if you want to to be it is.... but why try with you? You are too intellectually restrianed to understand...

Xeno = stupid

That's precisely the definition of retardation which I was working with.

"Social consciousness" is a postmodern term which you fail to comprehend. Don't group my education, awareness, and enlightenment with "the social consciousness." I am not as close to a cave man as others. We're not one organism, we're a species. And an intelligent one--we're not all the same. All of our ideas are not magically equal. All of our ideas are not equally valuable.

We are collective to a point. Human beings are social animals. But that doesn't mean that I or anyone in my country is going to sacrifice because someone in power says it'll help you guys in bum-fuck China. And it doesn't mean that anyone in your country is willing to, has ever been willing to, nor will ever be willing to sacrifice because someone in power tells them it'll help me. You have nothing to offer me. And that's okay; you don't owe me anything. What causes problems is controls imposed over people's lives. This means overhead -- a higher cost of living and lower standard of living for everyone involved. This means corruption -- more wasted resources, real "economic injustice," and a lower standard of living for all.

I have this strange notion of how you live well in this world and grow intellectually: You work (you provide a service to your fellow man) for which you are paid (because of your service to man, you get things in return like a home, food, clothing, and fast cars!). I know that this is natural and common sense, but I just can't deny it.

Another problem is fools being preached to and brainwashed into thinking that they're entitled to everything and deserve everything from this world. It's a two-way street. The system doesn't work and nobody has much of anything if people aren't rewarded for their service. The fact is that resources don't grow on trees--and the ones that do require that those trees be planted, maintained, harvested, shipped, and distributed. This stuff doesn't happen on its own. Robots don't do it. As much as it's great that they do a lot of it and we have cheaper goods resulting in a higher standard of living for all, they're never going to do everything. There are people involved performing the labor that feeds and clothes and houses and entertains you. If you do not reward them for their labor, they'll stop taking care of you.

The monetary system has tremendous benefits over anything and everything you've proposed as an alternative. In one form or another, it's not going anywhere. Get over it.

We need more freedom and less meddling. I hope that you have the chance to see what humanity is capable of given freedom and motivation in your lifetime.

Blah balh balh... Xeno you are an idiot, a retard (slow of intelect) and have no idea about anything...

You ideal world would be a shoddy place to live and completly idiotic...

but maybe he is feeding me?

>>No, it is you who fail to understand it.  <<

Good explanation.

>>You assume that the idea of there being a social consciousness is some sort of communist conspiracy <<

I didn't use the word communist nor parallel your position to communist-like positions nor imply any sort of conspiracy or mal-intent. Good job not replying to my point AT ALL but engaging in virtual masturbation because you like to type instead.

>> who, by your account, are all brainwashed leftists.<<

I explained the problem with their values. Did you engage the topic? No. Random references not touching the point.

>>When you consider a male security guard at, let's say, a museum, wandering through the halls on his nightly rounds, or a female factory worker on the assembly-line of a sweatshop factory, you automatically assume those individuals are functioning at their full level of potential, for otherwise they would have already have done more with their lives, right?<<

I never claimed that or implied anything of the sort. But thank you for making up a random straw-man which I'm sure you will proceed to attack as if it has anything to do with what I said. I would be more specific in what's wrong with what you said, but since it was a response to nothing that anyone said I'm not going to waste anyone's time attacking it.

>>That is, if they were capable of doing more, they would have already arranged done so.  I, however, see a waste of human potential, with people being manipulated into roles above and beyond which everyone is more capable, because of this state of retardation of our social consciousness.<<

The free market with social welfare and education subsidies manipulates people into roles beyond which they are capable? That's funny, because it's systems like those which you advocate with massive oversight and control over people's lives that historically rape freedom, oppress people not in power, and manipulate people into living lives beneath which that which they are capable.

>>Where you believe everyone gets his or her lot in life<<

Onec AGAIN (is this ALL you do?) you make up things to respond to which I never said. Life isn't fair. It's better to be good than lucky. I'm not championing this as something awesome about the random world we live in. But I DO believe that people ought not to get in other people's ways pursuing their happiness. I believe that you are morally disgusting to get in people's way. You advocate systems which make people's lots in life worse. You advocate systems which make difficult and very often prevent people from improving their lots in life.

>>However, we both know (or at least I do) that neither of us will win this argument, because it will be future historians who will judge this.<<

They already have. One system has resulted in the most prosperity humanity has ever known. The other has resulted in corrupt governments repressing people for generations, people who die fleeing their oppressive governments nearly as often as their oppressive governments condemn them for voicing views which they hope will improve their peoples' impoverished lives.

