capitalism implies the notion of fair competition. manipulations of the system, like the three issues above, or monopolies, impede capitalism, they don't enhance it. of course these manipulations can develop organically out of a capitalist system. well, a dictatorship can develop out of a democracy organically too, but that doesn't mean a dictatorship is part of a democracy. it means that systems can devolve and morph over time into something else, a developmental step away from a previous state
the recent global financial meltdown results mostly from manipulations of the system that allowed for an unfair accumulation of capital at the expense of weakening the entire financial system. for example: loaning undeserving people large sums of money with no vetting of their worthiness simply to generate business. this is making money at the expense of maintaining the trust necessary for the world of finance to work. capitalism can break down like this, and does, all the time. it explains every bubble and bubble popping throughout economic history
there are a myriad ways capitalism can devolve, thats why you need a strong regulatory environment, to keep the players in line. the bush administration gutted and gagged the SEC and other regulatory agencies in the mistaken belief that financial players can police themselves. well, they were in fact punished alright for committing certain financial sins, but the problem is, we were punished too, those of us not in the finanical world, and we didn't do anything to deserve that. additionally, the "punishment" included the weakening of the entire system, not just bad players. you need strong regulation in the financial world for capitalism to function efficiently. the idea of the free market as something that can proceed without any government intervention is pure bullshit. you may call me a "socialist" now. zzz
but besides all of that: no money has to change hands between baidu and the government. simple nationalistic pride can be the motivation. baidu doesn't even have to be involved in fact for this to occur, just an ultranationalist in the government acting out of simply pride and fervor
use your average garden variety puerile right wing talk radio (limbaugh, beck, savage, etc.)
if that doesn't get the emotional/ logical reaction split nice and clean, nothing will
further analytical value: regardless of ear, examine results in regard to the left-leaning or right-leaning bias of the driver: does blood boiling rage from left-leaning drivers listening to rush limbaugh result in more accidents? or does an arrogant sense of invulnerability from right-leaning drivers listening to rush limbaugh lead to more accidents?
does the outlay of that page look familiar to you?
for example, if my gmail account in china is unreliable- due to no fault of google, but unreliable nonetheless, that means i would tend to use some other email provider for that vital service. for baidu, all you have to do is have a fellow nationalist stooge in the government hit the flicker switch on google's traffic every now and then. since china is filtering everything anyway via centralized national authority, that's not hard to arrange
its a subtle and effective form of protectionism, something which the usa and other trading partners of china have noticed a severe uptick of recently, due to the global economic climate. which is especially hypocritical, since china, as a major exporter, is always complaining about protectionism
HONG KONG -- China has begun a concerted effort to keep its export economy humming, even as demand for its goods has plummeted with the global downturn.
Risking the ire of the United States and other trading partners, the Chinese government has quietly started adopting policies aimed at encouraging exports while curbing imports, even though China, as one of the world's largest exporters, has aggressively criticized protectionism in other countries.
The government has sharply expanded three programs to help exporters, giving them larger tax rebates, more generous loans from state-owned banks to finance trade, and more government-paid travel to promote themselves at trade shows around the world.
At the same time, Beijing has banned all local, provincial and national government agencies from buying imported goods except in cases where no local substitute exists.
in the usa, for the driver, everything is a logical conversation
in the usa, for the passenger, everything is an emotional conversation
in commonwealth countries, for the driver, everything is an emotional conversation
in commonwealth countries, for the passenger, everything is a logical conversation
i don't think you did it consciously, but you just created a perfect template for a rich vein of research in this claim of left ear/ right ear, emotion vs. logic concept. including perhaps even fatality rates, making it a serious study, and including the ability to draw upon a wide range of solid crash data from insurance companies in the usa and commonwealth countries
seriously, your comment is the nucleus of someone's PhD dissertation, and maybe even a valid argument for or against american style/ british style road sidedness preference
is there the nucleus here for the observation that commonwealth drivers can get angrier easier and therefore have more accidents, with a passenger in their car, due to this left ear/ right ear subtle logic/ emotion bias?
If you're thinking of asking your beloved to marry you, make sure that you utter your declaration of love into his or her left ear; it may increase your chances of hearing a heart-lifting "yes". New research suggests that declarations of love, jokes, or words of anger are best remembered when they are heard through the left ear, while instructions, directions and non-emotional messages have more impact on the right side.
