Forum: Rants
Topic: Governments....
started by: Anztac

Posted by Kayy on May 28 2000,08:02
You want my opinion on governments? I think they should be abolished, then all previous members should be hung drawn and quartered.

They take money away from us, they say its for funding for better stuff in the community and so on, when in actual fact the vast majority of it goes into the officials pockets. I mean, when was the last time you saw a government official without an expensive car (over 25,000) and their own driver?

Exactly, thats what I thought.

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When darkness calls and the pain and suffering begin again, you can guarantee that I shall be the instigator.
-
Kevin "Kayy" Beadle, The Proprietor and Innovator of Kayyos-Vx WebDesigns.


Posted by DuSTman on May 28 2000,10:51
I sorta see an inherent hypocrisy in democracy.
We bomb the shit out of dictatorships, because they are "opressive" , but what happens if you do what a democratic government says not to? They have their police throw you in a cell for years or kill you or something.

It's only because there's the occasional chance to have a very small amount of influence over who makes the decisions that people think it's good and dandy.

Really, all that serves to do is make everybody conform to the will of the majority, rather than one man.

It seems the same sort of thing to me, just democracy led governments are a fair way less dynamic than dictatorship led ones.

DuSTman


Posted by Kolben on May 28 2000,11:22
I see democracy as the best way of a society to function. Anztac is right about the overestimating people thing. You will never be able to pull the same oppinion over EVERYBODYS heads. In democracy everybody have got a voice, that will be heard, and discussed.

But if we are talking extremes I'm leaning more towards communism than anarchy even tho' I can see good stuff in both.

Communism is about helping everyone out reaching common goals. That everybody is equal. That's a wonderful thought. Karl Marx must have been the nicest person in the world. I don't think that it's an overestimation of peoples willingness to do dirty jobs. It's rather an underestimation of peoples greed and need for power. People are greedy controlfreaks, and that's why it won't work.

Anarchy is about everyones rights do do what they want. Wonderful thought, but it'll get way out of hand. People would start killing those they didn't like, and then anarchy becomes wrong. I only believe in anarchy if everyone was to obey the 10 commandments, but then it wouldn't be anarchy anymore.

Is there a word called "anarchy+10commandmentism+letshelpeachotherout"? That would be the one I'd pick anyway...just my oppinion of things

[This message has been edited by Kolben (edited May 28, 2000).]


Posted by Anztac on May 28 2000,17:05
The topic has vaugley come to surface. I like political [and intellegent] debates. So heres my ideas.
Be warned: If someone disagrees too much I will be typing thesis type posts and might crash the server

heres a [very, very brief] summery

I have read many books on anarchy, domocracy, socialism, and communism. Communism would never ever work. Just like anarchy would never work. Actually the thought of both extremes is rather amusing. I lean alot towards anarchy. I'm a rational anarchist kind 'o guy. Both overestimate people. Anarchy overestimating peoples moral judgment, and communism overestimating peoples willingness to do dirty jobs just for the sake of state. Now your opinions.

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~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by Anztac on May 28 2000,19:09
Why kill 2/3rd's of the population when you can use them for vast coloniztion?

Democracy overestimates peoples intelligence as a whole. It also oversimplifies the worlds problems.

In a communism who would be a trash man when they could be a manager? If at birth you were determined to be a manager and went through bussiness school that would be socilal engineering. Social engineering would never be excepted. If people wnet through life not knowing what they were going to do then you'll have a whole bunch of uncertified managers and not enough trash collectors.

Now anarchy just doesn't make sense because everything has an underlying order. I said rational anarchy. Meaning that there always has to be some government.

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~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by DuSTman on May 29 2000,05:35
I don't think democracy is quite as ideal as you think there, kolben.

Democracies rely on politicians, whose primary goal is often their career. Whatever course of action that will lead to a government staying in power, will be taken by the government.

This totally disempowers democratic governments from doing things that would be unpopular. This would be fine in an ideal world, as in an ideal world nothing unpopular would need to be done. Ideal the world isn't.

The main problem the world has, as i see it, is the population growth curve. The number of people on earth is rising exponentially, and nothing significant is being done to combat this.

Look at the natural world, rescources for each creature to survive have to come from somewhere.. We have grown sufficiently good at processing the planet to allow for huge rescource usage, but in doing so we destroy many of these rescources. There are widespread environmental issues now, due to our rescourse usage, and this is mainly due to the exponential population growth.

It will be too late, under a world governed by democracies, that enough is done to kerb this growth. The species will be doomed by that time.

What can be done to avoid such a shortfall problem? Why, simple, Kill 2/3 of the population at random, is what i would recommend. It needs done. It won't be done.
We are doomed.


Posted by DuSTman on May 29 2000,08:49
Vast colonisation?

Of where, exactly?

Space?

You're suggesting we colonise space by cramming 4 billion people on a space shuttle, and send them off to terraform mars?

Hmmn.

Despotic dictatorship is the ONLY form of government that can be effective against the worlds problems today.


Posted by Kolben on May 29 2000,13:17
Dustman...you're watching way too little Star Trek!!
Posted by DuSTman on May 29 2000,14:29
Kolb: Yeah, i know.

I'm at university.. No telly...


Posted by Anztac on May 29 2000,16:21
Yes mars. But, the moon first.

Dictatorships never work. as for Despotic Dictatorships, well I have absolutley no idea what that is. Enlighten me.

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~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]

[This message has been edited by Anztac (edited May 29, 2000).]


Posted by Bob_Cannibal on May 29 2000,16:43
you all are forgetting what kind of democracy you are talking about...

you all are talking american (representative) democracy: we elect people we like/have same ideals as we do, they do what they said they would... sometimes...

pure demo. is better... we all have large voting systems, we pick what we want, and it's direct and final.

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Naw git offa mah Properdy!™


Posted by simulacrum on May 29 2000,18:30
Bob, there is a reason that pure democracy doesn't work. The majority public is educated enough to make intelligent decisions on the majority of topics at hand! Many of the issues that require decisions have lots of information revolving around it, and most of the population isn't going to study up on each issue to make an educated decision. Especially politics.
Posted by DuSTman on May 30 2000,07:40
You wouldn't need so many people to make nikes, cheap computers etc if there wern't so many people about. You'd still need some. I'm not saying kill everyone. Just about 2/3 people..

We need an alteration to our society, i'm not suggesting doing away with society as a whole. We benefit from each others skill due to our society, but with a society of 2Bn will be enough. 6Bn people is just insane.

I'm not preaching self reliance really.

Yes, dictatorship is a police state, but so is any other government. The force that a government can exhert on people is why people have to obey their governments.


Posted by Lizzy on May 30 2000,08:05
It's about who you remove from the planet. Eliminating China and India would probably cut the world's population in half. Most of the people there are poor or starving and of no real use to society. I wouldn't support killing them, but if none of them could have children, that would solve a big problem.
Posted by DuSTman on May 30 2000,08:54
Yes. China are doing that - the chinese people have to have licences to have children.

Not a bad solution, but it still lacks quite the "bite" needed..


Posted by Anztac on May 30 2000,09:24
Ok usually I'm not one for rational answers, but you guy are talking mass genocide! WTF! theres no way you guys are serious and if you are then your fucking insane! If we start saying "lets kill all Chinese people" and "No one can live on this planet unless they agree to these rules" we have efectivlry become the Fourth Reich. Why would we want to eliminate China anyways? You say because they're mostly starving and not producing anything? You got it all wrong. They're all starving and producing everything and were fattening and producing practically nothing. So obviously Dust's solution isn't right. Next!

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~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by Vigilante on May 30 2000,09:55
Yup.

/me pats his paunch

I could probably feed two dozen chinese. God bless America.


Posted by veistran on May 30 2000,17:03
Whoever said it first put it best, Anarchy relies too much on people's morality and communism requires too much on a person being more willing to do something for the benefit of the whole as opposed to the benefit of them and maybe their immeadiate circle of friends and family. Democracy has worked out best of all the systems so far imho, look at America enough history in 200 years to put not a few of the 'Olde World' countries to shame. For better or worse, democracy is the thing that seems to have worked best yet, doesn't mean there isn't somethig better out there, but basically the problems with alot of the 'ideal' things is that they require too many people to be nice reasonably smart well rounded indivduals, and that's just not happening.

As for killing off 2/3's of the population, who's going to make those cheap computers, those nikes, and the clothes your wearing? Huh, what? Honestly, if I don't hear another hipocrite preaching self reliance I'll die happy. :P

It really suprises me how many people don't realize how good a thing the have going until it's gone. Then again maybe I don't afterall my favorite saying is "People iz dumb".
Now go on throw around your ideal this and ideal that, I want to see someone come up with a practical solution for once.

What is a dictatorship but a police state?

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Veistran

It's late so if I'm confusing I blame it on that.


Posted by DuSTman on May 30 2000,18:37
Well, the mean rescources we use now.

rescources used=no. people on planet * mean rescource usage per person on planet = too much.

It's the overall rescources used we have to cut down on, because farms are being overworkek etc, rainforests are being destroyed faster than they grow etc...

However, reducing the mean rescource usage per head would only be a temporary solution, the population would grow more, offsetting this, and then we're back in the same situation.

I am aware that taking the population cull route gives only a temporary fix as well, but the process of culling a portion of the populace is repeatable ad infinitum.. A person needs a minimum of rescources to survive on.

Yes, we could reduce rescource usage per head in america to that of china. That would help.. The Population would grow and soon we're back at the same rescource usage.


