Zeitgeist

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

I see 40 posts per page, this is page two, and it takes a long time to load. It's roughly 300KB, text, which takes a long time to load. I suggest that we put our posts in spoilers to dent the loading times, as I'm pretty sure spoiler contents don't load either until opened or until everything else loads first, can't remember.

Okiday.

And I'll tell you, John, just so's you know, that I'm starting to get really frustrated arguing with you.

Spoiler

That's every level of meaning. If you fall in a pit, sure I can pull you out, but you'll fall in the same pit tomorrow. Yet, if I merely say 'good luck', surely you'll take care to avoid the pit the next day (assuming that you get out), not to mention that I can't be expected to pull everyone out of a pit, I'm a busy guy and I have my own problems (which on a national level equates to us having domestic issues and can't afford to go saving everyone else). And if I only help one person out of a pit, other people might get upset that I don't help them. No, it's better I just wish you luck, which helps me because I don't end up with the problems that come with getting involved and helps you because you avoid the pit next time.

But if everyone who doesn't fall in a pit stops to help the few who do (or an equal number - it doesn't matter, you get what I'm saying), then no one's really disadvantaged. Then there'll still be people who aren't stuck in pits to help you out when you fall in one. It swings both ways, and if everyone does it, it's easy as ****ing ****. Everyone just prefers to just stay in their lounge rooms and hope that they'll be left alone. That ****'s for cowards.

I didn't say that the world didn't have problems. I'm saying the world's problems aren't our problems until they become our problems.

Give me one real reason why it isn't your problem. Your fellow man is suffering, and you're not doing jack **** about it.

I think people should solve their own problems, if you haven't already noted that; if peace is possible, cool, but when the problem-solving of two nations conflict, such conflicts usually end with agreements after putting into place things like embargoes and sanctions, and it's done on a diplomatic level that most people never even hear about. But when that isn't enough, wars will happen, and may the best man win.

Nations don't solve problems. Neither do politicians, money, religion, space ghost, or anything else for that matter, apart from humans. Humans solve problems, and technology aids them. When we start seeing through the whole bull**** idea of nations and races and ****ing sports teams, then we'll start solving our collective problems, as a species.

The reason is because Mexico had its own problems to tend to. And it does matter. When nations are plotting against nations, it matters, particularly to the nation being plotted against. If Great Britain and the States were discussing a way the violently invade Australia, I'm sure you'd want to hear about it.

That's not my point.

Look, I pay American taxes, that makes me an American.

No, that makes you a human who lives in a place called America. You should identify first and foremost as a human, because identifying yourself as an American is separating yourself from the whole thing. We are all fundamentally identicle. The only differences we percieve are forced on us from the moment we are born, and we live like that for the rest of our lives.

We have interests in Canada because they're a huge oil supplier for us. Your sentiment is very... nice... but the reason the human race is still alive, just like every other species that is still alive, is because we look out for ourselves. Notice that in any living creature, you'll find self-preservation at the top of their priorities. You think cats give a damn about each other? Perhaps during mating season, perhaps after having given birth, but outside of that it's every cat for itself. While we, as humans, have developed societies, civilizations, governments, etc., it's still a matter of self-preservation, it's so that we don't run around killing each other in total anarchy.

Wow, I wasn't aware that we were still in the wild. We've collectively learnt enough about our world, that we can begin to change the rules. We can change the way we interact with it and with each other, and we've been doing that ever since we stepped out of the caves and into the farm houses. Don't use the idea of self preservation as a shield for your self indulgance, we don't answer to that system anymore.

Have you heard of a term called enlightened self interest?It's based around the idea that by helping out other people, you are indirectly helping yourself, and in a much more fruitful way than if you just blindly followed your own goals. Once humans start living by this idea, the world will become a better place.

No, it isn't. See, in war, the two groups are each actively seeking out the destruction of the other. To my knowledge, the entirety of blacks and the entirety of whites are not slaughtering each other by the hundreds of thousands.

You're dodging the point entirely. Biology has taught us that there is nothing fundamentally different between the various human "races" barring aesthetics, and they themselves vary within each "race". The idea that someone's life is worth less because of the colour of his skin is easily the same as someone's life being worth less because of where they have the opportunity to take up residency.

So you're one of those 'two wrongs don't make a right' people? Consider if we hadn't gone to war and they bombed us again, and again, and again, and there were weekly night bombing raids over our coastal states, and Australia was taken as a part of Imperial Japan, is it not the wrong call to allow the complete destruction of yourself in the name of being righteous? Is it not wrong to allow yourself to be killed?

