Firstly this Native American wisdom crap. They were just like any other human beings - they squabbled, exploited the environment for their short term advantage and all the usual stuff that we do. They hunted species to extinction, just check out the historical record. It's just that being a small population in a big continent they caused less damage.
Exactly the one area of brilliance I'm trying to point out- they had a smaller population, they lived below the carrying capacity of the land, they were LEAVERS.
Secondly you are a Marxist are you? So Lenin screwed up the great man's ideas did he? Did Mao get it right? How's Fidel doing? Kim Chong-Il in North Korea? Face it, Marxism has *never* worked *anywhere*. A lot of people have suffered needlessly in order to prove that one.
Where in Marxist's ideas do you find the necessity for a dictatorship? And what makes you think that I'm a classical Marxist? Dosn't the word "Hacker" mean ANYTHING to you?
You obviously have never taken a course in econometrics;
Actually I've taken several.
else, you would learn that your supposedly "chaotic" market system actually *does* have recognizable patterns to it and correlations within it.
Agreed, but since no corporation on the planet follows those laws anymore they've become largely meaningless. In fact, once a group of corporations gains governmental power and starts using it to raise the barrier of entry to their little niche, the whole idea of a free market largely goes out the window.
There is absolutely a "method to the madness." The methods just aren't neatly-outlined and codified in law as they are in communist states.
Agreed on that score- but I guess what it really comes down to is why do we want to bother trading with our neighbors at all, let alone people halfway around the world? To me- it's to enable both myself and my neighbor to survive the chaos of the natural world. Why would I want to add the chaos of a totally invented and artificial market to that? Isn't the weather chaotic enough for you?
Instead, in the market, the public -- individually -- decides what is good and what is not good.
Same with in most communal systems- just not the ones you are used to.
Not a faceless bureaucracy thousands of miles away, which isn't on-the-ground, local to the people they serve.
That only happens in a single type of communism- and it's as stupid as allowing a faceless corporation, thousands of miles away, which isn't on-the-ground or local to the people they serve, to make decisions. The only difference between a communist dictatorship and a market dominated by a single stock market 3000 miles away is the number of people making the decisions and how chaotic and senseless those decisions are.
Go back in history to pre-1989 Germany. Compare socialist (or, commonly, "communist") East Germany to capitalist West Germany sometime. There's a reason the wall was torn down and East Germans flocked to West Germany as a result...
Bad example- that's kind of like using Enron to define capitalism. Communist dictatorships are as oxymoronic as free market corporations.
That's a wildly ignorant statement. We would all still be living on farms if there weren't people who had ideas and dreams of making a better life for themselves, and the world as a whole, by enriching themselves with innovative plots that shake up their corner of the world.
What the heck is so wrong with living on farms, and raising your own food and family? What's so wrong with that life that living in a pollution-causing city is "better"?
Most creative people could easily make enough money for the bags of groceries and a few pails of diapers, to keep this 'family' you're fawning over well-fed and tended to. They could make it bagging groceries. They want more, and 'levelers' like you have no business telling them they can't have more.
Actually, no you can't make that kind of money bagging groceries, since grocery baggers are considered to be exempt from minimum wage. So your primary theory falls flat on it's face. Plus, you obviously don't currently have children- or know what it takes to feed and clothe a family in the United States right now. A big hint- there's a reason why Amenesty International is pushing for an international living wage law that sets a minimum of $8.50/hr.
Don't tell them what's important. Oh, and enjoy your pastoral life. If you're really into that.
I would if I could- but hoarding of land makes it quite hard.
Ah, from your username I see you subscribe to the idiot Marx, who thinks that people will work harmoniously for "the common good", if only they're threatened forcefully enough.
Or for that matter- have the proper incentives to work for the common good.
I certainly wouldn't claim that the market is predictable - unpredictability is exactly the point.
Only if you like unpredictability- I for one think that human inventions should work within human scale boundaries. Inventions that do not have a name- failures.
Things will always be chaotic, which is why trying to regulate and plan them is both hopeless and fraught with injustice.
It's just another human invention- there's no reason whatsoever why it can't be regulated and planned.
The world is NOT predictable, much to the chagrin of central planners everywhere. Individuals and small groups can react much faster than governments.
Boy, you must really hate science- which is built upon finding rules that make the world predictable.
