An Ideal Society

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
41

I believe that the evolution of human consciousness
is an on-going process which is far from over

As I have said before
IMO
Human consciousness first began
when enough neurons in the developing brain
of our first ancestral hominid
reached a state a where a connection between both sides of the cortex
allowed for communication to take place
between the intuitive and analytical hemispheres
allowing the infantile beginnings of egoistical self-reflection
to start us down the road to where we are now

So the question which initiated this thread
on trying to analyze exactly what is ideal individual human behavior
which could then collectively produce an ideal society
is exactly where are we now
both individually and collectively?

I have described repeatedly
how our present collective behavior indicates
that we are still in our rebellious self-determinant teenage
insisting on our individual rights to act independently
in a universe that is patently inter-dependent
while thumbing our noses at the idea of a demanding Godhead
gambling like prodigals with our inheritance on the stock market
and playing daring games with nuclear guns

None of which relates to responsible adult behavior
and concern for the future of our children

as a direct result of our inventive teenage genius
competitive spirit
exploitative appetites
and irresponsible attitude
we have seriously harmed our global environment

We now face a New Age of clean-up
of global stewardship
of ending crass exploitation and unequal national competitions
and learning how to manage a planet together
in a sustainable manner

This cannot be done
unless every nation works together
on a level playing field

For this to happen
we all have to agree
on set principles of collective behavior

I have outlined what I believe
to be a set of behavioral values that are common to all human societies

It is obvious that the rebellious teenager
refuses to listen to such disciplinary advise
and seeks an ideal which allows the individual complete freedom
to continue to do what he or she likes

I sympathize with that ideal
and want it for myself and my descendants

But that Age of Adult Freedom
is yet to come

We have to clean up our mess first
and get this planet running
on its own perpetual energy
before we can relax
and practice our individual arts
to our hearts content
in a clean and guilt-free atmosphere

This is not to say that the above will happen
the odds are still 50/50 that the prodigal son
will keep messing up
to a point of no recovery

I am simply outlining what I think has to be done right now
if we are to keep evolving
through adulthood
in order to arrive eventually
at full conscious maturity
as Cosmic sages

42

Nooooo. If you are worried about me being offended by his comments, the only thing that would offend me would be if my opportunity to properly engage and express myself was taken away from me. I would have hoped, since you read every post, that I’d have been at least partially successful in communicating how fond I am with personal engagement. I actually welcome any personal judgements directed at me, the more visceral and penetrative the better, because that means it comes from passion and passion is honest.

Also my whole contribution to this thread has been based around my opposition to the notion that rules are just rules, for everyone under all circumstances. Normal rules don’t sit well with me and I think it’s good philosophical practice to welcome all slants and approaches to the subject, including mine. I recognise that some cases require the presence of a moderator, such as with the more emotionally vulnerable, but I would gladly relieve you of your duty to feel the need to protect me. I am saddened enough when philosophy has become wrapped up in labourious duties such as reading through reams and reams of people’s thoughts, of all qualities and degrees of personal interest - as with yourself.

You being Faust though, I thought the restriction of academic labouring had gotten to you by now :wink: and that you’d summoned Mephistopheles to whisk you away into grandiose adventures amongst the highest positions and within the most life-giving situations that life has to offer! :stuck_out_tongue:

Many points are cogently expressed in this thread’s dialogue even where explicitly obvious pontifications lack. My favourite of which is how my explicitly explained direction, and values of inequality and individual passion are consistently consistent with my vim and competitive contribution to the discussion, yet MM’s responses consistently contradict his proposed peaceful equality with his attempts to win power for such principles over mine :slight_smile:

However, MM, I do reverence your emerged respect and recognition for a different fundamental aspect of this discussion though, that you now see the conflict of interest between the individual originating from himself, and the filial pious one who lives on another level to his self in order to better fulfill his perceived duty to act morally on principles.

