What's a better sytem of...living?

[DanS]

Originally posted by Lancer
To those who 'commie' ed me...I'm as anti commie as can be.

I disagree. The way you're talking, you're all about coercion of your fellow man, just like the commies. Who are you to determine how your fellow man lives?

Contrary to what you state, our country is ruled by shared interests, despite it containing an exceedingly complex society. For instance, rarely do Americans or immigrants to America take seditious actions. For decades, Americans have taken this for granted, so much so that Oklahoma City and 9/11 were huge surprises -- we hadn't even had the need to devise defenses against it. This isn't the case in most other places, including the Philippines, f.e.

The cynical aspect of your posts is that you unnecessarily swap coercion of the law for personal and civic action.

[Zkribbler]

Lancer is talking about taking steps to preserve the environment. If you think this is a commie priority, take your next vacation on the shores of the Aral Sea.

[Lancer]

Zkrib, 12 years ago I took a train through the Czech Republic, what a sewer with dead forests from burning coal and garbage everywhere....buildings still bombed out from WWII!

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


Values don't shape economies; economies shape values. The framework you're talking abouut was a direct response to an older economic system -- a production-based economy in which goods were scarce. We no longer live that way, and our ideology has shifted to accomodate our new economic reality. 100 years ago, our economic well-being was dependent upon our ability to out-prodce the rest of the world; today, our economic well-being depends upon our ability to out-consume the rest of the world.

The entire thing is absurd. The US is like that 1400 lb guy that can't get out of bed. I'm saying a diet might just be the right thing while DanS seems to be suggesting more cheese burgers! We are consumption addicts, living as if there is a prize at the end for the one of uses up the most and lives their lives worshiping lavish excess.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


I disagree. Our values (or, as Lancer points out, our lack of values) still determines our economies. In the 50's, corporations believed that part of their missions was to provide good lives for their employees.

Whereas in the 1890s, those corporations were willing to gun down their own workers in the streets if they had the nerve to want a union.

Corporations haven't just gotten greedy in the last 30 years, Zkrib. You know that. If anything, the 50s were a brief, anomolous blip in the otherwise steady pattern of corporate greed.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Lancer
The entire thing is absurd. The US is like that 1400 lb guy that can't get out of bed. I'm saying a diet might just be the right thing while DanS seems to be suggesting more cheese burgers! We are consumption addicts, living as if there is a prize at the end for the one of uses up the most and lives their lives worshiping lavish excess.

Yeah, the guy needs a diet. But he's just the flipside of the guy who, 100-150 years ago, would take the dominant ideology of savings to an extreme and buy spoiled meat for his family because it was cheaper. Both are extreme examples.

Oh, and personally i hate the culture of consumption; being away from it is one of the things I like best about living outside the US (even materialistsic Singapore isn't nearly as bad). But if youo wnat to talk about why its there, I think you need to look at the root cause, which is not some massive, inexplicable shift in values, but instead the movement of consumption to the center of our economy. The values followed that move; they didn't lead it.

[Sava]

I don't want to see anyone arguing against capitalism when it comes to the current state of the world because there is no country in the world that follows capitalist principles. The United States sure as hell doesn't.

Ideologues piss me off... especially ideologues that argue against their polar opposites. It's a pointless debate because nobody is talking about existing policies. You can talk about ideals and the way things should be until the cows come home. I'm concerned with the way the world actually works and what policies can be practically implemented (and will be politically acceptable) to improve life on this planet.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


If they live to 60 and go to grade 10 that's 1/6th of their life.

If they graduate with a masters today that would be 18 years. They would have to live to be 120 in order to meet the same ratio.

Or 108 if they could do grade five math.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski


I dont know why i am bothering to answer you since you have been so polite, but i will, But no im not. It is common knowledge that the smarter you are the more you want. HIstory has proven that. Take for example, tieneman square that was an uproar of college students and the educated that wanted change in china. The poor farmer dont want change. The dont know what it is to change. The smarter the common person gets the more change they want, The more changes you have the more expensive it becomes to live. Im not sure what part of this you arent understanding.

It's common knowledge?

So you're a populist know-nothing.

[notyoueither]

Do you enjoy a tone like that when KH uses it on you, MRT?

[MRT144]

it's the gift that keeps on giving. now if mrs. t can only use it on her child, whom KH will marry after divorcing his wife, itll come full circle.

[notyoueither]

Divorce his wife? I don't think he's that krazy.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Kontiki


Or 108 if they could do grade five math.

What do you mean if they "could do" grade five.
I'm not sure I understand.