I don't care what you expect, but the idea that 10 million people living in N America is some kind of victory for a culture is silly.
Depends on what your priority is- breeding like rabbits or actually living in harmony with nature.
The wheel and writing weren't needed to support those 10 million. They were needed to support millions that didn't make it, the millions that died in a primative, underdeveloped culture.
If the Great Spirit had wanted them to live, he would have let them. You Takers are all alike- you don't understand your place in the universe and so you seek to mess up other people's place in the universe as well.
The wheel helps grow food. Private property helps grow food. Writing helps people transmit knowledge that keeps them alive. They're all great inventions that were unknown to Native North Americans.
Why would you seek to GROW food? The Spirits provide plenty of food. Oh yeah, that hugely unsustainable population....
There are plenty of poor people that own land. I live in a rural area full of people with little money, but lots of land.
And yet homeless people still exist in your cities. So obviously there's not enough land to go around. Of course- if you had a sustainable population, that would change...
And I don't deny homeless people exist. But come on. There are 300 million people in N American and nearly all have a place to live, despite bad ol' private propery.
"Nearly all" is not all, kemosabe...My ancestors provided a place for everybody who could survive on their own. Why can't yours?
Maybe I should contact the spirits of your ancestors and they can enlighten me. OOOOmmmmm.
Or, you could use the technology right in front of your nose, click on the handle, and read the bio.
Listen, anyone that invokes the wisdom of a failed pre-industrial culture or the "knowledge" of a crack-pot dead philosophy has very little to offer in the way of a "broader view".
1. The "failed pre-industrial civilization" was building boats before your ancestors left the caves- you're WAY too new to this continent to consider your civilization a success. 2. Communalism is no more dead today than it was 2000 years ago when a Jew named Peter invented it in the Middle East- or 9000 years ago when the tribes were using it. It's your civilization that has died- you just don't realize it yet because you've yet to figure out that you've become a slave to the 2000 families that actually own everything.
Hint- e-mail and blogs are essentially autistic media, tones of voice and emotions are stripped away. That's what emoticons and sarcasm tags are for:-)
So, people who run businesses--which if they're successful, often involve the control of resources whose value collectively is more than a family can reasonably consume in a lifetime--are idiots?
Yep- because they are sacrificing what is really important for something that isn't important at all. I've known far too many people who put their lives into successfull businesses- to the detriment of their families and friends, and eventually, to thier own destruction when they can no longer manage the growth of resources. A small percentage are successfull at balancing it out- but very few, and the grand majority end up losing the family business in the 2nd generation when the spoiled brats take over. Their time would have been better spent raising kids instead of hoarding resources away from their neighbors.
I wouldn't want to be a consumer or someone looking for a job in the author's ideal world.
Under the author's ideal world (I know, I'm the author)- there are very few consumers or people looking for jobs. Everybody is either an owner, or related to an owner instead, because instead of HOARDING resources away from other people, there's sharing of both the market and the resources of production.
This can be done in one of two ways- Laisez Faire with a Guild Economy and shared religion, or Distributionism. The second is more modern and prefered (espeically since the second has certain environmental benefits due to reduced shipping that are VERY attractive in today's world where terrorists control the main energy supply), but the other one actually has 1000 years of history behind it. Both produce goods local to the consumers- which allows the Just Wage and Fair Price to be MUCH better balanced and encourage an economy that everybody can participate in. Unlike the current one, where all production is done in one country, all consuming is done in another, all management is done in a third (or at least, we're headed that way).
aha, that kind of thinking exactly worked great for the former USSR,
Uh, no it didn't. Leninism required the State to OWN everything, not merely manage it- it amazes me how few capitalists undertsand tribalism and communalism isn't necessarily communism.
These wouldn't be the same ancestors that lacked the wheel and a written language, would they?
They didn't need either to support a population of 10 million humans on this continent. But then again, what would I expect a European to understand that?
False on it's face.
Really? Which part don't you think exists, the hoarding or the homeless people? Both exist- the more money an individual has, the more land they own, just like homeless people exist.
It's just like a Marxist to deny reality.
Ah, another idiot who can't read the 2nd word and figure out what it means.
Seriously, anyone that continues to be a Marxist might as well be an astrologer or alchemist. It's just another dead theory.