Posted by veistran on May 30 2000,19:12
I wouldn't worry too much about the chinese, with the 1 child per family many/most of the families have chosen to have males, as a result there are in this latest generation a lack of wives to go around.

Now why have I have seen an almost mirror of this discussion starting in three different places from three different starting points, starting point one, population control. starting point 2, asain pride, (don't ask this was convoluted as hell and I only read it and didn't bother to get in it), and now starting point three, government.

Insane.... it's the way things work, 1st world nations are generally service based economies, second world countries tend toward manufacturing economies, and third world tend toward agragarian economies....
They all depend on eachother to function though. Look at it this way. American buisness wants to manufacture X to build and operate a plant in america employing union workers would cost them say ฤ- an hour. To do the same thing in China would cost them thousands less to build, and they'd be paying them almost nothing compared to the union workers. so then minus the export costs and shipping costs let's say they're still comming out ahead 300\% of what doing it in America would cost. Where would you do it? When it's all about bottom lines, China/Taiwan etc... would be the place to go. And so many people say that it's abuse of them, think about it literally, w/o those factories the chinese would all be working in rice paddies still. If it was you, would you rather work in a factory or a rice paddy for your dollar a day? It may not seem fair, but to them it provides them witha better standard of living and that's what it comes down to. See how it works? It may not seem fair to you, and that's fine but your standard of living is different from theirs.

As for right and wrong and culling of the weak... sure you're saying that now, but I doubt you'd be saying that it was quite alright for me to kill if I walked up to you kicked you in the nuts whiped out a .45 and stuck it to your forehead, now would you? Afterall me getting you into that position would mean that you're weak. No, You and most likely all of us would maybe lose control of their bladder, and start crying like a baby. I doubt anyone can honestly say they'd ask me to pull the trigger right then and there.:P

[This message has been edited by veistran (edited May 30, 2000).]


Posted by Lizzy on May 30 2000,19:20
I don't think anyone "chose" to have males. That's pretty impossible unless they fertilize the egg in a lab with a sperm that would make a boy.
Posted by Vigilante on May 30 2000,20:24
I would have to say... "Do it! Do it fucker! Gimme the fuckin gun, I'll do it for ya!"
Posted by incubus on May 30 2000,20:32
Lizzy - they choose to have males in a rather harsh way. Males are the best money earners in that country, so if a woman has a baby, normally if its a girl they will kill it or abandon it so that they dont use up their quota (each family only allowed one child). Harsh but its human nature and they are forced to it.

I believe in "soft anarchy" - its a european concept ... with some principles of anachy like wealth redistribution, but the nasty bits taken out (like we do need police, etc.).

My 2 doubloons ...

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-- incubus
As I chase the leaves like the words I never find ...


Posted by Lizzy on May 30 2000,20:42
That's not choosing to have males, that's choosing to keep them.
Posted by veistran on May 30 2000,21:43
It's pretty much the same difference. They also do it, because they want someone to carry on their name and because ther want someone to take care of them in their old age.
Posted by Anztac on May 30 2000,22:15
Ok enough about Chinese. Does anyone have an idea. How about a totally irational one? Come on! Some one.

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~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by simulacrum on May 30 2000,22:20
I've got an irrational population control idea: Everyone kill yourself. As soon as you read this, kill yourself. Just imagine the tribute that would go to cr0! He'd go down as one of the first Internet cult leaders with a mass suicide. Ummm...I'm not reading this thread after I post this...
Posted by Anztac on May 30 2000,22:29
Hehe. That's funny. Well killing everyone one det.net would solve alot of the worlds problems ;-) even though theres only like 150 people here. Cr0 give us your enlightened opinion.

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~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by Happyfish on May 31 2000,00:20
quote:
Originally posted by incubus:

I believe in "soft anarchy" - its a european concept ... with some principles of anachy like wealth redistribution, but the nasty bits taken out (like we do need police, etc.).



I'm confused. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought Anarchy was lack of government. How does wealth redistribution fit in here? Thought that was a communist idea..

My opinion: The less government control, the better. Keep taxes low and people will spend their money and keep the economy flowing. Supply and demand, etc. I think a strict crimal code is a good idea though. And, I would like to see a society where social services such as welfare aren't necessary. I think they are to some extent, which is too bad because governments seem to screw things like that up (as in wasting money). In the past religious groups used to take care of the poor, but that time has passed.

[This message has been edited by Happyfish (edited May 30, 2000).]


Posted by Lizzy on May 31 2000,00:29
I think "wealth redistribution" in anarchy may mean beating up the rich people and taking their money, so everyone has lots.
Posted by Dan on May 31 2000,00:37
Democracy works. Anarchy doesent. Communism Doesent.

The only form of goverment better than Democracy is Danacracy, basicaly I get everything, the rest of you dwell at my feet, and run the power plants that power my royal computers... 4000000-strong net of xeon 10000ghz processors invented by you, my petty slaves... (Oh yeah, me super duper computers 5023023 gigabytes of ram, enough to play 103 instances of quake and still have enoigh to pirate Win2k from a w4r3z ftp site, and watch pam and tommy... )

im done, im insane, leave me alone

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< www.refsoft.com
buy > something, make me happy.


Posted by Dan on May 31 2000,00:41
I actualy agree with this. China's only contribution lattly is a mini-tiny bit of a challange to the U.S.'s super power status (something I personaly would like to maintain for ever...) and the manuafturing industry.

On the ohter hand India has contributed nothing except threats to pakastan. If any nation should go I cant think of a better one than India. No offence, im sure there are tons of good people there, but the world is crowded and I'm sorry to say but india is pretty much worthless...

quote:
Originally posted by Lizzy:
It's about who you remove from the planet. Eliminating China and India would probably cut the world's population in half. Most of the people there are poor or starving and of no real use to society. I wouldn't support killing them, but if none of them could have children, that would solve a big problem.

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< www.refsoft.com
buy > something, make me happy.


Posted by Dan on May 31 2000,00:43
My dad drives a cab (though he used to be a nuclear physist, but thats a whole other story) , in chicago. We live in a three story house, own two computers, a dog, a bunch of tvs and alot of other really expensive stuff... and we are not indebpt... Just proves that if you have half a brain but a shitty job you can still live a good life in America... How many other countrys can you say that about (definatly not india and china...)

quote:
Originally posted by Vigilante:
Yup.

/me pats his paunch

I could probably feed two dozen chinese. God bless America.


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< www.refsoft.com
buy > something, make me happy.


Posted by xaustinx on May 31 2000,00:46
are you really this stupid or are u just pretending too add fuel to the fire?

quote:
Originally posted by Lizzy:
It's about who you remove from the planet. Eliminating China and India would probably cut the world's population in half. Most of the people there are poor or starving and of no real use to society. I wouldn't support killing them, but if none of them could have children, that would solve a big problem.


Posted by xaustinx on May 31 2000,00:50
"he used to be a nuclear physist" the leads me to believe that he entered his position as a cab driver with a little money, not to belay your point but that's not an accurate portrayal of intelligence conquering poverty

quote:
Originally posted by Dan:
My dad drives a cab (though he used to be a nuclear physist, but thats a whole other story) , in chicago. We live in a three story house, own two computers, a dog, a bunch of tvs and alot of other really expensive stuff... and we are not indebpt... Just proves that if you have half a brain but a shitty job you can still live a good life in America... How many other countrys can you say that about (definatly not india and china...)



Posted by xaustinx on May 31 2000,00:59
why not just deveolop recycling technologies to the point where they reach equilibrium or even surpas equilibrium. Until then everyone is only allowed one child.. all extra children will be liquified and used for an energy source (matrix)
Posted by cr0bar on May 31 2000,01:26
/me steps in to interrupt, since everyone else is afraid to:


You're on a roll talking to yourself, bud. Get your head checked.

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"Everyone's favorite implement for any task"
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Posted by Anztac on May 31 2000,01:29
What's your opinion cr0? Tell Me TELL ME!
Posted by Serpwidgets on May 31 2000,02:16
Dustman says: "We must not get bogged down with this Right/wrong concept stopping us doing what must be done to preserve the longevity of our species."

Ummm.. why are you assuming that "the longevity of our species" has some special value to the universe when in fact it does not? The universe cares as much about our species as it does about right and wrong. The same line of irrationally-based logic that dictates that we must be preserved is the same basis for the idea that there is such a thing as right/wrong.

You cannot have one without the other, and since you value the former, you must logically extend to value the latter.

As for the idea that 2/3 of the population must be killed off to preserve the species, where exactly do you come up with this number? I've heard plenty of other estimates, including one that says Earth could support up to 50 billion people. Are we just to assume that the guesstimate you quote is true and murder 4 billion people, just in case it is?

Oh, and the US is not a democracy, it's a representative republic. Big difference.

As far as the best form of government to have, they all suck, but they are better than the alternative of anarchy. Humans are the reason that governments are necessary. And don't get all noble about how natural selection has somehow granted us with some mystical intrinsic greatness. Remember that we are all the progeny of the cavemen who beat the shit out of everyone else and wanted to fuck all the time. Oh, how proud we must all be...

All ideals of governments are destroyed in the face of human nature. A good rule of thumb is that any system which proposes to eliminate human suffering is going to suck. Being pragmatic is the only way to reign in idealism and come up with a good solution. Personally, the best I've seen as of yet is the one they have in Starship Troopers. If you guarantee that every citizen has had to earn their rights, you get a much better chance that they will give a shit and not piss it all away as we Americans are so fond of doing.