Nietzsche saw something better than filial piety, he saw filial love. Where as I described before, one comes to feel an unrestrainable bodily urge to bestow from oneself, simply because who you bestow your love to has shined so much of their light unto you from their own unrestrained overflowing selfish self. In such a way, selfishness amongst equals causes the most extremely blissful form of giving, sharing love that is possible to exist, resulting in the highest feeling of bonding that you know only from obligatory duty and moral ethic that falsely misunderstands itself as selflessness or altruism.

The only reason that this doesn’t work in large society is the distance and alienation across collaborating or competing powers through lack of real fulfilling contact. Thus it doesn’t result in the same overflow and so laws and principles have to be enforced to unsuccessfully attempt to create the same effect. The way in which you misunderstand the real problem here is that there is not enough duty and piety.

This is why I find it very hard to believe your supposed story of your upbringing. I’ll go with it anyway because I truly have no solid empirical grounds upon which to prove you wrong, as you very well know and have capitalised on. A little below the belt, but I am not harmed. I would have suspected that someone who truly had an upbringing so closely imbedded within nature would understand the overflow of which I speak, and that the true origin of overflowing benevolence was indeed from within the self as a closely involved member of tightly knit ecosystem where each selfishly contributes to the other with such gratefulness and loving respect because of their selfish role being so mutually beneficial.

I would have thought that such vast and matured moralising would only be possible in one so alienated from nature, people and society that they could only even perceive that rules and obligation could hold it together! Such as a bourgeois, typical of one with an upbringing like mine.

43

It’s not about you, or about MM. It’s about the rules.

You two are free to talk about individuals. Just not each other, in a derogatory way.

I couldn’t care less how either of you feels, nor could I know.

44

Wow, that’s sad. And rude. Do you really feel so removed and unable to connect with the very members of the philosophy forum that you have chosen to moderate?

Are you by any chance going with the lack of knowledge of another’s feelings from a french-existentialist-like reasoning, because I just explicitly told you exactly how I felt… can you not attempt to match it the best you can with your own experience?

I don’t want to believe that a moderator of a philosophy board as well established as this is refusing to be philosophical about rules. Do you not find pleasure in exercising the mental discretion of one who knows appropriation, towards demonstraters of alternative ways who can moderate their own content?

Your interests include Nietzsche, so I KNOW you understand my argument here. This post also serves to back up my views towards Magnet Man’s similar attitude towards rules. And at a micro-level, a philosophy board is most certainly a miniature model of a society that could indeed profess to be ideal or otherwise.

If all this classes as derogatory talk towards you, as a moderator, rather than constructive criticism then feel free to ban me or ask me to leave. If your mood is currently or always in an unforgiving rigid mode that you have just hinted at, then perhaps you’ll not tolerate my challenge and unhesitantly use your power to click a button. Do you think one who exhibits the traits that I fear you are showing is an appropriate candidate for a moderator?

I came here to find freedom to express unrestrained philosophical ideas in unrestrained forms, with equals who can also appropriate themselves. If I can’t find that here then maybe I should go elsewhere, because that’s just not philosophy, nevermind love for it!

45

When principles clash
a peace officer must be appointed
and laws enforced
until such stage as each of us learns how to polices ourselves
therefore delineating a common standard is essential

Nietzche’s contorted notion of family love
and his derogatory analysis of the common man
does not compute with me
he never examined human Nature from the roots upwards
and lost his way
like all others
among the myriad branches of the family tree
He never grasped the idea
that human consciousness is engaged in an evolving process
which is not yet matured
or that different societies
and individuals
are at various levels of development
we are inheritors
of precisely the same original genetic ancestry
and have the same potential for identical capabilities

The Confucian principle of filial piety
enjoins us to regard our parents
as Divinely appointed guardians
who can do no wrong

This absolute standard inspires the human spirit
to rise to the occasion
Parents become better guides
children become better students

I agree that selfishness
is a primal drive
but our full enjoyment of self
is not possible in an unconscious psyche

A fully conscientious psyche
is concerned with the conscious state of another
and cannot achieve its blissful goal
if its sees the other is suffering

the degree of that suffering cannot be evaluated
if we all have different values
thus by aiding another to achieve and enjoy the same value
one aids the self

Now you are at the nub of the matter
and should see why I outline common values

I was born and raised in Africa
and wet-nursed by a Xhosa woman
who could not read or write
through her and her tribal people
I gained insight into basic family values
before they were contaminated by Scripture
and pseudo-intellectual moralizing

Other than a feral child
that is about as close to natural values
as any modern can get

46

silhouette - I’ll take this to PM.

