fuck yeah. whatever they gave me after my wisdom teeth surgery had codeine in it. having my wisdom teeth removed was one of the most pleasant experiences of my life. i remember getting up to go to the bathroom and feeling like i was walking through molasses or something, and thinking that was pretty fucking awesome. i only wish those motherfuckers tried to grow in a second time.

 

citation needed

 

 

 

Hypocrite. So when Mandela says prayer is useless, you are ok with that. When I say the same thing, I am the bad guy.

The DOCTORS did the work, and as nice as placebos make humans feel, which is what Mandela was arguing, don't do shit.

I only add to that that those placebos are a dangerous distraction. The church had the placebo thought that the sun rotated around the earth, and Galileo upon stating fact was punished for it.

 

You have to accept that people have "feelings" and like to express them. NO SHIT, but wallowing in superstitious "feelings" didn't prolong Mandela's life, DOCTORS DID IT!

you are literally out of your feeble mind. refuting you is like killing a fly with a shotgun, but i'll do it anyway.


a. i've never said prayer was "scientifically useful" for anything. see my above post. quote me where i've ever advocated prayer. matter of fact, brian, quote me where i've ever said any of the shit you've accused me of saying. you can't, because those quotes don't exist.


b. lennon was a beatle, as i've said before.


c. you're obviously a spiteful, pathetic little creature because after several weeks of me giving you a sound intellectual thrashing, exposing you as ignorant, dimwitted, dishonest, hysterical, deluded, self-absorbed, self-aggrandized, and insecure, the only thing you have to fall back on is attacking my fucking avatar. you're embarrassing yourself, brian, seriously. listen to people around you. get away from the site for a few weeks or something. take a break. that's more advice than you deserve.


d. so i'm a dyed-in-the-wool marxist-leninist (not that you have the first clue what that is), but i also advocate prayer for the sick? where do you get this shit? 'cause you ain't gettin' it from my posts.

 

                                    Bullets match perfectly.

That isn't at all what he has criticized for.

No one is putting words in your mouth.

YOUR AVATAR is seen by most in the west as representing oppression, NOT FREEDOM.

If you support them your argument is going to be "They are misunderstood".

No different than when people of competing religions say "you don't understand".

And in both cases, be it worship of a political worldview or a holy book, STILL FUCKING MISSES THE FACT THAT evolution doesn't give one fuck about our personal desires, it only works because we fuck. It does not care how we get there.

 

 

Really? Care to wager on whether or not you could find any of the quotes you have attributed to iwbiek?

 

Only by idiots who are completely ignorant of political ideologies.

 

They are misunderstood by many people, because most people haven't bothered reading their important writings. Instead they simply associate everything through the hysterical propaganda of the red scare (among their detractors) or the simplistic egalitarianism which amounts to wealth distribution adopted by people who fancy themselves Marxists and strut around in Che shirts but are equally ignorant.

 

The difference is that iwbiek actually knows what the fuck he is talking about. He has a well reasoned and well thought out political ideology. One which is radically different from my own, but one that is certainly intelligent. Unlike some people who have absolutely no political ideology and have completely incoherent political views that make them susceptible to the hysterical politics used mostly by people seeking personal political power over building an effective system.

 

I shall eagerly await for you to publish your book on the political ideology of "Evolutionism". I'm sure it will be more influential than anything written by Marx, Engels or Lenin.

No sill have a "thick skn",  don't have to worry about that. That is how he sounds trying to defend religion. "Don't pick on religion".

I was bullied as a kid, as an adult I don't give a fuck. This is just text, no one has literal weapons aimed at each other like in a war or street gang. Everyone reading this will go to bed safe and in one piece.

Yes I am running scared because you equated me to Matt. HA!

This is the same  problem I have with you as I do with theists.

You can take any religious idea and find good things in it, you can take an economic idea and find things in it. But when you talk about both of those institutions being human run, the potential for abuse is always there. Lennon and Marx I am sue had some appealing motifs in their writings that could be viewed as empathy to the human condition. But it is precisely because people blinding defended them without question that Stalin was able to create his own monopoly and that would have negated anything good you might find in their writings.

 

However, we do not live in a "one size fits all" species in our desires or political views. "It works for me" only means that person claims it works. Political and economic ideology NEVER can be plopped down as a "one size fits all" anymore that one could expect to make the entire world all Muslim or all Christian or all Hindu or all atheist.