It is all to do with how our brains process information. Although the left and right hemispheres, or sides, of the brain are similar structures, they have specialised functions. The left side, it is suggested, is more logic-based and dominant, while the right is the more imaginative side, more visual, intuitive, emotional and spatially aware. Because the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, the left ear has been shown in some research to be the route to the emotional side of the brain, and the right ear to the non-emotional, logical side.
i don't know how true all of this is, but there's all sorts of anecdotes like this
for example: women usually have their left breast a little larger than their right breast. regardless of which is larger, and regardless of handedness, women, and all simians in fact, and even breastless fathers, tend to hold their babies with their right arms to their left breast. this places the babies head on the left side of the body, putting the baby closer to the left side sensory inputs, which are governed by the right side of the brain, the more emotional side, thus establishing more of an emotional bond
so i don't know about all this ear stuff, but there seems to be something, at best subtle, that is real about side preference and emotions and logic
you understand why you can't race 100 mph down the highway right?
because you put other lives at risk
you do understand that, right?
well guess what: there are a ton of behaviors, including some of your examples above, where if you fuck up, society is the one who has to pay for it
just because you don't understand that, doesn't mean your opinion is valid. it simply means you're a selfish bastard, who doesn't care if someone else has to clean up your mess, or you're a stupid bastard, who doesn't understand all of the cause and effect involved
polygamy: every woman taken off the market represents some other man who won't get a woman. that guy with 10 wives represents 9 guys who don't get any wife
lots of children: i actually agree with china's policy, i think that should be enforced on the world. but there's a still a lot of space. give it a century or two
firearms: any protection firearms grant are balanced out by a hell of a lot more innocent people being shot. ban them
nicotine: you don't see how society ratchets up the penalties for smoking continuously? i, society, we have to pay for that shit. we have every right to exact financial penalties on smokers. why do i have to pay for their healthcare?
meth: you realize meth permanently fries the mind right? again, i have to pay for this shit. of course, its expensive the policework banning that shit too and people still get it anyways. but less than who would get it were it free and legal. its cheaper to wage eternal war on meth than allowing it, and having to pay for the housing and food of tons of useless brainfried zombies
skydiving, bungee jumping, and racing cars: racing cars generates cash. skydiving too. bungee jumping too. these activities pay for themselves. when some asshole breaks his arm skydiving, we have to pay for it, but these activities also generate enough economic activity to more than reimburse society for that
they used to be called "black dwarves" by the chinese when they were on the chinese mainland
they indeed were once the sole occupants of southeast asia
but they are not anywhere near the same race of peoples as the han chinese, japanese, malay, thai, etc., and they are separated by tens of thousands of years genetically from any other race
"A student who's participated in the protests does not make for an authoritative and unbiased report..."
oh, but some western asshole on a comment board does
gee, maybe you're arguing out of stubborn ignorance at this point?
you've been proven absolutely wrong. the protests are NOT just in tehran, they are all over the country. they are men, they are women, they are young, they are old, they are devout, they are westernized
that's the fucking truth
now if you're not man enough to admit when you are you clearly and wholly wrong, then simply shut up, you ignorant asshole
For instance, some American analysts assert that the demonstrations are taking place only in the sections of Tehran -- in the north, around the university and Azadi Square -- where the educated and well-off reside. Of course, those neighborhoods were home to the well-to-do... 30 years ago. The notion that these areas represent "the nice part of town" will come as a surprise to their residents, who endure the noise, congestion and pollution of living in the center of a megalopolis.
People who haven't visited a city in decades are bound to give out bad directions. But their descriptions of where the protests are taking place, and why, also draw on pernicious myths of an iron correlation between religion and class, between location and voting tendency, in Iran.
This false geography imagines South Tehran and the countryside as home only to the poor, those natural allies of political Islam, while North Tehran embodies unbridled gharbzadegi (translated as "Weststruckness" or "Westernitis") and is populated by people addicted to the Internet and vacations in Paris. It is as if political Islam withers north of Vanak Square and the only residents to be found are "liberals" who voted for the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi.
We must not assume that the engagement of members of society with their religion is uniform or that religious devotion equals automatic loyalty to a particular brand of politics. To do so is certainly to deny Iran's poor the capacity to think for themselves, to deny that the politics of the past four years may have made their lives worse -- and plays right into Mr. Ahmadinejad's dubious claim to be the most authentic representative of the 1979 revolution. Mr. Moussavi was, let's not forget, a favored son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and a member of Iran's original cohort of revolutionaries, and he remains a firm believer in the revolution and the framework of the Islamic Republic. But the United States seems able to view our country only through anxieties left over from the 1979 revolution. In the "how did we lose Iran?" assessments after the overthrow of the shah, many American intelligence agents and policy makers decided that their great mistake was to spend too much time canoodling with the royal family and intellectual elites of the capital. Commentators now are worried that, by siding with the opposition today, the United States will once again fall into the trap of backing the losing side.