47

Id have to say a society based on production of the masses not Mass production. Where individuals true callings were supported. A true calling is passion and love.

48

Hmm, that’s interesting. I think I can understand why you think in the way you do now, if you’ll allow me some conjecture. If you were born and raised in South Africa, by a woman who had no western-traditional education it was probably a part of the country that lacked money and the technologies and comforts that I’m so familiar with. Therefore, life must have not been a walk in the park and banding together as a unit of collaborating peoples must have been a lot more essential to any acceptable standard of survival. So it’s no wonder all this co-dependence of yours is so ingrained in your understanding of life and what makes it more preferable.

As for me, growing up around either plenty of money or enough to afford a challengeless life, I could always get on fine being completely alienated and having to make my own challenges to make my life interesting. This goes a long way towards explaining my affinity for Nietzschean practices and why I underestimated the origin of your mentality.

(We really don’t need a peace officer when it is within our interests to gain an increased understanding and therefore to not stick to flawed ideas. Policing oneself is easy and the intrusion of inflexibility is not appreciated).

If what I judge as happening here is an adequate explanation of the situation, then there’s an important role of social background in our respective philosophies. If family values and moralised ethics enhance a struggling life with rigid reliable strict procedures, and creativity with freedom from dogma enhances a more easy life, then it follows that your principles are out of place when life is easy. Admittedly Nietzsche was a product of an affluent lifestyle, but his knowledge of the areas of life that were familiar to him was unparalleled. He was also convincing in explaining how his thoughts were timeless and applicable in all societies. But I think a certain level of security is needed before his ideas are relevant. I completely fail to see how he never grasped the evolving process of human consciousness when this is a fairly central theme of every single one of his works.

I would also agree with him in saying that most western societies are far from teenage and unmatured, but getting old and far advancing into degenerating decadence. Without complete control of the factors of life and its continued production, a society is maturing, until it harnesses its threats and then declines into perpetual satiety like in richer societies. Then it degenerates into old age and finally death as it is usurped by a younger more motivated society that still has uncontrolled necessity driving it towards increased strength. So you have it backwards. Morals are more a symptom of youth and making up for not feeling in control enough. Losing them or rebelling against them is a result of no longer needing them, not being immature. Similarly, a respect for parents is no longer needed when everything is easy and being a good teacher or pupil is a leisure activity rather than a necessity. Your idea of maturity is ingrained in a decadent society’s understanding of it, which is that peace and weakening passive restraint is synonymous with growing wise. True wisdom abandons rigidity because life doesn’t consist of straight unchanging lines. You propose to keep these rules out of their context and even after they become restrictive: to revisit the golden ages before decadence abandoned principles. This is a misunderstanding and Nietzschean ideas are a much more appropriate and progressive solution, instead of regressive.

Spyderjoe. That’s just Marxist ideals like utopian socialism or communism, right? Each according to their own ability/need etc.

49

Except for the very few
who think the poor should eat cake
for the vast majority of us who slave on the mass production lines
life has never been a walk in the park

African cultures
uncontaminated by the artificial influences of western morals
are basically hard-working and uncomplaining
they are especially spiritually joyous
they give sacrifice
and praise God and life in song and dance
where the average westerner struggles with an oral vocabulary of some 5000 words
the average African child
by puberty
has 20,000 at their command
their social communication
is rich in tribal lore metaphor and analogy
they express a vitality for life that makes westerners look anemic

You bet
and there is no reason we cannot enjoy the same elan
pseudo-intellectualism has rationalized and chewed the joy and meaning out of our lives

You are possibly the most naive person I have ever spoken to
you can blame Nietzsche for that
He is the idol of Narcissistic teenagers
one day you will grow up and wake up
and learn to deal with life in basic terms

