Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

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MarcusAu
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#361

Post by MarcusAu »

So Rayshul - who is running NZstan - and when are they going to get their 15 minutes of fame with Trump?

deLurch
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#362

Post by deLurch »

Za-zen wrote:It's the economy stupid. Those who keep thinking in national terms are quite fucked, as reality has left them behind, technology has made borders irrelevant, the politics hasn't caught up to that. Perhaps Trump does have some interim solutions that will decrease the impact of Globalisation, we'll have to see, something that a lot of people don't know is that the man is a fucking economist, so he has a grasp of how the wheels turn beyond you me or most others. But the only way this gets fixed long term is a global political revolution (not an armed one you tards), which totally changes how goods and services are made/bought/sold. That requires a very very global vision rather than a narrow national one.
The US could cut it's oil consumption nearly in half if we all converted to Islam and prohibited our women from driving.

Shatterface
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#363

Post by Shatterface »

Za-zen wrote:It's the economy stupid. Those who keep thinking in national terms are quite fucked, as reality has left them behind, technology has made borders irrelevant, the politics hasn't caught up to that. Perhaps Trump does have some interim solutions that will decrease the impact of Globalisation, we'll have to see, something that a lot of people don't know is that the man is a fucking economist, so he has a grasp of how the wheels turn beyond you me or most others. But the only way this gets fixed long term is a global political revolution (not an armed one you tards), which totally changes how goods and services are made/bought/sold. That requires a very very global vision rather than a narrow national one.
Thinking globally is not the same as putting national interest second. When governments think globally they are simply looking at other countries as trading partners. They wouldn't trade if they weren't profiting from it.

Global government won't work. Every country puts their own interests first. Even international agreements on carbon emissions are based on long-term national interest.

Dornier Pfeil
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#364

Post by Dornier Pfeil »

I wish I could donate anti-money to PZ's legal defense fund.

deLurch
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#365

Post by deLurch »

Dornier Pfeil wrote:I wish I could donate anti-money to PZ's legal defense fund.
That would be giving it to Richard Carrier.

...but he doesn't mind if you get a little on his face.

Za-zen
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#366

Post by Za-zen »

Shatterface wrote:
Za-zen wrote:It's the economy stupid. Those who keep thinking in national terms are quite fucked, as reality has left them behind, technology has made borders irrelevant, the politics hasn't caught up to that. Perhaps Trump does have some interim solutions that will decrease the impact of Globalisation, we'll have to see, something that a lot of people don't know is that the man is a fucking economist, so he has a grasp of how the wheels turn beyond you me or most others. But the only way this gets fixed long term is a global political revolution (not an armed one you tards), which totally changes how goods and services are made/bought/sold. That requires a very very global vision rather than a narrow national one.
Thinking globally is not the same as putting national interest second. When governments think globally they are simply looking at other countries as trading partners. They wouldn't trade if they weren't profiting from it.

Global government won't work. Every country puts their own interests first. Even international agreements on carbon emissions are based on long-term national interest.
National interest is horseshit. It's a bullshit term, that means fuck all, if you want to talk about the interest of those with the dollars, then you can start to get into it, but you need to first realize that the interests of those with the actual dollars have fuck all to do with the interests of the majority of the populations within arbitrary borders. Dollar holders don't give a fuck about the fleg they were born under, and are quite glad for the retards that do (they're easier exploited). The world economy since the collapse of the soviet union (china is a weird cancer) firmly worships Adam smith, and his core tenet of trickle down (give more to those who have more, and they'll create more).

In order to combat a rampant greed is good ethos (adam smith), so that lower orders in developed countries get a new deal, politics has to be global in it's attempts to regulate trade. The vehicles are in place if they were utilized to that end. The UN does fuck all, in any reformation this should be it's redesign.

rayshul
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#367

Post by rayshul »

MarcusAu wrote:So Rayshul - who is running NZstan - and when are they going to get their 15 minutes of fame with Trump?
We've already got Chris Liddell in the Whitehouse mate!

free thoughtpolice
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#368

Post by free thoughtpolice »

deLurch wrote:
Tigzy wrote:Was gonna mention this, but Pakman got there first: I have a horrible suspicion that Trumper may be as much in the pocket of the Salafis as Hillary was. :?
It isn't a muslim ban so much as it is a ban on countries which export a high level of terrorism.

Of course that still doesn't necessarily drop Saudi Arabia off the list. The problem is the US still needs to import oil from them.
The US doesn't need Saudi oil. Between an expansion of imports from the Canadian oil sands and Merkin shale oil they could make up the difference really easily, especially if they don't freeze out Mexican exports. The Saudis could hurt Wall Street by pulling out their investments but oil is not a problem.

deLurch
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#369

Post by deLurch »

free thoughtpolice wrote:The US doesn't need Saudi oil. Between an expansion of imports from the Canadian oil sands and Merkin shale oil they could make up the difference really easily, especially if they don't freeze out Mexican exports. The Saudis could hurt Wall Street by pulling out their investments but oil is not a problem.
Take a look at the US consumption & the production by the countries you have noted. There is no simple cheap route to get around that.

Global production by top 20 countries:
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=20&v=88&l=en

Global consumption by top 20 countries:
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=20&v=91&l=en

Clarence
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#370

Post by Clarence »

Za-zen wrote:
Shatterface wrote:
Za-zen wrote:It's the economy stupid. Those who keep thinking in national terms are quite fucked, as reality has left them behind, technology has made borders irrelevant, the politics hasn't caught up to that. Perhaps Trump does have some interim solutions that will decrease the impact of Globalisation, we'll have to see, something that a lot of people don't know is that the man is a fucking economist, so he has a grasp of how the wheels turn beyond you me or most others. But the only way this gets fixed long term is a global political revolution (not an armed one you tards), which totally changes how goods and services are made/bought/sold. That requires a very very global vision rather than a narrow national one.
Thinking globally is not the same as putting national interest second. When governments think globally they are simply looking at other countries as trading partners. They wouldn't trade if they weren't profiting from it.

Global government won't work. Every country puts their own interests first. Even international agreements on carbon emissions are based on long-term national interest.
National interest is horseshit. It's a bullshit term, that means fuck all, if you want to talk about the interest of those with the dollars, then you can start to get into it, but you need to first realize that the interests of those with the actual dollars have fuck all to do with the interests of the majority of the populations within arbitrary borders. Dollar holders don't give a fuck about the fleg they were born under, and are quite glad for the retards that do (they're easier exploited). The world economy since the collapse of the soviet union (china is a weird cancer) firmly worships Adam smith, and his core tenet of trickle down (give more to those who have more, and they'll create more).

In order to combat a rampant greed is good ethos (adam smith), so that lower orders in developed countries get a new deal, politics has to be global in it's attempts to regulate trade. The vehicles are in place if they were utilized to that end. The UN does fuck all, in any reformation this should be it's redesign.
And this is why the 'world order' you talk about is beginning to fail.

Humans are tribal creatures. The largest "Tribe" (and the most inclusive of strangers from outside ones family or immediate locality) that humans have managed to come up with is the Nation. Without a Nation you fracture into smaller "tribes"(sometimes literally) and warfare tends to increase (The middle east and Africa are prime examples of this). The International Monetary System you worship (because you've apparently convinced yourself it is has some kind of real existence outside of parts of human trading psychology and can exist without actual physical enforcement arms, often provided by those 'nations' you deride) is merely a feature of the current unregulated parts of the current system, enabled by largely unregulated technology.

