The Beautiful State

[The Voice of Time]

What greater beauty could a political state be, than the society of humans fighting for a common happiness and security? What stronger state is there, what more admirable and believable state is there?

[WanderingLands]

What greater beauty could a political state be, than the society of humans fighting for a common happiness and security? What stronger state is there, what more admirable and believable state is there?

And why would you think of that? Everyone has different beliefs, opinions, backgrounds - all in all, perceptions. This is especially true when it comes to an ideal society. I'd say that my form of "state" would be just a family, like a traditional family. Had we stuck to traditional ways, we would have had an actual peace on earth.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Sounds like you're describing Norway...







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[The Voice of Time]

And why would you think of that? Everyone has different beliefs, opinions, backgrounds - all in all, perceptions. This is especially true when it comes to an ideal society.

But all those different beliefs, opinions and background are just variables that need to be figured out in the great puzzle of managing and developing a state. Happiness and security would act as the image you'd have to calculate how to achieve, and any measures that increases the chances of obtaining those qualities and excelling in them would be the actions of such a state, society and individuals.

I'd say that my form of "state" would be just a family, like a traditional family. Had we stuck to traditional ways, we would have had an actual peace on earth.

Traditional families are unfortunately very incapable. And this leads to them more often being the victim of nature's carelessness for them. This is in turn leads to frustration which splits the traditional family and the result is either you develop into a new social arrangement or you suppress those elements of the family that are wounded and therefore rebels. This is turn becomes a patriarchal tyranny which is a cliché picture of why we moved from the past to the present solutions. Traditional families are not capable to meet their member's needs.

[WanderingLands]

But all those different beliefs, opinions and background are just variables that need to be figured out in the great puzzle of managing and developing a state. Happiness and security would act as the image you'd have to calculate how to achieve, and any measures that increases the chances of obtaining those qualities and excelling in them would be the actions of such a state, society and individuals.

How are you going to do that? I mean, there is Comparative Religion and all, but what about the issues that divide the Traditionalists vs the Social "Progressives" (ie. abortion, homosexuality, prostitution, illicit drugs, media)?

Traditional families are unfortunately very incapable. And this leads to them more often being the victim of nature's carelessness for them. This is in turn leads to frustration which splits the traditional family and the result is either you develop into a new social arrangement or you suppress those elements of the family that are wounded and therefore rebels. This is turn becomes a patriarchal tyranny which is a cliché picture of why we moved from the past to the present solutions. Traditional families are not capable to meet their member's needs.

And how are they incapable of being stable? To me, traditional families (or at least traditional governments built by traditional families and their foundational cultures) are very efficient and much easier to run than that of a bureaucracy (whether it be that of a Market or Command economy). If you had just a family, then you can surely run simple and basic economic needs with little conflict or disagreement, because it would be based solely on survival and just simply living.

[The Voice of Time]

How are you going to do that? I mean, there is Comparative Religion and all, but what about the issues that divide the Traditionalists vs the Social "Progressives" (ie. abortion, homosexuality, prostitution, illicit drugs, media)?

Because the world is not an absolute place it does not have absolute rules. All modern multi-cultural democracies function on a constant process of reaching as much agree-ability as possible, which means most conflicts of interests turn into some form of comprise, politicians which are good at this makes good states and statesmen, politicians bad at this makes worse states and bad statesmen. To satisfy as many parties as possible, you usually give the majority something that is important to them, and try to balance off by giving something less important to them to the other party which didn't get their way the first time. This varies in difficulty, and sometimes you don't have enough to put a plaster on the wound of two groups of people fiercely struggling for the right in the same matter. However, with such situation one might have to consider changing the rules of the game. Federacy and confederacy are solutions in such matters for instance. Which is why EU is a confederacy and not a federation, as an example, as people's differences are too great to put under a shared government in the style of the US for instance.

And how are they incapable of being stable?

They base themselves on practising tradition, which means they'll not be able to adapt when dealing with untraditional problems, and their ability to develop themselves are strictly limited to the confines of the structure of the family.

To me, traditional families (or at least traditional governments built by traditional families and their foundational cultures) are very efficient and much easier to run than that of a bureaucracy (whether it be that of a Market or Command economy).

Ease of running and efficiency are not always the problems you have to deal with. As for efficiency it's a very relative term for me to be able to accept that notion. Most if not all traditionalist governments today are underdeveloped, inflexible to problems they encounter and incapable of serving their people. Bureaucracy in any state is a sign of capability, without a bureaucracy states are usually lacking in capability in several areas in the matters of running a state, and out of a lack of expertise they often make bad decisions. So in terms of efficiency it would only work when the problem is simple enough or the solution is to be rough enough. Complex problems solutions and fine solutions are created by expert bureaus that specialize in those matters.

If you had just a family, then you can surely run simple and basic economic needs with little conflict or disagreement, because it would be based solely on survival and just simply living.

