you're saying the same thing i am saying. so cheers to you, my friend
let us beat back this dangerous libertarian horde of nitwits out to destroy the only tool we have against corporate power, and let us purge our government of the disease of corporate influence
of course, editting a wikipedia article does not expose you to the kind of danger that vetting a wikileak does, but obviously, there is a lot of eager flesh out there that would LOVE to get involved and help wikileaks, in any capacity asked of them
how do you harness that enthusiasm? and how do you harness that enthusiasm in such a way that wikileaks is not compromised, and the enthusiasts are not harmed? its very challenging. you have to shield the newbs from mortal danger, and keep out the saboteurs. and still maintain a functional base of operations, somewhere, out there in teh intarwebs
but if wikileaks is to continue functioning, it has to broaden its base of operations
i'm not saying that's easy, because of the nature of what wikileaks is. but i am saying that that is the only way forward, however difficult that path is
through our tool, our democratically elected government
duh
as for us giving corporations their power, if a corporation does something you don't like, what do you do? how do exert influence over them? you write a nasty blog?
no, your government REGULATES them
what is the substance of your post exactly? wish fulfillment?
therefore, your task is to remove that corruption from government
yet libertarian philosophy seems to seek to remove government itself, or whittle it down to ineffectiveness
then what can stand between us and dominance by corporations?
the idea is to repair the corporate infection of government, restore government as a bulwark against corporations, rather than what government has become: their tool
yet libertarianism seems to desire to destroy government, thereby removing the only thing that can possibly protect us from corporate power
let's put it this way: make a list of every abuse of government you despise. ok, when you whittle down government, every one of those abuses will still be committed, except by corporations, whom you have no recourse or control over, and then a whole new set of abuses will be visited on you, by entities completely unaccountable to you. that's reality
libertarians seem to me to be very naive. i don't think they want the world to be a corporatocracy, they just don't understand that that that is what the real world effect of their naive belief system is
you NEED a strong central government, or the power vacuum will be filled by corporations. its as simple as that, that's reality. try to square that with your ideological naivete, and evolve out of this juvenile, simplistic wish fulfillment that is libertarianism
any proponent of libertarianism who wishes to whittle away government regulations until the power vacuum is filled by corporations, who are not interested in our freedom or democracy at all
so i thank you, for ironically showing that while the subject matter here is human speech capacity, real and imaginary lack thereof, if we were to change the subject matter to human intellectual capacity we wouldn't have to imagine what it would be like to have a lack of that: we have to demonstrate the deficiency
you know, some of us actually believe the point of life is not to labor as a wage slave. that if society were set up in such a way to maximize individual happiness instead of profit, corporations would take a dent, but capitalism would go right on ticking, and we would be happier people with richer lives. exactly what is wrong with that goal?
meanwhile, you seem wedded to the ravenous idea that toiling for the corporation should be the end-all consume-all point of life
"Everybody else at that company gets hurt, especially the substitute worker who'd really like to keep the job."
well yeah, if the point is to run at maximum capacity possible, all the time, like we are at war with something. there is no slack to pick up if there is no tension in the rope. relax the goddamn rope, you don't have to run full bore all the fucking time. go about your company's business leisurely, let things go a little slower, and calm the fuck down
if all your competitors labor under the same respect the individual's happiness rules, there's no competitive disadvantage
or, move to china, where the wage slaves are committing suicide in mass numbers
to agitate for the respect from the government and companies that i am agitating towards you: the individual's happiness is the paramount concern, not the fucking company
really, asshole
" "At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge", said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir." "Are there no prisons?", asked Scrooge. "Plenty of prisons", said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. "And the Union workhouses?", demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?" "They are. Still", returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not." "The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?", said Scrooge. "Both very busy, sir." "Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course", said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it." "Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude", returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when want is keenly felt, and abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?" "Nothing!", Scrooge replied. "You wish to be anonymous?" "I wish to be left alone", said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned--they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there." "Many can't go there; and many would rather die." "If they would rather die", said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides--excuse me--I don't know that." "But you might know it", observed the gentleman. "It's not my business", Scrooge returned. "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!" Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him."