Posted by Anztac on May 31 2000,02:21
Actually I had forgotten Starship Troopers. I am rather fond of most of the ideas in it. That is probably the best solution anyone has proposed to the problem.

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~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by damien_s_lucifer on May 31 2000,04:01
as far as population control goes... has anyone realized that in most 1st world country that population is *declining?* The only reason the US population is slowly increasing is because of immigration.

Also... so far, the most effective method of reducing population growth without resorting to killing people (ugh) is empowering women. There are organizations that make microloans to women so they can start their own business... even if it means buying a cell phone and letting the other villagers pay Ũ.15 a minute to use it. Once this stuff happens, the women have fewer babies... why breed when there's greed?

so you see... the "bad" qualities of people can be used in a positive way.


Posted by Lizzy on May 31 2000,04:41
Cool, gimme money, and I won't have any kids for a while either!
Posted by DuSTman on May 31 2000,05:28
quote:
Originally posted by Anztac:
Ok usually I'm not one for rational answers, but you guy are talking mass genocide! WTF! theres no way you guys are serious and if you are then your fucking insane! If we start saying "lets kill all Chinese people" and "No one can live on this planet unless they agree to these rules" we have efectivlry become the Fourth Reich. Why would we want to eliminate China anyways? You say because they're mostly starving and not producing anything? You got it all wrong. They're all starving and producing [b]everything and were fattening and producing practically nothing. So obviously Dust's solution isn't right. Next!

[/B]


Free your mind anztac!

I didn't suggest going after china specifically. I just said that there must be a culling of a significant percentage of the population in order to reduce the population to a level that the world can sustain with the amount of rescources per person we use now without causing significant environmental damage. Environmental damage that would kill all of us in the end, most likely..

Would you rather 2/3 of the population die or all of it? Yes, it's a mass cull. Yes, there would be moral outcry.

Morals arn't logic. I personally do not believe in right and wrong, per se.

"It is wrong to kill" - err, what was the question? There is no evidence to suggest that by killing somebody we piss the universe off. Right and wrong, as most people think of it, would be as if it was a property of the universe, it isn't, it's about how they feel about doing certain things. Personally i'm not sure if this morality has evolved into us as an enhancement to our instincs, or just trained into us from society, but one thing is certain, the theory that some actions are right and wrong fundamentally is not supportable by any logic.

We must not get bogged down with this Right/wrong concept stopping us doing what must be done to preserve the longevity of our species.

Kill people. It makes sense.

You are, of course, free to think of me as some insane psychopath, but that won't help.

I seriously doubt there can be any entirely logically provable refutation of the thoery that morality is bullshit. If you can think of one, tell me.


Posted by DuSTman on May 31 2000,05:29
quote:
Originally posted by Anztac:
Ok usually I'm not one for rational answers, but you guy are talking mass genocide! WTF! theres no way you guys are serious and if you are then your fucking insane! If we start saying "lets kill all Chinese people" and "No one can live on this planet unless they agree to these rules" we have efectivlry become the Fourth Reich. Why would we want to eliminate China anyways? You say because they're mostly starving and not producing anything? You got it all wrong. They're all starving and producing [b]everything and were fattening and producing practically nothing. So obviously Dust's solution isn't right. Next!

[/B]


Free your mind anztac!

I didn't suggest going after china specifically. I just said that there must be a culling of a significant percentage of the population in order to reduce the population to a level that the world can sustain with the amount of rescources per person we use now without causing significant environmental damage. Environmental damage that would kill all of us in the end, most likely..

Would you rather 2/3 of the population die or all of it? Yes, it's a mass cull. Yes, there would be moral outcry.

Morals arn't logic. I personally do not believe in right and wrong, per se.

"It is wrong to kill" - err, what was the question? There is no evidence to suggest that by killing somebody we piss the universe off. Right and wrong, as most people think of it, would be as if it was a property of the universe, it isn't, it's about how they feel about doing certain things. Personally i'm not sure if this morality has evolved into us as an enhancement to our instincs, or just trained into us from society, but one thing is certain, the theory that some actions are right and wrong fundamentally is not supportable by any logic.

We must not get bogged down with this Right/wrong concept stopping us doing what must be done to preserve the longevity of our species.

Kill people. It makes sense.

You are, of course, free to think of me as some insane psychopath, but that won't help.

I seriously doubt there can be any entirely logically provable refutation of the thoery that morality is bullshit. If you can think of one, tell me.


Posted by Anztac on May 31 2000,05:51
Ok I think not killing people is an inbourne sense that has to do with the preservation of species instinct. I think the only case where killing people would seem right would be in either self defense, or, if you can extend preservation of species and self to preservation of coutry, in war.

When you say "in order to reduce the population to a level that the world can sustain with the amount of rescources per person we use now" you mean of course the amount of resources America uses per person. China, seeing as their people are starving, does not use nearly as much resources per person. In china, by the way, the best way to insure your own survival is either by working your ass off your whole life, or having a child to do it for you. And in a lot of cases both.

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~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by Aethr on May 31 2000,08:57
quote:
Originally posted by Anztac:
Actually I had forgotten Starship Troopers. I am rather fond of most of the ideas in it. That is probably the best solution anyone has proposed to the problem.



I must say I agree with you. He had some very good (if a little controversial) ideas about punishment and voting rights. Now all we need is someone with the guts to try and pass it as law...


To be honest though, I don't think there is such a thing as a good government. As far as I can tell any form of government is intrinsically flawed in that human beings are, at root, selfish creatures. If you study evolution at all ("The Selfish Gene" is a good book), you'll learn that altruistic behaviour is generally directed toward siblings. When the choice is between a small amount of good to a large number of people, only a few of whom are closely related to yourself, compared to a large amount of good to onesself (ie a bribe, 'approprating' resources) then it is obvious which is, evolutionarily speaking, the better choice. Hence, those humans (or proto-humans) who make choices like that will survive and breed, whereas altruistic creatures will die off.


Systems like 'morals' are a purely social construct, to try and counter the innate selfish tendencies of humans. The reason they survive is that a society is better than an individual (pooling of resources, etc etc etc). However, without socially-instilled morals, and 'normal' (ie selfish) human would simply steal, cheat or whatever to ensure the maximum gains from the minimum effort. Of course, if everyone did this then society would collapse, hence moral systems become evolutionarily benificial. It's a simple win-loss matrix: for a two person interaction, consider two possible actions: selfish (s) and altruistic (a). The matrix below shows the outcome of your choices - your gain is before the slash, your 'partner's gain is after (an abstract number to represent how much you gain/lose) (God only knows if this is going to format OK. Here goes nothing...)


other
s a
y s 0/0 5/0
o
u a 0/5 3/3


If you add the numbers up, logically you would both be better off if you are both altruistic. Of course, this is only the simplist explanation but I don't have time for an essay (like I haven't written one already).


Of course, in a large society small amounts of selfishness will not destroy the society, hence the reason corruption etc still exists.


Just to summarise:


  • Anarchy fails because without control, all humans will act selfishly (all lose)
  • Representative Democracy fails because those chosen to represent would rather be selfish than provide a small amount of good to the masses (greed wins)
  • True democracy fails because it relies on the public being interested enough to research every damn topic that comes up (apathy wins)
  • Communism fails becuase those chosen to 'represent' the people are, inevitably, vulnerable to corruption (Greed wins, yet again)

So there you have it, my ten pence worth of flamebait. Enjoy.


-- Aethr


Posted by DuSTman on May 31 2000,10:14
quote:
Originally posted by Serpwidgets:
[B]Dustman says: "We must not get bogged down with this Right/wrong concept stopping us doing what must be done to preserve the longevity of our species."

Ummm.. why are you assuming that "the longevity of our species" has some special value to the universe when in fact it does not? The universe cares as much about our species as it does about right and wrong. The same line of irrationally-based logic that dictates that we must be preserved is the same basis for the idea that there is such a thing as right/wrong.

You cannot have one without the other, and since you value the former, you must logically extend to value the latter.

As for the idea that 2/3 of the population must be killed off to preserve the species, where exactly do you come up with this number? I've heard plenty of other estimates, including one that says Earth could support up to 50 billion people. Are we just to assume that the guesstimate you quote is true and murder 4 billion people, just in case it is?

[B]


True, the universe itself does not care about how our species survive. However, thinking that there is no great purpose to it, we would just end up doing nothing all day. When you're dead, it is the absence of everything (i believe) and i suspect being alive is a whole lot more fun. To make being alive worthwhile you have to follow your instincts to a certain extent. True, there is no reason to preserve our species on the scale of things, but the thought of our extinction looming weighs heavy on my mind..

The thought of some pensioner getting her head smashed in so someone can steal the contents of her purse.. Please.. I don't give a sh1t.

To support 50 billion people we would first have to do some crazy stuff to the planet.. With that population it's be one big city, food grown in hydroponics, the choking stench of the car exhausts almost knocking you unconscious.

Yes. I think 4 billion people would be a sensible amount of people to murder.


Posted by SimplyModest on May 31 2000,10:16
I believe a pratical question is in order..

where are we gonna put 4 billion dead bodies ?


Posted by Wolfguard on May 31 2000,11:16
Poly=many
Ticks=small blood sucking animals.

If progress means to move forward then congress means to...?

Here are my thoughts. I would kill off 90\% of the population and then use the remaining 10 percent as my slaves so that I could rebuild. Don't worry, when the time comes you will all have jobs. Ill even appoint cr0bar as head of the loyal opposition so that he could safely rant against me. I would be a shame to waste such a resource.
As for where the bodies would go, I'm sure they would make good fertilizer. Or could be used as a fuel source.
Sorry, its the German in me.

Enough of that. The problem with the gov we have today is that you only have 2 choices and they both suck. Once the person is in there you can't get rid of them. What we need is a way to force an election any November we want so that we can get rid of people that lied to us. It would not make a difference right away but once they saw that their job relied on their job performance they would tend to listen better. We don't need a better form of government we just need to fix the one we have now.

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The gene pool has no life guard, support the GPPTF (Gene Pool Purification Task Force)


Posted by Kuros on May 31 2000,11:40
Wasn't the Nazi regime meant to be the most efficent system around, but it was only because of corrupt people like Hitler that it failed.

Within the time of WW1 + WW2, the germans managed to restructure their economy and actually become a power to be acknowledged - only they went too far.

As for the Population thing, I believe the most recent figures are showing that most devolped countries have declining birth rates but people are living longer, so perhaps a solution such as Loguns Run should be taken.

It may be extreme but I do believe that we should nuke China, India get the areas under control now - before they start WW3.


Posted by SimplyModest on May 31 2000,11:49
about te body thing... anyone else think that is if kill 90\% of the world pop. then the rest will die from the disease that the 5 billion rotting corpses will spawn?

eh... personally, if you are gonna keep 10\% of the peopl id makes sure 9\% are doctors..

(make sense to me) have an entire world of doctors, and the people who lead them.


Posted by Kuros on May 31 2000,11:56
I may like my films, but surely the authoritys would take an approach like Soluent Green,
-- Kill all the grannies then feed them to the remaining populous, overcomes the rotting part, solves their food supply, recycle the bodies ?

okay, I am getting seriously freaked out here, can I really be this twisted?


Posted by adeadlyintegral on May 31 2000,13:34
here's my idea about the population control thing... no one actually knows how much population the earth can support, especially with increases in technology and all those other things~ and also, choosing whoever is killed or sterilized or whatever is just going to be the people with power choosing that simple peasants (in china) aren't worth as much as them because they contribute nothing... to the people with power...
so... what you do is, wait until the earth's population reaches a real bad number, then there are not enough resources to support that population, then people go to war to steal food from other people, and bunches of people die... or the next influenza plaque hits, whichever one, and no one listened to some lil psychopathic ecocentric doomsday rant about killing people off because they were dooming the human race =D ... or the earths population decreases due to better birth control or whatnot or we go off into space whatever and everyone dies happy instead of bein killed by pop. control police for no reason =D

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Posted by Octavian on May 31 2000,13:45
to start out, yes, any form of governement is flawed. but i do believe that it is a necessity. people cannot govern themselves. it is impossible. human nature is to be greedy, selfish, and self-fulfilling, without a care in the world about anyone else outside their immediate family, and that would probably go after a couple of generations of anarchy anyway. communism doesn't factor in human greed and selfishness, democracy forgets human apathy, anarchy downplays idiocy.

as far as the best government we have right now, i have to be full of my american self and say ours. the most efficient is a dictatorship, but you won't get more than 1 or 2 good rulers before an idiot gets in power and the whole country goes to shit. the REPUBLIC that the u.s. in under is flawed, i will admit. most of the politicians are only concerned with their own career and money, but not many of them are doing much worse than wasting my tax dollars. i can live with that, bitching the whole way. the voters are apathetic even now, so almost no new people come in, and that sucks. but don't bitch to me, i vote. the starship troopers idea is very intruiging to say the least.

killing 1/2 of the population sounds like a good idea. 2/3 is too much, i need people to make my ram for me. anyway, it's a start. and i'm not saying it needs to be one ethnicity or one country. i work at a retail pet store in missouri, and i could peg a lot of people in that store that serve no purpose here on earth but to take up my oxygen. give ruling power to a select few people with very good judgement, namely me, and let them pick the worthless scum that will die and no one will miss. even put the people in pairs so they can argue about it so it can't be a personal thing. as far as where to put the bodies, i'm all for the fertilizer idea, but we have this huge depressed area in the earth, it's filled with water, maybe you've heard of it, it's called the ocean. we also have these things called barges that can hold thousands of tons of cargo. now all we have to do is find the people to throw the bodies overboard. . . we can pay those third-world workers their dollar a day to do that. but if you want to go old-school, take the nazi-esque route and just cremate them. they did 6 million or more in a short time with few burners. imagine what the whole world united can do. (by the way, i am half german)

as far as the kid thing goes, i'm with an idea that i heard on loveline a long time ago (on the radio, the tv version sucks). put birth control in tap water. what do poor people who have lots of kids and go on welfare drink? that's right, tap water because they can't afford anything else. rich people who can afford kids buy bottled water or some other drink. it can even be done silently so people don't get their panties in a bunch about their rights being violated.

i do belive in right and wrong, but i also belive if you have a good reason, namely the preservation of the species, doing something bad is ok. i do something bad every day, even every hour. and if you go the religious way, god says every sin is the same, so theoretically it doesn't matter if you think an impure thought or kill off half the world population. i'm not sure i believe that, but it's what i would use for propoganda.

in the end, it comes down to how much we want this species to survive. face it, sooner or later, we're going to kill ourselves. whether by nuclear war, a plague of our own creation, or mass suicide, we as a species are going to die. and the universe doesn't give a rat's ass. that's right, contrary to everything you've been fed since birth, not everything you do has a profound impact on earth, the universe, your country, your community, or even your own life. our lives are mainly controlled by politicians, bosses, parents, and the like. authority figures. everyone has to answer to someone. that's the way it works.

that's about all i can think of off the top of my head. you may think i'm twisted and have psychological problems, but don't worry, i don't have plans to start this movement. soon. . .


Posted by Wolfguard on May 31 2000,13:54
I agree, there are just way to many people out there that do nothing but make more useless people. All i keep thinking every day is "where are we going and wtf am i doing in this hand basket?" Face facts. We could get rid of quite a bit of the population. As soon as the ACLU gets wind of it they will try to stop it. Im thinking that the ACLU must go first. Im so sick of part of my pay going to some moron that thinks he dont have to work for a living. Some lazy POS that sits around and increases the population that i have to support. We can start right here in the US. Kill off the stupid and their families. The kind of people that think wellfare means dont work, ever. the kind of people that sue at the drop of a hat. The morons that cant drive and do 45 in a 65 zone. Keep the stupid people out of the gene pool and the world will be a better place in a single genaration.

Support the GPPTF!

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The gene pool has no life guard, support the GPPTF (Gene Pool Purification Task Force)
http://www.geocities.com/jgoeke610/


Posted by Serpwidgets on May 31 2000,15:17
The whole population control idea is flawed. It is ridiculous to assume that the survival of a species is important and at the same time assume that any randomly-picked members of that species are unimportant. After all, the reason the species is important to us is because of our belief that we as individuals have some part in that.

I recently read an interesting Star Wars book that had a quote that was something like, "Don't put the needs of the galaxy at such importance that you forget about the individuals within it."

What I'm saying is: Before you go running off trying to fix the big picture, realize that it is only a product of all the little pictures.

As far as more reasonable measures to reduce the amounts of stupid people in the gene pool, how about PSA ads that say, "Suicide is cool," and "play in traffic, it's fun!"


Posted by Serpwidgets on May 31 2000,15:27
Oh, and someone was complaining about only having 2 choices in elections. Here's your solution: vote for someone else. There are many more candidates out there, but people are not thinking more than one election ahead. If you don't vote for a 3rd (4th, etc.) party candidate simply because you know they aren't going to win this election, then how can you expect them to ever have a viable chance in any future elections when even the people who believe in them will not suport them?

Beware that apathy breeds extremism. That is how the Nazi party got into control: they convinced people that the system didn't work(and Palpatine... coincidence or did Lucas take a lesson from history?) Extremists always vote, and when the mainstream stops caring the only votes left are those of the extremes.


Posted by Nero on May 31 2000,16:22
now i gotta remember two pages of shit (figuratively, of course) so if i misquote you, blow me.

let's randomly kill off three billion people. you will like it. it will be fun. are you drunk?!?! hitler, who we can all agree was nuttier than a payday, wrote a damn book about that. yeah, mein kampf. that's the first chapter. i haven't made it past that so i don't know where he went from there (warsaw ghetto, i imagine), but the first chapter says that we should kill everyone below a certain "iq." (he had some other, similar, form of measurement). that's ludicrous. but i fully agree. i imagine i'd make the cut, i'm cool with it. but what about my friends? (to hell with my family, i didn't pick 'em) i've some good buddies that i wouldn't want to sacrifice, but that's just because i know them. so who draws the line? i'd say kill everyone under 130. then one of two things would happen:

A: the sub 130's revolt and pull a 187 on everyone over 130 or

B: we decide to move it up to 135. and then 140. etc.

little problem. hell, to go back to star trek, one of my favorite episodes was "who watches the watchers". or was that at the begging of the stand?

the problem is the people. and there was the whole long dis about india and pakistan and china. i don't know anyone that's chinese, so that doesn't bother me, but i have a friend that's a paki that's right up there intelligence-wise with ghandi and cr0. cause you gotta respect ghandi, he did what i doubt any of us (i.e. me) would do, he spent large portions of his life in jail, in suffering, for the common good. and they killed him for it. his own people killed him.

now that i've lost my train of thought i volunteer to be on the first settlement of space.

