GENIUS FORUMS

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:Another monastic movement may certainly be appropriate, but I think it would be hard to convince hard-line secular folk of the need for it. The closest thing that many people have to religion is a deep-set belief in psychiatry; perhaps by pushing psychiatry to the limit of credibility, it would be possible to set up asylums ("hospitals") for perfectly sane people.

It shouldn't be hard to invent a few illnesses that don't require medication, but instead that require years of introspection and gardening in a communal setting. Turning spirituality into a mental disease? I know people who'd buy it.

Hah! Kind of like they did with political dissidents in USSR = lock them up in insane asylums. Sometimes being rational in irrational world = makes you the crazy one. People did buy into that too.
I watched a movie recently called "The lives of others."

This reminded me of it.

In the middle of a real crisis -- millions of farmers starving in Ukraine, for instance -- you don't want a bunch of people with theories running loose. A few years of hard labour brings them back down to earth. The Gulags may have saved more lives than were destroyed.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:In the middle of a real crisis -- millions of farmers starving in Ukraine
for instance -- you don't want a bunch of people with theories running loose. , A few years of hard labour brings them back down to earth. The Gulags may have saved more lives than were destroyed.

Starving/crisis which was brought on by a bungling and inept bureaucratic system (casuse)

However, the industrialization had a heavy cost for the peasantry, demographically a backbone of the Ukrainian nation. To satisfy the state's need for increased food supplies and finance industrialization, Stalin instituted a program of collectivization of agriculture as the state combined the peasants' lands and animals into collective farms and enforcing the policies by the regular troops and secret police. Those who resisted were arrested and deported and the increased production quotas were placed on the peasantry. The collectivization had a devastating effect on agricultural productivity. As the members of the collective farms were not allowed to receive any grain until the unachievable quotas were met, starvation became widespread. Millions starved to death in a famine known as the Holodomor.[5]

Wiki source:

There are 2 ways to save lives in that case imo.

a) by fixing the system,(finding cause of it is one way to go about it.)

or

The Gulags may have saved more lives than were destroyed.

b) by ignoring the faults of it.(thus giving time/letting (?) the people who caused it in the first place to fix it?) Edit: Not sure what was meant by that sentence.

A few years of hard labour brings them back down to earth.

The political repression and terror that encourages people to lean towards point "b" while implying, that there is something wrong does indeed work. - From personal experience.

Or, are you being ironic/sarcastic? If not, then have you included the estimated human cost in the future, in your calculations? Because that was not the only way and time, that human lives on mass scale were exterminated, under that particular leadership/bureaucratic system.

Sometimes I do think I am out of sync with other people. Sometimes I can't distinguish between a jest and earnestness in other peoples comunications. :-S

hsandman: no, I'm not being sarcastic. I only use irony when there's absolutely no chance that the person I'm talking to will understand it; and, sarcasm is a weaker form of humour than a pun (especially when dealing with large numbers of human lives).

Genocide and other such ideological and bureaucratic mistakes that lead to loss of massive amounts of human lives -- this seems an unavoidable consequence of mixing lots of technology with lots of people. Somehow, the combination of repression caused by factors as diverse as McDonald's, anti-Communist sentiment, and Disneyland... has kept America from genocide.

Fat and stupid people with puritanical ideals don't go around killing each other. In countries where there simply isn't enough food and *magic* broadcasting through the air, hard labour purifies thought just as well.

Thought purifies thought. One should think a lot until they start realizing how to think. Then they should think a lot more until realizing what to think. Then they should think a lot more until realizing what not to think.

Thinkers need to think. Their circumstances are just that - circumstantial.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:hsandman: no, I'm not being sarcastic. I only use irony when there's absolutely no chance that the person I'm talking to will understand it; and, sarcasm is a weaker form of humour than a pun (especially when dealing with large numbers of human lives).

Genocide and other such ideological and bureaucratic mistakes that lead to loss of massive amounts of human lives -- this seems an unavoidable consequence of mixing lots of technology with lots of people. Somehow, the combination of repression caused by factors as diverse as McDonald's, anti-Communist sentiment, and Disneyland... has kept America from genocide.

Fat and stupid people with puritanical ideals don't go around killing each other. In countries where there simply isn't enough food and *magic* broadcasting through the air, hard labour purifies thought just as well.

I guess you were serious about becoming a dictator of a small african nation after all. Though your temper seems to need work, if you are to be a judge over the life and death of so many people.

Yep, I am out of sync. :-S

The Trap #1 - F&#k You Buddy

Edit: I think here in lies the problem, some people(even while having other peoples best interests at heart sometimes/ or claiming to have.), think that human race is irredeemably selfish and need to be lorded over with iron fist. "Protected from what we want." For what we want is not in our collectives best interests. So these people onece in control start by oppressing a individual freedoms. This small group of individuals from the same collective spirals out of control sooner than latter. This elite small group is motivated by the same selfish goals as the rest of the population, only they are certain that altruistic behavior is a deviation of norm in nature. Based on this presumption, John Nashdevelops a game theory that supports the idea of cheat or be cheated

Nash also collaborated with several students to create the game "So Long, Sucker," a multiple-player game that rewarded the player most skilled at deception.

(philosophy of Zion?) . Maybe they are right. *shrug* maybe it is a aberration of nature? Then if so, one can't say that they are protecting others from themselves/what they want (via censorship etc.) = altruistic motive.= oberration of nature.


That is why we are here again, I guess.

ps. That is why i think computer should run the world or .... hookers...<-there is a intersting half-baked idea. Anything beats bankers and millitary. =)

sandman, I'm too honest to be a politician. I'd be perfect for the job of tyrannizing a small African republic, but nobody would vote me in when I reveal my master plan at the outset. Basically, telling them that what they need is more McDonald's, more outside influence, and an amusement park in Rwanda.... (if not an amusement park, then a Holy City, which is basically the same deal)

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:sandman, I'm too honest to be a politician. I'd be perfect for the job of tyrannizing a small African republic, but nobody would vote me in when I reveal my master plan at the outset. Basically, telling them that what they need is more McDonald's, more outside influence, and an amusement park in Rwanda.... (if not an amusement park, then a Holy City, which is basically the same deal)

Lol, I think someone beat you to the rest of the "developed world" with that idea?

No offence, but I would not vote for you either if i was them. >_>

hsandman wrote:

Nash also collaborated with several students to create the game "So Long, Sucker," a multiple-player game that rewarded the player most skilled at deception.

(philosophy of Zion?) .

Erm... huh? Anti-semitism too?..

I've written to a commune, but I really doubt that I could go without a computer at the moment. Too much to get done. Plus I want to be able to drink, and smoke. Nothing really fits my needs so far.

Pincho Paxton wrote:I've written to a commune, but I really doubt that I could go without a computer at the moment. Too much to get done. Plus I want to be able to drink, and smoke. Nothing really fits my needs so far.

Well, I have not been there in a few years, but last I saw, East Wind had a computer room with a dozen PCs. The cafeteria had ashtrays, nobody bitched about me smoking, nor what I was smoking, and several others also smoked. I didnt see any drinking, but have been told that upper management was a buncha drunks.

They got in some trouble with a report of homophobia. But I've never been able to carry on an email dialogue with anyone there despite the fact they have a website.