i'm asking you to imagine us, humans, without the capacity for language. and what you get is a raven or a dolphin: inquisitive, observant, intelligent, inventive. but unable to share our thoughts, we get glimmers that fade and die with us, trapped in our skulls
what i'm trying to say is how communication, not raw intelligence, not grey matter, is what sets us apart from the dolphins and the ravens
we went to the moon. we can nuke cities. we've built the Internet. we can stop someone's heart, root around in his chest cavity, then restart it, repaired
if the idea of the relentless march of evolution towards man strikes you as ego-driven and selfish and not scientific, fine. let's compare humanity to other creatures in terms of: memes per generation, gross global environmental change capacity, average vocabulary size, number of other species domesticated, or how about: ability to perceive evolutionary processes themselves. pick a metric, whatever you want: humanity ranks slightly higher than chiclids or bees or mammal ruminants, sorry: the crown of creation
i mean you could pick some metric where mankind lags, where say nematodes, ants, bacteria, or blue whales dominate us. but in terms of metrics that matter and count, mankind is leaving this silly genetic evolutionary game behind. we can keep alive those darwin would kill, like stephen hawking, we live in artifical environments we made: cities. we don't adapt to the environment, we adapt the environment to our needs. we rule dude
and we're entering a new realm: memetic evolution, the competition and darwinian struggle between ideas. and instead of the nucleus and dna, its simian grey matter and language. sure, natural selection still matters, but its more like: capitalism beats communism in GNP, rather than stink beetle A outstinks stink beetle B
you get the idea. we ARE the crown of creation. we've started a whole new evolutionary sphere, a sphere where these silly biological shells and these antiquated ecosystems are now nothing more than nostalgia, something we could recreate for an ecosphere zoo theme park. forget where we came from, look where we are going: the rise of metaorganisms: our nations and cultures and religions, competing for dominance in a new sphere of life, where instead of cells and their nuclear dna, WE are the cellular units, our language the gene transfer, our brains the nucleus, and these new meta-organisms living on, immortal, beyond any one man or woman
our vocal and manual dexterity evolved hand-in-hand with our brain
but i will assert that if we didn't have the vocal/ manual dexderity, there wouldn't be anything for evolution to "work with":
1. a few of us were able to say a little, so this gave those few an evolutionary advantage 2. then a few of those who were able to say a little were able to think a little deeper, which gave those few an evolutionary advantage 3. then subset of those saying a little, with a little deeper thought, in turn got able to enunciate a little more complicated thoughts 4. repeat ad nauseum: you have a feedback loop, a runaway train fo communication building on intelligence building on communication building on, etc
communication is the something that ravens, dolphins etc don't have evolutionarily (yet)
what i'm saying is, we wouldn't be so smart if communication never came into play (and likewise, we wouldn't communicate very much if we weren't so smart). we owe our advantage to our grey matter AND our vocal dexderity. so human beings are smart, sure, but just looking at the grey matter is not the real story, because obviously plenty of other creatures: ravens, dolphins, parrots, kea, etc., are shown to have significant grey matter heft. but its tragic. they're all trapped wit their thoughts in their skulls to their deaths
so what's the big deal with homo sapiens? the big deal, as i said before, is our ability communicate vocally. throw in the ability to write, and forget about it: we are far, far beyond our fellow creatures. mostly because of commmunication, the shared intelligence, the whole of our societies with their shared memory being more than the sum of its parts. that makes us truly special and light years beyond ravens and dolphins
until we kill ourselves off, hopefully not, and evolution bumps the communication/ intelligence evolutionary feedback loop into hyperdrive in one of our animal friends. assuming we don't destroy the planet we share with them and dney them the chance
intelligence doesn't matter, communication does
on
Empathy Is For the Birds
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· Score: 5, Insightful
what elevates humankind over other animals is not grey matter, it's our vocal dexterity
take any of us, and remove our ability to talk or write, and we're pretty much a little smarter than your average raven or dolphin: we're isolated islands of thought. so we may get glimmers of brilliance now and then, but it fades, and is trapped in our skulls, and dies with us
