Browncoats... good guys or not?

POSTED BY: Ghoulman
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:07
VIEWED: 33379
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LOADANDMAKEREADY

Saturday, February 14, 2004 12:46 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:

Hey, speak for yourself. If you mean "modern men" by them city-slickers - well alright. Plenty of people in the world still don't have refrigeration and have to eat meat that's been sitting around.

Too true!! But they have found ways to preserve it without refrigeration ... for a while at least. Drying in the sun, (jerky) salting, certain ways of pickling, probably others that I don't know about.

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Then again, city-slickers don't hunt or scavenge. Heck, we can't even start a fire even if it really meant saving our hide.

You could always try rubbing two boy scouts together. Won't work with me though, I was an Eagle Scout, and feathers don't burn readily ... and if you do get them burning, they STIIIIIIINK!!

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Oh, what the heck am I talking about, most city folk stare at the light switch and think "ooooh, magic"...

LOL! You got that right! When I was a teenager, I would work part of the summer on a cattle ranch. At the ranch house we had it good ... artesian well, a generator for electricity, refrigeration, a cesspool and indoor toilet ... we even had a water heater. But when I had to work at a line shack, we had to haul water from a stream in a bucket, light was by kerosene lamp, (although we did get a coleman lantern later ... much easier to read by) use an out house, and heat water for a bath on a wood burning stove. Oh, and no refrigeration.
Still not as rough as some people have it.

How many people do we both know who think of the grocery store as the ultimate source of food?

Have a good week end.

*L*

DRAKON

Saturday, February 14, 2004 11:52 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Redjack:
It is the nature of ALL primates to live in hierarchical structures, usually pyramid formed, with a single alpha or alpha pair at the apex.

This has always bugged me for some reason, and it took me a bit to figure out why.

First off, I don't think there is any such inherent or genetic tendency in the human species. I think the utilization of hierachical structures has to do more with Ricardo's Law of Comparitive Advantages than anything to do with genetics. It is just more efficient if you consentrate on one job, and let others do the same, then everybody trying to everything.

And that includes thinking and making decisions as much as operating the machines, or building the product.

Second, inherent in this proposition is the idea of humanity as nothing more than robots. That we come preprogramed from the start with a set of behaviour, and that cannot be changed even if the individual wants to change. This I think is a very dangerous concept to make, and I can see how it can be used to strip whole groups of thier rights, even slaughter them. They can't help being evil bastards, so we should just kill them.

Third: it dispenses with morality altogether. No one can be blamed for what he has no control over. Even if we could accomplish what I was talking about above, we would not be morally responsible for their deaths, we are just acting in accordance with our programming.

Anyway, I don't buy it.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

DRAKON

Saturday, February 14, 2004 11:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:
Homosapiens is a species of predator, and the only way a species of predator can survive, is by not preying upon itself.

False premise. Humans are omnivores. Some, quite many, eat plants. Some eat meat, and even those eating meat get finiky about what meat they eat.

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Question for you:

When it is moral for a group of people to do something that is IMmoral for one person to do alone?

loadandmakeready

Good question. I can't think of an example off the top of my heads, but am willing to bet you are talking about taxes.

Look, its wrong to accept a service and not pay for it, right? I feel the same way about taxes. Yes there are plenty of things I wish they would stop funding, but then again, I still get honest cops and honest judges. (Although I sometimes question the intelligence of those judges) I get a strong military, willing to stand on the wall and protect and defend my freedoms. So I don't have as big a problem with it as some might.

But I am all for paying the least for the most, just like everyone else.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

REDJACK

Saturday, February 14, 2004 7:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
Quote:
Originally posted by Redjack:
It is the nature of ALL primates to live in hierarchical structures, usually pyramid formed, with a single alpha or alpha pair at the apex.

This has always bugged me for some reason, and it took me a bit to figure out why.

First off, I don't think there is any such inherent or genetic tendency in the human species. I think the utilization of hierachical structures has to do more with Ricardo's Law of Comparitive Advantages than anything to do with genetics. It is just more efficient if you consentrate on one job, and let others do the same, then everybody trying to everything.

