NationStates Jolt Archive

There are serveal basic facts about humanity that the world today seems to ignore. One basic fact about humanity is that we all share a connection, a bond that we seem to have lost in this blind, materalistic, divisive world. We have lost the feeling of community of oneness, to the selfishness of individualism and the 18th century political philosophy known as liberalism that is still alive today. Only as a society can we advance to greatness. Individually we are nothing, but together we can overcome anything. Secondly is the fact that some of us are leaders while most of us are followers. Great men such as Machiavelli recongized that it takes a strong leader to unite a people. Even in the Bible, the people of Israel were loyal to their king, and Jesus told his disiples to "render unto ceaser what is ceaser's" Much of what is wrong with the world today is the chaos caused by the fact that people are too rebelious. Only through order can peace come.

You had me until...

"Secondly is the fact that some of us are leaders while most of us are followers. Great men such as Machiavelli recongized that it takes a strong leader to unite a people. Even in the Bible, the people of Israel were loyal to their king, and Jesus told his disiples to "render unto ceaser what is ceaser's" Much of what is wrong with the world today is the chaos caused by the fact that people are too rebelious. Only through order can peace come."

He wants us all to be good worker bees for the hive, and to make honey for the collective good and make the queen bee so rich and so fat that she can hardly move her slothful mass?

No thank you, the communist experiment failed with no glimmer of a reason to suggest that we should retry it again so soon. :p

Nevertheless there has to be Gods and Clods. :p If everybody is equal, society would never work. Some wrong, not much wrong is caused by rebeliousness. America was formed because of rebellion. A little rebeliousness, is good. It makes people think and search for something better. Not just blindly following what the leader says.

I'm not advocating communism. Communism leads to the stifling of advancment, technology and motivation. Proper economic motivation is needed to promote a funtional society, I believe a market based system is the best way to promote motivation in a system. While at the same time I do believe that the leaders of society will naturally end up controling most of the wealth in society, as long as the leaders of a society use their wealth wisely and for the good of the community. As for your worker bee analogy, yes there are some people who are "workers" just like today, and just like today those "workers" have "bosses" that's how the world works. I'm just calling a spade a spade, illuminating the world the to way things actually work, the truth

Nevertheless there has to be Gods and Clods. :p If everybody is equal, society would never work. Some wrong, not much wrong is caused by rebeliousness. America was formed because of rebellion. A little rebeliousness, is good. It makes people think and search for something better. Not just blindly following what the leader says.

Would just like to point out 1- not everyone thinks the US is a good thing. 2- America has been following Bush blindly since he restarted his daddy's war on bad intel. Every excuse and change he made was fully welcomed and accepted by the American people. They could use a little rebeliousness these days.

I tend to agree with the original poster. The idea of liberalism was stupid, we are a society, we are interlinked, every action we take affects those around us. That is why we need order, we need boundaries, we need restriction, we need higher order of some form.

Ultimately my position is that Bush is the hand of God himself. :D

The only things that have ever united humanity effectively have been fear, tyranny, oppression, and rebellion. People only care about their fellow man when the alternative is annihilation or slavery. The individual may hold loftier, more "noble" notions, but unless faced with real oblivion, the human race is going to remain greatly divided.

Meanwhile I cannot buy the interlinked bit. Sure, our actions affect others, but our actions are our own.

And liberal thought kicks ass. Same goes for scientific thought.

Er, actually, any one man has the power to take over the world. It's unrealistic, it's improbable, but it is possible.

The only things that have ever united humanity effectively have been fear, tyranny, oppression, and rebellion. People only care about their fellow man when the alternative is annihilation or slavery. The individual may hold loftier, more "noble" notions, but unless faced with real oblivion, the human race is going to remain greatly divided.
I would even argue against slavery in some respect. People only care when the only other option is pain and misery. Whether slavery is this or not really does not matter so long as a man is not in pain or misery.

I think that the only way to avoid division is through the proper application of force.