or, give ravens and dolphins the ability to take the more complicated ideas in their heads, and share it with others with language, and this launches them to levels comparable with humanity in terms of what they can think. because now they build on each other's ideas, and nothing is forgotten: its passed and shared around, and babies are born in this sea of wisdom and thought, to build upon even more
thoughts don't matter. the ability to COMMUNICATE thoughts matters. that's what puts humanity in a genuine level orders of magnitude over other creatures on this planet
and when mankind developed writing? forget about it, game over, humanity vaults into the stratosphere (literally, around 1950, because of what writing makes possible). now, in fact, these silly biological shells hardly matter anymore. memetic evolution, the retention and sharing of ideas over generations, becomes the real story of change on this planet, and genetic evolution takes a back seat in terms of importance
eventually, the memes will shed these silly biological shells entirely, and shape the world and other worlds completely of its own volition. but it was us silly apes that gave birth to it, whatever it will be, memetically driven idea machine. and don't forget who your father is! you damn future godlike machine thingy
they put on the bare minimum effort to convince the kgb they're still on the team (so they don't get any polonium in their tea)
then they dig up their free bags of money in sullivan county, and get on with their average suburban wannabe lives. when the kgb calls, they find a paranoid schizophrenic's blog and rivet their kgb bosses with useless tales of intrigue from the wild west. this spy ring is a joke
if you want to talk about modern life destroying cherished traditions, add this to your list: comfortable suburban living killed james bond
the problem is, his feelings lead one to think this dangerous thought: "99% of the crowd is dumb... therefore, we need some more trustworthy entity for wisdom"
when you say that, you've committed a worse stupidity than the aggregate stupidity of the crowd
what he says is essentially true, the crowd is stupid in aggregate. getting wisdom from the crowd is a process of gleaning the nuggets from the bullshit. the problem comes when the process of separating the wheat from the chaff gets so tedious that you wish there were a shortcut, that you wish there were some special class of people who are better than the average man, and trust them for wisdom instead. which is a FAR more dangerous thought than simply recognizing the plainly obvious stupidity of crowds. there's no shortcuts: placing your trust in some sort of clique or aristocratic division is when the REAL trouble starts
so yes, people are dumb. but yet it is even dumber to trust some small segment of people according to some ill-defined parameters of what wisdom is instead
i think drew has just been modding too much. if i were a proctologist, i would be sick of looking at assholes too. if i were modding comments all day, and i was constantly exposing myself to the kind of mental diarrhea you see when browsing slashdot at -1, then i would hate people and crowds as well
i think reading the shallow end of the comment pool constantly will turn you into a misanthrope, a hater of mankind
limit your exposure to the idiot area of comment boards, or it will give you brain damage
ever hear of specialization? when there's a fire, i call the professional fireman, i don't start building a hose. leave policework to professional policemen, idiot
"If you report everything to the police and you live in the same neighborhood as the gang, the members who aren't arrested will be beating your ass up. Stop trying to give survival strategies for a world you know little to nothing about."
if no one stands up to the gangs, there will be always be gangs
gangs exist everywhere, but are most potent where there are people who won't oppose them. if they go into a neighborhood and there is fierce opposition to their presence, then the gangs go away, because the police round them up, because the gangs are reported by people who live there
but if the gangs go to another neighborhood where no one complains as they do their dirty work, they stay there, and the police are stymied in their efforts by lack of cooperation by the citizens there
figure it out retard: you have to fight gangs, you just have to, to SURVIVE
if you choose NOT to fight them, then you will always have gangs threatening and menacing you, you live in fear: you are a slave. you can survive a day, sure, but you won't survive longterm, because gangs are gangs: they prey on the weak, and they will get to you at some point or another, until you stand up them to SURVIVE
or don't, and be their slave
you are really are a slave, you really do think like a slave
staring at a vacuum tube and some tungsten, did he believe in progress, or was he just compelled by the laws of nature and the inevitability of it all?