Shows what you know about it- it's neither. Oh sure, the original form of the theory is dead- Lenin killed it quite nicely, just as Stephen Gould killed Darwin's theories quite nicely- but neither Evolution nor Communalism is dead. They've just changed. Your narrow view of the world betrays why you think privatization of land is a good idea.
Nah- the commute is from the BT-paid for condo where he lives with 56 other technicians in a 4-bedroom flat, and of course any salary he makes after detuctions is paid in Rupees and sent back to feed his 19 kids in India.:-) Come on- we've had ex-BT people in the H-1b forums for three years now.
I'm not sure privatization of LAND was a good idea (I have a great many ancestors on one side of the family that would consider the privatization of land to be the single stupidest idea that the White Man brought to America). It has lead to hoarding and a large number of homeless people. Why do you think the privatization of the airwaves will be any different?
*Readers* of Sci-fi tend not to have problems with the big-tent definition of the genre. I'ved noticed.
I don't have MOD points so I'll lend you my Karma bonus. This is a very insightfull comment. However, I am very much also a *Reader* of Sci-Fi- and there are just some pieces of the genre which should never be made into movies. TV Shows, fine, but I find overly philosophical movies to be rather boring. Even the movie adaptation of Asimov's ultimate classic, Nightfall, was horrible. No, for a sci-fi movie to be good, it has to have spaceships & lasers for me to a large extent- or at least one good massive battle scene.
I'd even leave made-for-TV movies out of that- I loved Riverworld as a book and the Sci-fi channel feature presentation was even better, if a bit short (I think they planned to turn it into a series but didn't get the ratings to justify a series).
Well, I believe that the world has changed fundamentally enough since the industrial revolution that it is difficult to take meaningful lessons from before that -- especially when it comes to terrorism which is simly a completely different game when one has access to airplanes, bombs, guns etc.
The game of terrorism is actually EXACTLY the same- only the number of potential casualties has changed (and even then, not all that much- "A Running Man In The Desert May Slit A Thousand Throats In The Night" is a very, very old Arabic saying). The real game for the government is still the same choice- either discourage the terrorists or keep them away from your population. If anything- airplanes, guns, and bombs make it EASIER to do the second, because the general population isn't into airplanes, guns, and bombs.
As far as your first comment, this may be so, but you can't blame me for getting confused about the meaning of "armed surrender" -- it doesn't exactly have the best PR-sounding name;)
True enough- I kinda like the other name for it "Fortress America", because in modern terms that's the basic concept- a perimeter defense turning the whole bloddy continent into a fort.
Ah, true- I'd also argue that The Matrix didn't exactly have interstellar or even interplanetary battles in it; I'd call it Zen Sci-Fi and thus not even close to being in competition with Star Wars and Lucas-style special effects.
I would point out that the most recent set of Enterprise Trilogy episodes shows promise of returning to Gene Roddenbury style Star Trek...but only because the writer has actually WATCHED TOS, read a few of the books, watched the other series, and seems to actually be TRYING to fit into the universe (I love it, T'Pau as a 32-year-old Fundamentalist Terrorist- complete with a companion trying to get to her in the first episode named "Desert Wind" in Semetic (Arab)).
HOWEVER, in Oregon and Colorado that I know about, certain non-violent felonies get purged after a given number of years IF you've served your time. I think breaking out is not one of the felonies that gets purged however....
Just print on yellow paper when you don't want to be traced and the whole problem goes away. Doesn't work for counterfieting currency- but should work for the odd ransom/extortion note.
Ah, but you see- from the point of view of the right wing point of view, even admiting that the people you are occupying are HUMAN is a surrender. That's why occupation is something to be fought against.
I call myself a Marxist HACKER- that is to me, Marx is no different to me than any other economic system, and systems deserve to be hacked until they work for the largest number of lusers. I do support the Revolution- in my own way- and as you can see from the URL below, I hope to bring economic and social engineering to the United States in the 2008 election.
Slashdot Mirror
Firstly this Native American wisdom crap. They were just like any other human beings - they squabbled, exploited the environment for their short term advantage and all the usual stuff that we do. They hunted species to extinction, just check out the historical record. It's just that being a small population in a big continent they caused less damage.
Exactly the one area of brilliance I'm trying to point out- they had a smaller population, they lived below the carrying capacity of the land, they were LEAVERS.