I'm not trying to criticise the way the American's acted during WWII, at least not by themselves. I'm criticising the whole damn process of war. Two wrongs make two wrongs, there's no getting around that. The trick is to not make the first wrong.

Look, you'll find that there are very, very few people who are truly passive pacifist in practice. The reason is that they have been nearly wiped out of the human gene pool.

Because the scarcity system made that trait a negative one. The strongest guy can muscle himself more food, so he can better provide for his family, etc. I know how evolution works. It's not an excuse to go around taking what's not yours.

Oh damn, that's too bad because I have this totally hot Japanese slave that I put to work as a maid after the war. Think about what you're saying, if the States were to bomb Japan with merely the same amount of force, what would happen? Japan wouldn't have packed their bags and quit - they'd have fought back. Was the attack on Pearl Harbor 'equally hard' as us cutting off their oil supply? No, they were looking to neutralize our Pacific forces so that we couldn't fight them. It's called "escalation" for a reason, it escalates. Because if it doesn't, the other side won't just stop - they'll advance, because that's what war is. War isn't like play wrestling, where you quit when it gets too serious and someone gets hurt. You don't fight war to get even in the name of fairness, it isn't 'eye for an eye', you fight war to win. When two people are boxing, do you think they exchange equally hard blows repeatedly, and then call it a draw? No, each is trying to destroy their opposition, and rightfully so because otherwise they'll have nothing but a bruised, cut, bloody face and nothing to show for it.

Then lets have no one bomb anyone in the first place. Too bad everyone is so cought up in their own little games that they can't see how badly they're ****ing up the place, and how easily it would be to fix.

We, as a nation, cannot increase the quality of life for others without decreasing the quality of life for ourselves. If I have five bucks, and I give you two, that means I only have three bucks which isn't enough for me to buy myself lunch. So - I'm not giving you the two bucks, because when it comes to my money, I come first. It's not selfish to say that I'm going to feed myself before you... and since we've already discussed this very thing, I'll fast forward to your reply about how I could eat less or skip a meal or whatever because otherwise it is selfish, I'll say that it's only selfish if I feed myself and then take the food off of your plate to feed myself some more and that if you want food, you could try making some money, which on national terms equates to not printing yourself into hyperinflation such that you need a barrel of money to buy a sandwich and then expect other nations to help you out because you made a bad economic call that turned your country into a banana republic. Have you ever played Monopoly? You'll remember that you usually lose when you make bad economic calls - only it's much worse in real life.

*sigh* You, as a nation, are merely an illusion. The idea of America or Australia, or Britain, or Japanese, etc, only serves to separate you from everyone else. WE ARE NOT SEPARATE.

All of them? No, there would be negative ramifications. If all of them were gone, the whole of Russia would become up for grabs, and we wouldn't be able to secure it all without endangering ourselves in the Americas, so it'd go to others. That's a whole new people with a whole new government. We already know how to deal with the Russians, we already know how to arrange agreements with them, we already have trade exchange with them. Without a guarantee that these new people and their new government would be an ally, there'd be no chance of us taking that risk. Not to mention that outside of your hypothetical scenario, there'd be a serious lack of political will to do so, we don't like it when we, us, ourselves, are responsible for the intentional killing of civilians, not to mention how the rest of the world would react. Our own allies strongly disapproved of our actions in Grenada, which is nothing compared to the liquidation of the entire people of a nation.

You can't even play by the rules of the hypothetical. If you'll just humour me, then you'll realise that I'm right, and that governments, corporations and the monetary system in general have no regard for human life when it comes to their profit margins.

 

[Walker]

Re: Zeitgeist

So, yeah, I only ever reply to things. Not say things of my own. And I replied to just about everything. So excuse the mass of text.

Spoiler

It's about more than the moral high ground. People are being killed. Does human life mean nothing to you?

No. It does mean something to me.

And MORE PEOPLE would have died fighting if we hadn't gotten involved. It's all hypothetical, yes, but if the Japanese had only what the European colonial powers and local colonies could throw at them, it's extremely unlikely they would have been beaten. Try a couple decades under the rule of the WWI-I-era Japanese military, and see how many people end up corpses.

On the other hand, fewer Americans would've died, at least until Japan and Germany got around to bitchslapping us after they finished the rest of you.