actual human beings created the civilized world you live in, whether technology or social compact. and before those things existed, someone believed in it, and made it happen, out of force of belief
belief matters. plenty of beliefs are without consequence. but not all of them
look at the man inside the machine, he makes it run. apparently all you can see is the machine
you're probably one of those assholes who if they see a gang beating someone up, you don't even report it to the police: fear of reprisal
take responsibility for your world, and work for what is right, or be a slave, as you currently have chosen
the more there are people who think like you in this world, the more the state of the world is misery and poverty and suffering. evil men depend upon slaves like you to stand there and do nothing while they perpetuate transgressions. that really is the truth
you've sold your conscience. you have declared you won't stand up for what you believe. and if you don't exercise what you say your principles are, then you really don't have any principles
what problem do you have with these entities that somehow would be better if they didn't exist?
i take it you somehow magically believe if there were no feds or no un, whatever you hate that they are doing, wouldn't continue to get done
truth, moron: whatever it is that you hate that the feds or the un is doing, would still happen in a world without the feds or the un. except now would be even less recourse to fix whatever it is you hate they are doing
you don't even understand that what you complain about is the only thing that makes your life possible
without government, there is no civilization. without civilization, there is no little earnest you tapping away at a computer describing government in hilariously stilted terminology
i understand that you fear government. you have a nice list of downsides, all of which are real and i do not deny and i can add to even
now i'd like you to be intellectually honest and examine the upside of government, which through defect in intelligence, perception, or due to massive propaganda, you currently fail to conceive or understand
drug yourself into a stupor with creature comforts: food, sex, empty banter and media, real drugs
all the time, the meaninglessness becomes a larger and larger burden, and you need larger and larger doses of your creature comfort drugs to cope
eventually you break down, and make up a meaning for your life, and believe in it. only because its less painful than meaninglessness
and if you say meaninglessness isn't painful, then you haven't built your tolerance up of your chosen creature comfort drug yet. eventually and inevitably, tolerance builds up to where the creature comfort drugs have no more effect, and you have nothing left to dull the pain, except to choose meaning, once and for all
so good luck and see you soon in the realm of meaning
since you aren't a hypocrite about what you have chosen, i have no argument with you
enjoy your creature comforts
just a warning: the distractions lose their power to distract over time. you need stronger and stronger doses to get the same effect. meaninglessness becomes a burden. a guy can live in a penthouse palace and have all the hookers and blow he wants, and yet hate himself and feel emptier inside than he ever had
the relationship between meaning and happiness is strong
but you seem to be suggesting that the existence of this fact is a permanent limitation on our ideals, and a reason to stop fighting for what we believe is right
you use the weight of the world to crush you, and then you suggest to others they will only be crushed as well, so they should just stop fighting and accept
and so you are part of the problem you complain about: you see abuse, and you accept it
all that is required for evil to triumph in this world is for good men to do nothing. you are arguing for us to do nothing. so i say to you: shut up, and stop evangelizing your ignorant cynicism
fight for what is right, or fuck off. but don't tell us it is pointless to fight. then you are just as bad as the evils you dislike: you help them, by accepting them
addiction is bars inside the mind. in orwell's deepest darkest fantasies he couldn't derive a worse authoritarian government that destroys more freedom than drug addiction does... well, unless he had that government forcing people to use heroin or meth. drug use has destroyed more freedom in this world than the entire history of human government
the fight against drugs is the fight for freedom, and like all fights for freedom, its a maintenance function, and it will never end
yes, some people freely choose to do drugs. just like some people take the infinite possibilities of life... and choose suicide. is the choice to remove your own freedoms a choice to be respected?
that's a deep philosophical question right there: does freedom include the freedom to choose to remove your own freedom?
if someone freely chooses to be a slave, do you respect that choice?
me, personally i do not respect that: choices to remove freedom are never done in a vacuum, and often wind up removing other people's freedoms as well
and so, i deny people the 'right" to destory their own freedom. and in this way, i increase freedom in this world. and so i call suicide wrong, and so i call drug use (the most highly addictive/ inebriating drugs, not something mild like marijuana) wrong as well
drug use is just slow motion suicide, it is self-destruction of freedom. and if you don't see that, you don't know much about drugs
Slashdot Mirror
because you're not really a libertarian
you're saying the same thing i am saying. so cheers to you, my friend
let us beat back this dangerous libertarian horde of nitwits out to destroy the only tool we have against corporate power, and let us purge our government of the disease of corporate influence
it won't be easy, but its the only way
the one called wikipedia. it's an open collection of interested individuals
(for absurdity, here's the wikipedia article about wikipedia:)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#Community
and it works
what about wikileaks?