Secondly you are a Marxist are you? So Lenin screwed up the great man's ideas did he? Did Mao get it right? How's Fidel doing? Kim Chong-Il in North Korea? Face it, Marxism has *never* worked *anywhere*. A lot of people have suffered needlessly in order to prove that one.
Where in Marxist's ideas do you find the necessity for a dictatorship? And what makes you think that I'm a classical Marxist? Dosn't the word "Hacker" mean ANYTHING to you?
You obviously have never taken a course in econometrics;
Actually I've taken several.
else, you would learn that your supposedly "chaotic" market system actually *does* have recognizable patterns to it and correlations within it.
Agreed, but since no corporation on the planet follows those laws anymore they've become largely meaningless. In fact, once a group of corporations gains governmental power and starts using it to raise the barrier of entry to their little niche, the whole idea of a free market largely goes out the window.
There is absolutely a "method to the madness." The methods just aren't neatly-outlined and codified in law as they are in communist states.
Agreed on that score- but I guess what it really comes down to is why do we want to bother trading with our neighbors at all, let alone people halfway around the world? To me- it's to enable both myself and my neighbor to survive the chaos of the natural world. Why would I want to add the chaos of a totally invented and artificial market to that? Isn't the weather chaotic enough for you?
Instead, in the market, the public -- individually -- decides what is good and what is not good.
Same with in most communal systems- just not the ones you are used to.
Not a faceless bureaucracy thousands of miles away, which isn't on-the-ground, local to the people they serve.
That only happens in a single type of communism- and it's as stupid as allowing a faceless corporation, thousands of miles away, which isn't on-the-ground or local to the people they serve, to make decisions. The only difference between a communist dictatorship and a market dominated by a single stock market 3000 miles away is the number of people making the decisions and how chaotic and senseless those decisions are.
Go back in history to pre-1989 Germany. Compare socialist (or, commonly, "communist") East Germany to capitalist West Germany sometime. There's a reason the wall was torn down and East Germans flocked to West Germany as a result...
Bad example- that's kind of like using Enron to define capitalism. Communist dictatorships are as oxymoronic as free market corporations.
We don't care that you've read a few books and know more than the rest of us.
And that, dear friends, is the ultimate ending of all conservative arguments: Don't confuse poor bob beta with the facts, his mind is made up.
That's a wildly ignorant statement. We would all still be living on farms if there weren't people who had ideas and dreams of making a better life for themselves, and the world as a whole, by enriching themselves with innovative plots that shake up their corner of the world.
What the heck is so wrong with living on farms, and raising your own food and family? What's so wrong with that life that living in a pollution-causing city is "better"?
Most creative people could easily make enough money for the bags of groceries and a few pails of diapers, to keep this 'family' you're fawning over well-fed and tended to. They could make it bagging groceries. They want more, and 'levelers' like you have no business telling them they can't have more.
Actually, no you can't make that kind of money bagging groceries, since grocery baggers are considered to be exempt from minimum wage. So your primary theory falls flat on it's face. Plus, you obviously don't currently have children- or know what it takes to feed and clothe a family in the United States right now. A big hint- there's a reason why Amenesty International is pushing for an international living wage law that sets a minimum of $8.50/hr.
Don't tell them what's important. Oh, and enjoy your pastoral life. If you're really into that.
I would if I could- but hoarding of land makes it quite hard.
Ah, from your username I see you subscribe to the idiot Marx, who thinks that people will work harmoniously for "the common good", if only they're threatened forcefully enough.
Or for that matter- have the proper incentives to work for the common good.
I certainly wouldn't claim that the market is predictable - unpredictability is exactly the point.
Only if you like unpredictability- I for one think that human inventions should work within human scale boundaries. Inventions that do not have a name- failures.
Things will always be chaotic, which is why trying to regulate and plan them is both hopeless and fraught with injustice.
It's just another human invention- there's no reason whatsoever why it can't be regulated and planned.
The world is NOT predictable, much to the chagrin of central planners everywhere. Individuals and small groups can react much faster than governments.
Boy, you must really hate science- which is built upon finding rules that make the world predictable.
I don't care what you expect, but the idea that 10 million people living in N America is some kind of victory for a culture is silly.
Depends on what your priority is- breeding like rabbits or actually living in harmony with nature.