The fact of having a family and running it traditionally does not mean that your problems become family-related or traditional. Trying to solve a problem within a family usually means utilizing the family members which lack knowledge and capacity, and utilizing children's leads to slave labour and/or insufficient development of the children. Utilizing the adults can take them off important work they are doing, either in the home or out in the world, which can lead to loss of important or desirable family resources. In other words, the traditional family is constantly vulnerable to any non-traditional problems, and all its traditional solutions can vary a lot in efficiency by the problems they are meant to solve, and they are above all very static and don't develop sufficiently in knowledge about the problems or the means by which to solve it, as traditional confines would variably prohibit this, in order to enforce status quo.

[Blaggard]

Plato's Republic anyone?

I would explain that comment but I am pretty sure you all know what I mean. If not then of course Socrates might be in order or perhaps Aristotle or perhaps both.

In all seriousness the state is only as noble as the contingent parts, if the contingent parts are hence ignoble the state is of course likewise ignoble. Likewise if the state is at least able to be good, then one should look at the constituents of such a state not at the homegeniety of the state. By such ways would you come to a valid conclusion about both democracy and pragmatism, but that would only be a start. As is concluded by various philosophers at the time, it is very easy to elicit sympathy for a condition in which you are trapped, but not so easy to see an evolution of such a position. That said of course I think the students of Socrates did a good job at least of discussing his work, if not in explaining how exactly such a concept could be or would be.

I think the Republic as Plato saw it was only a start, I think since then there has been no real progression, but that is not to say there can not be.

OK I don't mean to waffle but I think you can see the point I am trying to make. So if I have waxed lyrical and talked nonsense I apologise, I can only assure you I have thought quite deeply about politics, if not about the route of democracy or the lack of democracy to provide a coherent governmental form that works.

"Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Winston Churchill.

[WanderingLands]

Because the world is not an absolute place it does not have absolute rules. All modern multi-cultural democracies function on a constant process of reaching as much agree-ability as possible, which means most conflicts of interests turn into some form of comprise, politicians which are good at this makes good states and statesmen, politicians bad at this makes worse states and bad statesmen. To satisfy as many parties as possible, you usually give the majority something that is important to them, and try to balance off by giving something less important to them to the other party which didn't get their way the first time. This varies in difficulty, and sometimes you don't have enough to put a plaster on the wound of two groups of people fiercely struggling for the right in the same matter. However, with such situation one might have to consider changing the rules of the game. Federacy and confederacy are solutions in such matters for instance. Which is why EU is a confederacy and not a federation, as an example, as people's differences are too great to put under a shared government in the style of the US for instance.

The European Union is certainly not a confederacy, as the dominant EU currency is the Euro, which would be like that of the Articles of Confederation, which extends state sovereignty to having their own currency. Furthermore, the idea of a European Union (which the Modern EU is based upon) propounded by many European politicians of the 20th century called for a federal union.

Source:
The European Union-A Federation or a Confederation? by Gabriel Hazak: http://www.ies.ee/iesp/No11/articles/03 ... _Hazak.pdf

They base themselves on practising tradition, which means they'll not be able to adapt when dealing with untraditional problems, and their ability to develop themselves are strictly limited to the confines of the structure of the family.

Develop? Why not just keep it stable? If you said that the world does not have "absolute rules", then why does it need to develop?

Ease of running and efficiency are not always the problems you have to deal with. As for efficiency it's a very relative term for me to be able to accept that notion. Most if not all traditionalist governments today are underdeveloped, inflexible to problems they encounter and incapable of serving their people. Bureaucracy in any state is a sign of capability, without a bureaucracy states are usually lacking in capability in several areas in the matters of running a state, and out of a lack of expertise they often make bad decisions. So in terms of efficiency it would only work when the problem is simple enough or the solution is to be rough enough. Complex problems solutions and fine solutions are created by expert bureaus that specialize in those matters.

I'm sorry but bureaucracy is not solving any problems. Look at Rome, for example. They were a bureaucracy, mainly because they were conquering lands which lead them to expand their government, and look what happened - they went into a slow and painful downfall which lead to the collapse of the Roman Empire. The reason being is because they were expanding to much; they were creating their own problems. There would be no problems that were too big if it weren't for government expansion (domestic or foreign).

Then you have the modern era with Globalization. Globalization, in modern years, has lead to the over consumption of scarce resources, which has lead to increasing prices on some of them (ie. Oil). It also has caused the outsourcing of jobs, as in America, as the unemployment rate in the past 14 years has ranged from 40-45%. On top of that, you also have the current Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreements (TPPA) that will:

1. Give corporations power over other countries (which means that Corporations also have control over food, drugs, clothing, Internet, etc)
2. Cause more unemployment in America, and beyond

Sources:
Oil Price - 12 Negative Aspects of Globalization: http://oilprice.com/Finance/the-Economy ... ation.html
Google Search - trans pacific partnership global research: https://www.google.com/#q=trans+pacific ... l+research
Tech Dirt - Trade Agreements Are Designed To Give Companies Corporate Sovereignty: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201310 ... mple.shtml

Another reason why the world is going down the toilet (especially undeveloped countries), is because of Western exploitation of those lands in 3rd and 4th world countries. You have colonialism beginning in the 15th century, with the killings of tribes in the Americas and Africa as the centuries progressed on; then you have the Unites States having an increasing stronghold on global power through almost the same tactics that has been used in European Colonialism and Imperialism.