its run like the illuminati:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks#History
and its a wheezing barely functional wreck
of course, editting a wikipedia article does not expose you to the kind of danger that vetting a wikileak does, but obviously, there is a lot of eager flesh out there that would LOVE to get involved and help wikileaks, in any capacity asked of them
how do you harness that enthusiasm? and how do you harness that enthusiasm in such a way that wikileaks is not compromised, and the enthusiasts are not harmed? its very challenging. you have to shield the newbs from mortal danger, and keep out the saboteurs. and still maintain a functional base of operations, somewhere, out there in teh intarwebs
but if wikileaks is to continue functioning, it has to broaden its base of operations
i'm not saying that's easy, because of the nature of what wikileaks is. but i am saying that that is the only way forward, however difficult that path is
through our tool, our democratically elected government
duh
as for us giving corporations their power, if a corporation does something you don't like, what do you do? how do exert influence over them? you write a nasty blog?
no, your government REGULATES them
what is the substance of your post exactly? wish fulfillment?
therefore, your task is to remove that corruption from government
yet libertarian philosophy seems to seek to remove government itself, or whittle it down to ineffectiveness
then what can stand between us and dominance by corporations?
the idea is to repair the corporate infection of government, restore government as a bulwark against corporations, rather than what government has become: their tool
yet libertarianism seems to desire to destroy government, thereby removing the only thing that can possibly protect us from corporate power
let's put it this way: make a list of every abuse of government you despise. ok, when you whittle down government, every one of those abuses will still be committed, except by corporations, whom you have no recourse or control over, and then a whole new set of abuses will be visited on you, by entities completely unaccountable to you. that's reality
libertarians seem to me to be very naive. i don't think they want the world to be a corporatocracy, they just don't understand that that that is what the real world effect of their naive belief system is
you NEED a strong central government, or the power vacuum will be filled by corporations. its as simple as that, that's reality. try to square that with your ideological naivete, and evolve out of this juvenile, simplistic wish fulfillment that is libertarianism
any proponent of libertarianism who wishes to whittle away government regulations until the power vacuum is filled by corporations, who are not interested in our freedom or democracy at all
so i thank you, for ironically showing that while the subject matter here is human speech capacity, real and imaginary lack thereof, if we were to change the subject matter to human intellectual capacity we wouldn't have to imagine what it would be like to have a lack of that: we have to demonstrate the deficiency
you know, some of us actually believe the point of life is not to labor as a wage slave. that if society were set up in such a way to maximize individual happiness instead of profit, corporations would take a dent, but capitalism would go right on ticking, and we would be happier people with richer lives. exactly what is wrong with that goal?
meanwhile, you seem wedded to the ravenous idea that toiling for the corporation should be the end-all consume-all point of life
"Everybody else at that company gets hurt, especially the substitute worker who'd really like to keep the job."
