it is an unintended consequence of various government collapses throughout history. whenever anarchy exists, it leads to warlords controlling various parts of the countryside. china in the 1940s, somalia today, afghanistan at various times, etc.
you think this would not happen in the usa? the usa has magical anti-anarchy properties? i thought the usa was composed of human beings. but i guess you go north of the rio grande and (cue harp) people are suddenly magically different
i'm not arguing with you. an argument presupposes an exchange of ideas between two equals and involving two coherent positions. the only thing that is happening here is called condescension and patronization. you can find those words on wikipedia too (snicker)
you are trying to tell me anarchy is an actual valid concept to consider. its like you are trying to take a perpetual motion machine seriously. its like you are telling me that the government is poisoning us with chemtrails (contrails left by airplanes, some wackjobs actually believe that)
if someone tells me about chemtrails, and i can't suppress my laughter, then what? that person accuses me of an appeal to emotion and walks off in a huff for not being able to engage in an intellectual debate with them. well, maybe that person who believes in chemtrails is a wackjob who doesn't deserve to be debated?
now you know how i feel about you and the idea of anarchy
anarchy isn't a valid concept. to explain to you why, to impress upon you the basic building blocks of simple human nature and the real world around you is a level of intellectual charity i am not willing to stoop to
anarchy is a concept embraced by naive insulated suburban teenagers who haven't the slightest fucking clue how the wider world functions or what makes the human beings around them tick
so yes, i appeal to emotion. all i can do is laugh at you. there is nothing respectable about your beliefs. wouldn't you lauch when someone presents unworkable ignorance at you?
"If the US federal government up-and-disappeared tomorrow, it seems without question that the US would not devolve into a Somalia-like system of warlords asserting local totalitarian control"
this statement is the very height of ignorance, lack of real world experience, naivete, lack of familiarity with human nature. you are a severely insulated, naive person. please, leave your suburb and your well manicured lawns, become familiar with say, your average garden variety gang or mafia. ask yourself what would happen were there no govt to keep these kinds of forces from metastasizing
you are a fool and a moron if you really believe what you wrote. you haven't the slightest idea about how your world works, how human nature actually functions. you are a sheltered buffoon
as in, lacking a government. as in, look what you get in the real world
i appreciate your sarcasm, but then, not talking to you but talking in general, if the fruits of anarchy are so obvious, why do so many people think describing themselves as anarchists or "anarcho-blahblah" is supposed to make them look anything but utterly foolish or ignorant or stupid. or, more accurately, suburban middle class wannabes without a clue
hear me out, even though you might be hostile to what i have to say
i agree with you about ip, i hate it. i think ip law should be utterly destroyed. however, i object to your "i'm an anarcho-capitalist...". its your opening remark. and making it whiffs of desperation to be or feel different. i agree with your thinking, but the way you present yourself to the world is odious
your ideological self-description should be "normal". your radical agenda should be called "common sense". the point is, you are trying to appeal to other people, not distance yourself from them, and that's what you do, consciously, or subconsciously, you create a wedge, when you begin a sentence with this "i'm an anarcho-capitalist..." oh really? in other words, you're an average middle class suburban kid
do you want to destroy ip? or do you just want to tweak your ego? if you want ip destroyed, your job one is to make yourself appealing to the average joe. not drive a wedge against them. your ideology stands zero chance of succeeding in this world when you try to distance yourself from people rather than make yourself part of them. real politics trumps college aged identity politics
secondly, "anarcho-capitalism" is basically, somalia. sound superior? i thought not. so stop embracing ideology which appeal to college age kids with far too many textbooks and far too little real life experience. it is possible to destroy ip without becoming somalia. really. so lose the college age naivete
much like the college age girl who describes herself as a polyamorous bisexual and then becomes a suburban housewife with 2.3 kids and a dog in 10 years, you will be a cube dweller in 5 years if you continue calling yourself a bullshit label of "anarcho-capitalist". its not a real or valid ideology. its intellectual ephemera, fetishistic esoteric ideology, art house insularism. "anarcho-capitalism" is not a real, working valuable set of ideas. really. lose the bullshit label
i know you are going to be hostile to my words. i apologize if i sound too rough. i'm actually trying to be helpful and i don't know a softer way to say it. i think you will appreciate what i am saying one day
i mean, i would have looked for helium-4 as a proof of cold fusion, but elium-4?! that's incredible! did they use dilithium crystals to do that? adamantium? unobtanium?