Source:

The National Security Archive: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

Let's also not forget that bureaucracies can come with: limited freedom inside bureaucratic societies. In America, for example, freedom for those in the United States (including other Western Nations), have been under fire with Gun Control, increasing surveillance, increasing restriction of movement (ie. toll roads to move to another state, increasing "security" forces at airports and trains), increasing covert censorship on the Internet, corporate and government dominance over Media, compulsory school systems, and so on. Bureaucratic societies create their own problems, and the more they expand outward (and inward), there creates more problems and no solutions.

The fact of having a family and running it traditionally does not mean that your problems become family-related or traditional. Trying to solve a problem within a family usually means utilizing the family members which lack knowledge and capacity, and utilizing children's leads to slave labour and/or insufficient development of the children. Utilizing the adults can take them off important work they are doing, either in the home or out in the world, which can lead to loss of important or desirable family resources. In other words, the traditional family is constantly vulnerable to any non-traditional problems, and all its traditional solutions can vary a lot in efficiency by the problems they are meant to solve, and they are above all very static and don't develop sufficiently in knowledge about the problems or the means by which to solve it, as traditional confines would variably prohibit this, in order to enforce status quo.

My friend, solving problems through family matters (or in other words, decentralizing the entire world) does not mean "utilizing the family members which lack knowledge and capacity". A family, or a group willing to work as a community without bureaucracies, can actually solve problems, that bureaucracies of course cause. As far as "child labor" goes, I believe that children ought to learn skills and trade in order to be more independent. If anything, real "child labor", or "slave labor", is conducted by a centralized bureaucratic government, and/or a large monopolist corporation that requires mass production as part of organizing the masses to do work for the master. Look at the sweat shops, for example. That, as I have explained already, is a product of the Globalization Corporate Machine, which is in a nutshell, a bureaucracy.

[Blaggard]

"The Bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the bureaucracy."

Joseph Heller, Catch-22.

Wanderinglands you are of course quite right but what would your solution be to the current predicament we are in? In a non Kafkaesque or Kafkaesque way it is of course your choice: what way what would you prescribe is the solution to our own self prescribed destruction?

What Trial if I can make a pun would solve modern peoples dilemma?

My friend, solving problems through family matters (or in other words, decentralizing the entire world) does not mean "utilizing the family members which lack knowledge and capacity". A family, or a group willing to work as a community without bureaucracies, can actually solve problems, that bureaucracies of course cause. As far as "child labor" goes, I believe that children ought to learn skills and trade in order to be more independent. If anything, real "child labor", or "slave labor", is conducted by a centralized bureaucratic government, and/or a large monopolist corporation that requires mass production as part of organizing the masses to do work for the master. Look at the sweat shops, for example. That, as I have explained already, is a product of the Globalization Corporate Machine, which is in a nutshell, a bureaucracy.

I cannot but agree but how as I said would you solve our current paradoxical predicament?

[The Voice of Time]

The European Union is certainly not a confederacy, as the dominant EU currency is the Euro, which would be like that of the Articles of Confederation, which extends state sovereignty to having their own currency. Furthermore, the idea of a European Union (which the Modern EU is based upon) propounded by many European politicians of the 20th century called for a federal union.

Source:
The European Union-A Federation or a Confederation? by Gabriel Hazak: http://www.ies.ee/iesp/No11/articles/03 ... _Hazak.pdf

Compared to any existing federation it is not a federation. So for all practical purposes it is not a federation. It's like saying the two CFA franc common currency areas each make out a federation, which is completely absurd. Hong Kong is more of a federative part of China, with its own currency, than any EU country is a federative part of any other. But it's totally uninteresting whether it technically is one or not, because any present federation you could compare it to is gonna look wildly different in a range of areas.

Develop? Why not just keep it stable?

Development and stability are not opposites. Stability is a metric, development is a pattern.

If you said that the world does not have "absolute rules", then why does it need to develop?

This does not make sense, if the world has absolute rules it would never need to change, if it doesn't have absolute rules, it varies, and you'd have to adapt constantly towards those changes... you'll have to rewrite some sense into that sentence

I'm sorry but bureaucracy is not solving any problems. Look at Rome, for example. They were a bureaucracy, mainly because they were conquering lands which lead them to expand their government, and look what happened - they went into a slow and painful downfall which lead to the collapse of the Roman Empire.