Humans can regulate technology, indeed, I'd argue we have every incentive to do so, as Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking , and the entire 'smart AI ' problem illustrate.

Humans can regulate trade. That this should have been done at the very beginning of this 'new world economic order' is quite obvious now.

Anyway, the larger problem with your ideas is that you've given people in your imaginary Global Free Trade world nothing to do. Chasing dollars doesn't make for a satisfying life in and of itself, once basic needs are met. You've basically spit on the idea of different cultures, yet how people trade and handle money is also an aspect of those different cultures, and more importantly - people are willing to die for culture, for religion, for nationalism. Few people are willing to die for global transnational financial autocracy - and this is becoming a problem for the autocrats who were attempting to make their own version (force it basically, though not often directly with guns) of The New Man - a homogenous, neutered, economic consumer.

Shatterface
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#371

Post by Shatterface »

Za-zen wrote:National interest is horseshit. It's a bullshit term, that means fuck all, if you want to talk about the interest of those with the dollars, then you can start to get into it, but you need to first realize that the interests of those with the actual dollars have fuck all to do with the interests of the majority of the populations within arbitrary borders. Dollar holders don't give a fuck about the fleg they were born under, and are quite glad for the retards that do (they're easier exploited). The world economy since the collapse of the soviet union (china is a weird cancer) firmly worships Adam smith, and his core tenet of trickle down (give more to those who have more, and they'll create more).

In order to combat a rampant greed is good ethos (adam smith), so that lower orders in developed countries get a new deal, politics has to be global in it's attempts to regulate trade. The vehicles are in place if they were utilized to that end. The UN does fuck all, in any reformation this should be it's redesign.
Maybe you can tell us how you are going to create your global superstate.

Are you going to persuade the entire world to give up local democracy or wait till a race of benign samurai emerge from the wreckage of atomic war to enforce peace and co-operation with the aid of their ironclad zeppelins?

free thoughtpolice
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#372

Post by free thoughtpolice »

deLurch wrote:
free thoughtpolice wrote:The US doesn't need Saudi oil. Between an expansion of imports from the Canadian oil sands and Merkin shale oil they could make up the difference really easily, especially if they don't freeze out Mexican exports. The Saudis could hurt Wall Street by pulling out their investments but oil is not a problem.
Take a look at the US consumption & the production by the countries you have noted. There is no simple cheap route to get around that.

Global production by top 20 countries:
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=20&v=88&l=en

Global consumption by top 20 countries:
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=20&v=91&l=en
Canada supplies 40% of merkin demand, Saudi 11%. Right now, the oil sands are operating at below capacity and some expansion projects have been put on hold, partly because of prices, partly because Obama blocked the Keystone pipeline and because Canadian producers were receiving less than world prices.
It wouldn't take long for the oil sands to replace the Saudi supply and Canadian reserves are nearly as large as the Saudi reserves. The only catch would be that the Saudis can extract the oil more cheaply and can ramp up supply quickly and flood the market bringing the price down enough to make Canadian and American sources unprofitable.

BoxNDox
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#373

Post by BoxNDox »

Really? wrote:
The dancing can be beautiful on its own.

[youtube][/youtube]
About a month back I went to see Baryshnikov perform Robert Wilson's Letter to a Man. Nearly 70, and still awesome.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/ ... r-to-a-man

gurugeorge
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#374

Post by gurugeorge »

Za-zen wrote: [...] Adam smith, and his core tenet of trickle down (give more to those who have more, and they'll create more).
Well that's not quite what trickle-down means, but yeah, that actually works. It's really more that if you give more to those who seem to be capable of making more with less, then they'll make more with less, and everyone benefits because there's more left over to make more (with less).

The problem is that the crony-capitalist form of globalism doesn't do that, it rewards those with political pull, it doesn't heatseek the capable the way a free market does. Also, there are other factors mitigating against rewards trickling down: mainly the way money is manipulated by central banks in order to feed both their cronies and the State's false vote-buying promises, resulting in endless hidden inflation that keeps down the masses' actual buying power.

People have been rightly feeling they're on a treadmill getting nowhere, and it's the result of State collusion with particular crony capitalists - the capitalists propping up the State, and the State buying revolution-delaying acquiescence with the money it gets from the capitalists.

The solution is, and always has been, limited government.

Easy J
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#375

Post by Easy J »

I, for one, will welcome our iron-zepplined samurai overlords.

Kirbmarc
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#376

Post by Kirbmarc »

Za-zen wrote:This is a common conflation (and a deliberate tactic by both trump and Farrage) between the genuine destructive impact of globalisation upon localised lower orders in developed countries, and low skilled foreign labour entering developed countries. The reality is that it isn't the low skilled foreign labour taking home citizens jobs, (as they generally end up doing the shittiest of the shittiest jobs that the low/no skill labour don't and won't do) the jobs just aren't ther anymore. They're gone! To fucking china, or whatever other shithole where people work for less than the price of a meal.

Trump/Brexit manipulated this into racist resentment via scapegoating, and it is scapegoating without any basis in reality, but purely reliant on pushing base human buttons.

The real problem is globalisation, I've thought for quite a while the class structures as defined within nations are obsolete, the class structure has to be understood globally now, since the economy is a global one. The working class of the US/Europe now live in india. How we resolve this is way above my pay grade.
There's no way to resolve this in the long run. There can be some ways to give incentives to businesses who stay in the developed countries in the short run, or ways to create jobs through state intervention for a while, but the low cost of labor is an incredibly huge incentive. And actually some of those jobs are even leaving China for South-East Asia and Africa, where there's an even lower cost of labor.

Once a nation is stable enough to build factories there without worrying about armed insurrections, nationalizations and coup d'etats every month or so it becomes ripe for businesses which can hire workers who are willing to do their job for peanuts. This means that once a clever dictator or oligarchy can take the control of a poor state which used to survive only on selling goods they can also loan out the citizens of their country and make money that way.

Even if the workers of that country organize themselves through unions, multinational businesses are willing to pay the local government and police to disrupt strikes and get scabs in.

The multinational/crony system is very stable since it provides people in the developed countries with goods and services that make life as a poor person in a developed country incredibly appealing for a poor person in a poor country (that's why people emigrate to developed country, they're making it big even if from our point of view they're living like animals). People who lose their jobs in the developed countries are concerned since their income is reduced but they still have phones, homes, cars, clothes, food, clean water, some kind of support system even if it's inefficient, or at least some kind of charity.

Of course the working class in developed countries is unhappy at seeing their jobs go to China or India or even Nigeria and understandably so but it's because their perspective of improving or maintaining their conditions are frustrated, not because they're becoming as poor as the working class in poor countries.

Trump and other populists reply to this development with some forms of control on the economy which may work in the short run but in the long run lead to higher prices and to a black market of cheaper imports or to other ways to circumvent the control. The more state control of the economy is increased the worse the backlash becomes.

There's no way of stopping globalization of the economy, one can only reduce its effects through control of immigration and intervention in the economy, but in the long run some kind of manufacturing jobs in the west are simply too expensive for businesses to compete. And halting competition in one country simply means that other countries who allow it will have cheaper products to sell. Tariffs and taxes on trade and other protectionist methods can make the problem less evident in the short run but in the long run people are only willing to pay more and more for a while, after that they turn to the black market or to other illegal, unregulated forms of trade.

