What our world has become.

POSTED BY: Fremdfirma
UPDATED: Monday, June 29, 2026 21:34
VIEWED: 23018
PAGE 6 of 20

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, May 3, 2007 10:22 PM

Two extremes.

Total chaos would not allow any progress to happen, as there would be no order to structure it upon - like building sand castles in a downpour.

And yes, I question one side, and you question the other, that's generally how it works.

I did not *make* anyone do anything, I simply asked folk to trust me a little, and they chose to, and again, I apologised for the chain yank.
I do feel this is a good discussion to have, and that we should have it, and if one disagrees, no one is forcing their participation.

And yes, I have a bias, imma Anarchist for crying out loud, which is exactly why I don't have any practical suggestions - the disconnect is too large for me to make any viable practical suggestions on our society due to that bias, which I am well aware of and question quite often, for if I did not, we would not be having this discussion, would we now ?

I still think it's an extremely viable discussion even if it was baited, but you're welcome to disagree or not participate if you feel it isn't

EDIT: Last lines removed, since you did go back and offer your thoughts.

-Frem

RUE

Thursday, May 3, 2007 10:41 PM

FredG,

Would you like a 6 hour workday instead? A paid month off? A two hour paid lunch?

I'm just asking because you see the 40/50 work schedule as a given, when it's not. It's a social choice.

AGENTROUKA

Thursday, May 3, 2007 10:43 PM

I enjoy the discussion itself and I did see that you apoligized.

I just found myself confused by the attitude behind the manipulation. My current thoughts: You wanted to see people talk about the issue. Fine. You wanted to see discussion become heated. Fine. By telling people to question their views, you want them to... arrive at the answers you are not capable of forming? That's where it gets fuzzy for me, because you don't really follow through by actually reacting to the posted opinions, which implies a lack of interest. Are only certain answers interesting to you?

I don't mean this as an attack. I'm just honestly curious why you bothered to start the thread in the first place, unless it was voyeuristic enjoyment of watching people debate (which, I think, we all here share) without actually caring about the subject.

RUE

Thursday, May 3, 2007 10:52 PM

I can't answer for FremD but I've had the discouraging experience of posting something that I really didn't have an answer to and was hoping for input. My opening posts went something like - gee I was wondering ... and lived very short, miserable and obscure lives.

FREDGIBLET

Thursday, May 3, 2007 11:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
FredG,

Would you like a 6 hour workday instead? A paid month off? A two hour paid lunch?

I'll take them, where can I get them? Oh...France...nevermind.

Quote:
I'm just asking because you see the 40/50 work schedule as a given, when it's not. It's a social choice.

Well here in America we (or more rather they since it was a long time ago) made the decision to have 40-hour work days. If you want something different you've gotta be able to choose your employer very carefully which most people aren't. So while what you are saying isn't necessarily wrong and I sort of agree with the idea, in America it is almost a given. Unless you are willing to lead the revolution, because I'm not (requires too much punctuality

).

CHRISISALL

Thursday, May 3, 2007 11:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I think Americans have "hurry sickness".

Maybe the answer is not how to function in a society frantic to cram in 'more', but how to create a society that is comfortable with enough.

This is why I wanted you for President lo those many months ago. This is the point of the whole thread IMO.

Chrisisall

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, May 4, 2007 12:13 AM

Quote:
By telling people to question their views, you want them to... arrive at the answers you are not capable of forming?

Perhaps a little, and there's no lack of interest on my part - I do not often "Thread Hover" but this one has my attention in such a fashion, you bet, all of the answers are interesting to me in that I am trying to comprehend, to understand, a concept that is utterly foreign to me and my way of thinking, and put it into some kind of workable context where I can get a mental grip on it.

I care a lot about the subject as we're seeing more and more mental aberration amongst the general populace seemingly as a direct result of social pressures, and was wondering about their impact balanced versus the need (as some of you mentioned) for a certain amount of social order, which is where I start to get lost because my concept of the necessity of social order is probably every bit as alien to you, as the commonly held concept is to me.

How much structure is enough ?
How much is too much ?
Where should this line be drawn ?
What makes it needful ?
Where do these standards even come from ?

These are just a mere few of the questions I can *NOT* answer because of a radically different thought process, or rather, cannot answer on a greater social scale because it's like asking a beetle how to run an ant colony, you see ?

And so my hope is to get you folks, who are generally a pretty sharp bunch, to share YOUR thoughts on the matter so that I can get a grip on how important social order is to you and how much of it that you feel is necessary - I dunno if I can get this one across with mere words, or if it even can be... I feel a bit like a blind person trying to get someone to explain the color blue to them.