You are defeating yourself, everyone knows that Rome is one of the longest lasting empires the world has ever seen, and along with the Chinese empires it was one of the most bureaucratized. There's a reason why it stands to envy. The reason it fell has nothing to do with bureaucracy, but a lot to do with a lot of other factors. In comparison from the Roman and Chinese Empires, the two other great empires, the Mongol and Alexander's Empires, fell because of a direct lack of bureaucracy and infighting between the traditional leadership. The Mongol empire fell because the leadership couldn't control the Empire like a proper state, they didn't adapt towards their new problems. Alexander's Empire fell because Alexander fell and there was no proper system for maintaining his large empire in his absence, so the Generals fought each other and created the many empires of the east that the Roman empire would either defeat or conquer.

The reason being is because they were expanding to much; they were creating their own problems. There would be no problems that were too big if it weren't for government expansion (domestic or foreign).

Natural catastrophes, bad health, attack by neighbours, devotion to science and technology, education... solving all of these problems would be impeded and/or restricted by traditional families. Problems created by expansion are nowhere comparable to the benefits of it. And Rome did not fall because of expansion, it fell because people became too comfortable and neglected to maintain the army necessary to defeat the threat that Attila the Hun, the Franks, the Goths and so forth would pose later on. It was a failure in leadership, by bad leaders.

Then you have the modern era with Globalization. Globalization, in modern years, has lead to the over consumption of scarce resources, which has lead to increasing prices on some of them (ie. Oil).

With traditional families there wouldn't had been the technology to extract oil to begin with, neither to utilize it, because it requires a flexibility in society that traditional families does not allow. Globalization does not lead to over-consumption, the development of societies leads to greater consumption, globalization if anything mitigates it (if you actually understand what globalization means). Real Globalization is Maersk for instance transporting goods at a fraction of less globalized means, using less oil, costing less money. Globalization is transfer of labour from those societies ready to use advanced technology to those who are still trying to advance the expertise of human resources and stage of their infrastructure. Globalization is the ability to see the world. The opposite of Globalization is ignorance, inefficiency, shortage of goods. The first Globalization brought sugar to Europe for instance, today without sugar would be unthinkable (and sugar is healthy, what's unhealthy is over-consumption of it, which is created by mal-incentives in societies, which often have social reasons... like families that are run poorly or endure hardships they are not capable of handling).

It also has caused the outsourcing of jobs

Which is a good thing. Societies that depend on inefficient labour solutions suffers for it. Norway's lack of manual labouring has given the economy a great boost, and everything is now automated and information technology. The things that aren't we can buy cheaply from abroad to get more money to spend in getting to that stage where we have it automated or programmed in information solutions.

as in America, as the unemployment rate in the past 14 years has ranged from 40-45%.

Blatant lie. The historical unemployment rates in America are as follows: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104719.html

Last time it was double-diggit was 1940, or 74 years ago, in other words: a lifetime.

On top of that, you also have the current Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreements (TPPA) that will:

1. Give corporations power over other countries (which means that Corporations also have control over food, drugs, clothing, Internet, etc)
2. Cause more unemployment in America, and beyond

Sources:
Oil Price - 12 Negative Aspects of Globalization: http://oilprice.com/Finance/the-Economy ... ation.html
Google Search - trans pacific partnership global research: https://www.google.com/#q=trans+pacific ... l+research
Tech Dirt - Trade Agreements Are Designed To Give Companies Corporate Sovereignty: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201310 ... mple.shtml

Another reason why the world is going down the toilet (especially undeveloped countries), is because of Western exploitation of those lands in 3rd and 4th world countries. You have colonialism beginning in the 15th century, with the killings of tribes in the Americas and Africa as the centuries progressed on; then you have the Unites States having an increasing stronghold on global power through almost the same tactics that has been used in European Colonialism and Imperialism.

You are using vague and undefined terms. You make statement after statement but no supportive argument. If you know what an argument is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument), then start using them.

Source:

The National Security Archive: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

Let's also not forget that bureaucracies can come with: limited freedom inside bureaucratic societies.

Irrelevant, has nothing to do with the definition of a bureaucracy. A badly run bureaucracy is like a badly run traditional family. Both can enable and disable any amount of personal freedoms. You are thinking about regulative bureaucracies, which are the traditional family equivalent of house rules.

In America, for example, freedom for those in the United States (including other Western Nations), have been under fire with Gun Control, increasing surveillance, increasing restriction of movement (ie. toll roads to move to another state, increasing "security" forces at airports and trains), increasing covert censorship on the Internet, corporate and government dominance over Media, compulsory school systems, and so on. Bureaucratic societies create their own problems, and the more they expand outward (and inward), there creates more problems and no solutions.

Many of those things you mention are to me not problems (I hate guns and wish them to be banned entirely for personal house keeping and only available in government controlled storages for use during practice and hunting), and are also irrelevant to the definition of bureaucracies. Traditional families have no less power or opportunity to do the same, and those countries today that look the most like them do exactly the same things, which usually means repressive absolute monarchies like Saudi Arabia, which is by all means some of the closest thing you come to a traditional family run country.

