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Marc2b -> RE: 6th April - Iran? (4/3/2007 11:11:25 PM)
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It is interesting that the person at the theoretical 7-11 who refuses to sell you food is an asshole...why is he an asshole? What I posted was that he refused to sell to you because of your attitude. How does that make him an asshole?
He’s an asshole because he is obviously mistaken about my attitude. I have a great attitude. I’m a friendly, helpful guy. So whatever problem the asshole behind the counter has with me is obviously his problem, not mine. Truthfully, I was being a little humorous when I used the word asshole. Obviously, it didn’t fly.
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The difference between higher primates and the lower primates is the ability to reason instead of react instinctively.
Yes. In fact, I would say that the ability to override our instincts with our reason is what separates us from the animals. But that ability to reason is a thin layer over millions of years of finely honed instincts and it is they that get us into trouble most of the time. Is the guy who gets pulled over for speeding thinking things through when he takes a swing at the cop?
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You have on more than one occasion mentioned that the U.S, (as do most countries) has plans to invade virtually every country on the planet.
When the Hell have I ever said that? You’ve either misconstrued something I said or I have a long lost evil twin brother who likes to sneak onto my computer when I’m not looking.
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Since this has never happened in the history of the world why do you bring it up as a possibility
It is a hypothetical situation used as an example. Besides, it is a possibility. There is never a history of anything until it happens, then there is.
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Actually they do. More to the point they have absolute control of the oil in the U.S. which represents 70% of what we use.
They may temporarily dominate, but they do not have control. Do they control the weather? Do they determine the outcome of all wars?
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Perhaps you should read a little history. Start with the history of the Rothschild cartel.
The Rothschilds have maintained their wealth for so long because the have been adaptable to changing times. They are the exception that proves the rule (look at the latest list of the Forbes 500, then look at the list from twenty years ago, family fortunes that last more than a few generations are not that common). For now. Do you think their decedents will still be wealthy 500 years from now? A thousand? Ten thousand? Nothing lasts forever. The only constant in the universe is change.
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As for the constantly changing universe....I have not seen much real change in the past several thousand years.
A thousand years? A thousand years ain’t diddly shit. Even so, much has changed. How are the Mergovingians doing these days? They had control once.
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The rich get richer...
Sometimes. Sometimes they get poorer. Sometimes the poor get rich. As we have seen, the rich a few generations ago are not necessarily the rich today.
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That does not seem such a difficult question....figure out what your means are and live within them.
That is not the problem. The problem is others who want to decide my means for me. I’ve had someone call me an "Earth murderer" because I drive a pick-up truck. They claim I don’t really need it. This person didn’t even know me. How could they possibly know what I do or do not need my truck for? There are many in government (and many who want to be in government) who want to dictate to us how much we can earn, how much we have to pay employees, what we can drive, how much energy we can use, etc, etc, etc. None of these people have the personal knowledge necessary to make such decisions.
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So on a life boat if you are bigger, stronger or better armed you can have as much water and food as you choose?
Yes. Since I had the power to do so. You, however, continue to confuse the theoretical with the personal. Just because I could, doesn’t mean I would. Then again, are you on this boat with me? If so, you’ll be the first to go overboard. Now, don’t get bent out of shape, that was a joke.
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One might ask the same question of you. Where do you get the arrogance to say I will take what ever I think I need no matter that you feel you need it also.
Again, you are taking the theoretical, personally. Still, while some of us are more civilized than others (more reasonable, you might say), given extreme enough conditions, anyone of us can revert and become violent.
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I am a little confused as to just who is the fanatic...the hungry lion or the wounded gazelle? ( the predatory oil consumer or the oil producer who is about to be thugged out of his oil)
I would think that would be obvious.
If it were obvious I would not have asked the question. I am not a mind reader.
Neither really, because the point is that Humans, like animals, behave in certain predictable ways.
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By "catch on" do you mean that I have discovered that you are just dealing in rhetoric to cover your approval of thuggery?
I do not see anything good or old fashioned about thuggery. You on the other hand seem to embrace it with both arms.
It would appear that you are embracing fatuous rhetoric.
The only difference I have seen so far is what I call armed robbery and thuggery you like to call "good old fashioned primate politics"
You may be proud of operating with your animal instincts...civililzed society has eschewed it.
It is my opinion that your continual use of primate politics to justify your behaviour and the behaviour of those leaders you approve of is the primary reason for your lack of hope.
Us? Have you a mouse in your pocket? You are the one trying to make a case for the U.S, attacking Iran and taking their oil not me.
I’ll deal with all this later. On second thought, screw it, I’ll deal with it now and scrap all of the rest. Everything else is really irrelevant right now anyway. The heart of our dispute lies here. Besides, I want to wrap this up so I can smoke a joint and watch Logan’s Run on the DVD.
This is the second time I have had to explain this on these boards and I suspect it won’t be the last. I like to think. I like to philosophize. Sure, I go out on Friday nights, I read, watch television, listen to music, etc, but sometimes I just like to sit and think about the big issues. I start with the premise that the only thing I understand is that I understand nothing. I question everything. I look at everything from all sides. I look for the connections. I look for the patterns. I never accept anything as 100% settled (how can it be in a universe where the only constant is change?). I’ve arrive at some, provisional (how can they be anything else) conclusions. Here, greatly truncated to save time and space, is my (always provisional) conclusion about the Human race:
We are primates. A very unique species of primate to be sure but still primates. Desmond Morris summed it up best: "we make prefer to think of our selves as fallen angels but the reality is, we are risen apes." We follow predictable behavior patterns, skewered sometimes into some horrific ways in our modern society but civilized society has not eschewed them at all. What civilization we have is the result of our being able to channel some of our instincts into alternate activities (e.g. we can work off our aggressive needs through sports), and by damping down others for the greater (i.e. tribal) good.
We are a tribal species. For the vast majority of our existence we lived in small groups (perhaps 120 individuals at the largest) of hunter/gatherers. Strangers were rare and, thanks to a perfectly natural (evolved) defense behaviors, not to be entirely trusted. Today we are surrounded by strangers and evolution hasn’t caught up with our new society just yet. Our tribal nature can’t handle being surrounded by so many strangers. We try to adapt to this in three ways. Ignoring those strangers we can ignore (just watch people walking down the street of a large city). Having an agreed upon framework of interaction with those we can’t (e.g. saying "excuse me" to the stranger we brush past in the grocery store aisle). By forming pseudo-tribes.
The last one is perhaps the most important. Your family is the closest to the original Human tribe but each of us usually have several, often interlocking, pseudo-tribes we belong to: friends, co-workers, sports teams (and their fans), clubs, like-minded "alternative lifestylers (e.g. the BDSM community)," ethnic communities, religions, political parties, nations, etc. Our degree of loyalty to each of our pseudo-tribes varies from person to person but if a threat to the tribe is perceived, our tribal instincts kick in. To what degree they will depends upon tribal loyalty of the tribes members, and the nature of the perceived threat (how serious). Sometimes we can reason our way out of the perceived threat, sometimes we can’t. The greater the tribal loyalty, the greater the perceived threat, the greater chance of a violent reaction.
In case you haven’t guessed, I broke off in the middle of all this to... ummm... watch that movie (you know, Farrah Fawcett’s acting abilities have improved remarkably over the years). I could so easily get carried away and write page after page of this shit. But I promised myself no more 3am week nights so I am going to skip the "individuals relationship to his pseudo-tribes" arguments I have mustered, forgo the nuclear holocaust analogy (I love analogies, in case you haven’t guessed) I have thought up, and skip exploring America’s sudden burst of patriotism on September 11th as an example of pseudo-tribe reaction to a perceived threat. That should save me about three pages right there.
To wrap up. This is just one of the many prisms that I view world events through. There are also (amongst others) the historical view, the economic view, the cultural view, and of course, the personal view (how do world events affect me personally). None of these views are truly independent of the others but it is both helpful and interesting to view them separately from time to time as well as together.
Bottom line. I don’t embrace thuggery (and I resent the notion that I do). I have not, nor am I making a case for attacking Iran. I don’t wander around looking for 7-11 clerks to beat up. I can see how some of what I say can be misconstrued. I’ll accept some of the responsibility in that I sometimes err in assuming people see the world in the way I do. But I’m not the only one who does this. It is a common mistake. Some of the responsibility is yours in that you take what I say, filter it through the prism of your world view (what I like to call the ideological filter), and arrive at a false conclusion (I claim no immunity from this myself). When I say something like "if the West is cut off from it’s oil supplies, it almost guarantees an invasion of Iran," what it means is something like "if that large pseudo-tribe known as Western Civilization perceives a threat to it’s very existence (total economic collapse), it is likely to react violently in order to end the threat.
It does not mean that I love George Bush and hope we launch an attack against Iran soon because golly gee I really hate those Iranians (there is a difference between being distrustful and hating) and I want to thug them out of their oil."
I hope this explains it.
Now, to try to get back to LadyEllen’s original post. I heard on the radio today that Britain has said that things could come to a head with Iran in the next two days. I’ve yet to hear it anywhere else. If it is true it gives a little credence to the "bait them into justifying an attack" theory. I honestly don’t know which way or the other. I will say this, however. If those sailors were used as bait to justify an attack, then the Iranians have been fools – they swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker.
2:15am. Not bad, getting better, getting better.
I know why cats like to shove their ass in your face but does anybody know why they feel compelled to do it whenever you sit at the computer?
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