But the fact is, Tehran is not the Iranian anomaly it was 30 years ago. It has become more like the rest of the country. Internal migration, not just to Tehran but to other major cities, has accelerated, driven in part by the growth of universities in places like Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashad and Shiraz, and now nearly 70 percent of Iranians live in cities. The much vaunted rural vote represents not a decisive bloc for Mr. Ahmadinejad but a minimum, one that was easily swamped by the increased turnout of city dwellers, who normally sit elections out.
And, of course, Iran in 2009 -- better yet, Iran on June 12, 2009 -- is not the same as Iran in 1979. Just as Tehran's neighborhoods cannot be fixed in time, the cultural lives of Iranians have greatly changed in the past 30 years. The postrevolutionary period has seen the expansion of education, the entry of women into the work force in large numbers, and changing patterns of marriage and even of divorce. These have all shaped Iranian society. The pseudo-sociology peddled by so many in the West would easily dissolve with a week's visit.
recant your ignorance. or claim you know more about iranian demographics and the uprising than actual iranians
you believe in some magical arrangement of people and *poof!* corruption disappears. the best you can do in this world is minimize corruption through constant hard work and vigilance. there is no structural solution to a problem composed of simple human weakness. anything made by a man, can be broken by a man
"Small minded folks like yourself will always be led around unable to see what's going on and unable to acknowledge at anything except the most superficial and intellectual level that things don't need to run this way, and will think nothing of wrapping themselves deeper and deeper into a dependent situation for short term rewards. That's what makes YOU a sheeple who empowers the malicious through small minded ignorance."
hi. i'm over here if you'd like to talk to me. that's a fascinating rant against some sort of bogeyman in your head, but i'm sorry, i'm not that bogeyman, nor did i suggest anything that would indicate i'm this bogeyman. but i bet that little self-righteous rant felt good, huh?
"Try living in a few foreign countries and emotionally digesting just how entirely arbitrary the rules you live by are and how easily they can be changed. Try walking in some other peoples shoes... blah blah blah zzz"
ego masturbation session over? ok, good. now: some day it might help you in this world if you could try to synchronize your high holy indignation with actual subject matter at hand
"For one thing, this isn't a popular uprising. It's taking place in a liberal city and is mostly students (although not entirely)."
the protests are not by a few iranian hippies. this is a gross distortion of the facts of the wide appeal this uprising has across all demographic groups
"It's currently Iran's problem and it should be up to the Iranian people to resolve it, not for the outside to decide what they think is best for them."
good. so shut up and stop trying to characterize what is going on iran as anything else but a genuine, vast, multidemographic uprising
all of human political history, all of the world, not just the west, is defined by malice, trickery, gross incompetence and manipulation
people who are reflexively cynical at the lowest common denominator level are laughable only because they think these tired common thoughts are original, and worse, they think these "revelations" are deep. they speak of feeble minds who actually swallowed weak lies to begin with (my government is noble! dear leader is impervious!). they speak of the somehow dramatic and amazing grand discovery that the truth is **shock** **gasp** not everything in my government is all honey and roses! then of course, it becomes the alternate retarded theme: it's all doom and gloom!
no. how about the world is populated by assholes, AND virtuous people, and our government actually represents some of the best of humanity, and some of its worse
nah, this is impossible, its too balanced a view, right? it has to be all doom and gloom, right? completely mindless negativity is the ultimate deep revelation! pfffffft
the issue is not that you have some sort of grand revelation to tell us about the west (why the west? in the east everything is gold and diamonds? wtf?), the issue is why are you so low iq that you believe your thesis is some sort of amazing original thought that no one else realizes? that an overarchingly cynical view of the government is somehow some unique concept that no one has thought of before?
get this... deep dark secret... bad things happen in our government and we shouldn't trust them completely! corporations act irresponsibly! and... hold on to your socks... they get away with it sometimes! no fucking way!
money corrupts people! oh my gosh! i've been so enlightened!