My friend, solving problems through family matters (or in other words, decentralizing the entire world) does not mean "utilizing the family members which lack knowledge and capacity". A family, or a group willing to work as a community without bureaucracies, can actually solve problems

It does mean that because your family is all that you have at your disposal, so your resources are greatly diminished, compared to a state apparatus which in countries like Norway includes a great access to means of dealing with health, monetary problems, social issues, wrong-doing and getting personal desires satisfied. You can't use your family to be your doctor, you can't use your family always to help with your monetary problems, you can't always have your family help you with social issues which they lack the competence for (imagine you are finding yourself unable to make friends, sometimes this is because you have special needs that require somebody who knows how to deal with your special needs, a family member with their lack of competence would only be able to apply what means they have leading the child at a disadvantage), who is gonna help you with people who do you wrong? (depending on your sense of justice, whether you are of the brutal retaliatory persuasion or of the diplomatic persuasion, either way you'll either 1) often find yourself up against somebody more powerful than you, or 2) you'll not have the experience to know how to deal with it), and how are you gonna get your desires satisfied when the resources the family is capable of producing are so limited in quantity and variety?

that bureaucracies of course cause.

This is unfounded so I'll ignore it until you give it a foundation.

As far as "child labor" goes, I believe that children ought to learn skills and trade in order to be more independent.

Well then you're an asshole. Children go to school to learn a general competence that allows them to take different paths in life and change path later on if they disagree with their current path, as well as an ability to interact with the different things that society offers and which empowers people... geography for instance is enables you localize what happens and where in the world and the conditions for travelling and for the movement of things... science enables you to interact with the products of science and understand how they work and can be utilized... and so on it goes

If anything, real "child labor", or "slave labor", is conducted by a centralized bureaucratic government, and/or a large monopolist corporation that requires mass production as part of organizing the masses to do work for the master.

As far as I know, it doesn't happen in the US except under abnormal events, and same goes for Norway. It's a crime in both countries.

Look at the sweat shops, for example.

They exist in underdeveloped countries who are all hugely more traditionalist than Norway or the US, argument not relevant for my own country.

That, as I have explained already, is a product of the Globalization Corporate Machine, which is in a nutshell, a bureaucracy.

Child labour existed long before Globalization, and was ended during the course of Globalization, so although they are unrelated events in comparison it's more true to say globalization ended it than started it, because every country has started with child labour throughout their society and then ended with no child labour except in abnormal circumstances, like crimes.

[WanderingLands]

Compared to any existing federation it is not a federation. So for all practical purposes it is not a federation. It's like saying the two CFA franc common currency areas each make out a federation, which is completely absurd. Hong Kong is more of a federative part of China, with its own currency, than any EU country is a federative part of any other. But it's totally uninteresting whether it technically is one or not, because any present federation you could compare it to is gonna look wildly different in a range of areas.

Just because a federation operates differently from another federation doesn't mean that it's not a federation.

Development and stability are not opposites. Stability is a metric, development is a pattern.

Alright, then.

This does not make sense, if the world has absolute rules it would never need to change, if it doesn't have absolute rules, it varies, and you'd have to adapt constantly towards those changes... you'll have to rewrite some sense into that sentence

If existence didn't have absolute rules, then it sure probably would be unstable. Look at Science, for example, with the Laws of Motion and Forces. Maybe look at the ideas of the Collective Unconscious, which is in relation to Karma. Then again, judging from the last argument we had (on "The Metaphysical Papers" thread), you seem to not be interested in Spiritual things.

You are defeating yourself, everyone knows that Rome is one of the longest lasting empires the world has ever seen, and along with the Chinese empires it was one of the most bureaucratized. There's a reason why it stands to envy. The reason it fell has nothing to do with bureaucracy, but a lot to do with a lot of other factors. In comparison from the Roman and Chinese Empires, the two other great empires, the Mongol and Alexander's Empires, fell because of a direct lack of bureaucracy and infighting between the traditional leadership. The Mongol empire fell because the leadership couldn't control the Empire like a proper state, they didn't adapt towards their new problems. Alexander's Empire fell because Alexander fell and there was no proper system for maintaining his large empire in his absence, so the Generals fought each other and created the many empires of the east that the Roman empire would either defeat or conquer.

Why would bureaucratization be not a factor in the fall of empires? Do you not realize that a massive bureaucracy, like that of an empire, cannot hold all of its captives in stability for too long? Have you ever considered that the too much bureaucratization (which would eventually lead to turmoil) would lead to outside tribes warring and destroy an empire, much like that of Rome? Have you not looked at the negative consequences of Roman Imperialism, or looked at how the mass bureaucracy of Rome had lead to mass oppositions from plural sides, and that it lead to shortage of food?