a top secret death squad under the auspices of the upper corporate echelon at ikea have been dispatched from stockholm to deal with this potentially profit decimating threat
i would say amongst the slashdot community it certainly is, but in wider society, its a simple descriptor of a small religion. you may happily supply the negative connotations of calling something a cult, but as these judges wisely ruled, the negative connotations are not automatically implied
if the student held up a sign saying "bill gates is a geek", amongst the 13 year old male jock contingent, this is a horrible slander. but with the rise of the internet, its almost a compliment, especially as "geek" implies new wealth nowadays
and it is irreduceable, that is, it isn't pointed at someone else's intolerance, then defying it, fighting it, has the effect of spreading tolerance
example: "i hate black people" if you hate someone because of an intrinsic aspect of their identity, nothing to do with their behavior, then this is irreduceable intolerance. therefore, there is no logical or moral inconsistency, with the concept of tolerance, to fight people who hate people just because they are black
dude: you have not become intolerant if you fight racists. truly you can understand the simple logic here
"The point of my last post was to show how "tolerance" in its modern definitions cannot do this. To survive, it has to violate its own definitions, to become something quite different from what people tend to think it is."
you mean quite different from your own malformed understanding of the principle of tolerance. your average joe understands what i am talking about. its not complicated. you have a malformed conception of what tolerance means. your average person doesn't. you think fighting intolerant people somehow makes you intolerant as well. no, it simply doesn't. its logical and morally sound, and anyone can easily understand the delineation. except you
your children won't have the same values as you. they will have my values, or your wife's values. so you don't represent a valid coherent belief system. simply because all belief systems must be defended, or even better, aggressively proselytized, in order to survive. if a belief system doesn't have a will to survive, if it won't exert action or even violence to defend itself, it will simply die, becauser some other belief system will act aggressively towards your belief system, and simply kill it, because it isn't defended. killing your belief system, in this analogy, means that it will impose upon your children or your grandchildren how to believe. and since you won't defend your beliefs from that type of activity, your children or grandchildren will simply not believe as you believe. and your beliefs will perish from the earth. your beliefs therefore are simply incompatible with reality, and are therefore pointless
is that right? is that wrong? doesn't matter, it is simply an undeniable ugly truth of the world you live in. reality doesn't care about some sort of absolute right and wrong, as you assert. therefore, it also doesn't care if a violent belief system that does assert an absolute right and wrong forces its way into the world. reality doesn't care if that belief system grows and spreads. the reality about the artificiality of human moral constructs works against your logic, it doesn't support your logic. you are attempting to hew closely to the indifference of reality towards human belief systems. except that human beliefs systems never needed reality to support them, and never will
if you understand the concept of memetics, that is, that the competition between ideas and their spread between humans and societies functions sort of like genetics and the darwinian struggle for survival, then what you represent is a failed mutation. a stillborn child. you're missing a chamber in your heart, or your kidneys are unable to remove a toxin from your blood: your conception of morality is a flawed darwinian unfit memetic mutation. a novel memetic change that represents instant failure. a novel new idea that does not provide any survival advantage, and in fact, a severe survival deficit in the ecosystem of ideas and values of the human society in which you attempt to frame what you believe
an interesting thing about a set of beliefs or values is that they are always challenged, and must be defended. the same way a biological organism is challenged every day to survive: an organism must reproduce and eat. sex and eating are both ugly, but necessary functions. that they are ugly doesn't invalidate their necessity. that they are repugnant does not change the fact that they are intrinic aspects of the need to continue existing. similarly, rejecting the notion that all belief systems must be defended with action and adhere to absolute ideals simply means you embrace the death of your beliefs. its ugly. but its also true
rejecting sex, or not eating food, simply means you die. same with memetics. rejecting the basic necessity of believing in the absolute value of your set of beliefs and therefore aggressively promoting and defending them, is an essential component of any valid belief system. "valid" means, in this scope: that the belief system can survive
so you spout all this wonderful nonsense, but you do it like the guy who says "sex is ugly and interferes with an ascetic pursuit of life". ok, fine. and his genes and his memes die with him. history is replete with various dead end beliefs and utopians societies that fade away simply because they are maladaptive to human nature and the way things work in ugly ways in the real world
here's the truth about the world you live in, regardless of whether you accept it or not:
the only belief systems that grow and spread and therefore survive are the ones that believe they are absolutely correct, and will defend their right to exist to the violent death. that's ugly. it's also 100% undenaibly true about the reality you find yourself
1. a proper turf war a la the falklands war between nationalist forces. perhaps argentina versus china. it would of course wind up with heavily armed turfs eyeing each other warily, then violent breakouts. something like the spratly islands, our current model of oil-discovery fueled international brinkmanship
2. what you want. which is worse. why? well, if the international community agrees that the oil should be shared, there is still the small problem of who will dig it up. which will of course be outsourced to one of the international oil cartels. go ahead, pick one. bp. shell. exxon. congratulations, you've just made history by reintriducing the dutch east india company unto the world: the corporatocracy, land owned by and administered by a corporation. citizen 1295, you are capital of the corporation to be spent as we command
so perhaps for the moon, the company they pick will be weyland-yutani?
uggh. the future. citizens ruled by corporations. no thanks
give me a proper bloody nationalist chest thumping turf war instead of that any day, please
They would claim vast swaths of land after just looking at it. However, whole areas frequently drifted from one country's dominion to another. What made the final difference? Force of arms.
