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| Post Number: 81
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Slicer 
FNG
Group: Members
Posts: 23
Joined: May 2000
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Posted on: Jun. 01 2000,14:15 |
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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
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| Post Number: 82
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adeadlyintegral
FNG
Group: Members
Posts: 21
Joined: May 2000
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Posted on: Jun. 01 2000,15:23 |
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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
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| Post Number: 83
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| Post Number: 84
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| Post Number: 85
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xaustinx
FNG
Group: Members
Posts: 78
Joined: May 2000
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Posted on: Jun. 01 2000,19:48 |
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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
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| Post Number: 86
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Hellraiser
PH34R M3
Group: Members
Posts: 977
Joined: May 2000
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Posted on: Jun. 01 2000,21:57 |
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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.
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| Post Number: 87
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xaustinx
FNG
Group: Members
Posts: 78
Joined: May 2000
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Posted on: Jun. 01 2000,23:53 |
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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]
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| Post Number: 88
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| Post Number: 89
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Nero
FNG
Group: Members
Posts: 105
Joined: May 2000
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Posted on: Jun. 02 2000,05:05 |
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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.
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| Post Number: 90
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