well yeah, if the point is to run at maximum capacity possible, all the time, like we are at war with something. there is no slack to pick up if there is no tension in the rope. relax the goddamn rope, you don't have to run full bore all the fucking time. go about your company's business leisurely, let things go a little slower, and calm the fuck down
if all your competitors labor under the same respect the individual's happiness rules, there's no competitive disadvantage
or, move to china, where the wage slaves are committing suicide in mass numbers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Employee_suicides_and_deaths
and forming unions (in a communist country, irony)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/world/asia/21chinalabor.html
to agitate for the respect from the government and companies that i am agitating towards you: the individual's happiness is the paramount concern, not the fucking company
really, asshole
fuck you fucking corporatists,
you're talking about reality
i'm asking you to imagine us, humans, without the capacity for language. and what you get is a raven or a dolphin: inquisitive, observant, intelligent, inventive. but unable to share our thoughts, we get glimmers that fade and die with us, trapped in our skulls
what i'm trying to say is how communication, not raw intelligence, not grey matter, is what sets us apart from the dolphins and the ravens
we went to the moon. we can nuke cities. we've built the Internet. we can stop someone's heart, root around in his chest cavity, then restart it, repaired
if the idea of the relentless march of evolution towards man strikes you as ego-driven and selfish and not scientific, fine. let's compare humanity to other creatures in terms of: memes per generation, gross global environmental change capacity, average vocabulary size, number of other species domesticated, or how about: ability to perceive evolutionary processes themselves. pick a metric, whatever you want: humanity ranks slightly higher than chiclids or bees or mammal ruminants, sorry: the crown of creation
i mean you could pick some metric where mankind lags, where say nematodes, ants, bacteria, or blue whales dominate us. but in terms of metrics that matter and count, mankind is leaving this silly genetic evolutionary game behind. we can keep alive those darwin would kill, like stephen hawking, we live in artifical environments we made: cities. we don't adapt to the environment, we adapt the environment to our needs. we rule dude
and we're entering a new realm: memetic evolution, the competition and darwinian struggle between ideas. and instead of the nucleus and dna, its simian grey matter and language. sure, natural selection still matters, but its more like: capitalism beats communism in GNP, rather than stink beetle A outstinks stink beetle B
you get the idea. we ARE the crown of creation. we've started a whole new evolutionary sphere, a sphere where these silly biological shells and these antiquated ecosystems are now nothing more than nostalgia, something we could recreate for an ecosphere zoo theme park. forget where we came from, look where we are going: the rise of metaorganisms: our nations and cultures and religions, competing for dominance in a new sphere of life, where instead of cells and their nuclear dna, WE are the cellular units, our language the gene transfer, our brains the nucleus, and these new meta-organisms living on, immortal, beyond any one man or woman
resistance is futile. you will be assimilated
our vocal and manual dexterity evolved hand-in-hand with our brain
but i will assert that if we didn't have the vocal/ manual dexderity, there wouldn't be anything for evolution to "work with":
1. a few of us were able to say a little, so this gave those few an evolutionary advantage
2. then a few of those who were able to say a little were able to think a little deeper, which gave those few an evolutionary advantage
3. then subset of those saying a little, with a little deeper thought, in turn got able to enunciate a little more complicated thoughts
4. repeat ad nauseum: you have a feedback loop, a runaway train fo communication building on intelligence building on communication building on, etc
communication is the something that ravens, dolphins etc don't have evolutionarily (yet)
what i'm saying is, we wouldn't be so smart if communication never came into play (and likewise, we wouldn't communicate very much if we weren't so smart). we owe our advantage to our grey matter AND our vocal dexderity. so human beings are smart, sure, but just looking at the grey matter is not the real story, because obviously plenty of other creatures: ravens, dolphins, parrots, kea, etc., are shown to have significant grey matter heft. but its tragic. they're all trapped wit their thoughts in their skulls to their deaths
so what's the big deal with homo sapiens? the big deal, as i said before, is our ability communicate vocally. throw in the ability to write, and forget about it: we are far, far beyond our fellow creatures. mostly because of commmunication, the shared intelligence, the whole of our societies with their shared memory being more than the sum of its parts. that makes us truly special and light years beyond ravens and dolphins
until we kill ourselves off, hopefully not, and evolution bumps the communication/ intelligence evolutionary feedback loop into hyperdrive in one of our animal friends. assuming we don't destroy the planet we share with them and dney them the chance
what elevates humankind over other animals is not grey matter, it's our vocal dexterity
take any of us, and remove our ability to talk or write, and we're pretty much a little smarter than your average raven or dolphin: we're isolated islands of thought. so we may get glimmers of brilliance now and then, but it fades, and is trapped in our skulls, and dies with us
or, give ravens and dolphins the ability to take the more complicated ideas in their heads, and share it with others with language, and this launches them to levels comparable with humanity in terms of what they can think. because now they build on each other's ideas, and nothing is forgotten: its passed and shared around, and babies are born in this sea of wisdom and thought, to build upon even more
thoughts don't matter. the ability to COMMUNICATE thoughts matters. that's what puts humanity in a genuine level orders of magnitude over other creatures on this planet
and when mankind developed writing? forget about it, game over, humanity vaults into the stratosphere (literally, around 1950, because of what writing makes possible). now, in fact, these silly biological shells hardly matter anymore. memetic evolution, the retention and sharing of ideas over generations, becomes the real story of change on this planet, and genetic evolution takes a back seat in terms of importance
eventually, the memes will shed these silly biological shells entirely, and shape the world and other worlds completely of its own volition. but it was us silly apes that gave birth to it, whatever it will be, memetically driven idea machine. and don't forget who your father is! you damn future godlike machine thingy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko
if they have no problem doing it on british soil, what would stop them from doing it on american soil?
