entitled things like Common Sense and The Age of Reason, and of courst The Rights of Man.
He was a man possessed by certain ideas of fairness and reason, even where those ideas flew in the face of what everyone "knew was true." His principle dogma was the abandonment of dogma.
Thus he is the most misunderstood person of the period. Even in the context of New Deal socialism it isn't really fair to call him a statist. He hated the ruling classes. He would have been more in tune with the distributionism of Chesterton. Everyman with three acres and a mule.
He is one of those remarkable individuals who never corrupted his beliefs to go with the flow, even at the risk of his life, but can appear to be a corrupt statist from a particular context, and with Paine you always have to take context into consideration because he always relied on reason instead of dogma, and when the axioms change the conclusion changes. When he argues for Social Security it's a reasoned argument based on the idea that the taxes belong to the people, not the King. Anti government pork.
He'd get thrown out of any modern political party, including the Libertarians. Ironic since he's the founder of modern Libertarian thought.
And the further irony is that his writings can be used to support the dogma of any modern political party, as per the site you point out, which I'll have to keep my eye on.
You remember the scene at the end of Lawrence of Arabia where Feisel remarks to Allenby that they're both really glad to be rid of Lawrence?
Paine was the pen to Lawrence's sword, at least as portrayed in the movie they would have made a good team, and been equally dispossed of in the end.
You really have to read him to understand, and if you want to do so without letting ideas of modern politics get in the way The Age of Reason is the place to start. We grew up in an age where questioning the veracity of the Bible is commonplace, so it isn't shocking, and gives a good idea of his thought processes.
Project Gutenberg is your friend. It would be your friend if he were contemporary. He donated The Rights of Man to the public domain so that anyone might be able to afford a copy. He was an open source "file sharer."
Ted Kennedy would have held out for a better contract.
KFG
I'd have thought that someone like you would prefer Go to chess.
You've got me pegged pretty well. I much prefer Go, but I've got a chess computer worth a crap, and a bright 13 year old down the street who's starting to give me a bit of trouble, so I think it's time for a tuneup. I never done book learnt my chess beyond Bobby Fischer's book and if I don't play a lot I start to lose it.
I'll probably teach him Go one of these days. Smells like a next winter project though.
KFG
To employ one's guts one must first have the new idea. Ideas are hard. Novel ideas are hardest. When you have hundreds of people thinking of novel ideas in one given area for a number of years all the obvious ones get used up pretty damned fast.
Then novel ideas get a damned sight harder.
It's said that every sitcom is just a rewrite of something from I Love Lucy. I think that's an exageration. I think every sitcom is just a rewrite of something from I Love Lucy or Burns and Allen.
Shakespeare lifted every one of his stories. He rewrote them beautifully, but none of them were his original idea. Disney is famous for lifting ideas. As I recall The Lion King was the first Disney original. It's also pretty damned derivitive.
Quick. Come up with the next idea that's going revolutionize the world as we know it. It's out there somewhere. All you have to do is think it up. Easy peasy.
What's the most common question aspiring writers ask of established novelists?
"Where do you get your ideas?"
"I send a check to a post office box in Schenectady and they send me back an idea."
That's exactly the same question game developers get asked.
Maybe they should try the same answer. I could use a post office box people send money to. Not that I have any novel game ideas. I'm stumped myself, and I'm reasonably bright, creative and interested in games.
Sure, there's a great deal of fiscal timidity in the market. You want to make money, not lose it, so there's a natural inclination to go with a winner.
Especially if you can't actually think of something new.
New and good.
That's even harder than new.Not all ideas are created equal.
And quite frankly I don't really mind if they don't have an idea. I'd be perfectly happy if they just made improved versions of the best games extant where such is possible, and leave 'em alone where it isn't. I don't need a godzillion games. I don't have time to play a godzillion games. A solid half dozen with infinte replay would be spiffy.
But that's not what they do. They feel compeled to come up with a new game, can't think of anything decent, and either pump out crap or crapize the good game instead of putting out a solid update.
I think I'll go play some chess.
KFG
Smacks. Has the suggestion of. Similarities to. Smells like.