--cracka ass wannabe


Posted by Hellraiser on May 31 2000,18:07
A simpler way would be to use the existing populus as slaves to build a self-sustaining expedition to colinize another planet with a genepool of roughly 20,000 perfect human specimens. Then when the colony is established, nuke this planet and be done with it. We're already doing all we can to fuX0r the planet, we might as well go all the way. Then we wouldn't have to worry about rotting bodies, they'd all be ash and nuclear fallout.

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Posted by incubus on May 31 2000,18:37
Dustman ... are you on crack?

Mind control?
Wiping out the population?
Massive military presence?

You don't have one of those little charlie chaplin moustaches, do you ?!?

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-- incubus
As I chase the leaves like the words I never find ...


Posted by MeNotEvil on May 31 2000,20:31
MIB: "a person is smart... People are stupid."

Any organized process that relies on people will have faults. People have opinions, and when forced to choose, will choose either the greater good, or the lesser evil (or whatever is funniest). Political concessions will always have to be made, as a person will choose what is in his/her best interest.

I feel that the best mix of politics would be a Socialistic Democracy (figgger that out).

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Reality is what happens between drunken blackouts


Posted by Nero on May 31 2000,20:35
see, i'm one of those weird kids that reads a lot and plays with computers... oh, maybe everyone can relate. anyway.

dustman, you ever read 1984? that's the shit you need. i dig the anti utopias and your idea is a combo of Huxley's "Brave New World" and Orwell's "1984." You're talking about mind control as a long term plan (i have to assume you're more or less serious) and military presence as the short term solution. so my question is, how do you plan to recruit, train, arm, and-most importantly-control a 1.2 billion soldiers. they would be bigger parasites on global resources than the current population already is. besides, soldiers need prostitutes, and they'd get real angry as soon as they ran out; there just wouldn't be that many ho's in the world if 1.2 BILLION people were under arms.

the only way that form of route would work is through propaganda. or really good advertising.

[This message has been edited by Nero (edited May 31, 2000).]


Posted by Serpwidgets on May 31 2000,22:17
Wow! Genocide, mind control, military state, absolute authoritarianism. Let's kill off 66\% of the population and pith the rest of it. Could you remind me what is the point of all of this? Oh yeah, to make the world a better place for humans... what a great solution!

Have you gotten the point yet? There is NO political panacea. Can you say, "duh?"


Posted by Octavian on May 31 2000,22:40
who said anything about making the world better for mankind? we're trying to conserve resources and all that crap. but mainly it's to make the world better for ME. not all those pitiful rednecks and morons outside, but for ME. like any of this is going to happen anyway, we're just shooting the shit. well, most of us anyway, don't know about nero.
Posted by xaustinx on Jun. 01 2000,01:12
i felt the need to reply to the especially fun posts.. then i read the thread and though i'd add my own 2 cents

quote:
Originally posted by cr0bar:
/me steps in to interrupt, since everyone else is afraid to:


You're on a roll talking to yourself, bud. Get your head checked.



Posted by DuSTman on Jun. 01 2000,04:28
No, incubus, i'm not on crack.

Take rabbits, predators control their numbers and they are not able to cause any great harm because of what they do.

We have no significant predators. We are able to cause great harm to our environment.

What is to control our numbers?

There must be something.

If you don't think this is a problem now i invite you to step down the line 50 years, with this exponential growth.

Think about it. Why is the base of why you obey your government? For a lot of people it's the police. The governments military force for dealing with internal matters.

The government will be able to get away with anything if they have a massive military presence.

But what if the soldiers rebel?

Deal with that by hypnosis. They will do anything their commanders say.


Posted by Anztac on Jun. 01 2000,04:44
Ok, I believe the only real threat humans pose is nuclear weapons. Besides that we pose no real threat. I mean how concided are we that we think that we can pose a threat to earth? Seriously. I mean even if we devoted are lifes to trying to destroy the enviroment by consuming resources killing anamals and plants we would eventually die out, but the earth would still have a few living organizims that would eventually turn into larger populations. So we don't need to worry about that. Now I am concerned about keeping humans alive. So if your concerned about enviromental affairs don't try to act as though you give a shit about the anamals. I mean I have a thing for cats, whales, etc. so I do care about them, but if they were to die out in the end it probably wouldn't matter to me that much.

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~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by DuSTman on Jun. 01 2000,05:44
It must be, therefore, nero, that the organisation that puts this into practise must rule by ABSOLUTE military force. Lets say one trained soldier in every five people..

Lets face it whatever method is used to choose who gets smeared is going to incite a rebellion of sorts, let's just get a massive f**king army to control the people. The army's loyalty can be assured using mind control and hypnotic methods.


Posted by DuSTman on Jun. 01 2000,06:15
It's not the threat to the earth as a whole that bothers me. The only reason i'm worries about what happens to the environment is because of what that'll mean to out species.

What is happening in the animal kingdom is a good barometer of the state of the environmetnt..


Posted by adeadlyintegral on Jun. 01 2000,08:58
grr... if we guarantee our survival by means of mind control and hypnotism of the masses, and even the people in power if you go the 1984 route, we WON'T be guaranteeing the survival of the human race because we won't be human anymore... i mean if the majority of the population is kept in check or whatnot in 1984 type fashion you loose everything that is actually true intelligence/sentience/free will, the stuff that separates man from beast/dumb computers, and you got a massive, thriving, controlled complex little fungus type species with no point to it whatsoever other than breeding and surviving.

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"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." --#


Posted by Anztac on Jun. 01 2000,09:10
Yay!!! a SANE person in this thread! Ok I agree totally. Also it's been proven that the more free a country is (within boundries) the more succsessful it is in war, commerce, etc. Why did we beat the germans in WW2? because we had better technology (in the end). Why did we have better technology? Because making chaos in to a rational system was what the nazi's were about, and thus mathematics was their most tresured science. When a new mathematician wanted to tear down math and start all over again, he (I say he because all mathematicians were) wasn't allowed, thus there was no progress.

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~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by Hellraiser on Jun. 01 2000,10:37
But no country can long last without a revolution. Case and point is the USA. We're about due for a major upheaval in this country, we are on a trend towards socialism with all our inane welfare programs, and many people are paying over a third of their wages in taxes. Without some sort of revolution, it isn't a long step to imagine a day when you will need to have a license to buy food, and goods will be "Equally distributed." A decent government is one that permits people freedom with responsibility, and doesn't require more than a 1/10th of your wages to support. A socialist government fails because it takes responsibility from the masses, and without responsibility there is no reason for anyone to put more than minimal effort into their existence. (If I get the same amount of food and shelter for doing a lousy job as I get for doing a great job, I am likely to do a lousy job.)

America at the beginning was one of the best governments ever. But all the endless political arguments and misinterpretations have rendered the Constitution and the base of the country into a piece of useless paper, and the country is now not in much better shape.

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Posted by DuSTman on Jun. 01 2000,11:12
ADeadlyIntegral:

Yes. That's the crux of it. Large scale killings seem necessary to preserve our species, but the change necessary to put this into practise would make society a less pleasant place to be.

For the race to become something.. harder..
Or for the race to become nothing.

My choice is the former. Yours is the latter.

So be it.


Posted by Wolfguard on Jun. 01 2000,11:28
Im thinking the reason the gov is so into gun controll is that they know that the last time the goverment of the country changed hands it was done with blood and bullets. If they can controll the guns they have less worries about their ability to controll.
I could go one step farther with this and say the gov is aranging events to make gun controll look like a good idea but that would make me look paranoid. (the computer is your friend, trust the computer)
/paranoid rant
All i can say is that is what i would do to get the populace to think guns are to bad to be in the hands of average people. Cause a few incidents that the press will not let go for years like a school shooting. have a wacko shoot at the white house from across the street... These things make people want the goverment to restrict guns, and that makes the gov happy.
/end paranoid rant
have a nice day

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The gene pool has no life guard, support the GPPTF (Gene Pool Purification Task Force)
< http://www.geocities.com/jgoeke610/ >
Past and future pr0n star :)


Posted by Hellraiser on Jun. 01 2000,11:47
You're probably right, Wolfguard. But gun control hurts people more than it helps. It takes responsibility away from the individual and puts the government as the one to make choices. More government control means less freedom for you and me which is not the way of good government.

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Posted by Kuros on Jun. 01 2000,11:50
You are most defintely paranoid, and how can you say that the govt "arranged" the school shootings. The states is meant to be civilised and yet these things still kep going on, here in UK - it happens once and practicaly all guns are banned (Best bit about being a cilivian undergrad at an Army College these days - we get to use the range with the officers).

Gun Control is a good thing, though it is the person who kills not the gun itself.

Wouldn't it be more appropiate to bring in more severe punishments in - making people responsible for their own actions again(unlike today), you rape so you die, you murder you die, commit large scale fraud you die etc... Its more acceptable to the public, deters crime thus making a better society and reduces prison numbers and costs.


Posted by Hellraiser on Jun. 01 2000,12:07
Gun control is not good, any type of government control over the people is not good. If you think otherwise, you have most likely been brainwashed by the government and the press's propaganda. But it would be good to have much stiffer penalties for crimes, such as first time murder you get the death penalty caried out within 6 months of conviction, and armed robbery you get life imprisonment, rape you get the death penalty no questions asked. Stiffer penalties for crimes and people who carry guns for defense is likely to decrease crime rates and make society on the whole safer. I saw some statistics once that supported my position, but I don't recall where.

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Posted by Wolfguard on Jun. 01 2000,12:52
ALL:
I am in no way shape or form in favor of gun controll by the goverment. If they have guns i want them too.