>>Nevertheless, why don't we continue this argument, first by admitting our global society is 'retarded'.<<

What argument? You respond to NONE of the points, reasoning, or historical references I make. Ever. I'm torn between whether you ignore ALL of the substance of my posts because you know you have no response to it or whether you're just that dense that my simple and clear posts are beyond your comprehension.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

>> I mean we went from covered wagons to moon landings in less than 100 years for Christ sake<<

No. Our people did that. Xeno's people are still largely in the same state they were when our people were travelling west in covered wagons and committing terrible crimes against the natives of this land. And this fact is ammunition for Xeno's dictator leaders to fill him with envy. They find it advantageous to keep Xeno and his countryment ignorant and jealous of other nations' success. This takes away attention from their own failures in governmening (and they do a lot more than govern) and focusses it on hating outsiders who have better systems and enjoy unimaginably higher standards of living. To Xeno, it's people living well's fault that his people shit in holes and can't figure out how not to get HIV.

Phssthpok: And people seem to belive that capitalism will solve all the worlds woe when clearly it cannot...

There is a need for balance that is true, but fullly going down one tract will not work....

In any event, technology had increased for most of that 100 year period because of the US's desire to keep up with the psuedo-communist state of USSR who was doing their best to be better than the USA.

If it helps, this still makes Xeno an idiot, given his system will destroy scientific progress...

Xeno wants robots to own the means of production.

> You_Fool wrote:

> Phssthpok: And people seem to belive that capitalism will solve all the worlds woe when clearly it cannot...

There is a need for balance that is true, but fullly going down one tract will not work....

In any event, technology had increased for most of that 100 year period because of the US's desire to keep up with the psuedo-communist state of USSR who was doing their best to be better than the USA.

If it helps, this still makes Xeno an idiot, given his system will destroy scientific progress...

It's not a perfect system but we would have much more prosperity for everyone if we allowed more economic freedom. I think we did more than keep up with the soviet union.

Don't think so, Japanese love capitalism. ^.^

>>Actually the USSR was never close to the US in terms of technology. We did have this perception that we were behind the soviets which pushed out scientific community further to the point that we became the most powerful country in global history.<<

Technology yes, scientific progress the USSR was better... They had scientists just not engineers... thats where the west won...

>>It's not a perfect system but we would have much more prosperity for everyone if we allowed more economic freedom. I think we did more than keep up with the soviet union.<<

More for some (maybe most,) and for the few a whole lot less... A few of the few might deserve it, being the ones who suckle off the system... but the worst will be the ones who suffer through the fault of others and who have no power to change that... I think of lowly workers at a big buisness that goes bust because of high level stupidity or ciminal actions... How are they meant to avoid being screwed? They cannot unless we have a system in place to provide a saftey net for them, and others who are like-wise unable to work through no fault of their own...

Of course capatilism doesn't forbid social security and other "socialist" policies (like education and health care) its jsut that right wingers tend to decide these thoughts are against their point of view...

"because it's systems like those which you advocate"

I do not advocate those systems, you twit.

"He's Chinese.

That's why he's so indoctrinated falsely"

That says it all. You think all Chinese people must be communists.  LOL  Quote ANYTHING I have said in this thread that is 'communistic'. 

Oh, and, by the way, China is authoritarian, not communist - pretty much like everywhere else.  Shows how much you know of the world.

> Phssthpok wrote:

> How can you guys look at the greatest explosion of wealth in the history of the species and say the system that brought this about in a relatively microscopic amount of time needs to be changed so radically? I mean we went from covered wagons to moon landings in less than 100 years for Christ sake. I don't even know what to say to people who think like that. It's a real shame we are capable of this kind of thing but can't seem to manage it well since for some reason communism still has appeal to people even after the awesome failures of those systems in the past.

First, it isn't communism that is to blame for our current economic woes.  It is the scarcity of resources which is to blame, and the greed, corruption, malpractice of financial elites which incessently attempt to continue profiting from this economy of resource scarcity.

But that is besides the point.  This 'explosion' as you called it is the point I want to respond to (whether it is really of 'wealth' is arguable, as what wealth itself is has come into question, but, again, this is besides the point).  Whatever kind of explosion it may be, it has revealed the extent to which we are UNDERdeveloped, not developed - that is, this explosion in our capabilities as a species has given us a clue as to what ELSE, or what MORE, or what BEYOND, we may accomplish.  In another sense, this 'explosion' as you call it has been like a single candle lit, revealing to us to that we are standing before a thousand other unlit candles at some sort of alter within some sort of cathedral.

Now, instead of looking at the alter, we keep lighting more and more candles.  We don't care about the alter or the cathedral.  We are simply obsessed with the stupid little candles, not for what purpose we are lighting them.  We're as blind as we were before we started ligting them.

Sure, a few of us have looked up, and have told us what they have seen: freedom, inclusiveness, human rights, human dignity, etc., but no one is listening.  They're just lighting the !@%$ing candles: just 'better' versions of the same old technologies we had at the beginning of the 20th century - mobile phones instead of rotary phones, internet porn instead of porn magazines, taller skyscrapers , plasma TVs instead of vacuum tube TVs, etc., etc.,  the list goes on and on, more and more silly candles burning, and for what?  No one cares to think about it.  No one wonders.