It's still killing for money, no matter which way you look at it.

Okay, killing is bad, I agree. But when one side is determined to got to war, and is busy beating down your allies, who are also your trading partners, you can let your friends get beat or you can join in.

Yeah, I know. It would have been far easier for you to cultivate a good relationship with the Japs, and maybe they'll let you use some of their prime, Australian real estate.

WHAT prime Australian real estate? You just finished saying that all you have are a bunch of sheep farmers. The US had plenty of land and resources in the contiguous US and our miscellaneous territories. What we needed were prosperous foreigners to buy ****. Beat-down occupied territories rarely get many imports, because they people have jack **** disposable income.

PLUS. the Japanese were being embargoed because they were invading everyone. We DIDN'T WANT THEM TO DO THAT. So we weren't trading. Money isn't everything. When that didn't stop them, and they attacked us, war was the only remaining option. Well, aside from giving up and trying to befriend the guys who were busy conquering everyone. Let's see. have you ever read "Man in the High Castle," by Philip K. Dick? I don't think it'd be too far off.

You've proven to me that money is the only real motivation to kill people.

You already believed that the US was operating solely out of economic and financial interests. I do not agree, but I will agree that we had significant motivation from that-- just not that finance/economics were either our sole motivation or somehow an evil one.

It obviously doesn't mean that much too you if you just shrug it off and say, "**** happens". This **** is only happening because we're letting it happen.

Letting it happen, how? In the context of WWII-- wouldn't "letting it happen" have been sitting there behind our convenient little oceans, separated from everyone else fighting, been "letting it happen?" Hey, if we're not getting attacked, what's it matter to us? **** the rest of the world. What've they ever done for us anyway? That was the isolationist opinion, the majority opinion, the non-international-businessman, and so on opinion. How would that be better than going to war?

The fact that getting your money back was the prime motivation for helping out the Brits, with the perk of "Oh, well I guess we'll save some lives as well", is not heroic. It's mercenary. If Germany had owed you money (despite how unlikely it may have been for you to loan it in the first place), would you have gone to war against Britain?

It's possible. There was mention of that possibility in military history. The Brits did lots of stuff to **** us off, to enforce their embargo of Germany. Not likely, but it could have happened.

Who said it was heroic, though? Doing what is neccesary rarely is. But I don't think you can argue that WWII was... not neccesary, but once it started our involvement was very neccesary.

Enough civilians are killed anyway. The fact that we class people as civilian and millitary, American and German, black and white... It's wrong anyway. Everyone is fundamentally identicle. Saying that suffering Chinese people doesn't affect you because they're Chinese, but that as soon as some people in Hawaii were bombed it's personal, is completely racist. You have no more of a connection to those killed in Pearl Harbour than you had to anyone else in the pacific. It's this invented, false, divisive, separatist, whatever-other-adjective-you-want, idea of nations and families, which is utterly perverse..

Here's a problem, my friend. Racist to get ****ed over the people killed at Pearl Harbor? Well, you're right. Pearl was a navy base. Lot's a good little whiteboys there. But Hawaii itself? It was a majority-minority territory then, and still is. The Phillipines? Our other territories? Ditto. Going to defend them was not racist. Sure, there were overtones of racism in our propaganda-- those yellow, bucktoothed Japs flying scrap-metal planes-- but not the war itself.

*Off WWII. I do not agree. My family is more precious to me than some random kid off the street. I weep when someone else's kid dies. I live with my sister's death every ****ing day. Family is not some kind of perverse delusion. It is a very real, very precious, very human concept.

Nationalism isn't of the same importance, but it is still a valid feeling. I put the US's interests before those of Australia, for instance. Not because Australia isn't as important, but because me and all the other ****ers who've immigrated to this country over the last few millenia are together. I would sooner all nations succeeded. But I don't want to lost what I have here in the US.

And they were both subsequently used to justify horrible bloodshed order's of magnitude more severe than the initial events. There's such a thing as reasonable force. You don't nuke hundreds of thousands of civilians because a few kamakazi pilots killed a few hundred of your guys.

What would have happened had it been neccesary to invade with conventional forces. Imagine the defense of Iwo Jima, repeated again and again, in populated areas. It would have been more devastating-- to both sides, to Japanese civilians and military both-- than the two nuclear weapons we dropped.

You only try to negotiate with them because it's easier, not out of any desire to spare human life.

Yeah, it's probably easier. But where do you get off claiming that the US was bloodthirsty and murderous here? We were dragged, kicking and screaming, into WWII. Sure, there were some people who passionately wanted to get involed. The rest were staunchly isolationist, or didn't care.

On other wars... I ain't touching it.

It was a quick end to the war that had already killed well over sixty million people (a third of whom were Soviets, no wonder they were mad as hell). The campaign to get that far had already killed more than that, and to invade Japan itself would prove much deadlier for both sides. It was a devastatingly powerful weapon, and I believe Truman made the right call.And how should we have acted when one moment a nation feigned desires for peace and in the next moment they bomb us? Declaring war is no overreaction.

I might argue that we should have tested it first. Maybe on a convenient island with a military installation, nice and obvious where they could see. But I see the other side, too.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have released it. I'm saying that the reason it was released was to get public support for a war. If America really wanted to stay out of the war, they wouldn't have released it. It didn't mean anything anyway, because the Mexican government declined Germanies offer.

Um, yeah, they did. Because they weren't stupid. We were already in an uncomfortable situation, with Pershing trying to catch Pancho Villa-- on their side of the border. If they had done anything else, we probably wouldn't have gotten involved in WWI in Europe (or we would have even less than reality). Because we would have been busy beating Mexico into bloody paste.

I was trying to link the idea that one would favour an American over a Russian (or anyone else), which seems perfectly acceptable, to the idea that one would favour someone differently because of their skin colour. It's the exact same thing.

No. No, it's not. I don't want to kill anyone because they're from, say, the UK. I don't hate them, dislike them, or anything else. Hell, the UK is one of our allies. If they immigrate to the US, they can become a citizen, may not even have an accent. Ditto for any other country. But on the international stage, my care is for those people within the US's borders.

Sure, I think we should help other countries. It's better than fighting them. Hell, I think we should have an open offer of statehood for anyone who's willing, and extremely free immigration. But I also think that the US is a good, valid thing to have. A bunch of people living and working together to build a coherent society. Do I think we could do the same thing internationally? Sure. But, honestly, that'd be damn boring, everyone the same. We can work together without destroying the concept of a nation.

He made the wrong call. He would have made the wrong call if he had used conventional warfare. The Japanese made the wrong call by bombing Pearl Harbour. They also made the wrong call when they decided to invade China and Indonesia, etc. War in the first place is the wrong call.

Yes, it is. But once it's started what are we supposed to do? Just stand there and ignore it? The Pacific would not be a nice place today if we had. Chances are, neither would the US. And once the war started, we had to do SOMETHING. We couldn't stop halfway through and say, okay, Japan, that was fun. Don't ever do it again, y'hear? And go back home. I think the nukes were (probably) the lesser of the evils.

I'm saying that if someone hits you, you hit them back, equally hard. You don't kill them, move into their house and put their family to work as slaves.

Did we do that? No. No, I don't think we did. In case you missed it, today Japan has something like the third largest economy in the world and is one of our closest allies. Germany and Italy aren't doing that bad either. Hell, neither is Australia. You can't say that our peace was anything but just.

Well, except maybe to the Nazi assholes. Personally, I think we were excessively forgiving of murderous scum, mostly because we were afraid of the USSR. But that's another topic. Kinda.

We all have the means! It's just that everyone is so caught up in the idea of nations and ideologies that they can't see past their own selfish (and ultimately petty) desires to try and make the world a better place for everyone.

Yes. Including the people we might try to help. Humans are bastards. It's not just nations that make us that way. We're that way naturally.

Take the USSR. If you could have had a 100% guarantee that you could kill all of them (all of them) without any "negative" ramifications (no mutually assured destruction, no bad rep with the rest of the world, etc), you guys would have hands down gone for it. No regard for any of the life there, it would have just been one less thing to worry about.

Bull****. So, if we were utterly evil and the USSR had no power (and hence was no threat) and everyone else was standing there telling us to kill them, we'd do it? No. No we wouldn't. We'd probably sell them a cheeseburger.

I see 40 posts per page, this is page two, and it takes a long time to load. It's roughly 300KB, text, which takes a long time to load. I suggest that we put our posts in spoilers to dent the loading times, as I'm pretty sure spoiler contents don't load either until opened or until everything else loads first, can't remember.