"It needs to perform actions that might not directly be popular with the people (elections, I'm looking at you)"
this exhibits lack of faith in the common person. this is your failure, not the common people's. an appeal to some sort of elite group who somehow knows better for what the people need than the people themselves is logically false, and exhibits anti-democratic and authoritarian instincts on your part
please cure your self of this woeful ideological failure
no one, absolutely no one, knows what is better for the people than the people themselves. to think some sort of special class of people knows better, is somehow better indoctrinated into a special clique according to arbitrary reasons, is the root cause of most suffering in this world: "we are better than the common people"
fucking evil bullshit, on your part. examine and reflect upon this failure of yours
for example, i'm going to the DOE and i'm going to get $24 million in feasibility study funding for what i call "artificial carbon dioxide"
what you do is, in power plants and automobiles where carbon dioxide is typically produced, you replace the real carbon dioxide with artificial carbon dioxide. its all automatic and costs zero energy, don't worry about the specifics
then the artificial carbon dioxide takes up the space in the air normally occupied by real carbon dioxide, FORCING it to precipitate out of the atmosphere as harmless dry ice. you could even have it precipitate out into ice cream vending machines, so it even makes kids happy!
see? stop grumbling about these hare brained schemes. its more fun to play along
but i don't see a valid opinion about the founding of the usa. you could spin the same tired cynical crap about the founding of any country in the world. with you, i just see a personality disorder at work: typical tired hysterical cynicism. your words speak less about the actual founding of the usa, and more about your own spastic mind
it's all a big trick! by big corporations! the sheeple believe anything!
there is malcontent in any system, but in a democracy it is kept at a minimum because the people's will is explicitly addressed
in any republic that does not do this, an entrenched aristocratic elite develops and the agenda of that elite and the people begin to drift apart
then you have revolution
or a weakened government, allowing for a strong man to come in and dissolve all of your rights so as to reestablish order, autocratic order
so you really need to be a democracy, for the legitimacy and social stability that creates
and i don't know how or why you or anyone thinks the usa isn't a democracy. i believe barack obama was just elected by the people of the usa
for saying that, i am now awaiting of course the typical incoherent rants about media mind control and corporate money controlling everything
no folks, the usa is not an oligarchy, no, its not a corporatocracy. it has plenty of room for improvement and to get financial influence out of the system of course, but it fares no worse in regards to undue financial influence than any other government in the world today or any that has ever existed, or any you could dream up. money is a horrible corrupting influence on all governments, and it takes real hard effort to curb that, not some magical ideological statement you think has occured to no one else before except you
painting a dystopian picture and trying to equate it with what we currently have is some sort of weird desperate attempt on your part to vindicate your failed perceptions
but a little self-destruction is good for you: wipe away the memories after a hard week's work, unwind with friends in pointless banter... social drug use of reliatvely weak drugs liek alcohol or marijuana is a social lubricant that serves to promote a mentally relaxed and balanced and healthy and happy society
but apparently you subscribe to the grim puritan model of hard work all day followed by penance
i didn't know life was a penal colony. or rather, why some sadists/ masochists like you think it should be
is not empty pronouncements followed with "or else!"
any moron can say "don't conceive a child you didn't mean to!" "don't get addicted to nicotine!" "don't gamble all your money away!" "don't not have health insurance!"
"you did?"
"oh well!"
any idiot can say these things
but this is not morality
a true moral compass is what your policy is about people who cross these thresholds of bad behavior
beware social policies that are more cruel than the the supposed "crime" someone committed. some people actually believe in a "morality" that makes society implicitly more immoral than those who do immoral acts. some supposed vanguard of "morality" proscribe punishments worse than the "crime" they are punishing. a true moral society always punishes people less than the magnitude of their crime. crime feeds crime. so if you are exceptionally harsh relative to the crime someone committed, you are actually pumping more cruelty into the system. thereby breeding more crime
for example: "you don't have health insurance and you broke your arm? oh well! sucks to be you!"
you don't want society to have a common fund for such people? ok
but what your ignorant ass doesn't realize is that not paying to have the uninsured guy have his armed fix costs society a hell of a lot more. if the guy is the sole breadwinner int he family, now you have a family starves, that can't afford to educate its children resulting in people with no marketable skills, that forces people to turn to crime in desperation to feed themselves, to become beggars. this is a hell of a lot more expensive than just fixing the uninsured guys arm
but i know people like you. out of your ignorant blind selfishness for not agreeing to a common fund to fix the guys arms, you'll look down your nose at him as he is forced to therefore beg in the street, unemployable
there's a lot of blind ignorant types like you in the world. and your selfish ignorance costs society a hell of a lot more than the uninsured, that's for sure
and marijuana is still less harmful than alcohol and nicotine. do you really want to stack the health effects of marijuana you list against the health effects of nicotine or alcohol?