The reason being is because they were expanding to much; they were creating their own problems. There would be no problems that were too big if it weren't for government expansion (domestic or foreign).

Natural catastrophes, bad health, attack by neighbours, devotion to science and technology, education... solving all of these problems would be impeded and/or restricted by traditional families. Problems created by expansion are nowhere comparable to the benefits of it. And Rome did not fall because of expansion, it fell because people became too comfortable and neglected to maintain the army necessary to defeat the threat that Attila the Hun, the Franks, the Goths and so forth would pose later on. It was a failure in leadership, by bad leaders.

Natural catastrophes - Happens to any society.
Bad health - Traditional families used herbs and other forms of natural medicine that was way more healthy, as compared to the modern medicines that we have (such as prescription drugs, vaccines, etc). Also, the traditional societies, along with societies before the 20th century, didn't have GMOs, Fluoride, or any other toxic or dangerous chemicals/pollutants into the food, water, or air shelter. Maybe you ought to research a lesser known fact called falling birth rates.

Google Search - falling birth rates in the western world: https://www.google.com/#q=falling+birth ... tern+world

Education - Of course there was education. Why else would there be many different languages and folk legends in many varying tribes? I mean, surely we have advanced as time went on, with the advent of the Trivium and Classical Arts and such, but they were obviously more intelligent than of course the current generations of society (especially in the US).
Attack by neighbors - Any society would've had to deal with that.
Devotion to science and technology - They may have not been devoted to technology (definitely not obsessively than us in the modern world), but they were efficient enough in how to supply goods without wasting them like we do. And yes they did have a science. Definitely not the same as our modern empirical approach, but they did have knowledge about the cosmos and the planets (ie. Dogon), and they had medicine.

Problems created by expansion are way worse than "problems" created by traditional societies (which as I can see, you have overlooked my sources that explains what I'm saying). And how could the citizens of Rome try to keep up their civilization when it was too big to ever have gotten accomplished?

With traditional families there wouldn't had been the technology to extract oil to begin with, neither to utilize it, because it requires a flexibility in society that traditional families does not allow. Globalization does not lead to over-consumption, the development of societies leads to greater consumption, globalization if anything mitigates it (if you actually understand what globalization means). Real Globalization is Maersk for instance transporting goods at a fraction of less globalized means, using less oil, costing less money. Globalization is transfer of labour from those societies ready to use advanced technology to those who are still trying to advance the expertise of human resources and stage of their infrastructure. Globalization is the ability to see the world. The opposite of Globalization is ignorance, inefficiency, shortage of goods. The first Globalization brought sugar to Europe for instance, today without sugar would be unthinkable (and sugar is healthy, what's unhealthy is over-consumption of it, which is created by mal-incentives in societies, which often have social reasons... like families that are run poorly or endure hardships they are not capable of handling).

You have obviously not looked at the information provided for you, because that would've obviously proved you wrong. It's very comical to see people who claim to be intellectuals, that say things without ever doing research, and then ignores the different points of view from another person who has the research to back it up. Globalization, if you looked at my sources (one of them having actual graph charts to back it up), has lead to over consumption, outsourcing jobs, exploitation, war, etc.

As for sugar, where else, other than conquest and imperialism in places, such as mainly possibly Hawaii at the time of 19th century Imperialism, would Europe get it from? And sugar is not healthy either. Maybe look at the articles below.

Google Search - sugar is not healthy: https://www.google.com/#q=sugar+is+not+healthy

Plus, why do you need oil, anyway? Maybe you can use hemp, which is more efficient and safer (and doesn't cause or create conflicts in places such as the Middle East, or cause oil spills like the BP oil spill).

Which is a good thing. Societies that depend on inefficient labour solutions suffers for it. Norway's lack of manual labouring has given the economy a great boost, and everything is now automated and information technology. The things that aren't we can buy cheaply from abroad to get more money to spend in getting to that stage where we have it automated or programmed in information solutions.

How is it a good thing, for example, in America, when all of our economic needs (automobiles, for example) have been outsourced, which caused unemployment? I don't know about Norway, but I sure don't think that it would be a good thing really.

Blatant lie. The historical unemployment rates in America are as follows: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104719.html

Last time it was double-diggit was 1940, or 74 years ago, in other words: a lifetime.

My bad. That graph was about the employment rate; not the unemployment rate.

Irrelevant, has nothing to do with the definition of a bureaucracy. A badly run bureaucracy is like a badly run traditional family. Both can enable and disable any amount of personal freedoms. You are thinking about regulative bureaucracies, which are the traditional family equivalent of house rules.

It actually does have everything to do with a bureaucracy, because a bureaucracy involves a large government, which is contrary to a traditional family, which is more efficient because of its size.

In America, for example, freedom for those in the United States (including other Western Nations), have been under fire with Gun Control, increasing surveillance, increasing restriction of movement (ie. toll roads to move to another state, increasing "security" forces at airports and trains), increasing covert censorship on the Internet, corporate and government dominance over Media, compulsory school systems, and so on. Bureaucratic societies create their own problems, and the more they expand outward (and inward), there creates more problems and no solutions.