Faust was appointed to police the rules
tho I believe he misread this thread
somebody has to keep things tidy
he and i do not agree on most things
I find him a bit of a fuss pot
but i like a neat house

Marie Antoinette
revisited ](*,)
Who caries away your shit? #-o
Do you ever give the shit-carrier his due [-X
have you ever said grace? [-o<

Nietzsche’s idea of life
never touched the true meaning or purpose of spiritual evolution
without which a comprehensive grasp of social development remains naive

Show me his definition of Animism or Shamanism
upon which the first 99,000 generations of human development was founded
without which script would never evolved
and without Scripture
and some 270 generations of rigid religious missionary effort
that went into teaching the tribes the mental disciplines of grammar
he would still be chipping stones as a hominid
and never got involved with the pseudo-intellectual scientific protest that followed all of it

Nietzsche was just another short-sighted pseudo-intellectual egotist
who never broke a sweat over a hard day’s work
sitting on his fat backside moralizing
The sooner you stop ogling empty idols
the sooner you will grow up and think for yourself

I was a teenager
and immature
and learned by my mistakes
I assumed the responsibilities of a husband and father by my 42nd year
I am now in my 70th year
with eight grown children
and a large family estate to steward
I am far from degenerate
I am approaching the peak of my own brand of wisdom
and readying myself to pass on my worldly responsibilities
there is absolutely no reason why any of us need to end up in a wheel chair
or with Alzheimer’s
that is the modern disease of the rich and lazy obese
show me one African who cannot remember his name

Each individual goes through seven distinct changes of consciousness between birth a death

Infancy
childhood
puberty
teenage
stewardship
mastership
sage hood

each altered state can be qualified and quantified
by increasingly artificial perceptions of the relative nature of time and space

The mass consciousness also evolves through identical evolutions of conscious awareness

The Stone Age man lives in the naivete of the infant
and experiences time and space on the day to day business of the hunt

The Bronze Age man lives in mind of the child
and experiences time and space in seasonal terms
of planting and harvesting

The Iron Age man is an industrial initate
who lives conscientiously by the rude rule of the thumb
and weekly wage

The Steel Age man is locked into gravity
and monthly wage
he measures time and space microscopically and macroscopically

The Nuclear Age man sees again the relative nature of time and space
and the vast cycle of evolution

The masters and sages of the future
will see the illusory nature of matter
and transcend time and space

Nietzsche saw none of this

50

You certainly like your patterns and models. I’ll assume this is because they give you a feeling of control and understanding of life. Makes sense, but like I said in my last post, “life doesn’t consist of straight unchanging lines”.

I’ll expand on what I said about this ‘true wisdom’ that recognises the above, or more precisely ‘further wisdom’, by adding that it recognises the utility of models, controls and understandings, but also surpasses and sees past them to check back at the life that you applied them to in the first place. Then you are reminded that this is the real life, not the models, controls and understandings of it.

This is why Nietzsche would have seen the sense in your proposed stages of the evolution of man, but wouldn’t have attributed them any higher value like you do.

The guy was not a fat-backsided short-sighted pseudo-intellectual, nor was he empty, my idol or someone who I ogle at. He was highly physically active as I’ve mentioned before, he even promoted this bodily reverence as complimentary to philosophy, he was a long-sighted philologist - the youngest head of philology at Basel University at only 24 years old - which would presumably indicate his widely recognised intellect and non-emptiness just a little, eh? Not to mention countless subsequent praises of the genius of his works, but what did they know?

His words are my friend because they give me so much grounds to feel in agreement, yet also challenged and inspired, where countless other philosophers have failed. We share his repeatedly explicit repulsion to idolising so the accusation that I idolise him is hilarious. He certainly recognised, not only the benefits, but the unavoidability of egotism though so at least you’re not completely wrong here.

I have been astute enough to draw out of you at least three pillars of your thoughts on life that you yourself have recognised as accurate. They confirm, with absolutely no surprise, that your propsed principles of the ideal society are based on your own experience. To take from your own experience is inevitable, but to propose your experience of life-improvement as the best life-improvement for all is a mistake until you have understood all walks of life. Perhaps I appear guilty of this unavoidable narcissism too, but are you so narcissistic yourself that you do not see that this applies to you also? Perhaps I appear to be the most naive person that you have ever spoken to because you don’t listen to yourself?