and so its not logically coherent to have nicotine and alcohol legal, and thc illegal. ban all three, or legalize all three. that's the only logically coherent position. a sound pharmacological understanding of the relative effects of the three drugs leads to the inevitable conclusion that making one of the three illegal is arbitrary, and really nothing more than a racist historical artifact from when marijuana was a scary loco weed that mexicans used. the frontier judge's daddy meanwhile was a proper german or irish drunk: familiarity. therefore, legality. no other good reason exists for marijuana's illegality than historical xenophobia. certainly not pharmacological science
i can see meth permanently banned and the DEA waging war on that drug forever. same with cocaine, same with heroin. the addictiveness of these drugs is off the charts, combined with long term incapacitation (unlike nicotine, which is extremely addictive, but doesn't incapacitate). you can't work. you can't have a relationship. you can take meth, cocaine, and heroin and turn someone who would otherwise have a productive life into a zombie that forsakes the difficulties of your average relationship and your average job in order to feed a need
but marijuana? its lightweight
please. this isn't about legalization of all drugs, just marijuana. and please don't suggest legalizing marijuana means we have legalize far, far worse substances. that's like saying allowing gay marriage means we will have to legalize bestiality and necrophilia. fear mongering bullshit
just legalize marijuana already. keep the hardcore substances banned. its simple pharmacological common sense
Slashdot Mirror
that's cronyism, corruption, nepotism, protectionism
capitalism implies the notion of fair competition. manipulations of the system, like the three issues above, or monopolies, impede capitalism, they don't enhance it. of course these manipulations can develop organically out of a capitalist system. well, a dictatorship can develop out of a democracy organically too, but that doesn't mean a dictatorship is part of a democracy. it means that systems can devolve and morph over time into something else, a developmental step away from a previous state
the recent global financial meltdown results mostly from manipulations of the system that allowed for an unfair accumulation of capital at the expense of weakening the entire financial system. for example: loaning undeserving people large sums of money with no vetting of their worthiness simply to generate business. this is making money at the expense of maintaining the trust necessary for the world of finance to work. capitalism can break down like this, and does, all the time. it explains every bubble and bubble popping throughout economic history
there are a myriad ways capitalism can devolve, thats why you need a strong regulatory environment, to keep the players in line. the bush administration gutted and gagged the SEC and other regulatory agencies in the mistaken belief that financial players can police themselves. well, they were in fact punished alright for committing certain financial sins, but the problem is, we were punished too, those of us not in the finanical world, and we didn't do anything to deserve that. additionally, the "punishment" included the weakening of the entire system, not just bad players. you need strong regulation in the financial world for capitalism to function efficiently. the idea of the free market as something that can proceed without any government intervention is pure bullshit. you may call me a "socialist" now. zzz
but besides all of that: no money has to change hands between baidu and the government. simple nationalistic pride can be the motivation. baidu doesn't even have to be involved in fact for this to occur, just an ultranationalist in the government acting out of simply pride and fervor
that your cause and effect might be reversed?
why is your right side stronger?
"because i'm right handed idiot"
well why are you right handed? why is anyone right handed? why is the majority right handed?
you accuse me of lacking in logic. i accuse you of lacking in thought
why do women tend to have their left breast larger than their right breast? same question, if you think about it
think, fucker, think. then throw accusations
don't use music
use your average garden variety puerile right wing talk radio (limbaugh, beck, savage, etc.)
if that doesn't get the emotional/ logical reaction split nice and clean, nothing will
further analytical value: regardless of ear, examine results in regard to the left-leaning or right-leaning bias of the driver: does blood boiling rage from left-leaning drivers listening to rush limbaugh result in more accidents? or does an arrogant sense of invulnerability from right-leaning drivers listening to rush limbaugh lead to more accidents?
making google unreliable is a subtle argument for chinese citizens to depend upon chinese competitors to google, such as baidu
http://www.baidu.com/
does the outlay of that page look familiar to you?
for example, if my gmail account in china is unreliable- due to no fault of google, but unreliable nonetheless, that means i would tend to use some other email provider for that vital service. for baidu, all you have to do is have a fellow nationalist stooge in the government hit the flicker switch on google's traffic every now and then. since china is filtering everything anyway via centralized national authority, that's not hard to arrange
its a subtle and effective form of protectionism, something which the usa and other trading partners of china have noticed a severe uptick of recently, due to the global economic climate. which is especially hypocritical, since china, as a major exporter, is always complaining about protectionism
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/business/economy/24yuan.html
in the usa, for the driver, everything is a logical conversation
in the usa, for the passenger, everything is an emotional conversation
in commonwealth countries, for the driver, everything is an emotional conversation
in commonwealth countries, for the passenger, everything is a logical conversation
i don't think you did it consciously, but you just created a perfect template for a rich vein of research in this claim of left ear/ right ear, emotion vs. logic concept. including perhaps even fatality rates, making it a serious study, and including the ability to draw upon a wide range of solid crash data from insurance companies in the usa and commonwealth countries
seriously, your comment is the nucleus of someone's PhD dissertation, and maybe even a valid argument for or against american style/ british style road sidedness preference
is there the nucleus here for the observation that commonwealth drivers can get angrier easier and therefore have more accidents, with a passenger in their car, due to this left ear/ right ear subtle logic/ emotion bias?