And that includes thinking and making decisions as much as operating the machines, or building the product.

That's a sound theory but it doesn't apply to primate behaviour or, more importantly, to animal behaviour on the whole. Expanding out from the primate model, which, as I said, is uniform in respect to heirarchical structures, you find considerable diversity in the animal kingdom vis a vis survival structures.

What works for one species, in short, doesn't work for all. Penguins, for instance, are hardwired to be pack animals while eagles are not.

Lions are pack animals but tigers and bears are not. There's no "choice" invovled.

This genetic hardwiring doesn't make us robots and couldn't be used to remove or assign ethical responsability to a given group except by a madman.

It merely describes firmly imbedded tendancies which, for the most part, can't be modified without extreme (read surgical or chemical) meddling.

Quote:
Second, inherent in this proposition is the idea of humanity as nothing more than robots. That we come preprogramed from the start with a set of behaviour, and that cannot be changed even if the individual wants to change. This I think is a very dangerous concept to make, and I can see how it can be used to strip whole groups of thier rights, even slaughter them. They can't help being evil bastards, so we should just kill them.

Look at it this way: we are hardwired to choose a leader or leading pair. That is evidenced by 100% of human societies. What is not hardwired is who is chosen or how that choice is made (though recent studies have begun to show that those with certain skill sets tend to rise to the top).

And, yes, to some degree, we are, like ALL animals, partially controlled by our hardwiring.

We are hardwired for sex, for pattern recognition and for langauge too.

Quote:
Third: it dispenses with morality altogether. No one can be blamed for what he has no control over. Even if we could accomplish what I was talking about above, we would not be morally responsible for their deaths, we are just acting in accordance with our programming.

Morality is not hardwired. Humans, like all animals, are born amoral. There is no built-in desire to "do right" as it were. These things must be taught.

Again, looking at the various human societies you can easily see how "morality" shifts from culture to culture. What's "right" in Western eyes is not necessarily seen that way elsewhere. What's "right" according to Christians is not when you talk to an animist.

All morality is local.

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Anyway, I don't buy it.

You don't have to. But it's true nonetheless.

The Price of Knowledge is Knowing.
Audrid Dax

LTNOWIS

Sunday, February 15, 2004 2:33 AM

Quote:

Quote:
There are greater differences between individual human beings than there are between entire species of other mammals.

Um. No. Not genetically there isn't. We are almost completely interchangeable at that level. Perhaps you should leave off the history texts for a year or two and look into that whole biology thing. It's a hoot.

You're both right. It has been proven that there is more genetic variation in a single family of chimpanzees than there is in the entire human race. However, we've got lot's of non-genetic differences, in culture, ethics, morals, environments. If you looked at 50 chimps, they'd all be pretty much the same. 50 people, on the other hand, would have radically different ideals, personalities, races, etc.

JASONZZZ

Wednesday, February 25, 2004 4:37 AM

arggh! you are right... ran ran ran ran ran ran ran... runned is only for pantyhose. sorry. ;-)

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:

Quote:

Lysander Spooner, again. It might be true of some governments in our world, but why do some people keep believing that our government is runned with a programmed and specific determination towards malice - is it just me or the militant radicals in Montana?

Runned?

Governments always end up becoming the very thing they were created to prevent.
A revolution that was begun in protest of a Stamp Tax, and a small tax on tea ended up with the IRS.

Who is going to fight harder for public office? Your honest neighbor who knows he will have to put his life and career on hold in order to get into politics, serve a term or two in order to expand a freedom, or make freedom more secure ... then go back home and enjoy that freedom?

Or someone who wants to control the lives of others, and sees politics as a way to combine that sickness with a career which will bring him wealth, power, and fame?

loadandmakeready

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LOADANDMAKEREADY

Wednesday, February 25, 2004 9:34 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:

arggh! you are right... ran ran ran ran ran ran ran... runned is only for pantyhose. sorry. ;-)

Well, we all make errors ... especially when we are in a hurry. My father brought me up to question everything, and to be as accurate as I possibly could. Some times I over do it.