The real reason why in the long run the effects of globalization are inevitable is that technology has made it very cheap to move things around and even cheaper to transmit information, because improvements in healthcare and agriculture have lead to a surplus population of cheap workers in the non-developed countries and because of the laws of economy. In the long run jobs move where the cost of labor is cheaper or people are substituted by cheaper robot work. But as John Maynard Keynes said "in the long run we're all dead", so people are happy enough with solutions that last for ten or fifteen years, which also allow politicians to claim a success and be elected or re-elected, prolonging the inevitable and leaving the problem to deal with to the next generation.

There are seven billion people in the world, it's estimated that we will reach nine or ten or even eleven billion before the global population growth stabilizes. This means a lot of people to be provided with food and water but also a great source of cheap labor once the countries they live in become stable and organized enough to support factories and other places of business or if they move to more organized and stable countries.

CaptainFluffyBunny
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#377

Post by CaptainFluffyBunny »

Assuming of course that automation doesn't make all these cheap laborers obsolete themselves at some point. We will have a class of people with no effective jobs.

Dornier Pfeil
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#378

Post by Dornier Pfeil »

deLurch wrote:
Dornier Pfeil wrote:I wish I could donate anti-money to PZ's legal defense fund.
That would be giving it to Richard Carrier.

...but he doesn't mind if you get a little on his face.
Icould happily donate anti-money to both of them.

Service Dog
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#379

Post by Service Dog »

For an anti-Trump movement or group to recruit me, the first thing they'd have to do is discard "never Trump" or "Anyone but Trump" rhetoric & acknowledge that Trump is better than some of the anti-Trump competition.

I'd set the bar at "Hillary".
If you cant accept she lost because she was a worse option... then your standards are too low for me.

screwtape
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#380

Post by screwtape »

Ape+lust wrote:Somebody is >this< close to achieving her dream of fucking herself.

http://imgur.com/rAHNfke.jpg
Not for me to correct you, but it seems that this might suit her better:
watson_selfie.jpg
(71.54 KiB) Downloaded 207 times

Brive1987
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#381

Post by Brive1987 »

PZs post on the white WA shooter has Caine being a bad ass in the comments:
Yes, I’ve been punched. For the record, I’m a woman. I was coldcocked by a fucking skinhead coming out of a gay bar. My friends punched him back. Then I punched the asshole. He would have curb stomped me and my friends if he’d had a chance. Fuck your handwringing. I don’t give a shit how much nazis get punched. What do you want to do, serve them tea? No thanks.

DrokkIt
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#382

Post by DrokkIt »

Service Dog wrote:In the 1980's southern senator Jesse Helms led the charge to de-fund the Nationsl Endowment for the Arts, citing the aptly-named 'Piss Christ' photos, Mapplethorpe's bullwhip-in-the-butthole, & Karen Finley's performance art tantrums. As a teen, I dutifully took sides, choosing "Art" over "Rednecks". I did not distinguish between Helms & Tipper Gore's PMRC attack on rock music.

Only decades later did I begin to agree that tax dollars shouldnt fund millionaire wanker artists, like Julien Schnabel... and their high-society galleries & vanity artworld. By then, NEA money had been redirected to fund 'presenters', such as ballet venues, or art-education, rather than individual artists. In some cases, this was little more than laundering the tax money, Im sure, before the same wankers obtained it.

A few days ago I listened to a podcast guest-- a mediocre 'libertarian comedian'. I agreed with one thing: he said most other comedians would be delighted to recieve a govt grant. But he was revulsed at the notion of Government Approved comedy.

The same day, a crony of mine called-- we've worked for socialite bosses & illegal graffiti stunts, together. Sometimes he's 'inspired' to a manic degree, which I find intolerable. He was in that mode... starting a hashtag in defense of the NEA budget, lest it be defunded by Trump. And he's mailing a work of art to the Whitehouse each day... and urging others to do the same. He wanted me to contribute, spread the word, share my contacts. I played Devil's Advocate, saying I think the expectation that Someone Else should fund their art-- is a major reason so many artists are awful people & stunted infants. He was inturrupted, he said "I'll call you right back!", but he never did. Manic short attention span.

Im loyal to that friend. I usually show-up to volunteer for his schemes. But he's engaging in exactly the type of protest which makes me think the protesters aren't serious or deserving of being taken seriously.

I don't like or trust Trump, but the anti-Trump movement has utterly failed to offer an incarnation with-which I'd want to be associated. Whether peaceful or disruptive.

Tonight I watched Last Knights on Netflix. Clive Owen & Morgan Freeman in a moderately-budgeted swordfight fantasy story. Game of Thrones lite. A blander '300'. Not awful, tho. Modestly good.

Basically, a corrupt Trump-guy demands bribes from the fiefdoms & the good guys resist & lose... but a ragtag band eventually strikes back. They wear black, like protesters & speak in righteous slogans. The moral of the story is some machiavellian sun tzu bushido metalhead notion that-- if you gotta let your princess get beaten into sex slavery in order to sneak in to the tyrant's palace... then okeydoke. It's Honor Porn. But, y'know, it did make the anti-Trump chumps look as formidable as The Orbit, by comparison. Crazy muslims have been offering How To Self-Radicalize lessons for a year... & then anti-trumpers choose to folloe the BlackLivesMatter/Occupy 'How NOT to win' playbook, instead.

I was a white knight, an eagle scout, a social justice 'ally', a token straight white cis guy, eager to act selflessly for those worse-off than me. But I was treated badly by the lefty, artsy, hipstery people I thought were my adopted family. So Ive become misanthropic. And disinclined to piss on their burning leotards, save them from themselves.
Yet again SD sums up a lot of my feelings and experiences in a similar field. Bravo.

Clarence
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#383

Post by Clarence »

There's no way to resolve this in the long run.
I'm disappointed your imagination seems to have left you. In fact, there are several ways a nation, or the world in general can 'resolve' this, and obviously not all of them are good.
A World War over resources is but one example of a potentially very bad solution. And if it led to a One World State, that almost certainly wouldn't be the current crony capitalist multinational ('transnational' , 'liberal') order we are used to. Of course if nukes or some of our other scientific vunderwerkswere utillized it might even lead to the collapse of civilization in general. Then again, since this system seems to gladly spit on everything that most people hold dear, perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

Also, I fail to see why the US has to trade with the world anyway, Short of oil (which eventually we will be weaned off of) and a very few strategic minerals, the country is pretty much self-supporting and has an internal market that is currently the largest in the world, and coudl be be even larger if we increased the actual incomes of the 50 to 70 million under or unemployed in this country. Of course not all countries are in our position, but there is no law of nature that says a country needs or even always benefits (no , Ricardo DOES not say that, and doesn't even always apply) from trade.

Eventually the robots will end up taking all jobs except some service/administrative ones done by humans. This will occur in an advanced national economy and, eventually in a hypothetical advanced world economy. When that happens (actually when it appears on the verge) something akin to Marshall Brains "Robotic Freedom" could be tried. I say could be, because the Powers That Be could decide they want a class of enslaved serfs instead, or perhaps they would simply use their robotic armies to 'cull' the 'excess population'.

Then there's the "X " factor of the exploitation and exploration of Solar System space which people such as Musk and Bezos appear to be keen on pioneering.