it puts this story in hilarious contrast:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3817270.ece
i don't know how true all of this is, but there's all sorts of anecdotes like this
for example: women usually have their left breast a little larger than their right breast. regardless of which is larger, and regardless of handedness, women, and all simians in fact, and even breastless fathers, tend to hold their babies with their right arms to their left breast. this places the babies head on the left side of the body, putting the baby closer to the left side sensory inputs, which are governed by the right side of the brain, the more emotional side, thus establishing more of an emotional bond
so i don't know about all this ear stuff, but there seems to be something, at best subtle, that is real about side preference and emotions and logic
you understand why you can't race 100 mph down the highway right?
because you put other lives at risk
you do understand that, right?
well guess what: there are a ton of behaviors, including some of your examples above, where if you fuck up, society is the one who has to pay for it
just because you don't understand that, doesn't mean your opinion is valid. it simply means you're a selfish bastard, who doesn't care if someone else has to clean up your mess, or you're a stupid bastard, who doesn't understand all of the cause and effect involved
polygamy: every woman taken off the market represents some other man who won't get a woman. that guy with 10 wives represents 9 guys who don't get any wife
lots of children: i actually agree with china's policy, i think that should be enforced on the world. but there's a still a lot of space. give it a century or two
firearms: any protection firearms grant are balanced out by a hell of a lot more innocent people being shot. ban them
nicotine: you don't see how society ratchets up the penalties for smoking continuously? i, society, we have to pay for that shit. we have every right to exact financial penalties on smokers. why do i have to pay for their healthcare?
meth: you realize meth permanently fries the mind right? again, i have to pay for this shit. of course, its expensive the policework banning that shit too and people still get it anyways. but less than who would get it were it free and legal. its cheaper to wage eternal war on meth than allowing it, and having to pay for the housing and food of tons of useless brainfried zombies
skydiving, bungee jumping, and racing cars: racing cars generates cash. skydiving too. bungee jumping too. these activities pay for themselves. when some asshole breaks his arm skydiving, we have to pay for it, but these activities also generate enough economic activity to more than reimburse society for that
they used to be called "black dwarves" by the chinese when they were on the chinese mainland
they indeed were once the sole occupants of southeast asia
but they are not anywhere near the same race of peoples as the han chinese, japanese, malay, thai, etc., and they are separated by tens of thousands of years genetically from any other race
it brings us closer to realizing this great future:
http://images.google.com/images?q=seven%20of%20nine
but hopefully not this future:
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Borg_Queen
papua new guineans, irian jayans, fijians, aeta, etc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanesian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negrito
non-malay natives of southeast asian are most definitely not mongoloid, and most definitely not african or caucasian
they have to be another group entirely
"A student who's participated in the protests does not make for an authoritative and unbiased report..."
oh, but some western asshole on a comment board does
gee, maybe you're arguing out of stubborn ignorance at this point?
you've been proven absolutely wrong. the protests are NOT just in tehran, they are all over the country. they are men, they are women, they are young, they are old, they are devout, they are westernized
that's the fucking truth
now if you're not man enough to admit when you are you clearly and wholly wrong, then simply shut up, you ignorant asshole
THE UPRISING IN IRAN IS NOT A FEW HIPPIES
REPEAT
THE UPRISING IN IRAN IS WIDE THROUGHOUT ALL IRANIAN SOCIETY
understand?
but why take my word for it. let an iranian tell you:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/opinion/19shane.html
recant your ignorance. or claim you know more about iranian demographics and the uprising than actual iranians
douchebag
you believe in some magical arrangement of people and *poof!* corruption disappears. the best you can do in this world is minimize corruption through constant hard work and vigilance. there is no structural solution to a problem composed of simple human weakness. anything made by a man, can be broken by a man
"Small minded folks like yourself will always be led around unable to see what's going on and unable to acknowledge at anything except the most superficial and intellectual level that things don't need to run this way, and will think nothing of wrapping themselves deeper and deeper into a dependent situation for short term rewards. That's what makes YOU a sheeple who empowers the malicious through small minded ignorance."
hi. i'm over here if you'd like to talk to me. that's a fascinating rant against some sort of bogeyman in your head, but i'm sorry, i'm not that bogeyman, nor did i suggest anything that would indicate i'm this bogeyman. but i bet that little self-righteous rant felt good, huh?