I have pre-empted this fallibility of my thoughts already in my previous post’s conjecture about you to draw more information from you, in order to better compare my thoughts to your kind of lifestyle. You have persistently belittled mine through your own inability to see the sense in them so you have forced me to feel pity for you in shaming yourself, which is cruel of you - cruelty: a sign of your dishonesty towards your floundering position. I say this NOT to request unwelcome moderation from the board’s admin, but out of respect for the mutual opportunity for challenge and thought-improvement that this thread potentially holds for either of us.

I don’t want the poor to eat cake. Nor do I want to praise the error of human narcissism that you call God.

I possess more power than you because I grew up in an anaemic, spoilt, withering, declining, rich western society and thus have the ability to live life outside of oppression because I descend from the oppressors. You are unable to see the freedom that this shameless disrespect for much of humanity has afforded me, and you continue to cower under the oppression that you grew up in even now and you misunderstandingly praise this oppression as God, ideal principles and rigid models of understanding. I am doing you a favour if any of this draws from you a tear or rage, for then you will have at least been honest finally and you might even get a glimpse of the messiness of real existence outside rigid understandings of it. Displays of emotion are wonderfully beautiful and it’s utterly crippling to me that they’re so often seen as needing to be moderated, prevented or covered up.

In you, I can envy your extensive hands-on experience in areas of life that I do not yet adequately know. But I have the freedom to afford to do so later in life, and I plan to do so. But I will never attribute the error of ‘souls’ to myself nor any other living or inanimate object, no matter how much mutual dependence or respect I have for them. Existence is plain and unfettered to me - I do not need to create backworlds of souls and spirits where the real reality really is supposed to be when I plainly see it right in front of me, continuously and free. Likewise, this is the wisdom that I touched upon at the start of this post, which also formed the foundations of Nietzsche’s much needed reparations to the blunders of philosophers before him.

In previous posts have I not painted wonderful demonstrations of beauty, spirituality and love? Clearly I know them, and only thanks to my rejection of your ‘spirituality’ in animism and shamanism. They probably served well as an outlet for the frustration of oppression that continues to enslave you, and for however many thousands of generations that took their time in becoming master of their oppression. So I respect their former utility, but now they serve well no more. This is evolution. Me and Nietzsche both recognised it.

51

Allow me to rewrite your criteria from my own perspective…

The individuals within an ideal society must be free from the following human downfalls (listed in order of importance):
1- Selfishness
2- Intellectual Arrogance
3- Hate (in any sense)
4- Love (in a romantic sense)
5- Delusions (see #4)
6- Sloth
7- Hysterical Tendencies

Personal Criteria

1- Devoid of narcissism (this solves almost every mental and social issue)
2- Maintenance of a diet having adequate calories (obviously, people need energy)
3- Clean grooming (not necessarily conservative, but actually liberal in a clean fashion)
4- Desire for financial independence (this solves many social problems before they begin)
5- “Eye for an eye” code of mentality (this creates fairness among the people)
6- Absence of delusional thinking (this solves the mental issues that #1 fails to address)
7- Capability of giving and recieving 50/50 in relationships (again, emphasis should be placed on fairness)

The legal criteria that I am presenting has two purposes in mind: To protect the general public and to secure stability for individuals.
Legal Criteria