The wheel and writing weren't needed to support those 10 million. They were needed to support millions that didn't make it, the millions that died in a primative, underdeveloped culture.
If the Great Spirit had wanted them to live, he would have let them. You Takers are all alike- you don't understand your place in the universe and so you seek to mess up other people's place in the universe as well.
The wheel helps grow food. Private property helps grow food. Writing helps people transmit knowledge that keeps them alive. They're all great inventions that were unknown to Native North Americans.
Why would you seek to GROW food? The Spirits provide plenty of food. Oh yeah, that hugely unsustainable population....
There are plenty of poor people that own land. I live in a rural area full of people with little money, but lots of land.
And yet homeless people still exist in your cities. So obviously there's not enough land to go around. Of course- if you had a sustainable population, that would change...
And I don't deny homeless people exist. But come on. There are 300 million people in N American and nearly all have a place to live, despite bad ol' private propery.
"Nearly all" is not all, kemosabe...My ancestors provided a place for everybody who could survive on their own. Why can't yours?
Maybe I should contact the spirits of your ancestors and they can enlighten me. OOOOmmmmm.
Or, you could use the technology right in front of your nose, click on the handle, and read the bio.
Listen, anyone that invokes the wisdom of a failed pre-industrial culture or the "knowledge" of a crack-pot dead philosophy has very little to offer in the way of a "broader view".
1. The "failed pre-industrial civilization" was building boats before your ancestors left the caves- you're WAY too new to this continent to consider your civilization a success.
2. Communalism is no more dead today than it was 2000 years ago when a Jew named Peter invented it in the Middle East- or 9000 years ago when the tribes were using it. It's your civilization that has died- you just don't realize it yet because you've yet to figure out that you've become a slave to the 2000 families that actually own everything.
Hint- e-mail and blogs are essentially autistic media, tones of voice and emotions are stripped away. That's what emoticons and sarcasm tags are for :-)
So, people who run businesses--which if they're successful, often involve the control of resources whose value collectively is more than a family can reasonably consume in a lifetime--are idiots?
Yep- because they are sacrificing what is really important for something that isn't important at all. I've known far too many people who put their lives into successfull businesses- to the detriment of their families and friends, and eventually, to thier own destruction when they can no longer manage the growth of resources. A small percentage are successfull at balancing it out- but very few, and the grand majority end up losing the family business in the 2nd generation when the spoiled brats take over. Their time would have been better spent raising kids instead of hoarding resources away from their neighbors.
I wouldn't want to be a consumer or someone looking for a job in the author's ideal world.
Under the author's ideal world (I know, I'm the author)- there are very few consumers or people looking for jobs. Everybody is either an owner, or related to an owner instead, because instead of HOARDING resources away from other people, there's sharing of both the market and the resources of production.
This can be done in one of two ways- Laisez Faire with a Guild Economy and shared religion, or Distributionism. The second is more modern and prefered (espeically since the second has certain environmental benefits due to reduced shipping that are VERY attractive in today's world where terrorists control the main energy supply), but the other one actually has 1000 years of history behind it. Both produce goods local to the consumers- which allows the Just Wage and Fair Price to be MUCH better balanced and encourage an economy that everybody can participate in. Unlike the current one, where all production is done in one country, all consuming is done in another, all management is done in a third (or at least, we're headed that way).
I'd rather let the aggregated opinions of millions of consumers decide, thanks.
Ah, you subscribe to the idiot Adam Smith, who thinks that chaos makes things predictable.
aha, that kind of thinking exactly worked great for the former USSR,
Uh, no it didn't. Leninism required the State to OWN everything, not merely manage it- it amazes me how few capitalists undertsand tribalism and communalism isn't necessarily communism.
These wouldn't be the same ancestors that lacked the wheel and a written language, would they?
They didn't need either to support a population of 10 million humans on this continent. But then again, what would I expect a European to understand that?
False on it's face.
Really? Which part don't you think exists, the hoarding or the homeless people? Both exist- the more money an individual has, the more land they own, just like homeless people exist.
It's just like a Marxist to deny reality.
Ah, another idiot who can't read the 2nd word and figure out what it means.
Seriously, anyone that continues to be a Marxist might as well be an astrologer or alchemist. It's just another dead theory.