Not "is."
I know no term that means "possibly primed with a hair trigger for cognitive dissonance by being equiped with multiple mutually opposed ideas all held to be true and refusal to logically juxtapose them in order to avoid such dissonance, or possibly even exhibiting signs of actual dissonance, but it's hard to tell sometimes from just reading a forum post, although statements along the line of, "Why don't you just shut up? You cheese eating surrender monkey," are certainly suggestive, but are perhaps being misinterpreted.
That's a pretty long sentence to type for a fairly simple concept. "Smacks of cognitive dissonance" is simple, short, and I believe makes myself understood in most instances.
My ignorance of such a term does not, of course, mean that such does not exist. I may well simply be ignorant. I am about a good many things. I'm open to suggestion.
Unless it causes cognitive dissonance, of course. Then I'll likely just hit you and yell, "Shut up," as most people around here do.
KFG
In both cases they were sacrificial delaying tactics. There's some question about how really valuable the action at the Alamo was, Sam Houston probably would have had his army together anyway, but of course that's only in hindsight, but I don't think there's any question about Thermopylae. The Spartans held the Persian's advance for five days, allowing the Athenians time to make their, ultimately successful, defensive preparations. They were a pawn to be sacrificed, and they knew it.
Nor were they exactly defeated. A Greek traitor showed the Persians a way around the pass and attack the Spartans from behind. There were about 10,000 Spartans. 300 of them volunteered to hold the pass to the last man, allowing the Spartan army to retreat intact despite being encircled by a larger force.
It was an absolutely brilliant bit of strategy and off the cuff tactics and the reason the Peloponnesian Wars are still studied in the war colleges. The battle was "lost," but the war was won as a consequence.
The Battle of Bunker Hill bears certain similarities.
With any more such victories we are lost.
The Athenians, of course, sacrificed Athens itself to gain the ultimate victory.
See also Pete Seeger's song The Phoenix and the Rose.
Many of the greatest strategic wars have been on the losing side. The retreat of the Nez Perce is still taught at West Point. You should read some Chief Joseph. Brilliant man and a fantastic orator.
I don't buy the Inca thing. Until fairly recently it was thought that the Inca didn't practice human sacrific at all. The Spanish didn't report any and they loved to point that stuff out. The Inca did a better job of hiding their religious practices than anybody else though. The Spanish never did find Machu Pichu. Now we know better from the archeological record, but the only sacrific I know of is the sacrifice of female children, one at a time, raised for the purpose as "vestal virgins", and this was done by exposure on a mountain top.
The Indian practice of sacrific by burning was pretty terrible, considering the circumstances and the victims. One of the good things to come out of the British occupation was the end to this practice. The Indians were far more repressive to Indians than the British ever were. Nobody likes being a vassal state though. Although many Indian states were vassal states to other Indian states before the arrival of the British.
Ah, the complications of colonial geopolitics. Didn't work out for Rome in the long run either. American politicians could learn a few things by reading Gibbon. Those of them that can actually read English.
"What did the Romans ever do for us?"
The subjucated are always ungrateful wretches. I don't know what's wrong with them.
By the way, northeastern American Indians commonly practiced suicide by self immolation. The fire acted as a ritual purifier. Reading Fenimore Cooper makes no sense unless you understand this, to the extent that Fenimore Cooper makes sense. See Mark Twain's criticism of same.
Simply as a point of fact I'm "Way smarter" than the average of any group you care to name. As an example, I'm smart enough not to belong to MENSA. What a silly idea for a social group. My wife was a member. Mostly they sit around wondering why smart people like them can't seem to get along.
Hey, Sparky, it's because you're a smart Boston Liberal and he's a smart neofascist. Get a clue if you're so smart. Smart doesn't mean "like minded," just minded, for sufficiently small values of minded.
If you want to have fun why don't you join a group of stupid people who are into what you are?
If I were of a mind to be facetious I'd say that brings us right back to Slashdot.
It isn't an issue of their being willing to have me as a member. More a case of they haven't figured out a way to keep me out yet.