1- Emphasis on philosophical and legal education (this promotes intellect and allows citizens to know the law, even at a young age)
2- Opportunities to acquire middle-class jobs for all high school graduates (this prevents the trivialization of primary education)
3- Restrictions on the authority of educators (this eliminates, pardon my french, BS in the classrooms)
4- Serious restrictions on the authority of school boards (this eliminates, again pardon the french, BS in the school system)
5- Stricter discrimination laws (this combats personal bias in classrooms and workplaces)
6- Discrimination laws that don’t require a basis (some people are discriminated, for example, based on their posture, which is objectively ridiculous)
7- True freedom of speech (this eliminates the obsessions that teachers, police officers, and judges have with profanity, allowing language to be regarded for what it is: a communication method)
8- True freedom of religion (this eliminates the obsessions that authority figures have with religious faith, allowing people to worship and not worship as they very well please)
9- Higher evidence requirements for sex offenses (this prevents false allegations pertaining to sex from gaining serious leverage)
10- Lowered sentence times for sex offenders (this downplays the obsessions that authority figures have with sex)
11- Legalization of ALL DRUGS for recreation use, but higher restrictions on “Public Intoxication”
12- Abolition of probabation (to prevent pestering from authority figures)
13- Illegalization of sex propaganda (this prevents anti-sex or pro-sex campaigners from assuming a position of “population control”)
14- True right to bear arms (this lowers the crime rate for gun crimes, because when everybody has one, violators won’t be so eager to fire their weapons in public)
15- Abolition of drug-testing employment entry requirements (this prevents anti-drug campaigners from gaining the power to raise the unemployment rate)
16- Self-defense laws in support of weapon use in ridiculously unfair fights (this prevents the “big guys” from seriously injuring the “little guys” and getting off with wrist slaps)
17- Two national guard members present in each classroom at all times (this allows teachers to be protected from out-of-control students and students to be protected from out-of-control teachers)
18- One national guard member per 10 inmates present in each jail or prison at all times (this protects the prisoners from authority abuse by guards… the national guard members shall be allowed to ONLY react in favor of the prisoners, when unreasonable treatment is happening)
19- Enforcement of murder laws (Life for random murder… 20 years for murder with an emotional motive, but not premeditated… 15 years for premeditated murder… random murder is most severely punished because it promotes anarchy… premeditated murder is most unseverely punished because it has a sense of order and stability to it)
20- Enforcement of thievery laws (8 years maximum… 3 months minimum… it all depends on the financial value of what was stolen by the perpetrator, along with the soundness of the evidence)
21- Military members tried in civilian court for violations irrelevant to military status (this prevents abuse of authority from happening as often in military court systems)
22- Torture prohibited, and that includes “waterboarding” (why there was a debate about whether torture is ethically correct in the first place, I have no human idea…)
23- Allowance of typical entertainment products for prisoners (just because inmates are removed from mainstream society, doesn’t mean that they should be driven to unending boredom… that would defeat the true intention of prison and jail)
24- Allowance of school students to select their own classes, regardless of age (this promotes individuality… the only required classes should be philosophy and law, which promote intellect and legal knowledge)

The list could continue, but those are my ideas for an ideal society, more free from the chains of injustice.

~~Jeff

52

It’s the ‘lesser of two evils’ justification. If one prevents genocide by killing Hitler in 1935, one can make a moral argument for doing so. If one can prevent ‘another 9/11’ (HA!) by torturing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed until he admits to everything from carrying out terrorist attacks to wearing his mother’s underwear then one can make a moral argument for doing so.

It may be an illogical, nonsensical, impractical argument, but it can be all those things while remaining a moral one.

53

Oh course a moral argument can be made… if the arguing person is arrogant enough to suggest that morality is objective… and if the arguing person is arrogant enough to predict the future.

54

Everyone predicts the future, just some people are arrogant enough to believe they are right.

Some people are even arrogant enough to not only believe they are right, but to insist other people believe they are right too. Whether it’s people who want to sell you an immortal soul or the precautionary principle doesn’t really matter.

55

I’d have to agree with you on all of this.