In short, there are many ways things can go. What I am sure of is that the modern economic "World Order" is not permanent and not sustainable.

Kirbmarc
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#384

Post by Kirbmarc »

Clarence wrote:
And this is why the 'world order' you talk about is beginning to fail.

Humans are tribal creatures. The largest "Tribe" (and the most inclusive of strangers from outside ones family or immediate locality) that humans have managed to come up with is the Nation. Without a Nation you fracture into smaller "tribes"(sometimes literally) and warfare tends to increase (The middle east and Africa are prime examples of this). The International Monetary System you worship (because you've apparently convinced yourself it is has some kind of real existence outside of parts of human trading psychology and can exist without actual physical enforcement arms, often provided by those 'nations' you deride) is merely a feature of the current unregulated parts of the current system, enabled by largely unregulated technology.

Humans can regulate technology, indeed, I'd argue we have every incentive to do so, as Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking , and the entire 'smart AI ' problem illustrate.

Humans can regulate trade. That this should have been done at the very beginning of this 'new world economic order' is quite obvious now.

Anyway, the larger problem with your ideas is that you've given people in your imaginary Global Free Trade world nothing to do. Chasing dollars doesn't make for a satisfying life in and of itself, once basic needs are met. You've basically spit on the idea of different cultures, yet how people trade and handle money is also an aspect of those different cultures, and more importantly - people are willing to die for culture, for religion, for nationalism. Few people are willing to die for global transnational financial autocracy - and this is becoming a problem for the autocrats who were attempting to make their own version (force it basically, though not often directly with guns) of The New Man - a homogenous, neutered, economic consumer.
What you say is true to an extent, but the problem is that the people chasing dollars and other forms of power (which is equivalent to money like matter is equivalent to energy) are those successful at getting them, and so they're the ones starting businesses, make deals with state employees all over the world, creating things, building churches, indoctrination centers and other sources of footsoldiers and getting into power.

People who matter don't look for a satisfying life and have never done it, the look for a higher status when compared to their peers. Kings want to become emperors, businessmen want to become richer than their rivals, clergymen want to get more followers, etc. "I want more" is the key belief of the sociopath, and that's why high-functioning sociopaths excel at being in power, they're great church leaders or bosses or chiefs or CEOs.

People who are willing to die for culture, religion or nationalism are good cannon fodder and work for free. There's nothing better for a king or a priest than a soldier you can send to die and do the dirty work wishing for a paradise after death and so you don't need to pay or to promise anything. Sociopaths love the faithful and the fanatics, they're easy to manipulate and rarely question orders. Religious are great for manipulation, there's plenty of people willing to kill, risk death or even die for a promise of a paradise.

What's happened recently is that some of the key leading sociopaths have made successful deals with each other to create new ways to indoctrinate the masses and get them on their side.

"Social justice" is a great way to sell people things and get them to work for you for free. Thousands and thousands of useful idiots can be lead to support the people you want or attack the people you dislike and you don't have to promise them anything but cheap tokens of approval. The problem with social justice is that why the true believers are the best cannon fodder one can hope for some people are simply rejecting to get with the program.

It's the perfect con: people do what you ask them to only to get to feel better than others. "Allies" are slaves who don't get paid or even treated well but keep obeying and obeying just to dream about how morally superior they are to the plebs.

On one hand islam is turning people into unthinking cannon fodder for the interests of Saudi court or other Gulf state elites or Iranian elites, including influencing the policies of the "west" through small, semi-autonomous states within the states (the SJWs are also great at protecting those interests by unthinkingly screaming "racist" and "islamophobe" at anyone who points out those interests and influences).

On the other hand people like Donnie Trump are great at intercepting and manipulating the needs and concerns of those who are demonized by the SJWs to promote their own interests.

Sociopaths are always going to rule the world. They're simply better at it: ruthless, manipulative, ambitious, determined. "Normal" people have too much scruples and concerns to be effective leaders, and they get tired of the responsibilities and chains of commanding. Sociopaths love power and have no scruples at all.

The only way for people who aren't in power to defend their interests is to calculate who's going to be the lesser evil, at least in the short run, and act accordingly. Dogmatic beliefs and unthinking group allegiances only make you far easier to manipulate, it's far better to abandon them and become better at keeping oneself informed about the world, about the acts and plans of those in power, and try to align one's interests to those things. This is why you need skepticism and the ability to find good sources of information. And even if you do that your power to influence things is limited to choosing the lesser evil, the smaller threat, the best way to reduce and control the power of the sociopaths through institutions that divide and parcel power through a system of checks and balances.

Utopias are the fantasies of ivory tower philosophers and mad prophets, the utopian messages, religious or ideological, get quickly twisted into clever ways to manipulate people by the sociopaths in power. Even the best planned and best established institutions which should guarantee checks and balances (the best way to keep sociopaths in check, by putting them one against the other) can be gamed in the long run.

One can always only limit the damage and act small scale to try to right some wrongs or to make some institutions function as they should. The perfect society will never exist and simply can't exist, and we'll have to deal with manipulative sociopaths in positions of power and with people who drink the Kool-Aid of the new and improved way to manipulate people to work for the sociopaths for free until the end of humanity.

Brive1987
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#385

Post by Brive1987 »

Ape+lust wrote:
Brive1987 wrote:Looks like Watson is already hoping someone will relieve her of the dog.

Seriously who leaves a puppy alone in public in a big city for 10 mins?


[.img]http://i.imgur.com/V0grRoV.jpg[/img]
Somebody who wouldn't exercise the dog if there were no bars in walking distance.

http://imgur.com/rlBtW0k.jpg
Someone who's definition of a "friend" is asking a stranger "hey mind my mutt, I'll be back in a McDonalds ten"

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#386

Post by Kirbmarc »

Clarence wrote:
There's no way to resolve this in the long run.
I'm disappointed your imagination seems to have left you. In fact, there are several ways a nation, or the world in general can 'resolve' this, and obviously not all of them are good.
A World War over resources is but one example of a potentially very bad solution. And if it led to a One World State, that almost certainly wouldn't be the current crony capitalist multinational ('transnational' , 'liberal') order we are used to. Of course if nukes or some of our other scientific vunderwerkswere utillized it might even lead to the collapse of civilization in general. Then again, since this system seems to gladly spit on everything that most people hold dear, perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

Also, I fail to see why the US has to trade with the world anyway, Short of oil (which eventually we will be weaned off of) and a very few strategic minerals, the country is pretty much self-supporting and has an internal market that is currently the largest in the world, and coudl be be even larger if we increased the actual incomes of the 50 to 70 million under or unemployed in this country. Of course not all countries are in our position, but there is no law of nature that says a country needs or even always benefits (no , Ricardo DOES not say that, and doesn't even always apply) from trade.

Eventually the robots will end up taking all jobs except some service/administrative ones done by humans. This will occur in an advanced national economy and, eventually in a hypothetical advanced world economy. When that happens (actually when it appears on the verge) something akin to Marshall Brains "Robotic Freedom" could be tried. I say could be, because the Powers That Be could decide they want a class of enslaved serfs instead, or perhaps they would simply use their robotic armies to 'cull' the 'excess population'.

Then there's the "X " factor of the exploitation and exploration of Solar System space which people such as Musk and Bezos appear to be keen on pioneering.

In short, there are many ways things can go. What I am sure of is that the modern economic "World Order" is not permanent and not sustainable.
Oh, yes, I should have been more clear. There's no way of reversing the process and going back to before globalization happened. There are indeed many ways to further develop globalization.