KFG
That's a good question, especially since the phrase is of French invention. Ah, the vagaries of geopolitics as expressed through culture. For some reason, after expelling the French, the Mexicans kept the term. Perhaps they liked the percieved grandeur of it. The Spanish have always liked a bit of grandeur.
Ibero-America is now prefered by some to deal with that very issue. If nothing else it'll keep people from saying, "Hey, if it's Latin America, where are the Italians?"
Just where the Romanians fit into this I haven't a clue.
I'll have to get back to you on the title of the atlas. Right now it's locked up in the auxiliary library number two, which is inconvenient for me to get to right now.Watch this space tomorrow.
Auxiliary library number one is that stack of boxes over in the corner. I haven't been building bookcases fast enough. God help me when I have to move again. Ebooks have the advantage of being light and not taking up much space.
If only they were as nice.
KFG
No, I am not missing that point at all. I may be one of the few extant Americans who has actually read Thomas Paine. They still make kids read Civil Disobedience in some high schools I'm told, but Life Without Principle is unheard of, because that is the truly subversive work. That shit'll scare the piss out of the average high school teacher and have parents up in arms if their kids start talking about it at home.
Taking Burma again as a case in point, they actually have their own Jefferson and Gandhi rolled up into one and she's the duly elected democratic leader of the nation to boot.
And she's sitting in prison.
Her writtings aren't any help, because anyone who reads her writtings can't do much about obtaining a gun.
The pen will turn people to your side, but if your side is powerless the words are of no use.
Look at Cambodia. They used to have splendid words. The guns killed them all so thorougly that they aren't sure they'll ever be able to recover them again.
It's pen and sword together. No swords, pens are useless. Ieyasu understood that. There was no rebellion of note, because rebellion was impossible, because he gave out free pens, made from the confiscated swords.
My post had nothing to do with opposing the PATRIOT ACT (although it's damned good reason to do so), it had to do with opposing the Khymer Rouge, the Cultural Revolution and Nacht der langen Messer. A disarmed populus is simply helpless in cases like that.The internet can do nothing, unless it is to acquire arms.
Carthago delenda est.
If you wish me to relate it the current situation in America here's something to think about. I now have to consider myself as armed where no one would have thought so in times previous. I am a gentleman. I carry a small pocketknife as befits a gentleman.
They have already taken away my slingshot. Four years in the state pen for possesion if I get caught with one of those. The Supremes say this is ok because I can always just buy a gun, thus my Constitutional right to bear arms has not been infringed. By the same reasoning they can take away guns too, because now knitting needles are considered arms.
Because we do not, as yet, live in a repressive regime such as Burma the internet is of value with this issue, and I am availing myself of it. As are many others. Perhaps my memes will pass on, but as Thoreau noted, voting is merely expressing your opinion that your ideas should prevail, they don't do anything about it, and in an unjust society the only place for the just is in its prisons.
Let the hicks play with their guns, so long as they keep hold of them. I may have need of a few grunts to get me out of prison some day, if I keep all this being part of the liberal intelligensia shit up.
Lord knows, because I'm doing it on the internet, it will follow me forever.
Who's going to be president four elections from now and what will they think of who I am today?
KFG
I've read the book as translated by an Iraqi educated at London University. I must say I found it rather tough sledding, mostly due to the quantity of disjointed repetition.
I've been working a bit on my Semetic languages. I suppose I'll have a go at bits of it in the original when I feel up to it, but admit that Omar the Tentmaker is more to my taste.
I can't say I found any special hatred toward the Jews in it. He certainly brings them up a lot, as he does Christians, but seems to be a fairly balanced hater to me. If he had any special pet peaves it would seem to be hypocrites and idolators, and I can at least sympathize with that.
I wish he'd taken a night course in prose composition though.Why is it that so many prophets have trouble keeping track of the narative?
KFG
You're missing the point. With a pen I can convince other people (perhaps many other people) to pick up their own swords in support of my stated cause.
No, I'm not missing the point. I'm fully in sympathy with the statement "I care not who writes a nation's laws, let me write its songs."