56

I was an aerial surveyor and cartographer for several years
a map is a very handy guide
it tells you where man has been before
so you don’t have to get lost in familiar territory

prior ancestral effort
reveals past errors
and the praise songs of past triumphs

I not only like patterns and models
I revere them
and thank our ancestors for them
and all the pains and struggles they went through
to give me such a rich inheritance
they supply us all with a solid base
to chart new courses

a long hindsight
not only reveals the present
it points accurately at the future

If Nietzsche had taken the trouble to come of Africa
and studied the primitive psyche first
like i have
before it got contaminated by the scriptural ramblings
and machinations of misinformed minds
he would have knelt at the same ancestral altar
and not ended up with the conclusions you revere
THAT is what I mean
by getting off your backside

You are a young man
with many mistakes before you

I am an old man
staring at the mistakes behind me

If you cannot respect that
and learn from it
you deserve every kick i give you

I am being cruel to you
in order to be kind

By age 9
Africa had already made me socially astute
and far ahead of your idol
I could see the mistakes of my parents
as well as my Apartheid society

the praise of an script-indoctrinated society
that has never got off its collective backside
to investigate reality for themselves
and bows before an armchair intellect
does not impress me in the slightest

57

Moral Jeff, a strange collection of laws there. Seems like a liberal expansion of current american laws.

I’d hazard to sum up that:
You don’t see more taboo leisure activities like sex and drug use as needing to be outlawed as much anymore if appropriated privately,
You want more liberalism with free speech, religious tolerance and less discrimination - defined within reason,
You want more liberalism in authoritative institutions like prisons, law courts and schools,
You want more authoritarianism concerning murder, thievery and torture.

I’d say that this is all just increased ‘human rights’ with issues that don’t even oppress anyone in europe anymore.

I think your employment concerns are much more rooted in capitalism. A large pool of unemployment is required by capitalists to ensure demand and disciple to keep your job. Also, mending this with more job supply and so, less demand, employees gain more rights to demand higher wages. With higher wages, businesses have to charge higher prices for their product/service to the public (you see the cycle here) and thus inflation increases. So under capitalism, keeping employment lower also moderates inflation. Your solution for more employment is to become a lot more socialist as a country, which in my understanding is like ‘the devil’ in america haha.

Your ideas on weapons and protection are also a fairly exclusively american issue. In europe, practically no one has guns except the country folk who have to shoot predators or pests to protect their farm or livestock. Gun crime is barely even an issue between people because we simply don’t have the guns to commit gun crime with. Gang culture thrives under conservative capitalism like in america because the poor are so much more separated from the rich. You need illegitimate bodies who need their own protection and firepower force for dominance to run more illegal drugs, the more extremely poor or higher amounts of bored unemployed can steal much more easily over there. None of this is needed under more socialist government because drugs are less outlawed, and the poor are much better catered for.

American governments just fool you lot into thinking socialism is evil because it would undermine the technological growth and global control of the super-rich that allows them more stability and power. This global imposition of their’s is what pisses off the rest of the world and causes the terrorism and wars that resorts to ridiculous measures like torture. They’ve fooled the middle class that is less affected either way and the many of the poor classes into a patriotism that unites you all into supporting what oppresses them. They turn the attention instead towards the superficial reforms of endless law alterations that wouldn’t even effect you under a more liberal socialist regime. This further legal oppression is proposed to free you, instead of revolutionising the fundamental structures in place. Even your liberals are massively conservative.

This, of course, is a rant from someone who’s not that clued up on the details, so feel free to rip into me :slight_smile:

58

MM, I recognised the use and your reverence for things like maps, patterns and models with my prior words ‘makes sense’.
Nietzsche’s whole concern was to rectify past mistakes to make for a better future with the continued revision of former ‘sense.’
He recognised the former use of rigid practice and ghost-worship. He got off his backside, found them, saw their former use, and pronounced them dead upon return to the present.

I am a young man who enjoys mistakes so very much, right beside my victories. In a good fight, a mistake is just as much a victory as flawless success. However in this thread, I have not made a mistake as I have (as said above) recognised the use of what you hold so high and dearly. Now the models have been set up, (I repeat myself once more) we look past them to the life they attempt to model. We now have both the freedom of free-life and the playthings of modelled-life.

You are an old man who stares at the mistakes behind you and sees not the mistakes you continue to make. I care not for your age, I care for your argument. Age most definitely does not always make right. Leave these rigid dictations behind. It would please me to see you enjoy your mistakes just as much as I do, so that I do not feel I have just offended you by playing with you. There is still youth in you so long as you don’t stare at it as though it is only behind you. I would rather respect elders with liberating youthful engagement, than pity them as stuck in their past glories.

I feel our lively interplay coming to an end no thanks to your rigidity, as I believe I have ascertained the conflicting issue in the above words and I have started to need to repeat myself, and you have started to primarily only repeat what I have already recognised and considered. It may have a few bounces left in it, but I would like to see them as happy bounces of flexible malleable rubber, and not smashes of rigid inflexible clay.

Do I need to re-iterate the reasons why he is my companion and not my idol? I invite you to stand up from your too-comfortable armchair with the youth that you do still have to come and investigate the real world once more behind your dusty blueprint sheets, and to feel the instability and terrifying gusts of strong refreshing wind that enliven you once again with chaos, and blow your sheets happily away.

59

since the 1960’s 200 million westerners
have taken initiation
into Eastern mysticism
a New Age ontological spiritual revival has taken place
80% of the rest of mankind
continues to believe in God

It would seem
Nietzsche’s pronunciation was a mite premature
the ghost has returned to haunt us

[/quote]
Rigidity is in the eye of the beholder
you have not moved an inch
that my eye can see
You are right
you have repeated yourself
from beginning to end

as to bounce
you are the wall I needed
to bounce ideas about idealism off
for the benefit of others

many thanks

60

Well, that’s one way to perceive it, I suppose.

Authoritarianism? What is that? (I apologize for not knowing this terminology)

I believe that, whether these things are “issues” or not, the laws I proposed should stand.

Higher unemployment raises demand? Individually, yes. Business-wise, no. In business, the “demand” is the price that people are willing to pay for a product. Obviously, if the people have no money, demand goes down because they’re not going to be “willingly” per se, to pay for the product. High unemployment has no truly positive effects, as far as I know.

If drugs were legalized, which I proposed for my ideal, then nobody could necessarily run “illegal drugs”, unless somebody unwilling to travel to a store wants a cheap, homemade version of the drug product they’re searching for. The “seriousness” of recreational drug use is so exaggerated in the United States that it’s almost laughable. If our politicians, teachers, and citizens took the time to worry about something useful, then progress could happen more hastily and pragmatically.

American governments just fool you lot into thinking socialism is evil because it would undermine the technological growth and global control of the super-rich that allows them more stability and power. This global imposition of their's is what pisses off the rest of the world and causes the terrorism and wars that resorts to ridiculous measures like torture. They've fooled the middle class that is less affected either way and the many of the poor classes into a patriotism that unites you all into supporting what oppresses them. They turn the attention instead towards the superficial reforms of endless law alterations that wouldn't even effect you under a more liberal socialist regime. This further legal oppression is proposed to free you, instead of revolutionising the fundamental structures in place. Even your liberals are massively conservative.

Nothing that restricts recreational drugs or consented sex is going to make a logical argument. Basically, “preserving my cherry” is a mentality that many females have, and they, in turn, influence our males, and that prevents a lot of sexual activity from occurring, giving our communist-driven anti-sex (or pro-sex, doesn’t matter) campaigners power over the population growth rate, which I believe is a dangerous thing to allow. On the “drugs” matter, tax dollars that COULD be useful in the United States are being spent on the incarceration of people who simply wanted to “get high” and, quite possibly, emotionally enjoy their lives. The principal argument for this anti-drug idea is: “Drugs cause health problems and should therefore be outlawed.” Obviously, this “health problems” thing is true when “drugs” are overused, but… this argument isn’t a good enough support for drug illegalization. This principal drug argument is assuming the following:

1- That the law has a right to infringe upon the private lifestyles of individuals on the “grounds” that their lifestyle is deemed cumulatively harmful.
2- That people should be protected from things that they do to themselves, but, at the same time, do not effect the general public.
3- That people with non-conservative lifestyles deserve punishment for whatever reason.

The whole idea of “SAY NO TO DRUGS” is just a stack of unfounded and detrimental assumptions. It should be a philosophy and nothing more… politicians shouldn’t listen to the people when they’re proposing that they punish each other based on contrasting lifestyles. Democracy should only go so far…

~Morall JEff