A world war could turn back the clock, but unless it makes our technology and societies lose the last two centuries of progress and ideas the globalization process will pretty soon reappear in one form or another, maybe not lead by the US but by some other country, but not too different in scope or goals.

An increase in the number of jobs being taken over by robots could also lead either to the culling of population or to a natural decline of births and the gradual establishment of a "Wall-E" future of fat baby-like humans being tended to by machines.

Even if the US go full isolationist other countries will always compete for their market. People aren't willing to "buy American!" no matter what, they already don't do that and I don't see why they would in the future, at a certain point selfish interest always trumps patriotism.

Space exploration would be great, the "golden ending" for humanity, but I'm more than a bit skeptical about our ability to focus on that direction, especially as environmental problems will lead to more and more tensions and needs for new solutions here on earth.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#387

Post by Kirbmarc »

Why sexual desire is objectifying – and hence morally wrong

Bring on the anti-sex league!
Raja Halwani wrote:Sex doesn’t just make you objectify your partner. It also makes you objectify yourself. When I am in the grip of sexual desire, I also allow another person to reduce me to my body, to use me as a tool. Kant saw this process of self-objectification as an equally, if not more, serious moral problem than objectification directed outwards. I have duties to others to promote their happiness, but I also have a duty to morally perfect myself. Allowing myself to be objectified opposes this precept, according to Kant.
That Kant, what a cunt (well, he was a permavirgin sexophobe...)
Raja Halwani wrote:Is it possible to have sex without objectification? Of course. Prostitutes do it all the time. So do many long-term couples. They have sex with people whom they do not desire. And with no desire, there is no objectification. Not even love can fix it. When the desire is high, when the sexual act is in full swing, my beloved is a piece of flesh. (Though love does lead to occasional cuddling, which is nice.)

I agree with Kant that sexual desire and objectification are inseparable, and a force that morality must reckon with. Sex is like any good dessert: delicious but with a price.
Halwani seems to be one those psychological dysfunctional people who tries to find moral excuses for their dysfunction and impose them onto others, like Augustine of Hippo or Saul of Tarsus.

Also, Kantian ethics are deeply inhuman. Then again Kant was likely autistic, this explains a lot. The concept of "objectification" is a very autistic one.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#388

Post by free thoughtpolice »

Becky has started a trend among baboons.
[youtube][/youtube]

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#389

Post by Lsuoma »

People are being detained at US airports already.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#390

Post by free thoughtpolice »

You mean potential terrorists pinko. :hand: I feel safer already.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#391

Post by Kirbmarc »

Blanket country-based bans are NOT the way to go. This is a very simplistic solution that won't change much, especially since Saudis and their money is still allowed in. Focus on preaching, not on country origin. Target muslim supremacists, not everyone from the countries that you don't have any close economic ties with.

If you really want blanket bans at least include gulf countries, you Orange Buffoon.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#392

Post by Clarence »

Kirbmarc wrote:
One can always only limit the damage and act small scale to try to right some wrongs or to make some institutions function as they should. The perfect society will never exist and simply can't exist, and we'll have to deal with manipulative sociopaths in positions of power and with people who drink the Kool-Aid of the new and improved way to manipulate people to work for the sociopaths for free until the end of humanity.
I agree with 99 percent of what you wrote, so I'm only posting the things I want to explore:
Even the best planned and best established institutions which should guarantee checks and balances (the best way to keep sociopaths in check, by putting them one against the other) can be gamed in the long run.
This is true, but not every human ruler has been a sociopath. Not even every good human ruler or leader (I'd say George Washington is a good example of a good leader who wasn't a sociopath). And part of the reason we have had so many in power is because of things such as war - some degree of sociopathy tends to be needed to lead well in war, often the very best are the very definition of sociopath(Here, I'm thinking say, Genghis Khan).

Nonetheless , just as you have checks and balances (pitting people or institutions against each other) you forgot that there are other methods of running a government, or selecting people. Incentives matter. Currently, the 'incentives' for most world leaders are very sociopathic : treat everyone, including your own people (whom you are supposed to be leading and NURTERING) as cogs in order to squeeze a dime or an advantage out of the world economic system so you or your particular class (and your political benefactors) profit, screw everyone else, the losers. Now , obviously there's also 'more political popularity' to be gained from helping a broad swath of people profit (in your country) but that's a much harder job, much more risky, and your political patrons (who are often transnational entitities) often don't give a shit. And so long as things in your own country muddle along reasonably well (the losses in wealth for the 'average Jane/Joe', whilst relatively rapid, still often take decades and many leaders don't lead that long esp in Democracies with term limits or coalition governments) the voters won't revolt and your political patrons will assure (or nearly so ) your continuence in power, or a nice fallback position or income stream should you lose to the often also-owned 'opposition'. It's a lovely little game, but lots of people have now started to catch on.

I'd say a political system could be designed with better incentives (both social and legal) and more disincentives for utterly selfish behavior. The advantage of such a system would be it wouldn't attract as many sociopaths, at least at first, esp if it was made hard to game.

Of course nothing human is perfect, so e ventually (even if the People were vigilant), the whole process would have to start again but that might be a long way in the future.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#393

Post by Clarence »

By the way, I'm not claiming we can do perfection.
We can just do alot better than we are. We know humans (even sociopaths!) respond to incentives as much or even more than punishments: why not take advantage of this fact to get us some more representative government?

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#394

Post by Kirbmarc »

Clarence wrote:By the way, I'm not claiming we can do perfection.
We can just do alot better than we are. We know humans (even sociopaths!) respond to incentives as much or even more than punishments: why not take advantage of this fact to get us some more representative government?
This is a very interesting consideration. The liberal democratic system is based on a system of carrot-and-stick checks and balances already. However some reforms could be needed. No idea where to start on this specific issue of balancing incentives, though.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#395

Post by Clarence »

Kirbmarc wrote:Why sexual desire is objectifying – and hence morally wrong

Bring on the anti-sex league!
Raja Halwani wrote:Sex doesn’t just make you objectify your partner. It also makes you objectify yourself. When I am in the grip of sexual desire, I also allow another person to reduce me to my body, to use me as a tool. Kant saw this process of self-objectification as an equally, if not more, serious moral problem than objectification directed outwards. I have duties to others to promote their happiness, but I also have a duty to morally perfect myself. Allowing myself to be objectified opposes this precept, according to Kant.
That Kant, what a cunt (well, he was a permavirgin sexophobe...)
Raja Halwani wrote:Is it possible to have sex without objectification? Of course. Prostitutes do it all the time. So do many long-term couples. They have sex with people whom they do not desire. And with no desire, there is no objectification. Not even love can fix it. When the desire is high, when the sexual act is in full swing, my beloved is a piece of flesh. (Though love does lead to occasional cuddling, which is nice.)

I agree with Kant that sexual desire and objectification are inseparable, and a force that morality must reckon with. Sex is like any good dessert: delicious but with a price.
Halwani seems to be one those psychological dysfunctional people who tries to find moral excuses for their dysfunction and impose them onto others, like Augustine of Hippo or Saul of Tarsus.