Many of those things you mention are to me not problems (I hate guns and wish them to be banned entirely for personal house keeping and only available in government controlled storages for use during practice and hunting), and are also irrelevant to the definition of bureaucracies. Traditional families have no less power or opportunity to do the same, and those countries today that look the most like them do exactly the same things, which usually means repressive absolute monarchies like Saudi Arabia, which is by all means some of the closest thing you come to a traditional family run country.

Bureaucracies for one involve hierarchy, and hierarchy is not limited to a traditional family. And no, it is not irrelevant, because bureaucracies are known to be tyrannical.

You're remark on guns is not at all fact based.

It does mean that because your family is all that you have at your disposal, so your resources are greatly diminished, compared to a state apparatus which in countries like Norway includes a great access to means of dealing with health, monetary problems, social issues, wrong-doing and getting personal desires satisfied. You can't use your family to be your doctor, you can't use your family always to help with your monetary problems, you can't always have your family help you with social issues which they lack the competence for (imagine you are finding yourself unable to make friends, sometimes this is because you have special needs that require somebody who knows how to deal with your special needs, a family member with their lack of competence would only be able to apply what means they have leading the child at a disadvantage), who is gonna help you with people who do you wrong? (depending on your sense of justice, whether you are of the brutal retaliatory persuasion or of the diplomatic persuasion, either way you'll either 1) often find yourself up against somebody more powerful than you, or 2) you'll not have the experience to know how to deal with it), and how are you gonna get your desires satisfied when the resources the family is capable of producing are so limited in quantity and variety?

1. Traditional families have used medicine back then.
2. Traditional families aren't concerned with monetary problems because they are not bureaucratized, thus making them effecient without money. Plus, traditional families can grow their own food, hunt for food, make tools, etc., so really Traditional families are much better off since they are more independent.
3. What about people without special needs? Also, just because a person has special needs does not disqualify a person in a family to try and help them overcome it. Plus, there was a lot less special needs disorders and mental retardation in the ancient world, than there are in the modern world, where you have ADD, ADHD, Autism, Aspergers, etc.
4. So you're saying that family members cannot help one another?
5. There's always conflicts in this world, but there's also will, wits, and survival as well.
6. People didn't have as much (quite frankly, little to none) desires as we do now in the modern world. The desires that humans have currently in the modern era were simply created (and manipulated at us) by people in psychology and government (ie. Sigmund Freud and Edward Bernays) to pacify the masses into docile consumers (like today). Traditional families and cultures back then didn't have desires as we do know, because there weren't anything, that's now in the modern era, that was desirable other than actual needs.

This is unfounded so I'll ignore it until you give it a foundation.

I see that you're simply just replying selectively to my posts, instead of reading the whole thing.

Well then you're an asshole. Children go to school to learn a general competence that allows them to take different paths in life and change path later on if they disagree with their current path, as well as an ability to interact with the different things that society offers and which empowers people... geography for instance is enables you localize what happens and where in the world and the conditions for travelling and for the movement of things... science enables you to interact with the products of science and understand how they work and can be utilized... and so on it goes

Wow, that opening line was definitely not called for, especially in debate. Maybe you should look at some works by John Taylor Gatto, because the education system is not at all what you think it is. I uploading some if his works on Scribd, which you can view here.

Scribd - Education System collection: http://www.scribd.com/collections/44210 ... ion-System

But really, I did not say anything that I deserved to get called an asshole for (all I said was that children were to learn by trade and by a classical education system to be more independent).

As far as I know, it doesn't happen in the US except under abnormal events, and same goes for Norway. It's a crime in both countries.

What about Walmart, for example, an American company that uses Chinese labor?

They exist in underdeveloped countries who are all hugely more traditionalist than Norway or the US, argument not relevant for my own country.

They exist in underdeveloped countries because they are used and exploited by American multinational corporations (like Nike, Walmart, K-Mart, etc.).

Child labour existed long before Globalization, and was ended during the course of Globalization, so although they are unrelated events in comparison it's more true to say globalization ended it than started it, because every country has started with child labour throughout their society and then ended with no child labour except in abnormal circumstances, like crimes.

Alright, well here's some facts that disprove it.

Google Search - child labor in china iphone: https://www.google.com/#q=child+labor+in+china+iphone
Google Search - child labor and multinational corporations: https://www.google.com/#q=child+labor+a ... rporations

[WanderingLands]

"The Bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the bureaucracy."

Joseph Heller, Catch-22.

Wanderinglands you are of course quite right but what would your solution be to the current predicament we are in? In a non Kafkaesque or Kafkaesque way it is of course your choice: what way what would you prescribe is the solution to our own self prescribed destruction?

What Trial if I can make a pun would solve modern peoples dilemma?