Same problem with the "less government" mantra. Sounds nice on paper, but in reality it can only serve corporate interests right now and not protect the institution all classes are allowed to be a part of.

We are a diverse species, period, so there can never be a "perfect" or "one size fits all" solution.  I think it was Marx who had the concept "Each to the best of their ability according to their means". That does sound more like individualism and pluralism than anything the tea party nuts claim.

However this well intended concept also needs a check on it and from what I see as far as the difference between the west and more closed societies, is that we have the concept of bans on monopolies of power. However increasingly big money has run roughshod over the system, much like Stalin created a political monopoly out of the words of Lennon and Marx, regardless if someone thinks they were misunderstood.

Money is that it takes to create ANY sort of monopoly, be it political, religious OR business. Dangle a simplistic utopia in front of the masses, and you can lead them like sheep.

Ideologies in the form of politics and religion are bullshit. Evolution drives us to want resources. Ideology is the excuse human make to create dominance over others. Whatever good intent Marx or Lennon had was naive in assuming humans wont figure out how to game the system, much like big business has today.

The only workable solution, which will never be "perfect",  to maintain pluralism is to have checks and balances and to ban monopolies of ANY KIND OF POWER, precisely because all aspects of human life are based on the same range of actions both selfish and compassion.

 

 

 

 

 

                         compare to

 

 

 

  Then telling iwbiek how not to post proves you do give a fuck.  God you're an idiot.

 

 

Understandable but naive. Capitalism is not a form of government. Gadaffi was a billionaire who owned stock in GE, Saudi Arabia capitalizes off the sale of oil. China capitalizes off the sale of cheap goods and slave wages.

I agree with Marx that if you starve enough people to death they will eventually take a shot at you, much like in a troop of chimps when the alpha male is sick or weak or old eventually the subordinates will take a shot at them.

The best concept I have seen in law that reflects evolution is not "fuck you I got mine" or "nanny state", but a ban on monopolies of power. Never let ANYTHING public or private or religious or political get too big as to allow it to run roughshod over everything else.

 

Henry Ford certainly saw no point in making a product his workers could not afford. I do think most of the climate in business today is exploitation instead of filling needs. Too much of most business today is about profit for profit's sake and not enough about investment and building and improving.

But again, well intended and naive. It unfortunately became for Stalin a oversimplified cliche and a utopian carrot he used to create his own political monopoly.

Which is what miffs me that when I point out pay disparity people flip out. Beyond wouldn't want to end the private sector but for some stupid reason thinks that would be my goal, which it is not.

I am empathetic to economic social justice but I would not be for ending the private sector.

 

Don't call me an idiot idiot. See how that works?

Hello Mcfly this is the entire point of this. To demonstrate to Iwbiek  that his "good intent" of wanting go get along has nothing to do with his intent. but his tactic.

Here we are bitching at each other and no one is dying over it. I am quite sure both of you would love to strangle me if we were in person face to face. But, I think it is far better we let the words fly. That is the part he fails to take into account. I give a fuck in making my point, certainly. But I do not give a fuck because 7 billion people will not always only say nice things about each other, say like you calling me an idiot. I don't think religion or politics or economic views or even individuals should be free from being offended.

When all this crap started over my agreeing with Hitchens calling religion poison, long before all that, Iwbiek had that avatar which the entire time I didn't bring up although I thought that the iconic nature of it, as viewed by most of the west, would be an "AH HA" playing into the fears of the successfully sold motif of "godless communism" as a result of decades of the cold war.

 

And I have also argued with theists over atheism leading to evil communism, that religion NEVER left Russia otherwise when the Soviet Union fell the churches never would have popped back up. Russia never got rid of religion. It simply didn't allow anything to compete with the state itself. But religion was always there.

So when this kneejerk reaction to the use of the word "poison" came about, when you all stupidly confuse it as meaning individuals being bad when I am talking about it as a natural phenomena you cant get rid of but must treat as such to avoid abuse of power, you all flipped out. Religious people can do good, but it isn't religion doing it, it is our evolutionary trait of compassion doing it. Religion is a poison because it distracts us from that common trait and makes the label important rather than our common existence.

So he comes in trying to play hero. I finally had enough of his bullshit and brought up his avatar. Now he is typing in all caps just like I do.