Spoiler

That's every level of meaning. If you fall in a pit, sure I can pull you out, but you'll fall in the same pit tomorrow. Yet, if I merely say 'good luck', surely you'll take care to avoid the pit the next day (assuming that you get out), not to mention that I can't be expected to pull everyone out of a pit, I'm a busy guy and I have my own problems (which on a national level equates to us having domestic issues and can't afford to go saving everyone else). And if I only help one person out of a pit, other people might get upset that I don't help them. No, it's better I just wish you luck, which helps me because I don't end up with the problems that come with getting involved and helps you because you avoid the pit next time.I didn't say that the world didn't have problems. I'm saying the world's problems aren't our problems until they become our problems. I think people should solve their own problems, if you haven't already noted that; if peace is possible, cool, but when the problem-solving of two nations conflict, such conflicts usually end with agreements after putting into place things like embargoes and sanctions, and it's done on a diplomatic level that most people never even hear about. But when that isn't enough, wars will happen, and may the best man win.The reason is because Mexico had its own problems to tend to. And it does matter. When nations are plotting against nations, it matters, particularly to the nation being plotted against. If Great Britain and the States were discussing a way the violently invade Australia, I'm sure you'd want to hear about it.Look, I pay American taxes, that makes me an American. We have interests in Canada because they're a huge oil supplier for us. Your sentiment is very... nice... but the reason the human race is still alive, just like every other species that is still alive, is because we look out for ourselves. Notice that in any living creature, you'll find self-preservation at the top of their priorities. You think cats give a damn about each other? Perhaps during mating season, perhaps after having given birth, but outside of that it's every cat for itself. While we, as humans, have developed societies, civilizations, governments, etc., it's still a matter of self-preservation, it's so that we don't run around killing each other in total anarchy.No, it isn't. See, in war, the two groups are each actively seeking out the destruction of the other. To my knowledge, the entirety of blacks and the entirety of whites are not slaughtering each other by the hundreds of thousands.So you're one of those 'two wrongs don't make a right' people? Consider if we hadn't gone to war and they bombed us again, and again, and again, and there were weekly night bombing raids over our coastal states, and Australia was taken as a part of Imperial Japan, is it not the wrong call to allow the complete destruction of yourself in the name of being righteous? Is it not wrong to allow yourself to be killed?

Look, you'll find that there are very, very few people who are truly passive pacifist in practice. The reason is that they have been nearly wiped out of the human gene pool.Oh damn, that's too bad because I have this totally hot Japanese slave that I put to work as a maid after the war. Think about what you're saying, if the States were to bomb Japan with merely the same amount of force, what would happen? Japan wouldn't have packed their bags and quit - they'd have fought back. Was the attack on Pearl Harbor 'equally hard' as us cutting off their oil supply? No, they were looking to neutralize our Pacific forces so that we couldn't fight them. It's called "escalation" for a reason, it escalates. Because if it doesn't, the other side won't just stop - they'll advance, because that's what war is. War isn't like play wrestling, where you quit when it gets too serious and someone gets hurt. You don't fight war to get even in the name of fairness, it isn't 'eye for an eye', you fight war to win. When two people are boxing, do you think they exchange equally hard blows repeatedly, and then call it a draw? No, each is trying to destroy their opposition, and rightfully so because otherwise they'll have nothing but a bruised, cut, bloody face and nothing to show for it.We, as a nation, cannot increase the quality of life for others without decreasing the quality of life for ourselves. If I have five bucks, and I give you two, that means I only have three bucks which isn't enough for me to buy myself lunch. So - I'm not giving you the two bucks, because when it comes to my money, I come first. It's not selfish to say that I'm going to feed myself before you... and since we've already discussed this very thing, I'll fast forward to your reply about how I could eat less or skip a meal or whatever because otherwise it is selfish, I'll say that it's only selfish if I feed myself and then take the food off of your plate to feed myself some more and that if you want food, you could try making some money, which on national terms equates to not printing yourself into hyperinflation such that you need a barrel of money to buy a sandwich and then expect other nations to help you out because you made a bad economic call that turned your country into a banana republic. Have you ever played Monopoly? You'll remember that you usually lose when you make bad economic calls - only it's much worse in real life.All of them? No, there would be negative ramifications. If all of them were gone, the whole of Russia would become up for grabs, and we wouldn't be able to secure it all without endangering ourselves in the Americas, so it'd go to others. That's a whole new people with a whole new government. We already know how to deal with the Russians, we already know how to arrange agreements with them, we already have trade exchange with them. Without a guarantee that these new people and their new government would be an ally, there'd be no chance of us taking that risk. Not to mention that outside of your hypothetical scenario, there'd be a serious lack of political will to do so, we don't like it when we, us, ourselves, are responsible for the intentional killing of civilians, not to mention how the rest of the world would react. Our own allies strongly disapproved of our actions in Grenada, which is nothing compared to the liquidation of the entire people of a nation.