I would even argue against slavery in some respect. People only care when the only other option is pain and misery. Whether slavery is this or not really does not matter so long as a man is not in pain or misery.

I think that the only way to avoid division is through the proper application of force.

Yeah I meant slavery in the "live in a hole, get dragged out to do work, get whipped, eat some crumbs, get whipped, do more work, get whipped, get flogged for a change, back in the hole, call it a day" sense.

Meanwhile I cannot buy the interlinked bit. Sure, our actions affect others, but our actions are our own.

And liberal thought kicks ass. Same goes for scientific thought.

I can buy the interlinked bit easily. Our actions affect others in so many ways that it is insane. Ultimately the interlinked bit is sort of like a butterfly effect, every action we make effects the nature and composition of the world in ways we can not even begin to imagine, probably even down to the cereal we eat for breakfast.

Scientific thought has not been denounced so far, only liberal thought.

Yeah I meant slavery in the "live in a hole, get dragged out to do work, get whipped, eat some crumbs, get whipped, do more work, get whipped, get flogged for a change, back in the hole, call it a day" sense.
Well, the problem with that system is the cruelty of it and the pain. Most certainly some basic things are being denied. I was just making sure that some one was not going to claim that slavery is paying taxes(people have stated that on the boards before) because paying taxes is not cruel or actually painful(it can hurt but not physically or in most cases mentally)

I can buy the interlinked bit easily. Our actions affect others in so many ways that it is insane. Ultimately the interlinked bit is sort of like a butterfly effect, every action we make effects the nature and composition of the world in ways we can not even begin to imagine, probably even down to the cereal we eat for breakfast.
I still don't buy it. I'd make a rational, cohesive arguement if I weren't quite so tired, or half drunk for that matter.

Scientific thought has not been denounced so far, only liberal thought.
Oh believe me, at some point someone will come on this thread and do so, and I'll be one step ahead of them.

I still don't buy it. I'd make a rational, cohesive arguement if I weren't quite so tired, or half drunk for that matter.

Oh believe me, at some point someone will come on this thread and do so, and I'll be one step ahead of them.
Well, if you were not so half drunk you might have shared your great wisdom with all of us. By choosing to drink you are denying us the fruits of your glorious wisdom.

The idiot who denies that science can be useful is an idiot.

I would say that Shakespeare was a remarkable individual. And the State hardly had anything to do with his plays. And men like Orwell, disillusioned visionaries like Marx, leaders like Charlemagne and Napoleon, all were individuals, and sought their own glory.

I'm very unclear what it is you are suggesting, "The Lighted Way". Your Bible quotes disturb me, yet at the same time just shed light on perhaps why what you speak of is so ambiguous and idealistic. You speak of needing order, yet say we should have market economy.

Capitalism is a natural thing. Regulation is necessary. And society goes on. What's so terrible? Want to go back to feudalism? Just cope, get a job (if you don't have a job yet in the big, horrible, evil capitalist empire), and stop complaining.

Oh, one more thing, for Colodia. I saw your statement on "world conquest" here in this thread. Just wanted to give you my opinion on it.

World conquest is impossible. There is no way to hold an empire together. Only through unity would our species be together in a stable form, and that will never happen. Countries will not give up their heralds, their flags, their borders, their armies, their sovereignty, to a massive global bureaucracy. Especially the developing superpower China, and the current only superpower, America. It's completely unrealistic, so don't fear it :) Hitler never could have won. Even if the Soviet Union fell.

He wants us all to be good worker bees for the hive, and to make honey for the collective good and make the queen bee so rich and so fat that she can hardly move her slothful mass?

