Page 14 of 18 FirstFirst ... 4101112131415161718 LastLast
Results 131 to 140 of 175

Thread: Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

  1. #131
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Bend Oregon USA
    Posts
    3,350

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Stiffler View Post
    That would be marvelous, wouldn't it? Unfortunately there will always be those who will take advantage, no matter what hey are taught or how they are brought up.
    no, for those...you just violently kill them
    Pat B

    laserman532 on ebay

    Been there, done that, got the t-shirt & selling it in a garage sale.

  2. #132
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Detroit, USA
    Posts
    558

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Laserman532 View Post
    no, for those...you just violently kill them
    Doesn't that kind of contradict your message?? Not that I disagree.....

  3. #133
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    My momentum is too precisely determined :S
    Posts
    1,777

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Laserman532 View Post
    no, for those...you just violently kill them
    Or you just try to make it less profitable for them to take advantage of the system by penalties and regulations.
    Unfortunately, that's when you encounter the "Don't mind my business!" conservatives or liberals.

  4. #134
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Detroit, USA
    Posts
    558

    Default

    IMHO most of the problems in society boil down to one character flaw: GREED. Obviously that is greatly over simplifying, but the need for MORE drives people & organizations to do some shady shit. Unfortunately, I think this problem might be related to a basic instinct: Self preservation. Hmmmm.....

  5. #135
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    My momentum is too precisely determined :S
    Posts
    1,777

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Stiffler View Post
    IMHO most of the problems in society boil down to one character flaw: GREED. Obviously that is greatly over simplifying, but the need for MORE drives people & organizations to do some shady shit. Unfortunately, I think this problem might be related to a basic instinct: Self preservation. Hmmmm.....
    Yes. That's the conclusion I came to while reading, and replying to, this thread.
    The trick is to use the greed of humans to improve the world. It should be doable, after all a broken world is in nobody's interest.

    Are there still people who believe in the system of the invisible hand? It's a nice idea, but fundamentally flawed. When it's in the interest of a company, they will do things that benefit humanity. But if it brings up more to damage the world, they'll do it equally quickly (just look at fracking).

    I'm not sure what the best way is to counter this force. Regulations? But those are prone to abuse (especially if the corporations have the power like in the US, or when you have strong lobbying). Education? Moral awareness by the common people? Go live on a mountain and wait for the rich guys to float by on their piles of worthless money?

    The current answers aren't sufficient, that's for sure. I was actually at the recent climate conference in Warsaw, as one of the (mere) 2000 people protesting. That conference was a total joke. It was sponsored by the major polluting companies (General Motors, Arcelor Mittal, BMW, some oil and fracking companies, coal mining companies etc.) The results were that existing regulations got weakened! Yes, this is the same conference where the Phillipine representative refused to eat anything until there was an agreement, because of the disastrous hurricane. That just tells you how important our future is for the current powers that be. It makes me sad and angry.

  6. #136
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    2,478

    Default

    Regulation IS the answer, but 'law' isn't. So how does regulation work in mechanics and most other systems, including life? First requirement is awareness, which needs feedback. Another is past awareness, which comes from memory, history, archeology, etc. The internet is the biggest development in human self-awareness yet, and will take some time to settle down, so we won't know how well that works for a while. Speed and power of organised response is vital too, but we don't have that, we're not organised across a world, and we have very little power, the effect we have on a world is about as powerful as drilling with a blunt bit, it makes noise, chaotic action, is mostly wasted work. We barely have a sense of our own power, we still argue whether or not we do shape it that much, though I'm sure we do, indirectly as well as directly.

    All our current 'answers' will either become part of a better way, or be rejected, and we don't know for sure which. Self-limitation has to be the best way I know, for the simple reason that if people end up living within constraints, the ones who make best use of them will be the most free, and have what everyone else wants. Desire doesn't always want 'more', it's just that greedy people have conditioned us to think that way! For example, the notion og economic 'growth' is only a few decades old. Far older, and more viable, is the notion of economic activity. That's much more useful, but it depends on need, not greed, and until VERY recently, most of the world's people were too busy, too constrained, to indulge as much greed as they do now. The internet shows the people with the most need, how the most greedy operate. A large number of needy people becoming greedy sill go very bad very fast, so it won't take long before people figure that out and try something different.

  7. #137
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Bend Oregon USA
    Posts
    3,350

    Default

    hopefully one can touch everyone inside of their circle of influence and pass peace, love and understanding in that moment to that person who will hopefully do the same...eventually you get to George Soros and Dick Cheney. Im not very optimistic on that new age approach. Deep down I know it is probably the right thing to do, but, people quickly forget the moment and start being motivated by self interest & greed and the chain breaks. Until the planet evolves spiritually to that level it will always be like this. Evil Forces are fighting good forces all the time, this time the evil forces have the upper hand, maybe after they get their way and destroy us all the next civilization will have learned from those past awarenesses, evolve as a species, to a more spiritual, loving part of the one whole on this ringing bell which we call spaceship mother earth.

    DAMN!!! that is some good weed (insert the Dawning of Aquarius video here)
    Pat B

    laserman532 on ebay

    Been there, done that, got the t-shirt & selling it in a garage sale.