Okay, that was a massive wall of text. I don't really agree with you, but there's less that I can argue with. Plus, it's a wall of text, so I'm having trouble finding specific points.

So one bit of nitpicking. You made an example, "if you turn your country into a banana republic..." Banana republic usually refers to a state ruled by a dictator funded by foreign economic interests and used to produce, say, bananas. And only bananas. To the detriment of the country. But the benefit of the dictator and the business. I assume that you knew that.

But it's a ****ty example. For the most part, you don't turn your country into a banana republic. You have one person seize power backed by business and military and completely **** everyone else over. Basically, this is Arseface's view of what is going on in the world made flesh. It's an abysmal example. And makes me lean towards whatever the **** he's saying.

But if everyone who doesn't fall in a pit stops to help the few who do (or an equal number - it doesn't matter, you get what I'm saying), then no one's really disadvantaged. Then there'll still be people who aren't stuck in pits to help you out when you fall in one. It swings both ways, and if everyone does it, it's easy as ****ing ****. Everyone just prefers to just stay in their lounge rooms and hope that they'll be left alone. That ****'s for cowards.

Not quite. Your example is over-simple. If we could just throw money, say at [hypothetical country=Ruritanianbutt****italia], and fix their problems, we'd do it. Or even if we could throw manpower. But it WOULDN'T work. How do you make sure the money is used in a way that builds them a safer, more effective economy rather than funding warlords? How do you give the people jobs, rather than having your men do the work and then leave?

The problems of states and societies and economies are a lot more complex than, "here, lemme give you a rope and pull you outta this hole."

Give me one real reason why it isn't your problem. Your fellow man is suffering, and you're not doing jack **** about it.

Who says? Have you researched how much money and material aid and humanitarian assistance the US ships overseas every year? I'll admit that I haven't either, and I'll admit that it isn't the focus of our society or anything-- but we do put some effort into it.

Nations don't solve problems. Neither do politicians, money, religion, space ghost, or anything else for that matter, apart from humans. Humans solve problems, and technology aids them. When we start seeing through the whole bull**** idea of nations and races and ****ing sports teams, then we'll start solving our collective problems, as a species.

Look, Arseface. I sympathize. But I don't agree (especailly about religion, but that's another argument that I wan to avoid). Humans need to work together to get anything done. Working alone, we can't do jack ****. Nations are a very successful form of organization. So are religions. It's a lot easier to help the world with our nifty little structures than it is by somehow obliterating them and trying to do it all without any of that organization.

No, that makes you a human who lives in a place called America. You should identify first and foremost as a human, because identifying yourself as an American is separating yourself from the whole thing. We are all fundamentally identicle. The only differences we percieve are forced on us from the moment we are born, and we live like that for the rest of our lives.

Please stop misspelling identical. I'll pay you. No, I won't. But I'll pretend.

So, the only way we differ is the fact that we've all lived different lives in different places in different cultures with different people. Ok. Got it. So, you expect us to all conform to the same culture and ideals? Specifically, your atheist, anarchist (sorry, not sure what else to call it. antinationalism? Doesn't cover it all. Antistructuralist? Iunno), pacifist, etc. ideals? Come on! I bet you couldn't even get your whole family to agree to that.

Wow, I wasn't aware that we were still in the wild. We've collectively learnt enough about our world, that we can begin to change the rules. We can change the way we interact with it and with each other, and we've been doing that ever since we stepped out of the caves and into the farm houses. Don't use the idea of self preservation as a shield for your self indulgance, we don't answer to that system anymore.

Have you heard of a term called enlightened self interest?It's based around the idea that by helping out other people, you are indirectly helping yourself, and in a much more fruitful way than if you just blindly followed your own goals. Once humans start living by this idea, the world will become a better place.

Ah, so you're a kinda a libertarian now, too. I see. Here's the problem. People change. People don't change that fast. MAYBE one day we'll outgrow the need for sovereign, independent states (different from nations, refers to organized government and so on). It won't be soon.

And maybe one day we'll have people who instantly see that helping other people indirectly helps themselves, rather than that, say, getting drunk and beating your spouse is really a lot of fun. You're an idealist. That's great. But people are assholes. They're good, too. You can have both. Even in the same person. But you aren't going to get everyone doing the best thing possible all the time.

You're dodging the point entirely. Biology has taught us that there is nothing fundamentally different between the various human "races" barring aesthetics, and they themselves vary within each "race". The idea that someone's life is worth less because of the colour of his skin is easily the same as someone's life being worth less because of where they have the opportunity to take up residency.

Much as I hate to admit it, there IS more difference than that. But it's not relevant.

And I admit, that in theory your wonderful conflictless society is just a dandy idea. Kinda. But the major problem here is that you seem to think you can eliminate conflict. Let's say you manage to get rid of nations and religions. ****! The guy across the river has a better field! And the cows he has in it are polluting the water my family drinks! I'm gonna go over there and give him a piece of my mind! And, hey! If he's dead, I can take his field! And his cows! Great plan!

You can't even play by the rules of the hypothetical. If you'll just humour me, then you'll realise that I'm right, and that governments, corporations and the monetary system in general have no regard for human life when it comes to their profit margins.

Look, Arseface. Here's the thing. Governments and corporations are run by what? People. What they do is done by people. When they kill and rape and pillage? It's people doing it. If you could make people perfect, then yes, your hypothetical society would work. BUT YOU CAN'T. You're always going to have that one asshole who'd rather have the whole pie-- and the guy at the next table's-- rather than share.

The monetary system in general isn't people. But I don't know what you mean by that. So I'm ignoring it.

EDIT: I'm at work, so no time to reply now. And I'm going to Florida for the next week, so no time to reply then. But I'll be happy to add my two cents again when I return. Maybe.

EDIT2: Oh, I almost forgot. [cue barely-obsessed tension] I'm really getting frustrated here too, guys. Grr. Urrgh. Me frustrated. You can tell how frustrated I am by my strained smiley expressions here. :realmad:>.<x_x

EDIT3: I meant to type suppressed. I noticed that I messed up before I hit submit. I considered leaving as it was, decided to fix it. Forgot about it when a patron came to the desk to check out. In honor of that mistake, it can stay.

 

[Zjuggernaut]

Re: Zeitgeist

controlling the media and the edication system to keep Americans from thinking "too much"

Lmao. That sounds about right.

This seems like something I'd be interested in watching. I read a book proving that God was a myth... Can't remember what it was called and I was very open when it came to 9/11 being an inside job.

Anyone know where I could see it?

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

You know, I'm getting really bored with this argument. It's like playing a tennis match where no one's losing. It was fun at the start, but now it's gone completely stagnant. I feel as though I can't properly get my entire idea accross without bits of it being picked off on the way through, but that's my own limitation. And that's not to mention the fact that I really don't fancy replying to multiple walls of text.

 

[Tyloric]

Re: Zeitgeist

Oh lord, is this thread still open?

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

It's been fun, and we've all (hopefully) learned something. After this post, please no one else post unless you want to do your own summary of the argument, but I'm going to request that it's closed by a moderator immediately after I post this.

Yep, and strangely enough it hasn't devolved into a string of "go die" posts, despite the strong opposing opinions.

Fair enough. I'll throw in my last comments and I encourage you to do the same.

Spoiler

You talk about government conspiracies but you fail to see that the Venus Project is in itself an unlimited totalitarian government that claims to be able to "give" me everything I want, and you neglect to acknowledge that what the government can give, the government can take.

You talk about how religion is controlling society but can't see that the Venus Project is the ultimate controlling society.

You talk about how a few minds need to change and then say that religion, nationality, and money are getting in the way - a statement that will be hard to sell to the billions upon billions of religions people in nations who like the idea of money.

You talk about existing technologies being able to take care of our every need when, currently, our most impressive technology is said by renowned scientists to be as smart as a "lobotomized retarded ****roach".

You talk about energy abundance but you don't talk of nuclear energy, which is among the cleanest, strongest, cheapest and most efficient energy sources that exist.

You talk about food abundance and then say that no one needs to cultivate land or harvest crops.

You talk about America's evils without acknowledging that while we may be among the wealthier nations, we are also the most philanthropic nation.

You talk about how we should all be helping each other without considering that if your own house is about to fall down, you shouldn't be trying to help build someone else's.

You talk about how profit creates greed without acknowledging that it is the profit of billionaires that creates millions of successful jobs and drives innovation.