If you want to claim the moon, you have to put a fort up there. Because who cares if Joe Shmoe in Pasadena California bought the Danjon Crater for $2,500, when the Chinese put a guy up there with bazooka? Bazooka wins, end of story.
Want to claim parts of the moon? Put force of arms up there. No other way about it. Don't like this fact? Take it up with human nature and human history. This is the only way this process has ever worked
and you have the two bumbling fools, the noble princess, and the hero trekking across hostile territory, doing various good deeds and engaging in various skirmishes. the scope of the movie and the plot are completely different, but you can immediately understand why this movie was the jumping off point for the picaresque characters of C3PO and R2D2
C3PO and R2D2, using their point of view, is really the most risky and rewarding aspect of star wars. now, i don't think lucas would ever admit it, but i think he was trying to conjure up the same sort of picaresque magic twice... with the character jar jar binks
except that character was a terrible failure, while C3PO and R2D2 are universally loved. i don't claim to understand why one worked and the other didn't, but clearly jar jar falls flat as a humours bumbling low life antidote to the otherwise deadly serious proceedings, while the two robots rocked in the same sort of role
which brings me to a final thought: movie magic isn't easy. i think a lot of fanboys need to cut lucas a break. he gave us star wars. did you forget that? ok, he fumbled with the final 3 movies. but holding him in scorn for that, while completely forgetting the first 3, is totally unfair of you. if, in your mind, you can't rise above your own frustrated expectations of the latter 3 movies to still cherish the guy for the first 3, you really are taking star wars way too seriously
oops
did i just suggest someone might take star wars too seriously? yikes, gotta run and hide now, i just awoke the rabid partisan fanboy beasts...
Because ultimately, most forms of "intolerance" are merely different definitions of what is "good" and what is "evil." You do the same, defining "evil" as "defining evil" and advocating the same solution: marginalization.
"i hate black people"
is intolerance. is evil. absolutely
now you are going to tell me, that someone somewhere thinks its good to hate black people. therefore, because someone out there believes that, i have to accomodate him. and if i don't, then i am just like him!
this is what you are telling me
that his belief is equivalent to mine. just because it exists. i can't fight him, i can't condemn him, because, in your view, i'm just like him when i do that!
so someone comes in the room: "i think muslims should be our slaves"
if i were to condemn him for that, i am automatically intolerant
OF HIS INTOLERANCE!
you sincerely believe that we are equivalent?!
in your world view, there is no value definition of what someone believes. or, there is in your wordlview: the only value definition is the effort one takes to defend their values. that that, that alone, makes one as bad as someone else, completely regardless of what they actually value! therefore, in your world, the only person of any worth is someone who will not defend their values at all. well genius, what does that say about the passion behind what that person actually values?
you're insane. i can't believe people like you exist. and yet there are thousands of dunderheads like you walking around spouting this nonsense: "an attempt to defend your values is the worst sin. it doesn't actually matter what you value"
others imagine no conflict, and no threat. and therefore to even defend the idea of tolerance, perversely, in their minds, becomes intolerance
its insane and bizarre. and yet a very much real and en vogue way to think in certain ivory tower segments of western society that don't understand the world they live in. it blows my mind how some people can be so sheltered
in the name of fighting exclusivity and those who spread "us" versus "them"
you see me committing the very crime i fight
my head asplode
how the hell do you arrive at that conclusion?
no, seriously: in your mind, there is no conflict in this world between intolerant groups and tolerant groups in this world? there is no conflict between tolerance and intolerance in this world? you sincerely believe that?
and, yes, you fight intolerance. how the hell does this become the same thing as intolerance?
there's comments here moderated up that express shock that such a primitive site is still a draw in japan
are you forgetting google and its text only ads? i think there were people who scoffed at that too. i mean who didn't love flashing banner ads in 1999?
are you forgetting craigslist? i mean if anything, craigslist proves you need flash flashing everywhere to be a successful website in the usa, right?
folks: most people resent all the extra cruft on the web, even if they won't consciously admit it. who cares about the bells and whistles? who cares about web 2.0?
