Re: Alen

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 03:13:25 -0600, boots <no@xxxxx> wrote:

Josh Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 04:10:16 -0600, boots <no@xxxxx> wrote:

Josh Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Is humankind not alone on an island in space? I'm not advocating the
killing-off of the weak, more a reduction in coddling (and
externally-imposed decision-making) that gives the weak a better
chance to become strong on their own. Whatever, I ain't the planet's
benevolent dictator, and though I may have theories about what would
be better or worse, they are no more than that except as I act within
my own life. In my opinion the "strong" within today's society are
strong only insofar as the society they have allowed to create itself
continues, and when the going-concern stops going it's a whole nother
ball of wax.

I don't disagree in principle. I just don't think that we're really
talking about coddling at this point. We're talking about economic
forces that are far larger than the individual, about the corruption
of the system of incentives, about the disproportionate rewards given
to a few.

Innit.

And, at some point, we're talking about simple decency.
Economic incentives are a tool for the betterment of the people. When
we forget that, we lose our humanity.

Yeah, that's well and good, but let's not betterment people to death
because we know what's good for them.

There's certainly some of that.

I think experience has shown that there's no shortage of potential
snake oil salesmen out there. The goings-on in China, in which people
are being killed by the tainted medicine produced by unscrupulous
unregulated manufacturers, is a timely reminder of where we would be
without regulation and credentialization.

Yah, I remember reading who the *** was it, Upton Sinclair? The book
about fingers in soup cans and other crap like that before the
goobermint stepped in and began regulating food. I recognize just how
bad it can be. I also recognize that it may still be worse than
people wish to believe. Peanut butter recalls, ptomaine-burgers, all
that stuff goes on today, credentialism and spot-testing of products,
it's all a machine and sometimes a rat sneaks between the gears. Once
the government starts making it all better people have better things
to do than take care of themselves. I think it's reached a state
that's contra-survival for the race.

The process has been corrupted. It seldom serves the public as well as
it should. But it's still a lot better than nothing.

I confess that I don't see how keeping fingers out of soup cans
threatens the survival of the human race. Indeed, I prefer soup
without fingers, and our society is too complex for individuals to
make these evaluations on their own. We aren't living in caves any
more. And even if we did, would we really want to go back to the days
when worms emerged from your legs and you didn't know why? Leprosy and
cholera are more amusing in principle than in fact.

Not that I don't understand your frustration. Cells probably found it
frustrating to lose their mouths, too. We didn't evolve to be cogs in
a giant machine, but in a small one. Still, who's to say that the Borg
can't be happy?

How do we then know where to
draw the line? We have a way of doing that, I think -- people in
general have a way of doing that. It's been honed through millions of
years of evolution. Go north or south? Hunt the mammoth or the cave
bear? If we weren't pretty good at making these determinations, we
wouldn't be.

Generally people don't even read the labels on the food they eat. The
fact that they continue surviving is a tribute to the machine that has
been set up for them. It's a damn shame other-people have to make it
all nice for them, of course they're so busy working in factories
(read: cubicles etc) that they don't have time to do it for
themselves, not that most would have a clue where to start.

Sure, but apart from the respective advantages and disadvantages of
living in a complex industrial state, where's the likelihood that it
will collapse? As long as civilized societies are stronger than savage
ones, they'll continue to eat 'em up and spit out the bones.

I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER -
I am tired of fighting.
Our chiefs are killed.
Looking Glass is dead.
Toohulhulsote is dead.
The old men are all dead.
It is the young men who say no and yes.
He who led the young men is dead.
It is cold and we have no blankets.
The little children are freezing to death.
My people, some of them,
Have run away to the hills
And have no blankets, no food.
No one know where they are-
Perhaps they are freezing to death.
I want to have time to look for my children
And see how many of them I can find.
Maybe I shall find them among the dead.
Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired.
My heart is sad and sick.
From where the sun now stands
I will fight no more forever.

- Chief Joseph

Which is why we have credentialization. As to control,
some degree of it is present in any society. Our controls tend to be
formalized, the controls of primitive groups less so. Has to do with
alienation, does it not? With the consequences of scale. Agriculture
made large-scale societies possible, and as such societies evolved,
civilization had to provide a substitute for the instinctive
mechanisms that small groups use to modulate the behavior of their
members. The individual cell ceded some of its functions. Specialized
organs developed: legislators, lawyers, bureaucrats. Instinct
rebelled, but instinct lost. It had to, since small-scale societies
could no longer survive. Memetic evolution insured it.

Blah, blah, blah, typical materialistic thinking, whatever suits you.

In other words, you have no counterargument. Noted.

In other words, there are only 24 hours in a day, and I need to use as
many of them as I can doing things that will prove useful when winter
hits.

I am only cynical when I look at what people have put in place to make
their decisions for them. I make my own decisions, that's apparently
part and parcel of being a nutjob.

You appear to have rejected society as if it were some sort of
disease.

You been in rush-hour traffic in the snow lately? You think there is
no reason that road-rage is a problem?

I either walked or took public transportation to work. In any case,
I'm not suggesting that life on the assembly line is perfect. It
isn't. I just don't think that civilization is likely to go away
unless it manages to destroy itself, I don't think the savage
alternative is all that it's cracked up to be -- the lice in those
idyllic teepees bit something fierce, I'm told -- and I'm optimist
enough to think that its drawbacks can be and to a certain degree have
been tamed.

I should probably put this in perspective by mentioning that I'm
rather an opt-out type myself, having first abandoned corporate back
stabbing land for freelancing and entrepreneuring and then said to
hell with it and taken a few years to write. But not very many people
have those luxuries, and I'm not sure that all that many have the
need.

I for one would rather that the Food and Drug Administration
banned deadly Chinese toothpaste than make the decision by trying it
myself.

The only reason I buy -anything- Chinese is that American presidents
like Clinton have given the American manufacturing industry to them.
Americans don't do *** anymore compared to what we used to do, we've
become something between the idea-men of the world and snakeoil
salesmen. Call some company to talk about whatever and you listen to
a machine, if you're lucky you can play roulette with the phone and
get to talk to some Indian person with a thick accent who cares ***
about anything but the fact that by doing work American CEOs want done
cheap instead of well they can live beyond the means of their
neighbors.

Fuckin-ay right I reject society as if it was some kind of disease,
the FDA doesn't certify it edible and it gives me a tummyache.

But -- we get back to that R. Crumb cover. The last thing that call
support guy in India is worried about is self-fulfillment: he's lucky
to be making almost enough to feed his family. It's easy to excoriate
materialism when your belly is full.

--
Josh

"Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is
good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."
-- Samuel Johnson
.