I'm arguing that in a nation where one can be uncermoniously put to death for singing, writing songs does not have the impact that it does in a nation where one is allowed to sing.Have you ever had the experience of having to apply for a federal permit to observe a religious ceremony, and then being held under armed military guard while you observe it? I have. It's a sobering experience for one raised in America where one can simply go to church as one pleases.
Would the Turkish soldiers have even been there, far from home, killing and/or getting killed if they weren't first convinced by Somebody Else that they're God's favorite and are supposed to be doing all that?
I've never observed that military conquest really requires any more rationale than wishing to conquer. It's something people like to do.
Would Europeans have had centuries of warfare with each other during the past milennium if Gutenberg hadn't come along and given the Protestant movement a leg to stand on?
Seeing as how they'd already been engaging in millenia of war, yes, I rather think they would have.
Would Stalin have been able to butcher his own people if Marx and Lenin hadn't come along first and made the Russian people more pliable with thier words?
The Russian people were not made pliable by the words of Marx and Lenin. They were made pliable by a couple hundred years of being slavs to the illiterate Tarters, and then slavs to the Tsar.My mother's grandparents were such slavs to the Tsar, that's why I was born in America. One of them crawled across most of Europe at night to get here. Even before being conquered by the Tartars the Russians were known as a pliant people. Anytime a German needed a few slavs he raided a village, because they accepted their status with a fatalistic "Oh well, that's life."
The well known quote "People get the government they deserve" is an incomplete fragment. The context was discussing the peasants of Russia and their status. The implication was they were in that state because they weren't people, and thus didn't bear worrying about.
Russia is essentially an Asian culture, with the Asian point of view toward individuality and fate. The fact that they are to a large degree blue eyed blondes of Nordic descent may mask that fact, but it is true nonetheless.
The peasant accepts his lot as a peasant.
And speaking of others from that time period would Hitler have been able to cause the death of millions if he hadn't been able to write and publish Mein Kampf Or Mao and this own book?
Sure. Alexander, Ghengis Khan, the afore mentioned Tartars, the Huns, they all seemed to do ok along that score without relying over much on anything but speach, and Hitler's power was public speaking. His book was never very widely read (the works of Goebel's is another story).
Or, to be more current and more blunt, I somehow doubt bin Laden knows the first thing about flying an airplane.
Nonsense. That's pure cultural bias. Osama grew up in a household estimated to have a net worth of 5 billion dollars. He is well acquainted with cars and planes and used both in his jobs managing construction projects for his father's company (things like royal palace construction, not tool sheds). He has a degree in public administration and western military training.
His intelligence and education is the one of the key factors in making him such a formibable foe able to evade our every attempt to hunt him down (the money doesn't hury either). He's not some barnyard "towel head."
The people who he sent to America to learn how to fly commercial jets did so in the context of pers
People don't even look at maps anymore. This has reached the point where it's nearly impossible to purchase a good atlas. I have one published by Time-Life in the 60s that's a wonder. It makes the traditional, large family Bible look like a pocket book. It must weigh about 20 pounds. Maps galore, geographical in relief (including the sea floor), political, climate, etc. Each country or region given its own full treatment, not just a "this is Asia," in 8 1/2 X 11.
After the fall of the USSR I went out to look for an updated version and discovered that there's just no market for that sort of book anymore, so they had stopped making them.
I'll have to look again. Maybe now that the map has settled a bit they've given it another go.
Americans these days think "Latin America" and "South America" in conjunction.
If you really want to get them going point out that Texas, California and Florida are Latin American. People who live in Los Angeles, San Antonio or Miami who want to see English become the official language are going to have to think of all new place names.
Nevermind the fact that I don't think one American in a hundred knows that over 200 million Latin Americans don't have Spanish as their first language. Or that the majority of Latin Americans are white Europeans ( perhaps they don't know what "Latin" means?) or that there is a sizable Arab and Japanese population.
It's all "Here there be dragons wearing ponchos."
KFG
Islam still has an endemic genocidal hatred of Jews.