the essential value of the internet is what it does, not what it looks like. function is way more valuable than form. utilitarian usefulness always trumps flashy empty aesthetics
of all crowds, i would have thought slashdot would have appreciated this concept. but no
i didn't read the rest of your post after that bit of idiocy
that reaction to what i said is so hysterical its not worth addressing
i'll simply say this: if in your mind what i said turns into "lets kill all the muslims" then you haven't understood or read anything i said. you suffer from some sort of prejudicial replacement for thought due to the presence of an idea or two that smells like something you dislike. next time, try reading comprehension, what i actually say and think, rather than some sort of kneejerk partisan propaganda you function under based on vague impressions. you don't have an open mind. your mind is closed and propaganda-addled
no one, no one is thinking about such a heinous crime as "kill all the muslims" except for one person. you
is, by logical and moral extension, intolerance itself
meanwhile, intolerance of intolerance, is, by logical and moral extension, tolerance
now you can say that intolerance is a loosey goosey term that can be applied to anyone's actions. but, no, intolerance is not a random pejorative. it can be concretely and precisely defined in all situations: "i fight against xyz" "what is xyz?" "xyz stands against abc" "what is abc?" etc... your terms can be iteratively reduced to find at the root of any instinct fundamentally intolerant or tolerant impulses
example: at face value, fighting scientology can be called intolerant. but we must iteratively examine what your terms are. here the next object before us is scientology, which most definitely does intolerant things. going further then, can the objects of scientology's intolerance be defined as intolerant as well? no. scientology stands against liberal notions of freedom of expression. so here the iteration ends: scientology fights against tolerant principles. therefore, to be intolerant of that which is intolerant of tolerant principles is, by logical extension, tolerance
so the actions of the teenager in this situation is intolerance of intolerance, which, by logical and moral extension, is a form of tolerance
or rather, its a good definition of tolerance in a better world, a world where those who take real world action against intolerant organizations and governments in this world are supported by liberalism. well, according to a classical definition of liberalism, such freedom fighters are supported
but such fighters are not supported by the inert fungus that has infected the academia and cliquish so-called intellects of western liberalism. these so-called liberals embrace indifference or outright acceptance of real liberalism's enemies: virulent forces of religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism that hold sway over vast parts of the globe. and they do this, with the highest of ironies, in the name of tolerance, of all concepts
i await the awakening of true classical liberalism in the childish naive confused west. virulent religious fundamentalism and authoritarian regimes must make more victories and inroads against the dying west before the old spirit is shocked and awakened, and the current fashionable "tolerance" of vile ideologies is dethroned. you spread tolerance by fighting that which destroys tolerance in this world. do not make any mistake about that
religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism are not going away on their own. on the contrary, they are growing, and they are your enemy if you embrace the ideals that rose in the enlightenment. these enemies must be fought, in the name of tolerance, in the name of liberalism. understand that, or understand nothing about your world
we're dealing with polygraph aficionados? people who's obsessive hobby or profession is in the detection of lies... ok
you would think that such a crowd wouldn't need censors, in fact, wouldn't WANT censors. if lie detection was my thing, i'd want a comment board littered with lies. you know, to work at my skillset. i could bond with other posters on the commment board as we sniffed out who was lying and who wasn't
"did you see the obvious freudian slip in that post, and the so-called 'accidental' dropping the pronoun at the end of the second sentence? his subconcious is practically screaming guilt"
"as good as beads of sweat on that post. and you can almost hear the hesitant stammering in the final sentence, the way he loops around his final point"
"yeah, that post is a lie"
it seems to me that aficionados of polygraph testing who need censorship is kind of like psychics who can't guess the lottery numbers
Although it was quite funny, it's a straw man and...
unfortunately, according to the codified laws of debate, chapter 5, subsection 32, the charge of "straw man" is an applicable rhetorical device in any disagreement, except in the instance of arguing about a fat man. you will have to rephrase
you are flat out admitting that the competition is between unequal forms in your last paragraph
and lets forget fairness for a moment, even though i can't fucking believe you actually think chemical doping is banned just because of health!
just focus on MEANING right now
the MEANING of the olympics
your pov basically lessens the meaning of the olympics, it doesn't increase it
why don't we have a guy on a horse, a guy on a jet engine and a a guy on a skateboard? hey! its just about the spirit of friendly competition! hey, why even have an olympics competition? competition is too unfriendly, too stressful, too much grunting. people might even cry or get hurt. so just have a big party for fat people from all the nations!
stop, just stop. you're over the edge
the competition must be level and fair, then it becomes friendly, interesting to watch, and meaningful as to the pursuit of international appreciation
your attitude is just sort of this loosey goosey empty feel good bullshit that is probably more appropriate for the special olympics or self-esteem building exercises in kindergarten classes. everyone gets a gold star! competition hurts feelings!