No thank you, the communist experiment failed with no glimmer of a reason to suggest that we should retry it again so soon. :p
Uhhh, read up on your Marx and your Lenin, that's not Communism you just Described its (I believe, I forgot the name and lost the book its in but i think its called) Tropism, a sort of HUman conscious Hive Mind/political theory. Communism holds that everyone is equal and that power is taken from the masses unjustly, the problem is that its proponents ignored a little thing I like to call Human nature which holds that one is always better than everyone else. Unfortunately a man named Mcarthy forever scarred the true face of Communism for americans, I'm not advocating ut but I do believe that Americans should at least learn the facts about it so they can avoid sounding like idiots when discussing political theory with a european (or otherwise non citizen of the United States)

I have heard a little of Hive Mind hypothesis. Oh, do not call something a theory unless it has been tested dozens of times and come up with positive conclusions. But anyways. Humans aren't ants, termites, bees, etc. We are much more complex, and possess the ability to think abstractly, and have emotions. We can build nuclear weapons to wipe out entire cities of millions. What makes anyone think we can organize into a "hive" of sorts? It's nonsensical.

The only things that have ever united humanity effectively have been fear, tyranny, oppression, and rebellion. People only care about their fellow man when the alternative is annihilation or slavery. The individual may hold loftier, more "noble" notions, but unless faced with real oblivion, the human race is going to remain greatly divided.

fear unites the people, but too much fear unites the people against the leader. Tyranny unites the people but only if it is well done, the people must feel the benifits of Tyranny, a strong economy, extreme pride in their country, ect. it takes a very charismatic leader to effectively administer a tyrannical government without it being ineffective. Oppression works only if the population is only moderatly oppressed and still has some benifits or a harmless and small section of society is oppressed as a scapegoat for society as a whole. Rebellion unites one group of people against another group of people. Rebellion leads to divisions even after the rebellion is over. The key to uniting a people is to rally them around your cause and against something else. Sometimes the something else is a group of people, such as in Nazi Germany, but othertimes is a situation, such as poverty, as demonstrated by FDR where he was able to ralley the United States against poverty. He used the people's support to attempt some very undemocratic ideas, such as a government sponsered monopoly, and attempting to stack the Supreme Court. It takes a very successful leaderto rally support against something like poverty, but it can be done. Through such attempts as these the whole of humanity can eventually be illuminated to see that they are one

He wants us all to be good worker bees for the hive, and to make honey for the collective good and make the queen bee so rich and so fat that she can hardly move her slothful mass?

No thank you, the communist experiment failed with no glimmer of a reason to suggest that we should retry it again so soon. :p
You do not speak ill of the collective, all is done in the name of the Syndicate.

i must have missed something. when was this utopia where we all worked together toward a great society?

seems to me that individualistic societies like the US have made far greater strides than the more "collective" societies have.

I can buy the interlinked bit easily. Our actions affect others in so many ways that it is insane. Ultimately the interlinked bit is sort of like a butterfly effect, every action we make effects the nature and composition of the world in ways we can not even begin to imagine, probably even down to the cereal we eat for breakfast.
The logical conclusion of that being that we shuldn't do anything while in Brazil for fear of accidentally starting a tornado in Texas?

Spread tha LOVE brother!!!

Would just like to point out 1- not everyone thinks the US is a good thing. 2- America has been following Bush blindly since he restarted his daddy's war on bad intel. Every excuse and change he made was fully welcomed and accepted by the American people. They could use a little rebeliousness these days.

So your saying US is a bad thing? US is a nation, maybe not doing well now (But thats a matter of opinion), but they had their good points, like redeeming us from Nazi/Japanese (Japanese in my case) occupation.

It's only going to be 4 more years. Every country has their ups and downs.

i must have missed something. when was this utopia where we all worked together toward a great society?

seems to me that individualistic societies like the US have made far greater strides than the more "collective" societies have.
I would not consider the US a utopia in the slightest extent. We are not a dystopia but we are nowhere near a utopia.

The charm of a collective society is the sense of community and order that it provides. A collective society would have a greater feeling of being close to our nation and of being loved and cared for and the like. A collective society can have more utopic qualities because of the fact that a collective society is more likely to attempt to provide each of its members with what they need to survive and be happy.