I care a lot about the subject, enough to want to offer or work towards a solution that may or may not even come in my lifetime, but I can't do that if I cannot get enough of a mental grip on the concept itself to even have some frame of reference on it.

Not sure if that'll make sense, but there you have it.

-Frem

SIGNYM

Friday, May 4, 2007 12:37 AM

Quote:
Well here in America we (or more rather they since it was a long time ago) made the decision to have 40-hour work days. If you want something different you've gotta be able to choose your employer very carefully which most people aren't.

So speaking of people doomed to endlessy repeat the past... they didn't "make a decision" for a 40-hour week, it took strikes and demonstrations to get it.

Quote:
On May 3, 1886, August Spies ... spoke at a meeting of 6,000 workers, and afterwards many of them moved down the street to harass scabs at the McCormick plant in Chicago. The police arrived, opened fire, and killed four people, wounding many more. At a subsequent rally on May 4 to protest this violence, a bomb exploded at the Haymarket Square. Hundreds of labour activists were rounded up and the prominent labour leaders arrested, tried, convicted, and executed

You can get the same effect today by intelligent voting. But that means you have to be able to imagine something different to begin with.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

FREDGIBLET

Friday, May 4, 2007 1:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
How much structure is enough ?

*Holds fingers about 2.5 inches apart* About this much

Quote:
How much is too much ?

*Moves fingers another inch apart* About this much

Quote:
Where should this line be drawn ?

*Points at a spot in between fingers* There.

Unless you can give me a specific method of quantizing structure these are the best answers I can give you, and the problem with asking the question is that you will get entirely different answers based off of who you ask and how granular you are with the question.

Quote:
What makes it needful ?

Short answer, Agriculture. Long answer, the need for social structure arises when a civilization advances to the point where specialists are required for maximum efficiency. When everyone is a generalist and family units provide all their own tools and supplies (except for the occasional trade with a neighboring family unit) there is little need for rules governing social interactions, everyone acts like their family unit teaches them and no one gets offended.

Once agriculture is developed family units start to group together and significant personal property (as opposed to communal property) becomes feasible, necessitating cross-family rules so that the different units can work together effectively even when they haven't necessarily been taught the same thing (i.e. "this is what is right, that is what you do in public").

As time goes by there is more and more specialization and cities are born, in a city nearly everyone is completely incapable of supporting themselves and thus it is essential that rules be in place that ensure the functionality of the city, remove even a small part and the whole becomes unstable. Thus people in cities are more apt to be willing to bow to the demands of society then people outside of cities who are frequently more independent.

While the intent is to facilitate social functionality rules are often made that have no bearing on the ability of society to function, these rules come from two places. One after rules have accumulated for a while certain people are placed in the position of enforcing rules, these people naturally want there to be more rules so that they can have more control over the people they watch over (politicians). Two, at some point after language was developed it became possible to discuss non-existent ideas, once this happened explanations for previously unexplainable events became possible (god). The people who spent the most time thinking about "god" would naturally anthromorphize(sp?) the idea and then assume that this "god" had some sort of plan or moral ideas of its own, these people would then attempt to get others to agree with and abide by these ideas creating religion. Both of these create castes who have it in their own best interests to create and spread new rules and thus we end up with enormous amounts of silly and or unnecessary rules. Though many of them are still necessary and useful.

The preceding section is entirely a somewhat informed opinion, please feel free to pick it apart if you know facts that contradict said statement.

Quote:
Where do these standards even come from ?

See above

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, May 4, 2007 4:52 PM

Printed it out, Fred, i'll have to pick at it en route, cause i have to be in CA shortly to discuss some things with folk...

imma be away a bit, but it's kind of a slap in the face for me to be discussing this and suddenly needed to assist yet *again* in the legal and other support of persons, yet *again* abused and beaten by badge wearing scum.

There is no "few rotten apples", there is no "isolated incident" - it's WHAT THEY ARE, you're just seeing them without the mask on.

And yes, I am very angry, very, very angry - why not just hire the fuckin bloods and the crips to enforce order, it'd be about the same fucking thing.

And so imma read through this printout somewhere en route when i've chilled out a bit, but in all honest truth, everywhere i look, the whole concept of imposed social order seems to be the root of violence and trauma, so it's an awful hard thing to look at this, and then look at the disgusting, sadistic, vile sociopaths we've set to enforce it, and see one bit of value in it.

It's almost like our whole country has become the Stanford Prison Experiment, only, instead of stopping it, we rewarded the guards and hired more.

Might be away for quite a while, as some smaller media enterprises want security consultaions, suggestions and services... to defend them from and against... the police, those bastions of law and order.

Someone explain to me why when the police are supposed to protect and serve, folks now need to hire security to protect them FROM the police, huh ?

Whafuck ?

-Frem

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE