[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', '
')How, can anyone at this point defend this hyper industrial world that is leading our species into utter catastrophe.

[onlooker]

I stand on the side of the "Organic folk". Our evolution is characterized by both our cognitive ascension interspersed with our emotional nature. The irrationality of emotion is not a valid argument. Emotions per say do not function on the level of cognitive discernment. They are reactions to our experiences via the world and existence we are born into. As an example neither Love nor Hate is irrational.

The Metal/Wheel folk are informed by emotion and that is one of domination/achievement. That is their plan. But that plan stands out now in hindsight as nefarious. I say this because it is a destructive plan that is systematically destroying. Cancer has a plan to nullify the body's defences and grow. Well, this metal and wheel folk seem akin to Cancer. We grow to dominate and as we dominate we grow ever more.

But ultimately, as sentient beings who feel we cannot escape the moral dimensions of what we do or do not do. So, the plan of the metal folk in my view is evil. If the organic folk are irrational at least they can access love and allow love to permeate their decision making. To act consistent with Love and informed by Love may be viewed by some as irrational. By others like me view it as something akin to sacred. For by acting with Love and feeling it we are being true to the ultimate Plan which is to be in harmony with existence , with each other and with ourselves. I can think of no more important and worthwhile Plan.

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', ' ')
But ultimately, as sentient beings who feel we cannot escape the moral dimensions of what we do or do not do. So, the plan of the metal folk in my view is evil.

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', '
')
But ultimately, as sentient beings who feel we cannot escape the moral dimensions of what we do or do not do. So, the plan of the metal folk in my view is evil. If the organic folk are irrational at least they can access love and allow love to permeate their decision making. To act consistent with Love and informed by Love may be viewed by some as irrational. By others like me view it as something akin to sacred. For by acting with Love and feeling it we are being true to the ultimate Plan which is to be in harmony with existence , with each other and with ourselves. I can think of no more important and worthwhile Plan.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', '
')
But ultimately, as sentient beings who feel we cannot escape the moral dimensions of what we do or do not do. So, the plan of the metal folk in my view is evil. If the organic folk are irrational at least they can access love and allow love to permeate their decision making. To act consistent with Love and informed by Love may be viewed by some as irrational. By others like me view it as something akin to sacred. For by acting with Love and feeling it we are being true to the ultimate Plan which is to be in harmony with existence , with each other and with ourselves. I can think of no more important and worthwhile Plan.

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')
This is based on the theory kin selection, altruism toward kin helps preserve genes similar to your own. There is some basis for this.

[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', '
')Is love outdated as a force to unite? Was it ever intended as such?

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('asg70', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', '
')Is love outdated as a force to unite? Was it ever intended as such?

[Newfie]

Wow!

I for one do not believe evil exists except as a construct of the human mind.

I may say some one is evil, but that is wholly based upon a human perspective.

[KaiserJeep]

You people are skirting the concepts popularized in the classic libertarian manifesto, Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame . . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world . . . aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure.”

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'Y')ou people are skirting the concepts popularized in the classic libertarian manifesto, Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals.”

[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', '
')Douglas Adams in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (i forget which volume) writes - the purpose of politics is to distract the herd from the true power center and their plans (or something close to that).
I think Adams was right.

[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')The problem is over population and forced containment.

[Ibon]

We always come back to this flawed species meme and not being smarter than yeast.

And yet this current human overshoot episode in only now, after quite a few generations, reaching the point when consequences will provide the opportunity to definitively either confirm or prove wrong this meme.

It is too premature, when we still have not yet reacted to the consequences of human overshoot, to arrive to the conclusion that as a civilization we are incapable of self regulation is a balanced steady state.

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'W')e always come back to this flawed species meme and not being smarter than yeast.

And yet this current human overshoot episode in only now, after quite a few generations, reaching the point when consequences will provide the opportunity to definitively either confirm or prove wrong this meme.

It is too premature, when we still have not yet reacted to the consequences of human overshoot, to arrive to the conclusion that as a civilization we are incapable of self regulation is a balanced steady state.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', 'T')he result, a more compliant and obedient slave.

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', 'T')he result, a more compliant and obedient slave.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', 'T')he result, a more compliant and obedient slave.

[evilgenius]

I think the thread is addressing life too much as a winner take all proposition, especially in terms of government. Historically, under the divine right of kings, that may have been true. Democracy is a whole other beast. It's a system. As such, various voices come and go. At times one or the other may reign supreme. Few hold over all aspects of life.

My greatest concern for man, greater than peak oil, is what will happen when the money system comes to a halt because the normal means of both occupying ourselves, fretting about and getting it, and trading over it becomes obsolete. The money system is horrid. It creates all kinds of untoward distortions, both ecologically and sociologically. The best ways of dealing in systems are to recognize and act according to a place within a system. The best way with money is to understand one's class nature and both act according to and fight for it. Under both capitalism and communism those get distorted. Class is either rejected or made to fit into something it can't. One class cannot rule everything. Even the one percent are having a hard time, as witnessed by what their decisions have wrought upon the world, and how blindly they keep seeking more of the same.

My proposition has been to split up corporate ownership into more of a rock, paper, scissors type of game. There would need to be a new class of stock, one which got its income a different way than from a market for buying and selling it, generally. It would increase and decrease as the market capitalization of companies did, but it wouldn't serve to drive those expansions and contractions. The more speculative common and preferred shares would still do that. It would have to derive its income from the pool of money available for the executives to receive either their total pay, or, I think more preferably, their incentive pay.

Then that class would vote as to how much of what they would otherwise get paid would instead go to the executives in order to provide for their share. On the surface it's a design for countering the one percent, when you consider their power over things today. What it could be, though, is the beginning of thinking about how to keep the idea of money as a thing that provides incentive, as a driver of human endeavor and a shaper of success.

It would keep money viable as a means for men to communicate to each other on that level as money itself was threatened with extinction under the age of artificial intelligence and the permanent loss of jobs. A means of keeping the system a system and not allowing it to roll back into the age of the divine right of kings, of not allowing the rich to own everything. A means to provide for people to continue to have voices. Obviously, much more than that would have to occur. Folks would have to decide what would happen regarding real estate, what to do about accumulation of wealth gained upon that basis and whether those people ought to have their ability to participate curtailed in some way, or allow them to push the little people into nonexistence. Such a group of shareholders, though, if they owned about as much of companies as, say, the bottom ninety percent own of wealth today, as a percentage of total stock, but had such say over the welfare of those who earn, and need incentive to keep earning, the lion's share, might serve to maintain the system.