Two philosophical questions - Page 3

To simplistic, sorry, not buying it.

Of course it is. Whatever. Either you don't understand, don't like or simply don't agree with the answer. Fine. I've answered your question. I'm done. I'm not going to spend any time trying to answer a question your (unknown) level of satisfaction. And I surely won't waste any time asking you to provide a suitable other explanation because I know you won't provide one.

Linking to an obvious truth instead of using your own words to explain will have to do I suppose.

But regarding Simon, crackpot.

That video is ridiculous. Societies have changed, they have not become less violent they have become increasingly more violent. Nations now have armies to do their wars and when they do it's death on a huge scale. There may be some truth to his percentages of the likelihood of being killed by another human when compared to his selected tribes, though I highly doubt whether he has obtained truly accurate, representational or even indeed valid figures. The per-capita death rate since the 16th century, will be vastly higher than has been the case for many, many thousands of years of tribal peoples existence.

Of course too, countless people are effectively now forced to live in and eat junk and generally suffer the ills of their effective enslavement, which is not really different than physically killing someone in your tribe or out of it. 60 million people also starve to death a year, which has many paths leading directly back to colonization by the Dutch and British.

175 million people died as a result of wars during the last century. At the beginning of the century 90% of the deaths were military personnel and by the end of the century the numbers reversed to 90% of the deaths being civilian and just 10% being military personnel. The soldiers are better protected than ever before and their weapons are far deadlier than ever before, indeed the military are often far removed from their targets. Simply put, violence changes, it has far from diminished in real terms.

As for the Dutch being civilized-

“The story of the Toradjas tribe is a good example, and fairly typical. The Dutch had “conquered” the Celebes Islands (now known as Sulawesi), and there lived in the Poso district of these islands a hilltop-dwelling people known as the Toradjas. They grew a dry variety of rice, and hunted, gathered, and lived tribally. Their economy had no money or other means of exchange beyond social courtesy and obligation, and hunger was unknown to them. They were quite happy with their lifestyle, which they had maintained even thousands of years before Holland first was occupied by dominators from Rome, and they had no particular interest in planting crops for export to Holland or in working for the Dutch lowland owners on their coffee plantations.

“This situation was intolerable to the Dutch, who observed that under such circumstances development and progress were impossible; and unless something was done quickly these tribal people were bound to remain at the same level of primitive lifestyle.

“So in 1892, the Dutch governor sent in missionaries to destroy tribal culture. This effort, however, was a total failure. Even offering ‘free education’ in the mission schools for the Toradjas’ children wasn’t enough to convince them that they should give up their religion or way of life. They simply had no interest in buying goods from the Dutch-owned stores, or in planting and growing coffee or rice for the Dutch export business, or in worshipping the gods of the Dutch. Without cheap native labor, the local Dutch industries were hardly as profitable as they could be.

“After thirteen years of diligent effort by the church, the Dutch government implemented Plan B. They brought in the army, and forcibly moved the Toradjas from their ancestral lands on the hilltops and redeposited them in the lowlands. They took Toradjas men for slave labor (they called it ‘conscription’) and used them to build roads, then imposed a head tax on each of their citizens. In order to pay the tax, the Toradjas had to go to work in the coffee plantations, and by 1910 they were ‘converted,’ sending their children to the mission schools, buying western clothing and appliances, smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol, and adopting Christianity. Although their mortality rates had soared, and they’d exchanged the healthy, leisurely life that was lived by their ancestors for ten thousand years for one of frantic and grinding poverty, they were now, the Dutch government pronounced, ‘civilized’.”
~Thom Hartmann- from his book, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight

Most cultures have lived in relative peace for tens of thousands of years. This "isn't science and civilization wonderful" nonsense is pathetic.

Modern science and capitalism have given us climate change which threatens the lives of countless people and species http://rabble.ca/news/2009/04/declar...ns-life-planet http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...cle=1&catnum=0
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1211090729.htm

Your chasing ghosts. BRussell has left the building. sslarson has left the building and taken all his posts with him.

Rereading some of my own posts, makes me wonder what drugs I was on at that time. I guess I'll just blame it on those aforementioned missing posts.

Yup, it's staccato reading.

I done learned a new word today. Thanks. It seems to be the perfect word for my abrupt posting style in this thread, with or without sslarson's aforementioned missing posts.

BRussel. Midwinter, Adabox, Groverat, that French doc . . . damn!, I miss them.

Something happened to this place and it sure aint the same.


-course I'm hardly ever here either . . .

guess it might have something to do with all the moderating, and then of course the implacability of Mr Verbiage .might have something to do with it too

. . *sadness*

PO didn't die, it was murdered.

I've got the suspect list.

Flounder ; screener ; tonton ; giant ; @_@ Artman ; Outsider ; FormerLurker ; hardeeharhar ; groverat ; Northgate ; addabox ; midwinter; BRussell ; franksargent ; Hassan i Sabbah ; MarcUK ;

How? By not wanting you to control the forum and trun it into the Trumptman show? You keep asking " Why do they make this thread about me? " Well you've got it backwards. The thread becomes about you by you constant insistance of being the center of attention. You create that yourself.

I wouldn't even comment on this except you asked. I've always wondered what would have happened if they had simply ignored you? Another 50 threads started by you no doubt but eventually you'd give up.

If you're so innocent or the wounded party here why did you follow everyone over to Applenova to continue what you were doing here?

Oooo, there's "a list". This isn't fishy at all. Nixon had a list too.

I'm sorry but the logic is quite tortured in this reply. Explain how I control people again?


Apparently there was a question in that list that I didn't see. Please follow the advice given and see if it works.


I have no idea what you are talking about.