  8. #138
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    2,478

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Laserman532 View Post
    Evil Forces are fighting good forces all the time, this time the evil forces have the upper hand, maybe after they get their way and destroy us all the next civilization will have learned from those past awarenesses...
    I think that works on other scales too, much smaller. On a personal level too, but interesting to me right now is the national level seen in the UK. Liberals, who had all but forgotten their live-and-let-live principles in favour of maintaining their first taste of real power in decades, have lost the moderate ground they used to occupy, as the nation's politics have steadily been driven so right wing that the worst of it looks like welcoming overtly Nazi policies, but at the same time the churches are finding their roles changing, not so much pro-establishment as they had been for many decades, but beginning to resist this new order. The change in Pope is a big part of that but it runs a lot deeper. They'd be rejecting the tenets of Christianity if they did not start to resist what is now being done to so many people. Maybe some of the original state intentions were good, as were many of the public's demands, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and people must be careful what they wish for, etc...

    Also in academia, studies are showing that there is a true poverty in the UK now, a REAL breadline, not the political 'breadline' of the last few decades. While the government denies the reality of this, stating that because food banks are provided, people will naturally use them just to avoid spending, the real cost, the real reasons are laid out as clearly and individually to those actually looking at this, as those bodies of protesters laid out in Kiev hotel lobbies are to those who will look and accept what's going on there.

    When 'leaders' want us to think we're being well treated, they ALWAYS point to worse, and find someone else to blame. (And the Tory party has infamously been screaming blame at every possible turn, very loudly and persistently and obviously, every day since it started to contest the last election). It's why I think Ian Duncan Smith went to Auschwitz and Birkenau, ostensibly to say how bad those were, but why does a right wing politician even need to indulge in gesture politics of that kind, if not to use it to say that when they put the thumbscrews on here, that we have no claim against that because he is pointing to the worst examples he can in order to misdirect attention from what he does at home?! Gove is a similar stamp of man, he wants to remodel a kind of Gove Youth, like the Hitler Youth, but he wants to force the entire state education system to his will. This isn't about improving standards, it's about taking advantage and exerting his personal will. It's a very Nazi thing to do, and no single individual should ever be allowed that much power! Far too dangerous.

    The UK government is damn close to screaming NIGGERS GO HOME, and has taken advantage of a real crisis to force through some of the cruelest ideologically driven restrictions on British life for centuries. It's also a desperately weak stance, taking an offensive stance out of fear that if they do not, then some as yet unelected mob (UKIP, or even the BNP) will take power. The fact that Scotland is seriously considering departing from the union is proof of how weak the UK's ruling elite is, and a lot of Scots want out because the thought of being ruled by a vicious elite is enough to make many of them want to take their chances out of it entirely.

    Fortunate a large number of people are realising what is being done, and the beginnings of a deep unease and resistance are growing, but I don't know what the outcome will be. I suspect that events like flooding, combined with an awareness that the government hasn't the slightest interest until it looks like they'll lose serious votes if they don't at least LOOK like they give a damn, will raise a level of public cynicism that will help resist it better. That, and the fact that when people have to dig themselves out of their own holes more often, the sooner they'll be stronger and more able to resist the government. While I say 'government', I really mean a corrupt ruling elite that extends to phone hacking journalist friends of the Prime Minister, and the kinds of rich spongers that apparently have to be paid more to get more work out of them when everyone else apparently needs the whip. Nothing ultimately new here, I know, but I think enough people are seeing how the evil has grown, feeding itself on the crisis, dividing people against each other. I think this is going to change, because the floods have brought farmers and others together across many counties, and in a short time have repaired the kind of isolation the corrupt 'rulers' have been working for years to cause.

    It's hard for people to accept because there is no easy 'line' dividing the good from the bad. The problem crept up on Germany so they had no idea till it was way more extreme than they knew, and by then it was so viciously bad that they didn't want to admit it. I think Britain will probably avoid that error because it is afraid to risk the shame and loss of NOT avoiding it. Which is as good a motivation as any I guess. Britain wants to be seen as a 'force for good' in the world, and most people here know that this can't happen if it becomes a force for bad at home.

  9. #139
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Detroit, USA
    Posts
    558

    Default

    Proof once again that Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.

    Does anyone know of any countries with a technocratic government?

  10. #140
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    2,478

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by colouredmirrorball View Post
    The trick is to use the greed of humans to improve the world.
    Well, 'enlightened self interest' is the phrase I learned, that comes closest to a way to make it work. It's not greed. Greed is greed, no point in encouraging it at all, so two things need to happen, one being that we need to recognise real need, in ourselves, to figure out what matters most. The other is to recognise it in others, not as a kind of do-good idealism, but as a simple reality check. It's not easy to do if we're scared than everyone else is gaining advantage by NOT doing it, but it gets easier if we can see that they aren't really getting much advantage out of it at all. We already know that if it's not changed, we're all likely going down together, so the more the world knows about the rest of the world, the sooner some kind of consensus will be reached. I think this change in awareness will be a lot faster than the decline in resources and global living conditions. I doubt people will be very complacent about it if more changes in weather and climate force us to change how we live.

    The best way to get some stability and contentment is to dig heels in and not be moved. At least, not by human (or other) predators. People don't waste food carelessly around their living places if they think it will encourage bears, or other humans with guns. The time people usually get hit hard by something is when they either encourage it by reckless action, or when they think it cannot possibly happen to them. Once people stop gormlessly whining 'cannot happen in this day and age, or in this quiet neighbourhood' or other similar nonsense, as we so often hear in news stories when bad stuff happens, the sooner people be more careful what they demand from life, and the sooner it will stop disappointing them and making them angry and reckless.

    Apparently poor kids in India perform better than rich kids in good UK schools, according to a recent news article on the BBC site. I doubt this is because they're forced to, or are subjected to 'target' based testing every six months of their entire school life. It's more likely that the natural events of India drive life far more than its politics and social habits, and that kind of thing makes people far more interested in the world around them.
    Last edited by The_Doctor; 02-20-2014 at 21:52.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •