Azelma wrote:
Aestu wrote:
Azelma wrote:
Anyway Aestu, where'd you get your views?
On what?
Life, society, the economy, the government.
Life and societyNietzsche: makes the argument that the will to power is the foremost drive, and that the purpose of life is the exercise of one's will to power in the free expression of one's existence as an individual.
The Odyssey: an epic tale of a resourceful and cunning hero for whom getting there is truly half the fun
The Epic of Gilgamesh: mankind's most ancient legend, of how a great warrior sought - and found - the secret of immortality
Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age: about how a man of superhuman strength, intelligence and courage disdained women and almost conquered the world, only to die of a cold in his thirties
Tao Te Ching: a conservative, eastern philosophical work advocating individuality and harmony
Long The Imperial Way / All Quiet on the Western Front: about the petty brutality and hypocrisy of military life
Paradise Lost: a Christian epic poem about the nature of evil and the purpose of man's existence
Peloponnesian War: one of the greatest historical works of all time, about how human folly, moral corruption, demagoguery and hubris brought down a great empire; deep analysis of the nature of power and its effects on strong and weak alike
Utopia: analysis of the nature of a "free" state
Plutarch: analyses great Romans according to the ideals of that society
The Giver: children's book about individuality and the human spirit
Sherlock Holmes: about a brilliant, solitary, chronically depressed individual who second-guesses "the experts"
The Guns of August: about how the stupidity and arrogance of "the experts" resulted in the useless deaths of tens of millions of Europeans
The Torah: a Jewish epic about courage, loyalty and integrity
Arrowsmith: about an idealistic young doctor's search for moral and scientific truth
Disraeli: about England's only Jewish Prime Minister and the means by which he wormed his way into the heart of corrupt Victorian society
The Count of Monte Cristo: the tale of how a dispossessed young man is betrayed by his friends and wrongfully imprisoned; he escapes, acquires great wealth, infiltrates decadent French society, rewards his few friends and brings down terrible vengeance upon those who did him wrong
Overall, I have come to value freedom, integrity and moral courage above all else.
The economyThe Worldly Philosophers: about different economists and their views on life, generally slanted towards a moderate socialist viewpoint
The Grapes of Wrath: about the plight of Okie immigrants to CA during the Great Depression, the indifference of mainstream society and the greed of business owners
Napoleonic Ideas: a book by the nephew of the great man himself about his economic and political ideas
The Mississippi Bubble: about how mass hysteria caused one of the world's great financial bubbles, and the settlement of the American Midwest
Unsafe At Any Speed: about General Motor's efforts to destroy Ralph Nader by means illegal and even violent, rather than fix the problems with their products that would ultimately bankrupt the company
Livy's History of Rome & War Against Hannibal / Tacitus' Agricola & Germania: how greed, ambition, courage and sacrifice made and unmade the Roman Empire
Theodore Rex: about an upper-class American whose life was forever changed by a chance meeting with a Jewish socialist named Samuel Gompers
A Distant Mirror & The Gilded Century: about the Dark Ages, a time of oppression, superstition, chaos and disorder - and how mankind slowly freed itself from the grips of ignorance and squalor
The Arms of Krupp: about the greed, arrogance and corruption of a German arms manufacturer
The Third Man (movie): a brutal critique of the callousness of American business
The Jungle: about the plight of American immigrants and the greed and exploitation of American business
There have been many, many more books that influenced me (as a child I read all the National Geographics between 1960 and 2000, which is still the source of about a third my total knowledge base) but I would say it is those books that have most strongly shaped my views.
Azelma wrote:
Aestu wrote:
Members of government have no stake in the status quo.
lol. Yes, yes they do.
How?
Azelma wrote:
Aestu wrote:
You presented the argument of of bribery which is a strawman because it doesn't happen
You seriously believe that bribery doesn't happen in government? So what was the whole Blagojevich thing about? Let me know what you're smoking because that shit must be potent.
That's one very marginal case and it ended with prosecution and termination of career. Compare that with the innumerable white collar criminals that get off with a slap on the wrist if even.
Azelma wrote:
Aestu wrote:
Hypocrisy for the reasons described above and elsewhere, amongst them that you are reliant on both handouts and social favor.
Says the guy who's being supported by his parents....
Besides, how am I reliant on handouts and social favor? Examples please.
I already did. If not for the state propping up the education bubble via student loans, subsidies to firms that give loans, and public overspending on education, your job would not exist.
Azelma wrote:
Aestu wrote:
Correct, you're nothing special. You also benefit from extraordinary social and institutional advantages. Which they don't.
You're not special either. Also, assuming you didn't read anything I've written previously about my life and history, how have I benefited from extraordinary social and institutional advantages? Please be specific. For that matter, haven't you benefited from some social situations? Didn't you grow up in Sacramento? Not exactly a ghetto place if you were able to have a garden and sell lemonade. I grew up in Philly across from two bars and living in a shitty 1 bedroom apartment with my mother and sister. Haven't your parents paid for your college education and supported you? Haven't you used your parents money to pay for your WoW subscriptions/sever transfers? I had to take student loans which I am still paying off. Please...spare me the "you benefited from so much" when you didn't even bother to read about the poverty I grew up with or how many jobs I've held while getting my education. I would have given the world to live in sunny Sacramento selling lemonade to wealthy Californians.
You went to a private school and your family was well enough off to pay for your internship.
The difference between you and I is, I don't deny the advantages of my birth and blithely say everyone who isn't as fortunate is lazy.
Azelma wrote:
Aestu wrote:
Azelma wrote:
It's just not fun to discuss anything with you. I don't have a problem being shown where my thinking is flawed, I do have a problem being disrespected though.
This is really your problem right there. It's called intellectual decadence or mental laziness, depending on who you ask. Finding the truth inevitably requires the thinking of thoughts that are not pleasant...i.e., not FUN to think. A lot of people can't do that.
Again, you assume so much. I think it's fun to be challenged. I don't think it's fun to be disrespected and insulted. Therein lies the rub.
I didn't assume anything. In this very thread you keep contradicting yourself, or being proven wrong then continuing to believe the disproven anyway. You invite contempt through the contradictions and stubborn fallacies and laziness of your thinking.