they put on the bare minimum effort to convince the kgb they're still on the team (so they don't get any polonium in their tea)
then they dig up their free bags of money in sullivan county, and get on with their average suburban wannabe lives. when the kgb calls, they find a paranoid schizophrenic's blog and rivet their kgb bosses with useless tales of intrigue from the wild west. this spy ring is a joke
if you want to talk about modern life destroying cherished traditions, add this to your list: comfortable suburban living killed james bond
the problem is, his feelings lead one to think this dangerous thought: "99% of the crowd is dumb... therefore, we need some more trustworthy entity for wisdom"
when you say that, you've committed a worse stupidity than the aggregate stupidity of the crowd
what he says is essentially true, the crowd is stupid in aggregate. getting wisdom from the crowd is a process of gleaning the nuggets from the bullshit. the problem comes when the process of separating the wheat from the chaff gets so tedious that you wish there were a shortcut, that you wish there were some special class of people who are better than the average man, and trust them for wisdom instead. which is a FAR more dangerous thought than simply recognizing the plainly obvious stupidity of crowds. there's no shortcuts: placing your trust in some sort of clique or aristocratic division is when the REAL trouble starts
so yes, people are dumb. but yet it is even dumber to trust some small segment of people according to some ill-defined parameters of what wisdom is instead
i think drew has just been modding too much. if i were a proctologist, i would be sick of looking at assholes too. if i were modding comments all day, and i was constantly exposing myself to the kind of mental diarrhea you see when browsing slashdot at -1, then i would hate people and crowds as well
i think reading the shallow end of the comment pool constantly will turn you into a misanthrope, a hater of mankind
limit your exposure to the idiot area of comment boards, or it will give you brain damage
yeah, great ideas
you're truly a modern statesman, you got it all figured out, it's so simple and pat
(rolls eyes)
what a moron
ever hear of specialization? when there's a fire, i call the professional fireman, i don't start building a hose. leave policework to professional policemen, idiot
"If you report everything to the police and you live in the same neighborhood as the gang, the members who aren't arrested will be beating your ass up. Stop trying to give survival strategies for a world you know little to nothing about."
if no one stands up to the gangs, there will be always be gangs
gangs exist everywhere, but are most potent where there are people who won't oppose them. if they go into a neighborhood and there is fierce opposition to their presence, then the gangs go away, because the police round them up, because the gangs are reported by people who live there
but if the gangs go to another neighborhood where no one complains as they do their dirty work, they stay there, and the police are stymied in their efforts by lack of cooperation by the citizens there
figure it out retard: you have to fight gangs, you just have to, to SURVIVE
if you choose NOT to fight them, then you will always have gangs threatening and menacing you, you live in fear: you are a slave. you can survive a day, sure, but you won't survive longterm, because gangs are gangs: they prey on the weak, and they will get to you at some point or another, until you stand up them to SURVIVE
or don't, and be their slave
you are really are a slave, you really do think like a slave
staring at a vacuum tube and some tungsten, did he believe in progress, or was he just compelled by the laws of nature and the inevitability of it all?