That depends on what you mean by "still." That hatred is historically recent. Islamic countries used to be the safest place in the world for Jews. Certainly all of the truly enlightened Islamics never have had any hatred for Jews. The Torah is their Old Testament, Abraham is held to be the father of the Arab "race" (although there is that casting out into the desert thingy to deal with, which serves as modern religious justification for the hatred. Call me Ishmael.), and Moses is the first of the great prophets.
I thought of bringing up the issue of Buddhism being the only religion that I'm aware of that does not, and never has, espoused any sort of oppression, but I wanted to think a bit harder about it first and see if I could come up with another ( I haven't) and because, as an expressed Buddhist, it might smack a bit of being self serving.
In the case of Buddhism itself there are certain practices of Japanese Buddhism that might seem a bit on the oppressive side to an American or European, but aren't really in context. For instance we are culturally attuned to thinking of being struck as "punishment." In Japan where striking a child at all is nearly unthinkable they have no such inherent association, per se.
KFG
Although, I'll point out, that the point of nonviolence isn't to achieve any other goal other than refraining from violence.
It's a belief, not a tool.
This doesn't at all alter the fact that in the right time and place it can also be a very effective tool if one is a nonviolent activist, rather than pacifist.
KFG
I've also pointed out, which turned out to be even more controversial, that Europe itself is Asian, moreso even than India.
.an atlas. A good one. In relief. You can walk from France to Kamchatka without experiencing any undue hardship. The early Russian settlers of Siberia carried boats across the Urals. Walking to and from India to anyplace else in the world presents certain difficulties. Hence all the brouhaha around the Kyhber Pass over the centuries.
I discovered this fact while my age was still in the single digits by the simple expediant of looking at. .
I like maps. I can read them for hours. Reading a proper relief atlas can teach you more about most historical events than all the prose in the world. I fully concur with the wag who noted the "old men" of Versaille needed to be given a text on elementary geography.
Look at an atlas. You'll find out why Iraq invaded Kuwait. Indeed virtually had to give it at least a try sooner or later. The "old men" fucked up.
Or, more than likely, really didn't give a shit about causing a future tribal war in Arabia.
KFG
Cognitive dissonance is not always concious. The imbalance may be felt and expressed without any knowledge that one's beliefs and actions are being dictated by the imbalance caused by the dissonance, because one way to deal with cognitive dissonance is to repress the knowledge, leading to abnormal psychological states with no observable cause.
A subtler form of cognitive dissonance by repression is that of avoiding the conflict altogether by refusing to acknowledge two things you know as facts are in conflict with each other. The "imbalance" never occurs because you don't allow it to. If you allowed yourself to conciously "put two and two togther" that would cause imbalance. So you don't.
Like someone lecturing on Native American culture claiming that they had no beasts of burden before the arrival of Europeans and then going on to describe Inuit culture.
Explicitly pointing this out to them can make them feel very "itchy."
Or imbalanced.
Which can make them angry rather than feeling any state of dilema.
Because they're in a state of cognitive dissonance.
An awful lot of anger is unconcious cognitive dissonance. People prefer to hit something than come to a new conclusion.
Please note that I did not say "thinking the internet can free Tibet and Burma is cognitive dissonance."
In some people who believe that and something else opposed to it, it may be.
I believe there are many such people.
KFG
Losing a battle is not losing the war. Just as losing a pawn is not losing the game. Remember the Alamo. I do. I've been there. Sometimes losing a pawn guarantees the game.
.strawman.
How you lose it is what's important.
It would have mattered a good deal in the larger scheme of things if they had only been armed with pens. Likewise the Alamo.
Then why did you write a message with something about attacking Asians instead of attacking Iraqis?
We are all capable of making technical error when working quick and dirty. Does all of your code run first time from prototype?
I never said anything about Celts. I said "some." Your argument is a. .
It is also, by modern historical study, discounted, as the only source for the idea is a clearly propagandistic writing of Julius Cesear. There is no evidence to back it up.
Buring prisoners seems to be a Christian European practice, historically.
Executions take place everywhere.
KFG
Do you actually know this historic event?
.
Yes. Do you play chess?
While you are at it, get an atlas. The Arabs of Iraq are Asians. .
Yes. I know. In fact, I've made, and had to defend that very point, right here on Slashdot, when I've pointed out that every major European religion is of Asian origin, and thus European culture is essentially Asian culture, all natively European religions having effectively been extingished.
Which, despite personally being an adherent of Asian religious thought, I think is a great cultural shame. Many European religious cultures were quite lovely compared to what replaced them.
KFG
Yes, I am quite familiar with Gandhiji. I'm making a book charka right now. I'm also familiar with the concept of nonviolent resistence. My stepfather was a concientious objector in WWII. That was a pretty radical idea at the time. I myself am a Buddhist and Thoreauian.
You might find this hard to believe, but the British in India were not a repressive regime, as these things go. Gandhiji spent some time in prison.
He didn't disappear in the middle of the night. That would have ended his nonviolence campaign in a flash.
That's what happens in truly repressive regimes. Like Mao's China.
You are right about the intelligensia though. Sam and John Adams were intelligent and well educated.
They were smart enough to realize to start stockpiling guns and powder years before the revolution broke out. Which was possible only because they didn't leave in a repressive regime.
Repressive regimes don't fear words. That's an entirely democratic concept. Repressive regimes simply kill everyone who speaks.
Without fear.
You don't have to kill everyone in the country. You just have to decimate them (look it up if you have to. I know the meaning of the word because I spend a good deal of my time reading history). People fall into line.
It might even surprise you that about 10% or so of the population likes living in a repressive regime. Always have. Always will.
There's no accounting for people.
KFG
. . .even though I thought his "beating up arabs" part was a bit off.
As it happens, I agree. That was a weak bit of rhetoric, well below what I'm capable of, and I even paused a bit on that issue before I hit the submit button.
Mind you, that doesn't mean I don't believe it's not true, just that I could have phrased it rather more eloquently, but this is Slashdot, after all. That's an element of the Web as well (although not the internet). Web forums such as this support quick and dirty, type it fast and get it out, writing.
If I had constructed it as an op ed essay for print, or Kuro5hin, I would have posted it two days from now--and only my "stalkers" would have even read it.
The medium is part author of the message.
KFG
Yes, that's what the pen is for. Instigation. By itself it does nothing. Sam Adams was able to pass out broadbills inciting the people to oppose the government, but on the back of some of those broadbills was an unobtrusive little bit of paper that said what amounted to, "Please start stockpiling guns and powder. Eat this after you've read it." The real history of the American Revolution is about how they went about such stockpiling. The Battle of Bunker Hill was only "lost" because they hadn't managed to stockpile enough powder.
But you have to remember that the government has just as much access to whatever comminications technology exists. In a represive regime considerably more access. That even applies to the internet. The invention of telegraphy, telephony and radio allowed "the people" more ready access to communicating with other over broad geographic areas to form networks that otherwise would not have been possible, but it also allowed the government to better orginize itself. Soldiers and policeman have radios and know how to use them. The history of communications isn't the history of freedom, it's the history of dictatorship.
What's more, all of these technologies allow the government greater ability to monitor and attack dissident groups. You can eat the paper. A whisper in a back alley doesn't even require that. Telephones can be taped. Radio can be freely intercepted. The internet can be monitored and traced.
As an example from current events, people traded music freely before the internet, without fear and without reprisal. The internet didn't bring the free trade of music, it brought the most virulent repression of trading we've ever seen, right up to the law being modified to support that repression. In the country that traditionally stands as the model for freedom.
The internet, in its way, actually incites and enables repression.
If you wish to trade music freely you can still just do it the old fashioned way. It works. It's easy. It's invisible.
The same goes for inciting revolution. It happens with whispers in back alleys, not using a technolgical medium. I've experienced this first hand as an American traveling behind the Iron Curtain. The black market took place right out in the open to Americans, invisible to the KGB.
"Pssssssssttt, Hey. American. What do you want for those Levis you're wearing? You want to change some money? I'll give you 10% better than the government bank."
And when it's time for the shooting to start the whisper is, "Hey, start stockpiling guns and powder."
You'd have to be an idiot to do that over the internet. The black Ford Falcons would be there in a jiffy.
KFG