Kuros.
I never said the gov did it, i said thats what i would do if i wanted it done.

I am for the death penalty for violent crimes. if you kill someone you are dead, end of line.
after they are dead we should harvest their ogans and get some use out of them.

Gun controll is the ability to hit your target while your diving for cover. Now that's controll

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The gene pool has no life guard, support the GPPTF (Gene Pool Purification Task Force)
< http://www.geocities.com/jgoeke610/ >
Past and future pr0n star :)


Posted by Observer on Jun. 01 2000,13:12
Personally I believe that capitol punishment hasn't really been a good way to deter criminals. Case in point: Hundreds of years ago in Great Britain, the penalty for pickpocketing was a public hanging. Those hangings drew large crowds which encouraged more pickpocketing.

The other thing to consider is justice. Whether or not the person is guilty. I don't remember the quote, but it is something along the order of "It's better to let 100 guilty people go free than have 1 innocent person be executed."

More food for thought.


Posted by Wolfguard on Jun. 01 2000,13:24
im thinking a 1\% error rate is not a bad thing when it comes to getting dirtbags off the streets and in the ground where they belong. We are talking rape and murder here not picking pockets. if i let a 100 guilty people go and 100 inocent people die because of this im thinking the one inocent that dies with the 100 guilty(well 99 guilty) is a fair exchange. And yes i would be saying the same thing if i was in the shoes of the inocent guy going to the chair. If my death will save 100 people then im willing to go. Made this choice in Panama in 89 and just happened to live through it. My actions did endanger my life but did save the lives of others.

Fire up the chair, its time for a texas bbq!

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The gene pool has no life guard, support the GPPTF (Gene Pool Purification Task Force)
< http://www.geocities.com/jgoeke610/ >
Past and future pr0n star :)


Posted by Slicer on Jun. 01 2000,14:15
Great thread we've got going here. I don't think I've ever seen this much intelligent debate in one place before, but hey, I go to a public school. Ok, now for my rant. This is gonna sound choppy, but I won't remember everything if I don’t put it this way.

1. Democracy works, for the most part. The only major problems that have arisen have come from the inability of government officials to 'shoot themselves in the foot'. This is why campaign finance hasn’t happened, and why the bureaucracy keeps swelling.

2. Blindly killing India and China's poor may eliminate population of limited worth, but what about stupid rich people in the US? They deserve to live over some under-realized potential starving in Asia? I don't think so.

3. On the same note as the previous, I'd like to suggest genetic weeding/ engineering. Its unethical, but hey, so is killing 4 billion people, or even the slightly more humanitarian idea of sending them to their deaths in space. Rather than randomly selecting 4bil to die, select the least viable 4bil. Get rid of the stupidest people, because in the future, robots and virtual reality will eliminate the viability of dumb, strong people anyway. What good is a blacksmith, who is strong enough to wield his hammer, when we have a robot who does it for longer, for a one time charge? And in place of the food for the blacksmith, we have food for 2 or 3 thin, intelligent, scientists/thinkers.

On this note, I'd like to suggest to anyone who hasn't, to read the Dune series. Some great stuff on genetics, and all that. While I'm on genetics and all that, I want to touch on socialism. Why blindly assign people to be garbage collectors or managers? Find out what they are good at, and force them to pursue it. If the have managerial skills and intellect, they become a manager. If they have brute strength, they become a garbage collector. Simple as that.

4. Almost forgot this part... I thought of it this morning in physics as we were discussing energy and watts and power bills. People waste energy and most of their other resources as well. This is because we have plenty of it. Energy's cheap, so why worry about how much we use? Well, here's one reason- it’s inefficient as all hell. Power plants are sitting out there chugging uranium or coal or whatever, and what are they powering? The lights in our empty houses, the TV's blaring to the personless couch. Household's should get a limited quantity of resources, and be made to live within this. There is too much bounty, and its making us lazy. It applies not just to power, that was just the trigger for my brain. Food, for example. You've all heard your parents: "Don't waste, there are children starving in Ethiopia." They were right, they just lacked the motivation to enforce their ideals. With a limited amount of food, you wouldn’t be able to waste, and the excess you no longer received could be sent directly to Ethiopia.


5. It is difficult to say you have to die for the greater good. Nothing could produce a greater feeling of shittiness. See, survival of the fittest does that for us. It’s kind of paradoxical, but I think it makes sense. If people were willing to kill themselves, or let themselves be killed for the greater good, the chance that they would still be living is slim. The whole Darwin theory says that we cannot allow that to happen to ourselves, or at least not without reproducing first.


6. Government IS necessary. You think poverty is a problem now? Imagine it without welfare. All of our problems would be so magnified it would be unbearable. Who would maintain the roads? The people who live on them? Gimme a break, we need government, just like young kids need parents to make them do the unpleasant parts of life. Government is the willpower for the masses.


7. Starship troopers had great ideas. Patriotism is one awesome way to promote altruism. Do it for the good of the country, with a flag to rally around, can be very powerful.


8. Off topic, but anyone ever think of the ridiculousness of time and human existence in general. That stuff creeps me out. I sit in my bed thinking, and I feel like crap whenever the vastness of the universe and time hits me, and I realize I'm barely birdshit on the windshield of this universe.


9. The bodies could be used as fertilizer.


10. Lets get off trying to install ourselves as dictator of the new world, its really stupid.


11. MIB was right - "people are stupid."

Good, I think that's all I wanted to say.

Wait, one more thing. I'm working on forming my own Internet nation, and I'd like some of you to fire me some ideas, or even join up. It's very preliminary right now, but drop me a line at slicer@z.com, or visit the site at < www.ProjectMarin.homestead.com >

Okay, sorry for taking up so much space


Posted by adeadlyintegral on Jun. 01 2000,15:23
um... the strong and dumb people who will eventually be made obscelent by robots or whatever WEREN'T put here on god's green earth to work for the powerful and l33t... grr... so what if someone's individual worth doesn't benefit society? wtf does that matter anyway? i mean, if someone is classified as stupid and has no real work skills, should it matter to anyone else? as long as they don't go around slashing tires and shooting people it seems to me that their general worth is their own problem, and shouldn't be measured by how much the people with political power/consumers whoever gains from them, seems arrogant and greedy to me... (long live the homeless man =D
Posted by DuSTman on Jun. 01 2000,15:55
Value is in the eye of the beholder.

You may think you're excellent, but if i'm the one that'll be assessing whether or not you are to be killed, your worth to yourself is a useless barometer for me to use. Your worth to me or society would be what you are judged on.

Should i manage to raise a task force for a mass killage, i would either do it totally at random or try and assess your worth in terms of the goal of the mission. The survival of the human race.


Posted by Kolben on Jun. 01 2000,16:38
One thing from the Matrix that's actually true is the agent saying, that mankind is a plague. We spread and spread until, there's no more room. That's in our dna, that's in our genes. It's a primal instinct. So why should we concerned about saving the human race. It'll never die out, unless some environmental disaster occurs. And what's so good about the human race that it's worth saving? We are greedy, mean and have no concern for other races. Why should it be us that's gonna be saved?

Another thing is...WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH YOU PEOPLE?? Do you actually believe that slaughtering 2/3 of the human race would solve anything at all. Or are you just sick perverts who likes to make bloody messes of innocent people. Actually lot's of the people you're talking about (from the 3. world or whatever) are great great thinkers. It's people who's thoughts have gone a lot further than ours ever will. People that maybe actually have remedies for the worlds problems. So I think that the actual problems in the world are you guys who wants to slaughter the smart people. Hitlers' regime was quite efficient, but he was insane. The old people from the time is actually still chocked be their own reactions when they were listening to him. And the only reason why the German people was efficient was because of the "obey or die" thing they had. And what the hell kinda life is that.

Another thing: You can't kill that many people...They'd team up on you and kick your asses. They're twice as many as you. It wouldn't be possible. Throw a nuke at them? You'd destroy the environment and make it inhabitable. And you'd probably just end with getting one back. Because USA is actually not the only country with nuclear capabilities.

People that tries to justify murder makes me sick.
/me pukes in your faces!


Posted by xaustinx on Jun. 01 2000,19:48
while i agree with 95\% of this.. im gunna have to throw in that whole human spirit nonsense.. if u force someone to pursue a certain life.. all i have to say is GATTICA. That is a very real possiblity. Some people are born to be able to do a certain thing, others have to work thier ass off to accomplish the same goal, but some of those people enjoy that struggle more than the goal itself.
quote:
Originally posted by Slicer:
Great thread we've got going here. I don't think I've ever seen this much intelligent debate in one place before, but hey, I go to a public school. Ok, now for my rant. This is gonna sound choppy, but I won't remember everything if I don’t put it this way.

1. Democracy works, for the most part. The only major problems that have arisen have come from the inability of government officials to 'shoot themselves in the foot'. This is why campaign finance hasn’t happened, and why the bureaucracy keeps swelling.

2. Blindly killing India and China's poor may eliminate population of limited worth, but what about stupid rich people in the US? They deserve to live over some under-realized potential starving in Asia? I don't think so.

3. On the same note as the previous, I'd like to suggest genetic weeding/ engineering. Its unethical, but hey, so is killing 4 billion people, or even the slightly more humanitarian idea of sending them to their deaths in space. Rather than randomly selecting 4bil to die, select the least viable 4bil. Get rid of the stupidest people, because in the future, robots and virtual reality will eliminate the viability of dumb, strong people anyway. What good is a blacksmith, who is strong enough to wield his hammer, when we have a robot who does it for longer, for a one time charge? And in place of the food for the blacksmith, we have food for 2 or 3 thin, intelligent, scientists/thinkers.