Point being humans are going to get their button's pushed and feel anger when they get their buttons pushed. Wanting others to shut up in the face of having those buttons pushes IS PERFECTLY NATURAL, but totally unrealistic in a very messy reality.

Civility isn't in avoiding offending others, civility is how you react in the face of being offended. Otherwise if we got to arrest or murder everyone who pisses us off, we'd all be genocidal maniacs.

So when he tells me to shut up or I tell him to shut up, I certainly am NOT talking in a literal use of force via government law, just merely "you have no case you are full of shit".

Again, I love my well intended friends on the left but I think humans go about it the wrong way. I think there would be more peace if the worst anyone of us had to worry about was a "fuck you".

 

 

 

 

 

 

What isn't coherent?

You guys, "You're being a dick"

Me, "So, that isn't the worst thing in the world". Seriously? Has anything I have said caused your arrest or murder? Don't you like calling me an idiot because that is what you think?

 

Bad is turning comic books into justifications for oppression. Bad is thinking anything if you just implement it will work on a diverse species. Which is why Dawkins blames Plato for all the fucked up world views be they religious or economic. It takes ideas and turns them into simplistic solutions that have no value in a complex reality. It distracts our species from the fact that we have ALWAYS had the same range of capacity to be BOTH cruel and compassionate.

Being offended is not the worst thing in the world. Having the ability to offend others is much more likely to keep powers in check. I hate how religion turns otherwise reasonable humans into tribal idiots.

And the more I argue with Beyond and Ibwiek on economics, rather than seeing it as diverse, are willing to treat their views as dogmatic as a religion itself.

So yea, I am a dick, now what?

 

 

 

 

 

wow, whole tsunamis of stupidities and non sequiturs. and the most amazing thing is, we've heard all of it before!

the operative phrase there is "trying to understand." that's your fatal error when it comes to brian's rants.

marx didn't get misunderstood so much as he got interpreted, and, contrary to popular belief, lenin and his successors did not and do not have the monopoly on how marx can be understood. marxism-leninism, i.e. stalinism, was a perfectly valid interpretation of marxism. but, then again, so were the early policies of the british labour party. so was the american socialism of eugene debs. so is so-called european communism, the post-communist philosophical interpretations of jacques derrida, and the politics of the weimar social democrats, that still influence the face of european politics today.

the soviet union was a product of marxism, but what so many people refuse to recognize is that the benign social states of contemporary europe are as well, including the one i live in. these states would not exist today without the foundational work done by committed marxists like karl kautsky, rosa luxemburg, and karl liebknecht, all of whom publicly opposed lenin's interpretation of marx.

 

The complexities of Karl Marx are a bit more than my own base understanding of the man and I have nowhere near read all of his works yet.

While it is tempting for many people to do a "one size fits all" approach to categorizing what the Soviet Union was and Stalin, It just does not work like that. No more than the "all or nothing" approach to virtually any understanding of things.

Really to understand Stalin at all, from my perspective that I shared in another thread, one really has to have a bit of grasp on Russian Pre-Soviet history. (Now that is just my opinion and experience on it).

When you look at it from the perspective that Russia and the Tsarism was pretty much still running a Medieval type of world in the 19th century, one can get a better understanding of the motives behind Lenin and the Bolsheviks. And mine is very limited at the moment, but that will change.

TRUTH to be told, Marx actually never could have foreseen that the place of proletarian revolution would have been possible in Russia, in fact, he seemed to think that Russia would have been the last place that it could have taken root. At least, that is what the books I have read and the cartoon cat on the motorcycle is stating as an opinion anyway.

Like the man or not, Stalin DID take a basically Medieval peasant society and elevated it to a formidable power that could shake the boots of any rival. But the cost came at a terrible price.

 

 

 

 

I  would actually guess that groupthink is a product of evolution rather than ignoring it ?

True. Hitler did much the same thing in Germany taking a country that had collapsed and turned it into one of the leading producers in the world. The benefit of authoritarian structures is that they can be extremely good at getting things done since fewer people make the decisions. That is why it is laughable to claim it doesn't work, or is "naive" (giggle). Whether a system works well is ultimately a subjective thing that depends on your ultimate goal or your ideal.

well, but to be fair to stalin, in hitler's case, the infrastructure was already in place, just not being used (or used at minimum capacity) because of the crippling sanctions of the treaty of versailles. basically it was a matter of throwing the switches again to get germany up and running, whereas stalin truly started with next to nothing.