actual human beings created the civilized world you live in, whether technology or social compact. and before those things existed, someone believed in it, and made it happen, out of force of belief
belief matters. plenty of beliefs are without consequence. but not all of them
look at the man inside the machine, he makes it run. apparently all you can see is the machine
you're probably one of those assholes who if they see a gang beating someone up, you don't even report it to the police: fear of reprisal
take responsibility for your world, and work for what is right, or be a slave, as you currently have chosen
the more there are people who think like you in this world, the more the state of the world is misery and poverty and suffering. evil men depend upon slaves like you to stand there and do nothing while they perpetuate transgressions. that really is the truth
you've sold your conscience. you have declared you won't stand up for what you believe. and if you don't exercise what you say your principles are, then you really don't have any principles
you're a self-made slave. pathetic
what problem do you have with these entities that somehow would be better if they didn't exist?
i take it you somehow magically believe if there were no feds or no un, whatever you hate that they are doing, wouldn't continue to get done
truth, moron: whatever it is that you hate that the feds or the un is doing, would still happen in a world without the feds or the un. except now would be even less recourse to fix whatever it is you hate they are doing
you don't even understand that what you complain about is the only thing that makes your life possible
without government, there is no civilization. without civilization, there is no little earnest you tapping away at a computer describing government in hilariously stilted terminology
i understand that you fear government. you have a nice list of downsides, all of which are real and i do not deny and i can add to even
now i'd like you to be intellectually honest and examine the upside of government, which through defect in intelligence, perception, or due to massive propaganda, you currently fail to conceive or understand
drug yourself into a stupor with creature comforts: food, sex, empty banter and media, real drugs
all the time, the meaninglessness becomes a larger and larger burden, and you need larger and larger doses of your creature comfort drugs to cope
eventually you break down, and make up a meaning for your life, and believe in it. only because its less painful than meaninglessness
and if you say meaninglessness isn't painful, then you haven't built your tolerance up of your chosen creature comfort drug yet. eventually and inevitably, tolerance builds up to where the creature comfort drugs have no more effect, and you have nothing left to dull the pain, except to choose meaning, once and for all
so good luck and see you soon in the realm of meaning
since you aren't a hypocrite about what you have chosen, i have no argument with you
enjoy your creature comforts
just a warning: the distractions lose their power to distract over time. you need stronger and stronger doses to get the same effect. meaninglessness becomes a burden. a guy can live in a penthouse palace and have all the hookers and blow he wants, and yet hate himself and feel emptier inside than he ever had
the relationship between meaning and happiness is strong
someone out there gets it
which is wrong, and we should fight that
but you seem to be suggesting that the existence of this fact is a permanent limitation on our ideals, and a reason to stop fighting for what we believe is right
you use the weight of the world to crush you, and then you suggest to others they will only be crushed as well, so they should just stop fighting and accept
and so you are part of the problem you complain about: you see abuse, and you accept it
all that is required for evil to triumph in this world is for good men to do nothing. you are arguing for us to do nothing. so i say to you: shut up, and stop evangelizing your ignorant cynicism
fight for what is right, or fuck off. but don't tell us it is pointless to fight. then you are just as bad as the evils you dislike: you help them, by accepting them
addiction is bars inside the mind. in orwell's deepest darkest fantasies he couldn't derive a worse authoritarian government that destroys more freedom than drug addiction does... well, unless he had that government forcing people to use heroin or meth. drug use has destroyed more freedom in this world than the entire history of human government
the fight against drugs is the fight for freedom, and like all fights for freedom, its a maintenance function, and it will never end
yes, some people freely choose to do drugs. just like some people take the infinite possibilities of life... and choose suicide. is the choice to remove your own freedoms a choice to be respected?
that's a deep philosophical question right there: does freedom include the freedom to choose to remove your own freedom?
if someone freely chooses to be a slave, do you respect that choice?
me, personally i do not respect that: choices to remove freedom are never done in a vacuum, and often wind up removing other people's freedoms as well
and so, i deny people the 'right" to destory their own freedom. and in this way, i increase freedom in this world. and so i call suicide wrong, and so i call drug use (the most highly addictive/ inebriating drugs, not something mild like marijuana) wrong as well
drug use is just slow motion suicide, it is self-destruction of freedom. and if you don't see that, you don't know much about drugs