"Try living in a few foreign countries and emotionally digesting just how entirely arbitrary the rules you live by are and how easily they can be changed. Try walking in some other peoples shoes... blah blah blah zzz"
ego masturbation session over? ok, good. now: some day it might help you in this world if you could try to synchronize your high holy indignation with actual subject matter at hand
good luck to you kid! xoxoxoxoxoxox
"For one thing, this isn't a popular uprising. It's taking place in a liberal city and is mostly students (although not entirely)."
the protests are not by a few iranian hippies. this is a gross distortion of the facts of the wide appeal this uprising has across all demographic groups
"It's currently Iran's problem and it should be up to the Iranian people to resolve it, not for the outside to decide what they think is best for them."
good. so shut up and stop trying to characterize what is going on iran as anything else but a genuine, vast, multidemographic uprising
all of human political history, all of the world, not just the west, is defined by malice, trickery, gross incompetence and manipulation
people who are reflexively cynical at the lowest common denominator level are laughable only because they think these tired common thoughts are original, and worse, they think these "revelations" are deep. they speak of feeble minds who actually swallowed weak lies to begin with (my government is noble! dear leader is impervious!). they speak of the somehow dramatic and amazing grand discovery that the truth is **shock** **gasp** not everything in my government is all honey and roses! then of course, it becomes the alternate retarded theme: it's all doom and gloom!
no. how about the world is populated by assholes, AND virtuous people, and our government actually represents some of the best of humanity, and some of its worse
nah, this is impossible, its too balanced a view, right? it has to be all doom and gloom, right? completely mindless negativity is the ultimate deep revelation! pfffffft
the issue is not that you have some sort of grand revelation to tell us about the west (why the west? in the east everything is gold and diamonds? wtf?), the issue is why are you so low iq that you believe your thesis is some sort of amazing original thought that no one else realizes? that an overarchingly cynical view of the government is somehow some unique concept that no one has thought of before?
get this... deep dark secret... bad things happen in our government and we shouldn't trust them completely! corporations act irresponsibly! and... hold on to your socks... they get away with it sometimes! no fucking way!
money corrupts people! oh my gosh! i've been so enlightened!
zzz
"It needs to perform actions that might not directly be popular with the people (elections, I'm looking at you)"
this exhibits lack of faith in the common person. this is your failure, not the common people's. an appeal to some sort of elite group who somehow knows better for what the people need than the people themselves is logically false, and exhibits anti-democratic and authoritarian instincts on your part
please cure your self of this woeful ideological failure
no one, absolutely no one, knows what is better for the people than the people themselves. to think some sort of special class of people knows better, is somehow better indoctrinated into a special clique according to arbitrary reasons, is the root cause of most suffering in this world: "we are better than the common people"
fucking evil bullshit, on your part. examine and reflect upon this failure of yours
just play the game
for example, i'm going to the DOE and i'm going to get $24 million in feasibility study funding for what i call "artificial carbon dioxide"
what you do is, in power plants and automobiles where carbon dioxide is typically produced, you replace the real carbon dioxide with artificial carbon dioxide. its all automatic and costs zero energy, don't worry about the specifics
then the artificial carbon dioxide takes up the space in the air normally occupied by real carbon dioxide, FORCING it to precipitate out of the atmosphere as harmless dry ice. you could even have it precipitate out into ice cream vending machines, so it even makes kids happy!
see? stop grumbling about these hare brained schemes. its more fun to play along
but i don't see a valid opinion about the founding of the usa. you could spin the same tired cynical crap about the founding of any country in the world. with you, i just see a personality disorder at work: typical tired hysterical cynicism. your words speak less about the actual founding of the usa, and more about your own spastic mind
it's all a big trick! by big corporations! the sheeple believe anything!
zzz
retarded. not even very original
let's assume, for a moment, that your description of our current system is (snicker) accurate
so what, in a few of your words, would be a superior system to the current system in the usa?
it's easy to paint a horrible dystopian picture and try to equate it with reality. this is just creative propaganda on your part
its far harder to actually propose a superior workable solution
so put your money with your mouth is, out with it: what, in your mind, is a superior system?