Slashdot Mirror
anarchy has been tried many times
it is an unintended consequence of various government collapses throughout history. whenever anarchy exists, it leads to warlords controlling various parts of the countryside. china in the 1940s, somalia today, afghanistan at various times, etc.
you think this would not happen in the usa? the usa has magical anti-anarchy properties? i thought the usa was composed of human beings. but i guess you go north of the rio grande and (cue harp) people are suddenly magically different
(snicker)
i'm not arguing with you. an argument presupposes an exchange of ideas between two equals and involving two coherent positions. the only thing that is happening here is called condescension and patronization. you can find those words on wikipedia too (snicker)
you are trying to tell me anarchy is an actual valid concept to consider. its like you are trying to take a perpetual motion machine seriously. its like you are telling me that the government is poisoning us with chemtrails (contrails left by airplanes, some wackjobs actually believe that)
if someone tells me about chemtrails, and i can't suppress my laughter, then what? that person accuses me of an appeal to emotion and walks off in a huff for not being able to engage in an intellectual debate with them. well, maybe that person who believes in chemtrails is a wackjob who doesn't deserve to be debated?
now you know how i feel about you and the idea of anarchy
anarchy isn't a valid concept. to explain to you why, to impress upon you the basic building blocks of simple human nature and the real world around you is a level of intellectual charity i am not willing to stoop to
anarchy is a concept embraced by naive insulated suburban teenagers who haven't the slightest fucking clue how the wider world functions or what makes the human beings around them tick
so yes, i appeal to emotion. all i can do is laugh at you. there is nothing respectable about your beliefs. wouldn't you lauch when someone presents unworkable ignorance at you?
"If the US federal government up-and-disappeared tomorrow, it seems without question that the US would not devolve into a Somalia-like system of warlords asserting local totalitarian control"
this statement is the very height of ignorance, lack of real world experience, naivete, lack of familiarity with human nature. you are a severely insulated, naive person. please, leave your suburb and your well manicured lawns, become familiar with say, your average garden variety gang or mafia. ask yourself what would happen were there no govt to keep these kinds of forces from metastasizing
you are a fool and a moron if you really believe what you wrote. you haven't the slightest idea about how your world works, how human nature actually functions. you are a sheltered buffoon
as in, lacking a government. as in, look what you get in the real world
i appreciate your sarcasm, but then, not talking to you but talking in general, if the fruits of anarchy are so obvious, why do so many people think describing themselves as anarchists or "anarcho-blahblah" is supposed to make them look anything but utterly foolish or ignorant or stupid. or, more accurately, suburban middle class wannabes without a clue
hear me out, even though you might be hostile to what i have to say
i agree with you about ip, i hate it. i think ip law should be utterly destroyed. however, i object to your "i'm an anarcho-capitalist...". its your opening remark. and making it whiffs of desperation to be or feel different. i agree with your thinking, but the way you present yourself to the world is odious
your ideological self-description should be "normal". your radical agenda should be called "common sense". the point is, you are trying to appeal to other people, not distance yourself from them, and that's what you do, consciously, or subconsciously, you create a wedge, when you begin a sentence with this "i'm an anarcho-capitalist..." oh really? in other words, you're an average middle class suburban kid
do you want to destroy ip? or do you just want to tweak your ego? if you want ip destroyed, your job one is to make yourself appealing to the average joe. not drive a wedge against them. your ideology stands zero chance of succeeding in this world when you try to distance yourself from people rather than make yourself part of them. real politics trumps college aged identity politics
secondly, "anarcho-capitalism" is basically, somalia. sound superior? i thought not. so stop embracing ideology which appeal to college age kids with far too many textbooks and far too little real life experience. it is possible to destroy ip without becoming somalia. really. so lose the college age naivete
much like the college age girl who describes herself as a polyamorous bisexual and then becomes a suburban housewife with 2.3 kids and a dog in 10 years, you will be a cube dweller in 5 years if you continue calling yourself a bullshit label of "anarcho-capitalist". its not a real or valid ideology. its intellectual ephemera, fetishistic esoteric ideology, art house insularism. "anarcho-capitalism" is not a real, working valuable set of ideas. really. lose the bullshit label
i know you are going to be hostile to my words. i apologize if i sound too rough. i'm actually trying to be helpful and i don't know a softer way to say it. i think you will appreciate what i am saying one day
so porn stars must all be picassos and mozarts
huh, the mysteries of the lessons of science
i mean, i would have looked for helium-4 as a proof of cold fusion, but elium-4?! that's incredible! did they use dilithium crystals to do that? adamantium? unobtanium?
a top secret death squad under the auspices of the upper corporate echelon at ikea have been dispatched from stockholm to deal with this potentially profit decimating threat
i would say amongst the slashdot community it certainly is, but in wider society, its a simple descriptor of a small religion. you may happily supply the negative connotations of calling something a cult, but as these judges wisely ruled, the negative connotations are not automatically implied
if the student held up a sign saying "bill gates is a geek", amongst the 13 year old male jock contingent, this is a horrible slander. but with the rise of the internet, its almost a compliment, especially as "geek" implies new wealth nowadays
and it is irreduceable, that is, it isn't pointed at someone else's intolerance, then defying it, fighting it, has the effect of spreading tolerance
example: "i hate black people" if you hate someone because of an intrinsic aspect of their identity, nothing to do with their behavior, then this is irreduceable intolerance. therefore, there is no logical or moral inconsistency, with the concept of tolerance, to fight people who hate people just because they are black
dude: you have not become intolerant if you fight racists. truly you can understand the simple logic here
"The point of my last post was to show how "tolerance" in its modern definitions cannot do this. To survive, it has to violate its own definitions, to become something quite different from what people tend to think it is."
you mean quite different from your own malformed understanding of the principle of tolerance. your average joe understands what i am talking about. its not complicated. you have a malformed conception of what tolerance means. your average person doesn't. you think fighting intolerant people somehow makes you intolerant as well. no, it simply doesn't. its logical and morally sound, and anyone can easily understand the delineation. except you
your children won't have the same values as you. they will have my values, or your wife's values. so you don't represent a valid coherent belief system. simply because all belief systems must be defended, or even better, aggressively proselytized, in order to survive. if a belief system doesn't have a will to survive, if it won't exert action or even violence to defend itself, it will simply die, becauser some other belief system will act aggressively towards your belief system, and simply kill it, because it isn't defended. killing your belief system, in this analogy, means that it will impose upon your children or your grandchildren how to believe. and since you won't defend your beliefs from that type of activity, your children or grandchildren will simply not believe as you believe. and your beliefs will perish from the earth. your beliefs therefore are simply incompatible with reality, and are therefore pointless
is that right? is that wrong? doesn't matter, it is simply an undeniable ugly truth of the world you live in. reality doesn't care about some sort of absolute right and wrong, as you assert. therefore, it also doesn't care if a violent belief system that does assert an absolute right and wrong forces its way into the world. reality doesn't care if that belief system grows and spreads. the reality about the artificiality of human moral constructs works against your logic, it doesn't support your logic. you are attempting to hew closely to the indifference of reality towards human belief systems. except that human beliefs systems never needed reality to support them, and never will
if you understand the concept of memetics, that is, that the competition between ideas and their spread between humans and societies functions sort of like genetics and the darwinian struggle for survival, then what you represent is a failed mutation. a stillborn child. you're missing a chamber in your heart, or your kidneys are unable to remove a toxin from your blood: your conception of morality is a flawed darwinian unfit memetic mutation. a novel memetic change that represents instant failure. a novel new idea that does not provide any survival advantage, and in fact, a severe survival deficit in the ecosystem of ideas and values of the human society in which you attempt to frame what you believe
an interesting thing about a set of beliefs or values is that they are always challenged, and must be defended. the same way a biological organism is challenged every day to survive: an organism must reproduce and eat. sex and eating are both ugly, but necessary functions. that they are ugly doesn't invalidate their necessity. that they are repugnant does not change the fact that they are intrinic aspects of the need to continue existing. similarly, rejecting the notion that all belief systems must be defended with action and adhere to absolute ideals simply means you embrace the death of your beliefs. its ugly. but its also true
rejecting sex, or not eating food, simply means you die. same with memetics. rejecting the basic necessity of believing in the absolute value of your set of beliefs and therefore aggressively promoting and defending them, is an essential component of any valid belief system. "valid" means, in this scope: that the belief system can survive
so you spout all this wonderful nonsense, but you do it like the guy who says "sex is ugly and interferes with an ascetic pursuit of life". ok, fine. and his genes and his memes die with him. history is replete with various dead end beliefs and utopians societies that fade away simply because they are maladaptive to human nature and the way things work in ugly ways in the real world
here's the truth about the world you live in, regardless of whether you accept it or not:
the only belief systems that grow and spread and therefore survive are the ones that believe they are absolutely correct, and will defend their right to exist to the violent death. that's ugly. it's also 100% undenaibly true about the reality you find yourself
you will see one of these two:
1. a proper turf war a la the falklands war between nationalist forces. perhaps argentina versus china. it would of course wind up with heavily armed turfs eyeing each other warily, then violent breakouts. something like the spratly islands, our current model of oil-discovery fueled international brinkmanship
2. what you want. which is worse. why? well, if the international community agrees that the oil should be shared, there is still the small problem of who will dig it up. which will of course be outsourced to one of the international oil cartels. go ahead, pick one. bp. shell. exxon. congratulations, you've just made history by reintriducing the dutch east india company unto the world: the corporatocracy, land owned by and administered by a corporation. citizen 1295, you are capital of the corporation to be spent as we command
so perhaps for the moon, the company they pick will be weyland-yutani?
uggh. the future. citizens ruled by corporations. no thanks
give me a proper bloody nationalist chest thumping turf war instead of that any day, please
meds
They would claim vast swaths of land after just looking at it. However, whole areas frequently drifted from one country's dominion to another. What made the final difference? Force of arms.