My friend, solving problems through family matters (or in other words, decentralizing the entire world) does not mean "utilizing the family members which lack knowledge and capacity". A family, or a group willing to work as a community without bureaucracies, can actually solve problems, that bureaucracies of course cause. As far as "child labor" goes, I believe that children ought to learn skills and trade in order to be more independent. If anything, real "child labor", or "slave labor", is conducted by a centralized bureaucratic government, and/or a large monopolist corporation that requires mass production as part of organizing the masses to do work for the master. Look at the sweat shops, for example. That, as I have explained already, is a product of the Globalization Corporate Machine, which is in a nutshell, a bureaucracy.

I cannot but agree but how as I said would you solve our current paradoxical predicament?

My question, in response to your question(s) is: what can you do to improve yourself? The only way that we might possibly solve these problems, or survive through them and then start over again, would be if we are to look at ourselves. We are all guilty (you, me, everybody), as we are letting this happen, as we are addicted to technology, process food, popular culture, etc.

I'd say to start making change at the simplest level that you could possibly can. Get connected to your families and neighbors, try to find independence in making and growing resources (food, clothing, water), and learn to be spiritual by discovering yourself.

Violent revolutions are not going to be successful, and neither would be even protesting (unless if there's some people and groups from the complete grassroots that are robust). Most of all, just live life - don't be obsessed with the problems, and try to grow as a person.

[The Voice of Time]

WanderingLands, you can't use what you call "sources" to argument for you. In my world that's called "burying your enemy in reading material", and it means you are incapable of arguing for yourself. So don't say something and then point me to somewhere else, BE the source. You can give me pure data, and then give me a data source, but I won't read what whatever spokesperson, or scientist or philosopher has said sometime somewhere in history because you think it's great and means something, because if they have anything valuable to say you should be able to tell it to me in person. You tell what it is, in short, why it is like that (arguments), in short, and if you have data you can give a data link which I can check to see if it's right and factual.

That's good discussion behaviour. Not what you're doing, by sending me off other places to run errands for you.

[The Voice of Time]

Why would bureaucratization be not a factor in the fall of empires? Do you not realize that a massive bureaucracy, like that of an empire, cannot hold all of its captives in stability for too long? Have you ever considered that the too much bureaucratization (which would eventually lead to turmoil) would lead to outside tribes warring and destroy an empire, much like that of Rome? Have you not looked at the negative consequences of Roman Imperialism, or looked at how the mass bureaucracy of Rome had lead to mass oppositions from plural sides, and that it lead to shortage of food?

Roman imperialism might very well have negative consequences, but it has nothing to do with bureaucracy. Tell me one general truth about bureaucracy that would in Rome's case lead to its demise? No? Of course you can't, because there is none. That's problem, you want to discuss by showing each other time and time again examples of when a bureaucracy is bad and when a bureaucracy may be good, and the same for traditional families.

But that's not how you can discuss this. There are general truths which are derived from the definitions of bureaucracy and the definitions of traditional families, that imply their capacities and their limits. Now a bureaucracy can be practically anything, its size can vary, its objectives and management can vary, it can adept to so extremely many scenarios. A traditional family, by the very definition of being "traditional" and "family" does not have this capacity and is extremely limited.

If you want to discuss, then show how the strengths of traditional families are able to deal with problems by their definition, and how bureaucracies are not by their definition. In every instance, you should find however, that the flexibility of a bureaucracy, means that whatever quality the traditional family has, the bureaucracy can just multiply in its organization.

[The Voice of Time]

Natural catastrophes - Happens to any society.

You didn't read me, a traditional family is not capable of dealing with such events, it's hugely inefficient at solving them, because it lacks the ability for expertise solution making.

Bad health - Traditional families used herbs and other forms of natural medicine that was way more healthy, as compared to the modern medicines that we have (such as prescription drugs, vaccines, etc).

This is by large superstition and I can't take it seriously. People like you are the laughing stock of the world when you compare silly herbs with vaccines that prevent you from dying from extremely dangerous diseases. As for prescription drugs, drugs do different things, and in the case of pain relievers for instance, there are many good pain relievers in plants and herbs, but for disease curing and solving complex conditions they mostly don't stand a chance in providing solutions.

Also, the traditional societies, along with societies before the 20th century, didn't have GMOs

GMO is by most practical means banned in Norway and heavily restricted in the rest of Europe. The US is a rotten apple in that regard, but it's not my country.

Fluoride

Loosing your teeth before you turn 30 is not a good alternative. We use tooth paste for a reason.

or any other toxic or dangerous chemicals/pollutants into the food, water, or air shelter. Maybe you ought to research a lesser known fact called falling birth rates.

Yes, and it's a good thing. And its reason is not because people are less able to make children, but because they don't want to. People like having their own life, they don't see it as an end goal to have children. My aunt in Oslo is childless for instance, by choice. They also prefer to put more effort into raising each child, than just producing a bunch of them.