anyone can criticize anything, its easy. very few can actually build something better
there is malcontent in any system, but in a democracy it is kept at a minimum because the people's will is explicitly addressed
in any republic that does not do this, an entrenched aristocratic elite develops and the agenda of that elite and the people begin to drift apart
then you have revolution
or a weakened government, allowing for a strong man to come in and dissolve all of your rights so as to reestablish order, autocratic order
so you really need to be a democracy, for the legitimacy and social stability that creates
and i don't know how or why you or anyone thinks the usa isn't a democracy. i believe barack obama was just elected by the people of the usa
for saying that, i am now awaiting of course the typical incoherent rants about media mind control and corporate money controlling everything
no folks, the usa is not an oligarchy, no, its not a corporatocracy. it has plenty of room for improvement and to get financial influence out of the system of course, but it fares no worse in regards to undue financial influence than any other government in the world today or any that has ever existed, or any you could dream up. money is a horrible corrupting influence on all governments, and it takes real hard effort to curb that, not some magical ideological statement you think has occured to no one else before except you
painting a dystopian picture and trying to equate it with what we currently have is some sort of weird desperate attempt on your part to vindicate your failed perceptions
of any other government in the world in what way?
due to the whole avoiding chlamydia and child support thing
but i suppose you can look deeply into someone's eyes and tell if they have an STD
zzz
but a little self-destruction is good for you: wipe away the memories after a hard week's work, unwind with friends in pointless banter... social drug use of reliatvely weak drugs liek alcohol or marijuana is a social lubricant that serves to promote a mentally relaxed and balanced and healthy and happy society
but apparently you subscribe to the grim puritan model of hard work all day followed by penance
i didn't know life was a penal colony. or rather, why some sadists/ masochists like you think it should be
is not empty pronouncements followed with "or else!"
any moron can say "don't conceive a child you didn't mean to!" "don't get addicted to nicotine!" "don't gamble all your money away!" "don't not have health insurance!"
"you did?"
"oh well!"
any idiot can say these things
but this is not morality
a true moral compass is what your policy is about people who cross these thresholds of bad behavior
beware social policies that are more cruel than the the supposed "crime" someone committed. some people actually believe in a "morality" that makes society implicitly more immoral than those who do immoral acts. some supposed vanguard of "morality" proscribe punishments worse than the "crime" they are punishing. a true moral society always punishes people less than the magnitude of their crime. crime feeds crime. so if you are exceptionally harsh relative to the crime someone committed, you are actually pumping more cruelty into the system. thereby breeding more crime
for example: "you don't have health insurance and you broke your arm? oh well! sucks to be you!"
you don't want society to have a common fund for such people? ok
but what your ignorant ass doesn't realize is that not paying to have the uninsured guy have his armed fix costs society a hell of a lot more. if the guy is the sole breadwinner int he family, now you have a family starves, that can't afford to educate its children resulting in people with no marketable skills, that forces people to turn to crime in desperation to feed themselves, to become beggars. this is a hell of a lot more expensive than just fixing the uninsured guys arm
but i know people like you. out of your ignorant blind selfishness for not agreeing to a common fund to fix the guys arms, you'll look down your nose at him as he is forced to therefore beg in the street, unemployable
there's a lot of blind ignorant types like you in the world. and your selfish ignorance costs society a hell of a lot more than the uninsured, that's for sure
add a few more, real and imagined
and marijuana is still less harmful than alcohol and nicotine. do you really want to stack the health effects of marijuana you list against the health effects of nicotine or alcohol?
and so its not logically coherent to have nicotine and alcohol legal, and thc illegal. ban all three, or legalize all three. that's the only logically coherent position. a sound pharmacological understanding of the relative effects of the three drugs leads to the inevitable conclusion that making one of the three illegal is arbitrary, and really nothing more than a racist historical artifact from when marijuana was a scary loco weed that mexicans used. the frontier judge's daddy meanwhile was a proper german or irish drunk: familiarity. therefore, legality. no other good reason exists for marijuana's illegality than historical xenophobia. certainly not pharmacological science
i can see meth permanently banned and the DEA waging war on that drug forever. same with cocaine, same with heroin. the addictiveness of these drugs is off the charts, combined with long term incapacitation (unlike nicotine, which is extremely addictive, but doesn't incapacitate). you can't work. you can't have a relationship. you can take meth, cocaine, and heroin and turn someone who would otherwise have a productive life into a zombie that forsakes the difficulties of your average relationship and your average job in order to feed a need
but marijuana? its lightweight
please. this isn't about legalization of all drugs, just marijuana. and please don't suggest legalizing marijuana means we have legalize far, far worse substances. that's like saying allowing gay marriage means we will have to legalize bestiality and necrophilia. fear mongering bullshit
just legalize marijuana already. keep the hardcore substances banned. its simple pharmacological common sense