If you want to claim the moon, you have to put a fort up there. Because who cares if Joe Shmoe in Pasadena California bought the Danjon Crater for $2,500, when the Chinese put a guy up there with bazooka? Bazooka wins, end of story.
Want to claim parts of the moon? Put force of arms up there. No other way about it. Don't like this fact? Take it up with human nature and human history. This is the only way this process has ever worked
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Fortress
and you have the two bumbling fools, the noble princess, and the hero trekking across hostile territory, doing various good deeds and engaging in various skirmishes. the scope of the movie and the plot are completely different, but you can immediately understand why this movie was the jumping off point for the picaresque characters of C3PO and R2D2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picaresque_novel
C3PO and R2D2, using their point of view, is really the most risky and rewarding aspect of star wars. now, i don't think lucas would ever admit it, but i think he was trying to conjure up the same sort of picaresque magic twice... with the character jar jar binks
except that character was a terrible failure, while C3PO and R2D2 are universally loved. i don't claim to understand why one worked and the other didn't, but clearly jar jar falls flat as a humours bumbling low life antidote to the otherwise deadly serious proceedings, while the two robots rocked in the same sort of role
which brings me to a final thought: movie magic isn't easy. i think a lot of fanboys need to cut lucas a break. he gave us star wars. did you forget that? ok, he fumbled with the final 3 movies. but holding him in scorn for that, while completely forgetting the first 3, is totally unfair of you. if, in your mind, you can't rise above your own frustrated expectations of the latter 3 movies to still cherish the guy for the first 3, you really are taking star wars way too seriously
oops
did i just suggest someone might take star wars too seriously? yikes, gotta run and hide now, i just awoke the rabid partisan fanboy beasts...
allow google to buy THEM
"i hate black people"
is intolerance. is evil. absolutely
now you are going to tell me, that someone somewhere thinks its good to hate black people. therefore, because someone out there believes that, i have to accomodate him. and if i don't, then i am just like him!
this is what you are telling me
that his belief is equivalent to mine. just because it exists. i can't fight him, i can't condemn him, because, in your view, i'm just like him when i do that!
so someone comes in the room: "i think muslims should be our slaves"
if i were to condemn him for that, i am automatically intolerant
OF HIS INTOLERANCE!
you sincerely believe that we are equivalent?!
in your world view, there is no value definition of what someone believes. or, there is in your wordlview: the only value definition is the effort one takes to defend their values. that that, that alone, makes one as bad as someone else, completely regardless of what they actually value! therefore, in your world, the only person of any worth is someone who will not defend their values at all. well genius, what does that say about the passion behind what that person actually values?
you're insane. i can't believe people like you exist. and yet there are thousands of dunderheads like you walking around spouting this nonsense: "an attempt to defend your values is the worst sin. it doesn't actually matter what you value"
someone understands what is at stake in the world
others imagine no conflict, and no threat. and therefore to even defend the idea of tolerance, perversely, in their minds, becomes intolerance
its insane and bizarre. and yet a very much real and en vogue way to think in certain ivory tower segments of western society that don't understand the world they live in. it blows my mind how some people can be so sheltered
in the name of fighting exclusivity and those who spread "us" versus "them"
you see me committing the very crime i fight
my head asplode
how the hell do you arrive at that conclusion?
no, seriously: in your mind, there is no conflict in this world between intolerant groups and tolerant groups in this world? there is no conflict between tolerance and intolerance in this world? you sincerely believe that?
and, yes, you fight intolerance. how the hell does this become the same thing as intolerance?
have even thought about the subject matter?
there's comments here moderated up that express shock that such a primitive site is still a draw in japan
are you forgetting google and its text only ads? i think there were people who scoffed at that too. i mean who didn't love flashing banner ads in 1999?
are you forgetting craigslist? i mean if anything, craigslist proves you need flash flashing everywhere to be a successful website in the usa, right?
folks: most people resent all the extra cruft on the web, even if they won't consciously admit it. who cares about the bells and whistles? who cares about web 2.0?