On this note, I'd like to suggest to anyone who hasn't, to read the Dune series. Some great stuff on genetics, and all that. While I'm on genetics and all that, I want to touch on socialism. Why blindly assign people to be garbage collectors or managers? Find out what they are good at, and force them to pursue it. If the have managerial skills and intellect, they become a manager. If they have brute strength, they become a garbage collector. Simple as that.

4. Almost forgot this part... I thought of it this morning in physics as we were discussing energy and watts and power bills. People waste energy and most of their other resources as well. This is because we have plenty of it. Energy's cheap, so why worry about how much we use? Well, here's one reason- it’s inefficient as all hell. Power plants are sitting out there chugging uranium or coal or whatever, and what are they powering? The lights in our empty houses, the TV's blaring to the personless couch. Household's should get a limited quantity of resources, and be made to live within this. There is too much bounty, and its making us lazy. It applies not just to power, that was just the trigger for my brain. Food, for example. You've all heard your parents: "Don't waste, there are children starving in Ethiopia." They were right, they just lacked the motivation to enforce their ideals. With a limited amount of food, you wouldn’t be able to waste, and the excess you no longer received could be sent directly to Ethiopia.


5. It is difficult to say you have to die for the greater good. Nothing could produce a greater feeling of shittiness. See, survival of the fittest does that for us. It’s kind of paradoxical, but I think it makes sense. If people were willing to kill themselves, or let themselves be killed for the greater good, the chance that they would still be living is slim. The whole Darwin theory says that we cannot allow that to happen to ourselves, or at least not without reproducing first.


6. Government IS necessary. You think poverty is a problem now? Imagine it without welfare. All of our problems would be so magnified it would be unbearable. Who would maintain the roads? The people who live on them? Gimme a break, we need government, just like young kids need parents to make them do the unpleasant parts of life. Government is the willpower for the masses.


7. Starship troopers had great ideas. Patriotism is one awesome way to promote altruism. Do it for the good of the country, with a flag to rally around, can be very powerful.


8. Off topic, but anyone ever think of the ridiculousness of time and human existence in general. That stuff creeps me out. I sit in my bed thinking, and I feel like crap whenever the vastness of the universe and time hits me, and I realize I'm barely birdshit on the windshield of this universe.


9. The bodies could be used as fertilizer.


10. Lets get off trying to install ourselves as dictator of the new world, its really stupid.


11. MIB was right - "people are stupid."

Good, I think that's all I wanted to say.

Wait, one more thing. I'm working on forming my own Internet nation, and I'd like some of you to fire me some ideas, or even join up. It's very preliminary right now, but drop me a line at slicer@z.com, or visit the site at < www.ProjectMarin.homestead.com >

Okay, sorry for taking up so much space



Posted by Hellraiser on Jun. 01 2000,21:57
quote:
6. Government IS necessary. You think poverty is a problem now? Imagine it without welfare. All of our problems would be so magnified it would be unbearable.

While I agree that government is necessary, welfare is not. In fact we as a country were much better off without it. If welfare were eliminated, it’s true there would be a period where the unemployment rate would be high, but eventually those people who sit home everyday waiting for their checks to come would have to get off their sorry asses and find something to do. There is definitely room for every person to be able to find something to do to support himself (or herself). If people can't support themselves they are a drain on the economy and should become the responsibility of family members, communities and charitable institutions: not the government. Government is just too inefficient to deal with things like that. Besides, it’s not fair to us taxpayers to have to fork over some of our hard-earned money to some brainless dolt who is too lazy to go out and earn his own bread and butter.

Welfare is socialism, plain and simple: the redistribution of wealth from those who work to those who don’t. And socialism is a blight that must to be removed from this world. It's great in theory “make everyone equal,” but it relies on the assumption that we are altruistic, and humans by and large are definitely not altruistic. I want as much for me as I can have with as little effort as I can make. And I bet you all share that drive too. I'd even venture to say that 99\% of the human race feels that way (although many would deny it).

Get rid of welfare and bureaucracy and you will have a government that is lean and effective, and in the long run, much better for innovation and development of technology, and thence the species itself.


Posted by xaustinx on Jun. 01 2000,23:53
If you genetically weed the population i dont see anywhere's near the level people leeching off of welfare. The were created for a certain job, they lose that job, they should easily be able to find another within the same or similiar class, if not, then in that kind of society it would be our duty to take care of them as we overestimated the need for a person of that class of service.

quote:
Originally posted by Hellraiser:
While I agree that government is necessary, welfare is not. In fact we as a country were much better off without it. If welfare were eliminated, it’s true there would be a period where the unemployment rate would be high, but eventually those people who sit home everyday waiting for their checks to come would have to get off their sorry asses and find something to do. There is definitely room for every person to be able to find something to do to support himself (or herself). If people can't support themselves they are a drain on the economy and should become the responsibility of family members, communities and charitable institutions: [b]not the government. Government is just too inefficient to deal with things like that. Besides, it’s not fair to us taxpayers to have to fork over some of our hard-earned money to some brainless dolt who is too lazy to go out and earn his own bread and butter.

Welfare is socialism, plain and simple: the redistribution of wealth from those who work to those who don’t. And socialism is a blight that must to be removed from this world. It's great in theory “make everyone equal,” but it relies on the assumption that we are altruistic, and humans by and large are definitely not altruistic. I want as much for me as I can have with as little effort as I can make. And I bet you all share that drive too. I'd even venture to say that 99\% of the human race feels that way (although many would deny it).

Get rid of welfare and bureaucracy and you will have a government that is lean and effective, and in the long run, much better for innovation and development of technology, and thence the species itself.[/B]



Posted by Anztac on Jun. 02 2000,01:27
Small thing off my shoulders, austin please stop post with quotes. especially long ones. It's redundent. 'nuff said.

Genetic engineering is stupid. I think we should let natural selection run it's course. lIke George Carlin said "we save entirerly to many children here in America!...the child that chokes on too many marbles doesn't get to raise his own kids!". And also it was mentioned by Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land: There needs to be a selection process for a species to progress.

------------------
~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by Nero on Jun. 02 2000,05:05
O.K. cool. Kolben just reiterated in a much more logical form what I posted earlier.

Killing large numbers of people is really not a feasible idea. Can we all agree on this? There is a shitty "why" and I don't recall seeing anyone post a "how." The bodies were a problem, but we "solved" that by setting up a new . I think that one got shot down with something along the lines of a mass revolt by those assigned to die. I fully support birth control, we need to curb population growth. Kids should be spayed or neutered (or whatever) as soon as possible. We could go with eunuchs, it worked for Rome. For a while. Reproduction could be done through genetic engineering, like in Gattica. Moving on.

Space doesn't seem like a good idea either. At least in the near future. I could be wrong, but I'm doubting anything approaching safe ormal\marginallycomfortable colonization is going to happen in the next ten to twenty years. So we need to deal with what we have. We need to find a better form of currency to base our economies on. Gold doesn't seem too terribly useful to me. Energy, on the other hand, does. I haven't actually thought out a decent implementation of the energy idea, but it would bring most countries of the world to a more even playing field. If you produce energy, you can buy/build things. If you don't you're gonna need some philathropist friends. That would at least make India and China more economically helpful to the world.


Posted by Observer on Jun. 02 2000,08:25
Along those same lines and also with the idea of population control in mind, one could argue the point that with all of the medical technology we have today, many people are living that would not be living with past technology. Some people feel that we have circumvented the natural selection process. There's your ten-dollar word for you.

Personally, I think a good starting idea for controlling the population level would be to make reproduction only possible through a pill or medical procedure that costs money. That way we wouldn't have the rapid growth in poor areas. It would also be better for the children as well, since those who could not afford to raise children would not be able to have them.

Hmm...maybe that could spawn a new thread.


Posted by Anztac on Jun. 02 2000,08:44
Actually when I said survival of the fittest I meant just that. I think we should bring back and make popular those big metal playgrounds. I think kids should be encouraged to swim in the really nasty, dirty river. I think that anything that has been deemed un-safe for kids should be mainstream so that a kid would have to be either smart enough not to play with the thing or strong enough to survive it. As for medicine I think it should be given to everyone. I mean the strength of you imune system does not at all designate your ability to be useful. Also if we start just rellying on imune systems and stop medicine we will be wiped out. Some would say "well they couldn't survive it so they're not fit to live", but that's faulty logic because we could have survived it if we used our brains.

------------------
~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by Slicer on Jun. 02 2000,15:50
Ok, I promise this rant will be shorter, since there was less material to respond too.
Also, I only really have 2 things that I want to respond to.