Also, Kantian ethics are deeply inhuman. Then again Kant was likely autistic, this explains a lot. The concept of "objectification" is a very autistic one.
Ever notice how much public policy is based on Kantian ethics or at least seems to be directed at robots, not humans?
At least in the US I can point to several laws and policies that are widespread in societal impact, and often easy to abuse.
Sexual harrasment law and policy. Domestic violence law and policy. Sexual assault policy (at least in College Campuses). Some (not all, does vary by state and sometimes a little mercy is shown even for things like coke) of the Anti-Drug laws, particularly at the Federal level. Several of the SJW and 2/3/4th wave feminist concepts such as 'objectification', 'gas lighting' and 'manipulation', where such concepts might have some use at the extremes and tightly defined, instead they become loose grab bags of concepts, easily applied to anything and everything, esp anything a male does that a female doesn't like(which adds unneeded and unfair sexual dimensions as well).

At least in the US we seem to be a land that expects to be inhabited by angels, not humans. Then you add our 'dog eats dog' economic ethos on top of all of that in a world economy and where just about no-one even has "The Farm" as a fallback (even a hardscrabble poor farmer has a certain innate dignity, whereas someone unemployed might as well be dead in some ways in the USA) and its no wonder suicide has exploded over the past 40 or so years.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#396

Post by Bhurzum »

Brive1987 wrote:
Yes, I’ve been punched. For the record, I’m a woman. I was coldcocked by a fucking skinhead coming out of a gay bar. My friends punched him back. Then I punched the asshole. He would have curb stomped me and my friends if he’d had a chance. Fuck your handwringing. I don’t give a shit how much nazis get punched. What do you want to do, serve them tea? No thanks.
The principle of "escalation" in action, I fucking love it!

Now, change the words "skinhead" and "nazi" to any target demographic you want and you have lynch-mob rule. Alternatively, simply call the target of your ire a "skinhead" or "nazi" and boom, job done!

Thanks Caine, I'm going out now to break some lesbian-jaw! Fucking nazi-lesbians piss me off!

https://runnersupchronicles.files.wordp ... /krack.jpg

"This is from Caine!"

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#397

Post by Bhurzum »

:popcorn:

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#398

Post by Kirbmarc »

Clarence wrote: Ever notice how much public policy is based on Kantian ethics or at least seems to be directed at robots, not humans?
At least in the US I can point to several laws and policies that are widespread in societal impact, and often easy to abuse.
Sexual harrasment law and policy. Domestic violence law and policy. Sexual assault policy (at least in College Campuses). Some (not all, does vary by state and sometimes a little mercy is shown even for things like coke) of the Anti-Drug laws, particularly at the Federal level. Several of the SJW and 2/3/4th wave feminist concepts such as 'objectification', 'gas lighting' and 'manipulation', where such concepts might have some use at the extremes and tightly defined, instead they become loose grab bags of concepts, easily applied to anything and everything, esp anything a male does that a female doesn't like(which adds unneeded and unfair sexual dimensions as well).

At least in the US we seem to be a land that expects to be inhabited by angels, not humans. Then you add our 'dog eats dog' economic ethos on top of all of that in a world economy and where just about no-one even has "The Farm" as a fallback (even a hardscrabble poor farmer has a certain innate dignity, whereas someone unemployed might as well be dead in some ways in the USA) and its no wonder suicide has exploded over the past 40 or so years.
Po-mo feminism is very Kantian in its approach. Aneris wrote a very well-though post on the Kantian origins of the concept of "objectification". Kantian ethics are very deontological (based on strict adherence to rules about actions regardless of consequences). Kant's goal was to establish a categorical imperative, i.e. a rational, self-evident principles upon which moral could have been based. These are the three formulations of Kant's categorical imperative:
Act only according to that maxim by which you can also will that it would become a universal law.
Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
Every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in a universal kingdom of ends.
As you can see there's no room for consequences or interactions about different desires here. Kantian ethics prohibit any act that could not work as an universal law even if mutually agreed by all participants in a specific context.

In theory Kant prohibits charity, since charity cannot become a universal law (some people aren't able to donate anything) and it uses the charity-giver themselves (their "own person") as a mean (something which gives money, like an ATM) instead of as an end.

This of course an extreme application of Kant's ethics, and Kant would likely disagree about my interpretation of charity as "objectifying", but the main difference between Kantian ethics and other kinds of ethics is that in Kant's system an action cannot be judged according the circumstances in which it happened, but always according to an absolute, abstract rule. Kant himself argued that lying to a murderer about the wherabouts of a victim is immoral, because it considers the murderer as a means, not as an end (I'm not kidding).

Kant's ethics lack pragmatism and evolution. They're highly dogmatic and abstract. The Kantian nature of the ethics po-mo feminism (2,3,4 wave) is likely one of the reasons why they tend not to work very well in real life and to demonize behavior of their critics rather than to acknowledge flaws.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#399

Post by Shatterface »

Brive1987 wrote:PZs post on the white WA shooter has Caine being a bad ass in the comments:
Yes, I’ve been punched. For the record, I’m a woman. I was coldcocked by a fucking skinhead coming out of a gay bar. My friends punched him back. Then I punched the asshole. He would have curb stomped me and my friends if he’d had a chance. Fuck your handwringing. I don’t give a shit how much nazis get punched. What do you want to do, serve them tea? No thanks.
If the skinhead was coming out of a gay bar the chances is he was gay. Maybe the sight of some angry Injin freaked him out.

The whole argument is retarded. Anyone has the right to self defence. If you admit you want to hit Nazis why the fuck shouldn't they hit you first?

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#400

Post by Kirbmarc »

Shatterface wrote:
If the skinhead was coming out of a gay bar the chances is he was gay. Maybe the sight of some angry Injin freaked him out.

The whole argument is retarded. Anyone has the right to self defence. If you admit you want to hit Nazis why the fuck shouldn't they hit you first?
I think you're making a mistake here. Preventive attacks aren't self defense. Saying you want to hit nazis doesn't give them the justification to hit first. It might give them justification to ask you to be escorted out of the premises, depending on the venue you're both in. Trying to hit nazis, on the other hand, gives them every justification to stop you as violently as needed. If Spencer saw the attacker coming, ducked and sucker-punched him he could have claimed self-defense and win if the attacker tried to press charges.

One of the consequences of the "nazi punching is free game" mindset is that real neo-nazis (not "respectable" alt-righters like Spencer) will feel even more justified in going after people with "preventive" expeditions, since they're not exactly a law-abiding group themselves.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#401

Post by Shatterface »

Re: Kant and autism.

It's actually more likely that Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, was autistic: Kant comes across more like a religious fundamentalist.

Jonathan Haidt discusses the possibility that Bentham was autistic in <b>The Righteous Mind</b>. It's not just a matter of moral rigidity, it's was his total lack of social skills.
Jeremy Bentham went to Oxford at the age of twelve and trained as a lawyer. His most important work was titled Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislations. In it he proposed that a single principle should govern all reforms, all laws, and even all human actions: the principle of utility. Each law should aim to maximize the utility of the community, which is defined as the simple arithmetic sum of the expected utilities of each member. Bentham then systematized the parameters needed to calculate utility to reach a moral verdict on any action, for any person, in any country.