the essential value of the internet is what it does, not what it looks like. function is way more valuable than form. utilitarian usefulness always trumps flashy empty aesthetics
of all crowds, i would have thought slashdot would have appreciated this concept. but no
i didn't read the rest of your post after that bit of idiocy
that reaction to what i said is so hysterical its not worth addressing
i'll simply say this: if in your mind what i said turns into "lets kill all the muslims" then you haven't understood or read anything i said. you suffer from some sort of prejudicial replacement for thought due to the presence of an idea or two that smells like something you dislike. next time, try reading comprehension, what i actually say and think, rather than some sort of kneejerk partisan propaganda you function under based on vague impressions. you don't have an open mind. your mind is closed and propaganda-addled
no one, no one is thinking about such a heinous crime as "kill all the muslims" except for one person. you
is, by logical and moral extension, intolerance itself
meanwhile, intolerance of intolerance, is, by logical and moral extension, tolerance
now you can say that intolerance is a loosey goosey term that can be applied to anyone's actions. but, no, intolerance is not a random pejorative. it can be concretely and precisely defined in all situations: "i fight against xyz" "what is xyz?" "xyz stands against abc" "what is abc?" etc... your terms can be iteratively reduced to find at the root of any instinct fundamentally intolerant or tolerant impulses
example: at face value, fighting scientology can be called intolerant. but we must iteratively examine what your terms are. here the next object before us is scientology, which most definitely does intolerant things. going further then, can the objects of scientology's intolerance be defined as intolerant as well? no. scientology stands against liberal notions of freedom of expression. so here the iteration ends: scientology fights against tolerant principles. therefore, to be intolerant of that which is intolerant of tolerant principles is, by logical extension, tolerance
so the actions of the teenager in this situation is intolerance of intolerance, which, by logical and moral extension, is a form of tolerance
or rather, its a good definition of tolerance in a better world, a world where those who take real world action against intolerant organizations and governments in this world are supported by liberalism. well, according to a classical definition of liberalism, such freedom fighters are supported
but such fighters are not supported by the inert fungus that has infected the academia and cliquish so-called intellects of western liberalism. these so-called liberals embrace indifference or outright acceptance of real liberalism's enemies: virulent forces of religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism that hold sway over vast parts of the globe. and they do this, with the highest of ironies, in the name of tolerance, of all concepts
i await the awakening of true classical liberalism in the childish naive confused west. virulent religious fundamentalism and authoritarian regimes must make more victories and inroads against the dying west before the old spirit is shocked and awakened, and the current fashionable "tolerance" of vile ideologies is dethroned. you spread tolerance by fighting that which destroys tolerance in this world. do not make any mistake about that
religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism are not going away on their own. on the contrary, they are growing, and they are your enemy if you embrace the ideals that rose in the enlightenment. these enemies must be fought, in the name of tolerance, in the name of liberalism. understand that, or understand nothing about your world
we're dealing with polygraph aficionados? people who's obsessive hobby or profession is in the detection of lies... ok
you would think that such a crowd wouldn't need censors, in fact, wouldn't WANT censors. if lie detection was my thing, i'd want a comment board littered with lies. you know, to work at my skillset. i could bond with other posters on the commment board as we sniffed out who was lying and who wasn't
"did you see the obvious freudian slip in that post, and the so-called 'accidental' dropping the pronoun at the end of the second sentence? his subconcious is practically screaming guilt"
"as good as beads of sweat on that post. and you can almost hear the hesitant stammering in the final sentence, the way he loops around his final point"
"yeah, that post is a lie"
it seems to me that aficionados of polygraph testing who need censorship is kind of like psychics who can't guess the lottery numbers
unfortunately, according to the codified laws of debate, chapter 5, subsection 32, the charge of "straw man" is an applicable rhetorical device in any disagreement, except in the instance of arguing about a fat man. you will have to rephrase
you are flat out admitting that the competition is between unequal forms in your last paragraph
and lets forget fairness for a moment, even though i can't fucking believe you actually think chemical doping is banned just because of health!
just focus on MEANING right now
the MEANING of the olympics
your pov basically lessens the meaning of the olympics, it doesn't increase it
why don't we have a guy on a horse, a guy on a jet engine and a a guy on a skateboard? hey! its just about the spirit of friendly competition! hey, why even have an olympics competition? competition is too unfriendly, too stressful, too much grunting. people might even cry or get hurt. so just have a big party for fat people from all the nations!
stop, just stop. you're over the edge
the competition must be level and fair, then it becomes friendly, interesting to watch, and meaningful as to the pursuit of international appreciation
your attitude is just sort of this loosey goosey empty feel good bullshit that is probably more appropriate for the special olympics or self-esteem building exercises in kindergarten classes. everyone gets a gold star! competition hurts feelings!
GROAN