Shows what you know about it- it's neither. Oh sure, the original form of the theory is dead- Lenin killed it quite nicely, just as Stephen Gould killed Darwin's theories quite nicely- but neither Evolution nor Communalism is dead. They've just changed. Your narrow view of the world betrays why you think privatization of land is a good idea.
Nah- the commute is from the BT-paid for condo where he lives with 56 other technicians in a 4-bedroom flat, and of course any salary he makes after detuctions is paid in Rupees and sent back to feed his 19 kids in India. :-) Come on- we've had ex-BT people in the H-1b forums for three years now.
I'm not sure privatization of LAND was a good idea (I have a great many ancestors on one side of the family that would consider the privatization of land to be the single stupidest idea that the White Man brought to America). It has lead to hoarding and a large number of homeless people. Why do you think the privatization of the airwaves will be any different?
And resonable people always wish to maximize profits
But BT? I would say that was a fairly succesful privatisation non?
Not from the point of view of the telecom engineers- who quickly lost most of their jobs to India.
*Readers* of Sci-fi tend not to have problems with the big-tent definition of the genre. I'ved noticed.
I don't have MOD points so I'll lend you my Karma bonus. This is a very insightfull comment. However, I am very much also a *Reader* of Sci-Fi- and there are just some pieces of the genre which should never be made into movies. TV Shows, fine, but I find overly philosophical movies to be rather boring. Even the movie adaptation of Asimov's ultimate classic, Nightfall, was horrible. No, for a sci-fi movie to be good, it has to have spaceships & lasers for me to a large extent- or at least one good massive battle scene.
I'd even leave made-for-TV movies out of that- I loved Riverworld as a book and the Sci-fi channel feature presentation was even better, if a bit short (I think they planned to turn it into a series but didn't get the ratings to justify a series).
Well, I believe that the world has changed fundamentally enough since the industrial revolution that it is difficult to take meaningful lessons from before that -- especially when it comes to terrorism which is simly a completely different game when one has access to airplanes, bombs, guns etc.
;)
The game of terrorism is actually EXACTLY the same- only the number of potential casualties has changed (and even then, not all that much- "A Running Man In The Desert May Slit A Thousand Throats In The Night" is a very, very old Arabic saying). The real game for the government is still the same choice- either discourage the terrorists or keep them away from your population. If anything- airplanes, guns, and bombs make it EASIER to do the second, because the general population isn't into airplanes, guns, and bombs.
As far as your first comment, this may be so, but you can't blame me for getting confused about the meaning of "armed surrender" -- it doesn't exactly have the best PR-sounding name
True enough- I kinda like the other name for it "Fortress America", because in modern terms that's the basic concept- a perimeter defense turning the whole bloddy continent into a fort.
Ah, true- I'd also argue that The Matrix didn't exactly have interstellar or even interplanetary battles in it; I'd call it Zen Sci-Fi and thus not even close to being in competition with Star Wars and Lucas-style special effects.
I would point out that the most recent set of Enterprise Trilogy episodes shows promise of returning to Gene Roddenbury style Star Trek...but only because the writer has actually WATCHED TOS, read a few of the books, watched the other series, and seems to actually be TRYING to fit into the universe (I love it, T'Pau as a 32-year-old Fundamentalist Terrorist- complete with a companion trying to get to her in the first episode named "Desert Wind" in Semetic (Arab)).
I don't remember- what was the WB movie that opened after Star Wars in 1999?
HOWEVER, in Oregon and Colorado that I know about, certain non-violent felonies get purged after a given number of years IF you've served your time. I think breaking out is not one of the felonies that gets purged however....
Just print on yellow paper when you don't want to be traced and the whole problem goes away. Doesn't work for counterfieting currency- but should work for the odd ransom/extortion note.
Once spun into yarn- I'd imagine no more time than a similar quantity of regular yarn.
Ah, but you see- from the point of view of the right wing point of view, even admiting that the people you are occupying are HUMAN is a surrender. That's why occupation is something to be fought against.
http://www.technocrat.org/~President4242/Journal
I call myself a Marxist HACKER- that is to me, Marx is no different to me than any other economic system, and systems deserve to be hacked until they work for the largest number of lusers. I do support the Revolution- in my own way- and as you can see from the URL below, I hope to bring economic and social engineering to the United States in the 2008 election.