Bentham’s philosophy showed an extraordinary degree of systemizing, and as Baron-Cohen says, systemizing is a strength. Problems arise, however, when systemizing occurs in the absence of empathizing. In an article titled ‘Asperger’s Syndrome and the Eccentricity and Genius of Jeremy Bentham,’ Philip Lucas and Anne Sheeran collect accounts of Bentham’s personal life and compare them to the diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s syndrome. They find a close match on the main diagnostic criteria, including those involving low empathy and poor social relationships. Bentham had few friends as a child, and he left a string of angry ex-friends as an adult. He never married, referred to himself as a hermit, and seemed to care little about other people. One contemporary said of him: ‘He regards the people about him no more than the flies of a summer.’

A related criterion is an impaired imaginative capacity, particularly with respect to the inner lives of other people. In his philosophy as in his personal behavior, Bentham offended many of his contemporaries by his inability to perceive variety and subtlety in human motives. John Stuart Mill – a decidedly non-autistic utilitarian – came to despise Bentham. He wrote the Bentham’s personality disqualified him as a philosopher because of the ‘incompleteness’ of his mind: ‘In many of the most natural and strongest feelings of human nature he had no sympathy; from many of its graver experiences he was altogether cut off; and the faculty by which one mind understand a mind different from itself, and throws itself into the feelings of that other mind, was denied him by his deficiency of imagination.’

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#402

Post by Service Dog »

Shatterface wrote:
Brive1987 wrote:PZs post on the white WA shooter has Caine being a bad ass in the comments:
Yes, I’ve been punched. For the record, I’m a woman. I was coldcocked by a fucking skinhead coming out of a gay bar. My friends punched him back. Then I punched the asshole. He would have curb stomped me and my friends if he’d had a chance. Fuck your handwringing. I don’t give a shit how much nazis get punched. What do you want to do, serve them tea? No thanks.
If the skinhead was coming out of a gay bar the chances is he was gay. Maybe the sight of some angry Injin freaked him out.

The whole argument is retarded. Anyone has the right to self defence. If you admit you want to hit Nazis why the fuck shouldn't they hit you first?
The poor fella was just trying to retreive his scalp.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#403

Post by free thoughtpolice »

Brive1987 wrote:PZs post on the white WA shooter has Caine being a bad ass in the comments:
Yes, I’ve been punched. For the record, I’m a woman. I was coldcocked by a fucking skinhead coming out of a gay bar. My friends punched him back. Then I punched the asshole. He would have curb stomped me and my friends if he’d had a chance. Fuck your handwringing. I don’t give a shit how much nazis get punched. What do you want to do, serve them tea? No thanks.
From the same post PZ says:
Stop right there. The man came armed to a peaceful protest and shot someone. He was identified — they have video and eyewitness testimony and, apparently, the gun — and picked up by the police…who then let him go. The prosecutors say they need more time to build a case against him. Unbelievable. I’m going to go out on a limb and make another prediction about the shooter: he’s white.
Wrong dumbass, he was native Hawaiian.
Also, it appears neither PZ or any of the baboons saw the vids of the incident, especially the slo-mo ones that show the shooter apparently defending himself from the shootee that is approaching and attacking.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#404

Post by Bhurzum »

Kirbmarc wrote:I think you're making a mistake here. Preventive attacks aren't self defense.
Slight objection to this although it may be a UK specific thing - if you are advancing towards me and acting in such a way to cause fear and distress, I may be justified (legally) in striking the first blow. It's also important that I move away from you (backwards) as I snot you and only land sufficient blows (minimum force) to extract myself from further harm or to take the fight out of you.

I know this because I've been to court twice (for defending myself in the manner described) and walked both times.

Note: The most recent case was 2009 so the rules may have changed since then.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#405

Post by Shatterface »

Service Dog wrote:The poor fella was just trying to retreive his scalp.
Poor guy is trying to have a good time with his gay friends and he steps outside and finds this scary mob how is he supposed to react?

https://yt3.ggpht.com/-oG_PxYqf4hA/AAAA ... /photo.jpg

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#406

Post by Service Dog »

Let's start a war!
Start a nuclear war!
at the
gay bar

[youtube][/youtube]

Kirbmarc
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#407

Post by Kirbmarc »

Clarence wrote:
Even the best planned and best established institutions which should guarantee checks and balances (the best way to keep sociopaths in check, by putting them one against the other) can be gamed in the long run.
This is true, but not every human ruler has been a sociopath. Not even every good human ruler or leader (I'd say George Washington is a good example of a good leader who wasn't a sociopath). And part of the reason we have had so many in power is because of things such as war - some degree of sociopathy tends to be needed to lead well in war, often the very best are the very definition of sociopath(Here, I'm thinking say, Genghis Khan).


Oh, I agree, not every leader has been a sociopath, sociopaths aren't the only people interested in power, just have it much easier at fighting dirty. Jimmy Carter for example, while not necessarily a good leader, likely wasn't a sociopath, he naively admitted he "lusted for women other than his woman in his heart" to Playboy. A religious sociopath would have never been so naively sincere.

I agree that Washington also likely wasn't a sociopath, and he was a good leader. The US constitution actually was a very good system of checks and balances for its own time, likely the best one in centuries. Time has passed and people have learnt to game it.
Nonetheless , just as you have checks and balances (pitting people or institutions against each other) you forgot that there are other methods of running a government, or selecting people. Incentives matter. Currently, the 'incentives' for most world leaders are very sociopathic : treat everyone, including your own people (whom you are supposed to be leading and NURTERING) as cogs in order to squeeze a dime or an advantage out of the world economic system so you or your particular class (and your political benefactors) profit, screw everyone else, the losers. Now , obviously there's also 'more political popularity' to be gained from helping a broad swath of people profit (in your country) but that's a much harder job, much more risky, and your political patrons (who are often transnational entitities) often don't give a shit. And so long as things in your own country muddle along reasonably well (the losses in wealth for the 'average Jane/Joe', whilst relatively rapid, still often take decades and many leaders don't lead that long esp in Democracies with term limits or coalition governments) the voters won't revolt and your political patrons will assure (or nearly so ) your continuence in power, or a nice fallback position or income stream should you lose to the often also-owned 'opposition'. It's a lovely little game, but lots of people have now started to catch on.
Limits on donors and lobbying could limit some of the damage, but there's likely more that can be done on these issues.
I'd say a political system could be designed with better incentives (both social and legal) and more disincentives for utterly selfish behavior. The advantage of such a system would be it wouldn't attract as many sociopaths, at least at first, esp if it was made hard to game.

Of course nothing human is perfect, so eventually (even if the People were vigilant), the whole process would have to start again but that might be a long way in the future.
I'm all for that, and I think that a reform of the systems we have is possible. It just will be extremely hard given how sturdy and resilient certain games of politics have become.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#408

Post by Kirbmarc »

Bhurzum wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:I think you're making a mistake here. Preventive attacks aren't self defense.
Slight objection to this although it may be a UK specific thing - if you are advancing towards me and acting in such a way to cause fear and distress, I may be justified (legally) in striking the first blow. It's also important that I move away from you (backwards) as I snot you and only land sufficient blows (minimum force) to extract myself from further harm or to take the fight out of you.

I know this because I've been to court twice (for defending myself in the manner described) and walked both times.

Note: The most recent case was 2009 so the rules may have changed since then.
Very interesting, thank you!

Anyway even in this case an action must be already initiated near you (by advancing towards you) which is reasonably considered to cause fear and distress. Simply saying on your blog "I like punching nazis, punch more of them" doesn't give a nazi the justification to punch you.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#409

Post by Bhurzum »

Service Dog wrote:Let's start a war!
Start a nuclear war!
at the
gay bar

[outube][outube]
"Dance commander" or GTFO!