An individualistic society requires that all of its members fight their way into getting what they want. There will be winners, losers, and hollow victories. Although competition and the like are good, they are in some ways self-destructive. This can be seen with the fact that the purest form of individualism is pure anarchy(not anarchism) while the purest form of collectivism is a hive mind(not a murderous rampage by one dictator). Cooperation is an act of building and pooling resources, competition is an act of division and working to win. The only thing that makes competition seem better is that people competing have an easier find getting the zeal to put in their maximum. Such efficiency is created by internal factors that can be controlled to some extent.

The logical conclusion of that being that we shuldn't do anything while in Brazil for fear of accidentally starting a tornado in Texas?
Yeah, sure. That is not what I am saying exactly.(Weather is unpredictable and can be affected by small changes that get larger, this is partly because of the fact that the weater seems to be affected by non-linear functions that can be hard to predict and where small changes can end up building up into large changes)

Any way, the butterfly affect thing I was mentioning is not related to weather just to human nature and economics. Certainly small things may not get that big but they could get bigger than would seem proportional. What I was saying is that the actions of a few people end up affecting many more people in ways that are not easy to imagine and that could even be hard to comprehend or see. Such is true with video games, they train people to do these things to some extent(most people do not do what they see in video games due to what they learn from outside sources and their own strength of will) however, over an extended period of time without the force of these other lessons to balance out what is taught in video games it stands to reason that the lessons being taught by video games would become more dominant in the persons personality. This is contrary to what we think about the triviality of such games but ultimately has some truth to consider.

....Individually we are nothing....
Sorry.

No.

I believe in myself just a tad bit too much to listen to such blatant discouragement as this. We can think and act for others no more than we can chew their food or sleep for them, so its senseless that there is any sort of 'bond' or 'obligation' beyond that which exists in the real world. Men are not beasts who slave along simply for the benefits of others.

I would not consider the US a utopia in the slightest extent. We are not a dystopia but we are nowhere near a utopia.

The charm of a collective society is the sense of community and order that it provides. A collective society would have a greater feeling of being close to our nation and of being loved and cared for and the like. A collective society can have more utopic qualities because of the fact that a collective society is more likely to attempt to provide each of its members with what they need to survive and be happy.

An individualistic society requires that all of its members fight their way into getting what they want. There will be winners, losers, and hollow victories. Although competition and the like are good, they are in some ways self-destructive. This can be seen with the fact that the purest form of individualism is pure anarchy(not anarchism) while the purest form of collectivism is a hive mind(not a murderous rampage by one dictator). Cooperation is an act of building and pooling resources, competition is an act of division and working to win. The only thing that makes competition seem better is that people competing have an easier find getting the zeal to put in their maximum. Such efficiency is created by internal factors that can be controlled to some extent.
i was not nominating the US as a utopia. the original poster seemed to think that there used to be some kind of collective utopia. i wondered what THAT utopia was

collectivism is only good if you agree with it and only great if you are at the top. but in any case, chaotic societies like the US have brought about more innovation than any "collective" society that i can think of. perhaps you know of one that has done better?

i was not nominating the US as a utopia. the original poster seemed to think that there used to be some kind of collective utopia. i wondered what THAT utopia was

collectivism is only good if you agree with it and only great if you are at the top. but in any case, chaotic societies like the US have brought about more innovation than any "collective" society that i can think of. perhaps you know of one that has done better?
The united states has benefited from a good amount of natural resources. It has also benefited from some amount of collectivism. The interference of our government in our economy as well as the strong feelings of nationalism and of sacrificing the self for the good of the nation are both somewhat collective. Heck, the nation of Japan, which has a lot of technological gain and a powerful economy is a lot more collectivist than the US. In fact, some people think that Japan's collectivist nature is in someways part of its success as the employees are loyal to the employers and vice versa, the government helps the industry.

The united states has benefited from a good amount of natural resources.
Proportional to the amount of resources in other areas of the world, our success is abnormal.

It has also benefited from some amount of collectivism. The interference of our government in our economy as well as the strong feelings of nationalism and of sacrificing the self for the good of the nation are both somewhat collective.
One: our country experienced the greatest amount of growth [economically] when the government was not interfering in our economy.

Two: A sacrifice, by definition, is giving up an object [in this case one's life] for something of lesser value. Anything else is a trade or even a gain. The horror in the doctrine of self-sacrifice is made very clear by its name alone.

Heck, the nation of Japan, which has a lot of technological gain and a powerful economy is a lot more collectivist than the US. In fact, some people think that Japan's collectivist nature is in someways part of its success as the employees are loyal to the employers and vice versa, the government helps the industry.
Japan is a wierd place. A lot of what they've gained has come from watching us closely; they've been thoroughly fascinated with the West since WW2. I'm not trying to diminish their accomplishments, but I have to point out that they don't exactly think like we do.

Proportional to the amount of resources in other areas of the world, our success is abnormal.

One: our country experienced the greatest amount of growth [economically] when the government was not interfering in our economy.

Two: A sacrifice, by definition, is giving up an object [in this case one's life] for something of lesser value. Anything else is a trade or even a gain. The horror in the doctrine of self-sacrifice is made very clear by its name alone.

Japan is a wierd place. A lot of what they've gained has come from watching us closely; they've been thoroughly fascinated with the West since WW2. I'm not trying to diminish their accomplishments, but I have to point out that they don't exactly think like we do.
We are a huge nation with many resources, I would not say that our success is that abnormal considering that most countries of our size have had problems with a working government.

Our economy has had government involvement for a long period of time. The belief that the government should interfere with the economy is part of most accepted economic ideals.

Sacrifice is a good thing if it is done for higher virtue. You can not claim that those who die in war can be compensated for their death because they lose without receiving, yet we honor them for doing so. I believe that self-sacrifice is a noble virtue not a sin and the ideas that you espouse are detrimental to a society because the idea of a society is the majority gaining not a minority.

The fact that the japanese are different is because of their culture. This is an attack on American ideals of independence and the very way we think. I think that Americans in general are fools for desiring such independence(especially considering that our taxes were not as high as they were in other parts of the British Empire) as well, most have heard about our lawsuits against Mcdonalds and our other societal flaws. America is powerful but many Americans are not as good as the could or should be.

We are a huge nation with many resources, I would not say that our success is that abnormal considering that most countries of our size have had problems with a working government.

Our economy has had government involvement for a long period of time. The belief that the government should interfere with the economy is part of most accepted economic ideals.

Sacrifice is a good thing if it is done for higher virtue. You can not claim that those who die in war can be compensated for their death because they lose without receiving, yet we honor them for doing so. I believe that self-sacrifice is a noble virtue not a sin and the ideas that you espouse are detrimental to a society because the idea of a society is the majority gaining not a minority.

The fact that the japanese are different is because of their culture. This is an attack on American ideals of independence and the very way we think. I think that Americans in general are fools for desiring such independence(especially considering that our taxes were not as high as they were in other parts of the British Empire) as well, most have heard about our lawsuits against Mcdonalds and our other societal flaws. America is powerful but many Americans are not as good as the could or should be.
Okay, take everything you just said here, and turn it completely upside down and inside out. This would be the equivalent of my position on the matter.

I can't really even begin to imagine the kind of 'reasoning' that spawned these conclusions, and I'm certainly not in the mood to disassemble them.

Okay, take everything you just said here, and turn it completely upside down and inside out. This would be the equivalent of my position on the matter.

I can't really even begin to imagine the kind of 'reasoning' that spawned these conclusions, and I'm certainly not in the mood to disassemble them.
I can understand your reasoning. I just reject that reasoning as being in some way wrong. We apparently have viewpoints that are completely opposing. Your ideology seems to be very individualist(you are an objectivist, correct?) while my ideology tends towards more authoritarian systems that impose communal beliefs for communal good.

Libertarian and Authoritarian beliefs are incomprehensible to one another. I say libertarian beliefs are foolish and detrimental to any society. You would claim that authoritarian beliefs are foolish and detrimental.