Speaking of my father ....

On this date 59 years ago -- 25 February,1945 -- my fathers Regiment, the Ninth Marines, went into combat on Iwo Jima. In the twenty days they were in combat, the Ninth Marines suffered over two thousand casualties. My father was one of those casualties. His injuries were severe enough that the Veterans Administration determined him to be 300% disabled.

Can you imagine it? In less than a month, American casualties in that single battle numbered 24,000!! Nearly 7,000 dead, and over 17,000 wounded. And that's just on our side! The Japanese had just over 20,000 dead!

And for what?!? Because a bunch of politicians got mad at one another?!? And told their people, "Let's you and them go fight?"

In his novel, All The Rage, F. Paul Wilson said it best ... "They jerk young men out of their lives, put guns in their hands, and send them out to kill other young men who have been jerked out of their lives and had guns put into their hands. While these young men huddle shivering in their foxholes hoping they will live to see the next sunrise, the people who cause all the problems; the politicians, the generals, the preists, mullahs, and tribal elders, sit back in their comfortable digs and move their chess pieces around."

For a very interesting view of what war is, see War Is A Racket by Smedley Butler, Brigadier General, USMC. You can find it at:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

loadandmakeready

LOADANDMAKEREADY

Wednesday, February 25, 2004 9:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:

arggh! you are right... ran ran ran ran ran ran ran... runned is only for pantyhose. sorry. ;-)

Well, we all make errors ... especially when we are in a hurry. My father brought me up to question everything, and to be as accurate as I possibly could. Some times I over do it.

Speaking of my father ....

On this date 59 years ago -- 25 February,1945 -- my fathers Regiment, the Ninth Marines, went into combat on Iwo Jima. In the twenty days they were in combat, the Ninth Marines suffered over two thousand casualties. My father was one of those casualties. His injuries were severe enough that the Veterans Administration determined him to be 300% disabled.

Can you imagine it? In less than a month, American casualties in that single battle numbered 24,000!! Nearly 7,000 dead, and over 17,000 wounded. And that's just on our side! The Japanese had just over 20,000 dead!

And for what?!? Because a bunch of politicians got mad at one another?!? And told their people, "Let's you and them go fight?"

In his novel, All The Rage, F. Paul Wilson said it best ... "They jerk young men out of their lives, put guns in their hands, and send them out to kill other young men who have been jerked out of their lives and had guns put into their hands. While these young men huddle shivering in their foxholes hoping they will live to see the next sunrise, the people who cause all the problems; the politicians, the generals, the preists, mullahs, and tribal elders, sit back in their comfortable digs and move their chess pieces around."

For a very interesting view of what war is, see War Is A Racket by Smedley Butler, Brigadier General, USMC. You can find it at:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

loadandmakeready

AJ

Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:01 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:
My father brought me up to question everything, and to be as accurate as I possibly could. Some times I over do it.

Both admirable qualities. I suffer from an overly pedantic streak at times myself (especially with language!). Out of curiosity, do you question/challenge your own beliefs as regularly as you do those of the world around you?

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:

And for what?!? Because a bunch of politicians got mad at one another?!? And told their people, "Let's you and them go fight?"

Simplistic, but in essence about right. WW2 was, of course, far more complicated than that, but I'm sure you know that already. I was planning on going into a whole history of Serbian freedom fighters, political situations, and the driving pride/ego of people who are never likely to be shot at in anger (unless in a revolution, of course ) here, but even explaining why I'm not going to is taking far too long, which I'm guessing is the reason for your brevity, too!

LOADANDMAKEREADY

Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:07 PM

Quote:

Both admirable qualities. I suffer from an overly pedantic streak at times myself (especially with language!). Out of curiosity, do you question/challenge your own beliefs as regularly as you do those of the world around you?

I'm always ready to examine my views in the face of new evidence.
I figure if I don't, I stagnate. Although I really have to closely examine the new evidence. My father used to say, the first words I learned were; "why," "who said so," and "how does he know?"

loadandmakeready

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