;)

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#410

Post by Bhurzum »

Kirbmarc wrote:Simply saying on your blog "I like punching nazis, punch more of them" doesn't give a nazi the justification to punch you.
Indeed.

I just wish people would stop inventing rules to justify acting like animals.

(that was my inner hippy talking btw)

Service Dog
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#411

Post by Service Dog »

Actually... I have a barfight story involving "Dance Commander"... this sweaty, stringy, guy... like a taller version of the guy in the Dance Commander video... was rocking out a little too hard. I guess there was a band onstage? He'd put his hands on the shoulders of any stranger in front of him... to boost himself to jump really high, then come crashing back down into the crowd. The boss bartender told him "settle down, Dance Commander." But he kept bouncing around. Later, he stepped outside for a smoke, leaving his digital camera on the bar. I picked it up & everybody saw me donate some dick pics to it, then set it back on the bar. But my hoodlum friend Al decided to pocket the camera. D.C. came back in... asked boss bartender if he had seen the camera... boss told me, "ok, give it back to him". I said I didn't have it. I didnt approve of Al taking it... but I wasnt gonna rat. (Boss & I would deal with Al ourselves, later.) Dance Commander hooked an arm around my neck-- fake-friendly-- & shouted "Give. It. Baaack!" in my ear. I grabbed the back of his head & slammed it into the bar with each syllable: I. Don't. Have. It. Boss shrugged, "He doesnt have it. Get out of my bar." After that, boss called me Dance-Commander-Commander, for a while.

Caine's opponent was more formidable, tho:

Service Dog
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#412

Post by Service Dog »

[Raises hand], "What about Feminazis?"

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#413

Post by Steersman »

Lsuoma wrote:People are being detained at US airports already.
Good. Hope Trump makes the "ban" stick. Y'all might want to check out the Twitter hash-tag #MuslimBan (wish I knew how to check for total tweets or how much it's trending ...); but bring your :popcorn: and cup for liberal tears:

https://twitter.com/hashtag/MuslimBan?src=hash

screwtape
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#414

Post by screwtape »

Shatterface wrote:Re: Kant and autism.

It's actually more likely that Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, was autistic: Kant comes across more like a religious fundamentalist.
Time was when I used to walk past him each morning. He seemed a bit rigid even then.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4047/4546 ... 6fa8_b.jpg

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#415

Post by Jan Steen »

Trump should also ban all Canadians who call themselves 'Steersman' on the internet.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#416

Post by Bhurzum »

Service Dog wrote:Actually... I have a barfight story involving "Dance Commander"... this sweaty, stringy, guy... like a taller version of the guy in the Dance Commander video... was rocking out a little too hard. I guess there was a band onstage? He'd put his hands on the shoulders of any stranger in front of him... to boost himself to jump really high, then come crashing back down into the crowd. The boss bartender told him "settle down, Dance Commander." But he kept bouncing around. Later, he stepped outside for a smoke, leaving his digital camera on the bar. I picked it up & everybody saw me donate some dick pics to it, then set it back on the bar. But my hoodlum friend Al decided to pocket the camera. D.C. came back in... asked boss bartender if he had seen the camera... boss told me, "ok, give it back to him". I said I didn't have it. I didnt approve of Al taking it... but I wasnt gonna rat. (Boss & I would deal with Al ourselves, later.) Dance Commander hooked an arm around my neck-- fake-friendly-- & shouted "Give. It. Baaack!" in my ear. I grabbed the back of his head & slammed it into the bar with each syllable: I. Don't. Have. It. Boss shrugged, "He doesnt have it. Get out of my bar." After that, boss called me Dance-Commander-Commander, for a while.

Caine's opponent was more formidable, tho:
LOL!

I have a camera story for you...

During the first Gulf war, an eighteen year old Bhurzum was part of the crew of a challenger tank (I was "Shelldrake" - the gunner) and was fortunate enough to live/work with three pretty decent guys. The loader ("Pronto") was a middle-aged fullscrew (corporal) from the north of Scotland, very crude, a real "basic man" who took shit from nobody. Anyway, he had a really flashy camera (no pun) and was constantly taking snaps or getting us to take snaps of him. Over the course of three months, it became incredibly annoying and the driver ("playtime") and myself conspired to put and end to his happy-snapping.

Turns out, we didn't need to do anything drastic.

The loader had his two weeks leave brought forward and had to pack & go on very short notice. In his rush to make the transport, he forgot to take his camera and the massive drum of film he had stowed in his kit-bin. Well, what can I say? Over the next two weeks, the driver and myself started to take pictures of incredibly dull/mundane things - 30 exposures of a coffee mug, 30 exposures of a ball point pen, 30 exposures of a boot etc.

The commander ("Sunray") decided to get in on the action and we upped the ante - we burnt through about 50 rolls of film on a creme egg somebody got in a red cross parcel.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/207/4475 ... 14c5fd.jpg

Anyway, after his leave, he came back and understandably, went absolutely apeshit over his spoiled film. At this point, he had no idea what we'd captured on the film and we swore an oath to resist any/all threats or attempts to find out.

Towards the end of the war, it was priceless watching him trying to scrounge film. We passed through burning oil fields (I got some amazing shots!), went to the Basra bottleneck/highway 80 (Grim, only took a couple of pictures) and countless other "once in a lifetime" situations where a camera was mandatory.

The punchline came when the war ended and we went back to Germany. After POTL (post tour leave), I was horrified to learn that the nasty bastard was my new commander and he'd been promoted!

Yup, I was crew photographer (and digger of shit-pits) for a long time after that.

Worth it though - he developed every roll of film (post-war) and flew into an epic meltdown when he seen the pics!

:lol:

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#417

Post by Shatterface »

screwtape wrote:
Shatterface wrote:Re: Kant and autism.

It's actually more likely that Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, was autistic: Kant comes across more like a religious fundamentalist.
Time was when I used to walk past him each morning. He seemed a bit rigid even then.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4047/4546 ... 6fa8_b.jpg
IIRC, the college used to hide his head because students kept knicking it.

ConcentratedH2O, OM
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#418

Post by ConcentratedH2O, OM »

Bhurzum wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:I think you're making a mistake here. Preventive attacks aren't self defense.
Slight objection to this although it may be a UK specific thing - if you are advancing towards me and acting in such a way to cause fear and distress, I may be justified (legally) in striking the first blow. It's also important that I move away from you (backwards) as I snot you and only land sufficient blows (minimum force) to extract myself from further harm or to take the fight out of you.

I know this because I've been to court twice (for defending myself in the manner described) and walked both times.

Note: The most recent case was 2009 so the rules may have changed since then.
Seeing as someone who walks into a bank and hands over a note saying "I have a gun give me money" gets charged with attempted robbery, rather than theft, then you're fucking right I am going to respond to a feeling of physical threat to myself or others in the same way I would if it had already turned physical.

See Shia Lebeuf (sp) and shouting in the guy's ear. Begging for a quick push away then an uppercut.

Brive1987
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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#419

Post by Brive1987 »

I'm shock and saddened that tourists from Somalia and Libya needed visas for entry into the US at all.

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Re: Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#420

Post by pro-boxing-fan »

Service Dog wrote:Let's start a war!
Start a nuclear war!
at the
gay bar

[.youtube][/youtube]
[youtube][/youtube]

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