First, and on topic, survival of the fittest depends on reproduction, and the survival and reproductive viability of the offspring. By this reasoning, poor people who have tons of kids are probably more 'fit' than rich people with no kids. The way in richness affects your fitness today can be seen in rich old men who score 20 something super models. In this way, they are able to propagate themselves, and it is their wealth that makes them more fit. One can also examine the Darwinian success of various religions. Catholicism, although rather against Darwin, proves his theories quite well. Since Catholics do not believe in contraception, they tend to have more children. More children is a sign of fitness, so Catholicism is much more fit by Darwin's standards than say, an Atheistic faith that allows for contraception and abortion. Gays, also, are contradictions to Darwin. Without the ability to reproduce, they should die out. I dont know if any of you have heard of them before, but the Shaker faith was similar to this. They didnt believe in converting people to their faith, so they died out. The gays, in choosing their sexual preference, have ruled out reproduction, and so have in effect made their survival rate zero. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against gays, I'm just saying their sexual preference is not viable in the long run, barring some technological advancements. Maybe in the future, we will have technology to implant DNA from sperm into an egg, have the egg be fertilized by sperm, and then gays may have the ability to pass down their genes. One thing about today's society is that attraction is still based upon traits that were useful in hunter-gatherer society, ie. strength, for men, and ability to nurture young well, for women. Today, these are less necessary, with robots working in factories, and tractors working on farms, and with all the advancements in baby care technology. What this means is that what people are attracted to in the opposite sex, and are more likely to reproduce with, might be someone who does not necessarily provide anything useful to the gene pool. Their contribution would have been invaluable if we were still cavemen, but we're not. Thats it on the topic of natural selection for me.

2. The Matrix, specifically Agent Smith's condemnation of humankind. This was one freaky speech. It raises all sorts of questions, the same sort of questions raised by social Darwinism. Does might really make right? Because they are better able to survive, does that mean they should? It really messes with your head. Personally, I'm not sure whether I agree with the Agents or not. They have a point. Maybe the machines are an evolution of humankind. On the flip side, well, I don't really know how to put this. Basically, do we really want such a subsisting entity to be in control of the planet. Based on the limited footage of the machines civilization, it seems all they do is make energy so they can remain operating. One could argue that that is what we humans do, grow food to remain alive, but I disagree. I was going to argue that we do more, but in fact all we do is produce more people to grow food, better ways to grow food, and if its not food we are producing, its other things to allow us to subsist with less effort.

Ok, off topic time - Andromeda Strain. I think this kind of relates to the whole idea I just talked about with the Matrix. A big question in this book is 'What defines life?' The characters couldn't define it, and I'd like to know if anyone here would like to take a shot at it.

Well, it wasn't supposed to be long, I apologize.

This thread has allowed me to talk about all the things I've never had the impetus to discuss with any of my friends for fear of being considered loony, thanks!


Posted by Slicer on Jun. 02 2000,15:53
Ok, i swear on all that I hold sacred that this will be actually short. I forgot to include my email address, slicer@z.com. That is all.
Posted by Kolben on Jun. 02 2000,18:00
Life isn't that hard to define, I think. Actually the definition of life is what the individual being thinks life is. It's a bit different from mind to mind I guess, but here's my version:

Life is the description of a being that has the ability to feed and reproduce itself and it's way of feeding and reproducing.

I don't think I can describe it more directly. This means that the machines from the matrix are life...

You should all go see some episodes of Star Trek next generation. The question is asked many times in many different ways, and have very good attempts to answer it. Look at Data for instance. Is it life? I wouldn't think so, because it hasn't got a scheme for reproducing. But if it was able to build a close copy itself, I guess it would be life.


Posted by Serpwidgets on Jun. 02 2000,19:57
Well, at least we've moved on past the "I worship Hitler and think he was a great guy" posts...

The AIs in the Matrix were interesting, and I wish they would have shown more of it. I have the DVD and on it there are some comments about how that entire scene with Agent Smith's speech was almost entirely deleted from the movie.

What defines life is not nearly as important as what defines a being as sentient.


Posted by SimplyModest on Jun. 02 2000,22:07
umm.. why dont we just start holding "lotterys" eH?.. like in that "sliders" episode...

start having ATMs that give people as much money as they want, but the more you get, the better chance you have at winning ther lottery (getting killed). wouldnt that help discourage greed a little?

(plus eventually, if one was held per city/ per week or something like that, might help with the pop. also..) just a thought.


Posted by Hellraiser on Jun. 03 2000,01:40
Wipe them out...all of them.

Sounds like a plan to me.

------------------
Just your generic meaningless signature. Mix with 2 quarts water and stir till evenly coated.


Posted by Slicer on Jun. 03 2000,06:51
OK, someone want to define sentience then?
Posted by Hellraiser on Jun. 03 2000,07:12
Sentience is the property of being both self aware and being able to reason.

------------------
Just your generic meaningless signature. Mix with 2 quarts water and stir till evenly coated.


Posted by Slicer on Jun. 03 2000,11:47
Well, seems to me that sentience was just as easy, if not easier. But what do I know, my brain was just fried taking SATs.
Posted by Slicer on Jun. 04 2000,05:16
Anybody here ever read "The Lottery"? It's a short story, I'm not sure who wrote it. Basically, the townspeople gather in town once a year and hold a lottery. If you get the piece of paper with a black dot on it, you 'win'. Winning means you get stoned to death, and, IIRC, are used as fertilizer.

Wow, thats really off topic, but I guess its kind of socialism, but more primitive religion.

Slicer


Posted by Zamt on Jun. 04 2000,07:22
Just as a comment on Slicer saying that gays cannot reproduce. First, yes they can, they just cannot do it with someone of their same sex. Second, gay people are not a species, they are simply a slight genetic variant (usually). Oh, and to throw this in, everyone on Earth could live in Texas if we each had something like 40 sq.ft. of living space. I don't know the exact statistic, and I also don't know why anyone would want to live in Texas
Posted by Hellraiser on Jun. 04 2000,14:07
The area of Texas is 266,874 sq. miles. One square mile is 27,878,400 sq. feet. Thus the area of Texas is about 7,440,020,121,600 sq. feet. If there are about 6 Billion people in the world, that would give each of them about 1240 square feet to live on, or about one 35.21 foot by 35.21 foot section of land. At the time the Texas statisic first became popular there were about 4.5 billion people in the world, which means that each of them could have had about a 40.66 x 40.66 foot section of land, or 1653 square feet.

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Just your generic meaningless signature. Mix with 2 quarts water and stir till evenly coated.


Posted by Nero on Jun. 04 2000,18:16
besides the steers and queers cliche, what's wrong with texas? as opposed to insulting alabama, or delaware?


Posted by Slicer on Jun. 04 2000,19:52
Here's the thing though, Zamt, if they can't reproduce with someone of the same sex, and they won't with the opposite, then they can't reproduce. If you're thinking adoption or artificial insemination (sp?) or other means of getting children without heterosexual sex, then you're forgetting that these methods pass down only 1 partner's genes at best, neither in the worst case. So theyre still not really reproducing in the classical sense.

Slicer

_____________________________________________
cool sig huh?


Posted by Firefox on Jun. 05 2000,01:23
My two cents-

Communism and anarchism, in principle, are terrific ideals. If things could work in practice like they do on paper, we would live in a great world. That's why it's too bad that communism is doomed to failure. Humans are far too self-centered for it to ever work. Ditto for anarchism. It's simply a restructuring of power. Revolution, the rich lose everything, and a select few gain everything. The new lower class becomes angry. Start a new revolution. Rinse, repeat.

Then again, aren't we really just animals at heart? Why would we expect our tendencies to be any different? And if we are not, then when will we change?

Democracy, even with it's faults, is the best system that's come along so far, without a doubt. Sure, governments can be annoying, but what's the alternative? Mass chaos?? Every man for themselves? Everyone kills each other in a desperate struggle for power, and our race ends in a bloody apocalypse?? Come on, cheer up, would yah.

Also, I think a lot of you are viewing this from a very American perspective. Try to remember that the USA only constitutes 5\% of the worlds' population. Believe it or not, there are about 5.7 billion non-Americans in our world, and yes, believe it or not, they matter too.

Anyway, interesting topic none the less. It's fun to talk about this kind of stuff, but in the end, when we look at the "big picture", our purpose, future, etc., let's face the facts- there is only so much we can healthily ponder.

I think that if everyone in the world would (or more accurately, 'could') just sit back with a some friends and a beer (or a soda pop ), and watch the sunset now and then, our world would be a heck of a lot better. Remember, when it comes down to it, the most important thing is that every one of us are here right this moment, so lets make the most of it, and who knows, maybe we can even make a little difference along the way.

-FireFox

[This message has been edited by Firefox (edited June 04, 2000).]


Posted by Anztac on Jun. 05 2000,06:51
How deep! Thanks for the closure!

------------------
~Anztac - The guy who had the really long sig (formerly Kriegman)

"I am easily driven into a flying rage by blithering idiots"
-cr0bar [The god of this domain]


Posted by kuros- on Jun. 05 2000,10:50
On another level, you could say that the AI's in Matrix have actually helped humans. They are simply repressing Humans, but man will perpetuate "forever". The AI's may just be after energy for themselves but at the same time they are fulfilling all of mans needs.
Is Ignorance really Bliss ?

Posted by Slicer on Jun. 05 2000,15:55
Anarchy was the whole idea behind Fight Club. Tyler wanted exactly the kind of violence and devolution of society that FireFox pointed out. Go check out my thread for more about Fight Club. (sorry for the plug)

Also, Ignorance isn't always bliss, it tends to catch up on you. But it makes a great explanation for tons of things. Like in school, I don't know about homework assignment, I don't do hwk assignment, I go have fun instead. I am ignorant, but also blissful. The next day, in class, I'm fux0red, but until then, all is bliss...

That's why it will occasionally appear in my sig.

Slicer
___________________________________________________________
if this is your first time at fight club, you must fight


Posted by The_Hiro on Jun. 10 2000,07:04
Just a cool/weird link that's I thought I'd post since I noticed a few posts about the Malthusian population concern.

Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

[This message has been edited by The_Hiro (edited June 10, 2000).]


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