You talk about how the private sector is a cesspool of corruption and greed when it is the private sector that consistently outperforms the public sector at a lower cost and in less time.

You talk about the American banking system without knowing about the American banking system except for what you saw in a video.

You talk about how we are enslaved to a system when Americans are the freest people.

You talk about how we should all get along and yet refuse to acknowledge that there exist groups who believe that their purpose is to eradicate 'infidels' (which includes both you and me).

You talk about how my politicians (not American politicians in general, but my politicians specifically) are actually sinister and I don't know how corrupt they are when you don't know their names and don't live in my city, county, district or state nor do you know enough about the aforementioned people or places and where we're coming from to know the positive impacts that my politicians have had. More than anything else you said, it was this one that bothered me to the core.

In short, I believe your argument needs work, but I admire that you are set in your convictions. My only hope is that your unshakable insistence is from your believing in it and not your rebelling against something else.

Spoiler

You talk about the Venus Project and give it the same attachments which everyone gives to all the other failed "communist" states. Technology can eradicate those variables, or at the least significantly dull them.

You talk about communism as if it negates democracy. Communism negates capitalism, and whilst almost all previous communist states have undeniably been totalitarian, the Venus Project see's these errors, and seeks to improve significantly on them.

Only a few minds have to change. The zeitgeist has been constantly changing throughout history, and society is now becoming increasingly secular. Once it reaches a critical mass, the acceleration will explode. It might take a long time, but that's no reason to drop the argument. If we let this fire go out, it may never be relit.

Existing technology is easily enough to be able to achieve this dream. When you think about how sophisticated robotics and software has become, especially recently, then all that needs to be done is the design and manufacture side of things. We have the know how, just not the will.

Energy abundance is easily created using renewable resources. Nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc. Anything is good as long as it is safe, cheap, and renewable. Hopefully we'll get onto fusion in a few years, and that will solve all our problems.

No person will need to cultivate land or animals, or indeed any unpleasant or tedious job. We are capable of producing the technology to completely automate this process, and once we do, the people of the world will no longer have to work at all. That's not to say people will laze around all day, however, because they wont. People get bored very easily, and will need to find something productive to do.

America may be the most philanthropic nation, but it's nowhere near philanthropic enough, even now. Think of the billionaires who spend their money solely on themselves, when they could still be living an above average lifestyle, but allowing others to do the same. The monetary system fuels greed and corruption (through it's very nature, despite what anyone says), and with the removal of that system, we can become truly free.

People should help each other, but obviously they should help themselves first. A lot of my arguments weren't directed at you personally, John, but at the broader spectrum of people. There are many people out there who don't need any "help" and can afford to help others, but they don't. How is that fair to the people who need the help? You say life isn't fair, but that's only because we let it be that way.

They only create jobs because it is in their interest to do so. Why would you need jobs to be created when no one needs jobs in the first place. The private sector only drives innovations that serve themselves. The private sector is entirely fuelled by a need for profits (without which they cannot function). Therefore the desire for profit will always outstrip any desire to improve anything, because in a monetary system you need a supply of money before you can do anything.

By nature, the monetary system rewards corruption. The public sector (and by public sector I'm assuming you are referring to government enterprises) only underperforms because it tries to please everyone, and thus often have conflicting goals. The private sector may do better, but it still only does things that will serve itself, rather than improve things that are best for everyone.

Maybe I don't know much about the Fractional Reserve Banking System apart from what I saw in a movie. I've asked you to educate me on the subject, but your refusal to even discuss the subject leads me to believe that the same is true for you. That being said, a lot of Christians only know about Christianity from what they read in a book, and that dictates their whole life. You tell me what's worse.

You talk so much about how you're free, which I suppose to an extent is true. America is truly one of the freest nations in the world today, but it's nowhere near true freedom. Sure you can say what you want, but you can't do what you want. You're always limited by your means (personal money supply), and the fact that you (and everyone else) are trapped in a system where you a forced to either sell your labour or face starvation, makes it a form of enslavement.

When I say we should all get along, I mean all. That includes people who want to kill others for being different. I'm certainly not saying that you should just be nice to everyone who wants to kill you. It's a tit for tat operation.

By the very nature of the monetary system, everyone who uses it is corrupt. Whether or not politicians are doing a "good job" or not is irrelevant if they support the monetary system.

Believe me, I strongly believe in this argument. I pride myself on being very honest with myself, and at the least, I truly believe that I believe in this system, if that makes sense.