Philosophy Now Forum

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I pressed an illegitimate keyboard button before . But umm, how many die from knife wounds or the good ol' club? Or let's consider death by poverty, or the overpopulated rat cage scenario. Let's not make this a patriotic shit-slinging match, basically, capitalism (overcrowded workcamps) + weapons(motivational paranoia) + frustration (taxes, rent and bills)= the ideal catalyst for murder!

thedoc wrote:Then let's ban 'Capitalist Values'. Hell, let's ban 'values' altogether.

Nihilist what? But seriously, values are only worth as much as their exchange rate is adhered to, under whatever contract. The Ancient Egyptians who chose to toil building non-productive iconic pyramids for a wage of food and shelter, basic essentials, and were content to do so, well, ideology and religion is a powerful cultural control mechanism as long as the medicine, food and shelter follow on, without too much personal entropy. But when the blindfold is removed, when the con is revealed, people are going to go ballistic. This is Psych 101! Marx introduced the first analysis of labour value, but anyway, regardless of any social contract, if it is adhered to, the workers shouldn't riot. There are a plethora of values besides, take family values for instance, these all contain their cultural nuances and are the foundation to most other values that follow.
Human nature is not that complex, contentedness will naturally evolve in a neutral sustainable environment, if you have an intense industrial military complex, a level of poverty and tension, a privileged class in hierarchically organized institutions within society, you are gonna get intense sociopathic individuals. But I don't agree with the classifications such as sociopathic, because these, like the society, are cultural constructs.
I'm NOT a Marxist, but his critique of capitalism is very precise, I cannot find any flaws in his manifesto.

Piltdownbrain wrote:I'm NOT a Marxist, but his critique of capitalism is very precise, I cannot find any flaws in his manifesto.

I guess it's certainly strange then that capitalism lives while communism dies.

Piltdownbrain wrote:Montenegro
Paraguay
Nicaragua
Switzerland
Argentina
Canada
Zimbabwe
Serbia
Finland
Costa Rica
Uruguay
Croatia
Barbados
France
Austria
New Zealand
Estonia
Slovenia
Belgium
Malta
Peru
Israel
Republic of Macedonia
Luxembourg
Norway
Portugal
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Lithuania
Georgia
Greece
Sweden
Denmark
Latvia
Bulgaria
Italy
Kuwait
Iceland
Germany
Moldova
Australia
Ireland
Kyrgyzstan
India
Hungary
Cyprus
Uzbekistan
Spain
Netherlands
Taiwan
Belarus
Ukraine
United Kingdom
Poland
Singapore
Romania
Hong Kong
Mauritius
Qatar
South Korea
Japan
Azerbaijan
Chile
Countries worse
El Salvador
Jamaica
Honduras
Guatemala
Swaziland
Colombia
Brazil
Panama
Mexico
Philippines
South Africa

[/quote]

I pressed an illegitimate keyboard button before . But umm, how many die from knife wounds or the good ol' club? Or let's consider death by poverty, or the overpopulated rat cage scenario. Let's not make this a patriotic shit-slinging match, basically, capitalism (overcrowded workcamps) + weapons(motivational paranoia) + frustration (taxes, rent and bills)= the ideal catalyst for murder![/quote]

Try as they might you simply cannot slaughter 20 children with a knife without someone stopping you.

Gee wrote:

chaz wrote:BTW - the owner of those guns was also a really decent person, now she is dead.

Do you know this? As far as I have heard, no one saw the actual attack on the mother. Are you sure that the son got a gun and shot her, or could she have gotten the gun because she was afraid of him. Then he took it away and shot her? This does happen. She was afraid of him. He was mentally ill. I would not think that she would give him access to the guns. If she was afraid of him, and she did give him access, then she was awfully stupid.

Gee

The owner of the gun is widely held to have been a good person, now she is dead.
A perfectly sound statement, not diminished by your speculation.

chaz wyman wrote:Try as they might you simply cannot slaughter 20 children with a knife without someone stopping you.

Although I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, only a very stupid person would make the above statement. If you had a madman with a single knife, and he walked into a large kindergarten classroom and barricaded the door with several desks, I don't think he would have any trouble at all cutting the throats of the teacher and her students while singing, "Let the Good Times Roll."

Good people die all of the time, and stupid people die quicker.

A sound statement not diminished by television news teams and mass media.

Gee

A moralistic bitch..........

You resort to basic tactics quite quickly, nothing of philosophical value from you here.


What was the public's opinion of the Vietnam War and how did it affect Vietnam veterans when they returned home? "The Vietnam War was a grave and embarrassing mistake for the U.S. Government and like many other things they just wanted to cover it up, forget it as if it never happened. Unlike WWI and WWII or even the Civil War it was the first time in American History that young American Soldiers were not respected or honored in the ways they should have been".

Absolutely nothing was achieved in that war, except unnecessary loss of life."

How many wars do you think any country would have if it had to pay soldiers the going rate for risking their lives, and had to let them say, "Take this job and shove it!" at a moment's notice?

bobevenson wrote:

Piltdownbrain wrote:I'm NOT a Marxist, but his critique of capitalism is very precise, I cannot find any flaws in his manifesto.

I guess it's certainly strange then that capitalism lives while communism dies.

Hah, like in China at the moment, do you think Mao is rolling in his grave? Marx wouldn't have signed up to Stalinism or Maoism, or the countless other constitutions that nations adopt as their 'social blueprint'. The binary of capitalism/communism is obsolete now, and I don't actually think it is strange that speculation and opportunism are the dominant characteristics of human nature. We wouldn't have survived as a species otherwise, but still on a downward slide compared to the dinosaurs. But this doesn't mean that capitalism is immoral, but rather that it is antiquated, so I say to its religious devotees, pray on, become extinct quickly, most of humanity does not have the strength or endurance to rise above its genetic failures, let alone its sheepish consciousness.

bobevenson wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:Try as they might you simply cannot slaughter 20 children with a knife without someone stopping you.

Although I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, only a very stupid person would make the above statement. If you had a madman with a single knife, and he walked into a large kindergarten classroom and barricaded the door with several desks, I don't think he would have any trouble at all cutting the throats of the teacher and her students while singing, "Let the Good Times Roll."

I concluded likewise, but with molotovs, which just shows it's not the tool, but the society. And anyway, chaz forgot about all of the children who die from neglect, and that maybe nations making and hording surplus military hardware are actually the most criminally intent entities around these days. But for god's sake, if knives were ever banned, I would commit hari-kiri with a sharpened stick.

Don't say that or else they'll ban sticks.

edit by user

bobevenson wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:Try as they might you simply cannot slaughter 20 children with a knife without someone stopping you.

Although I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, only a very stupid person would make the above statement. If you had a madman with a single knife, and he walked into a large kindergarten classroom and barricaded the door with several desks, I don't think he would have any trouble at all cutting the throats of the teacher and her students while singing, "Let the Good Times Roll."

How many incidences can you name of such an event?
I would imagine you could find one or two, but the person involved would have to be a different calibre of violent moron, as you would have to get 'up-close-and personal' with a knife, whereas with an automatic weapon its just one squeeze and spray, remote, like killing bugs.

I do not think I could kill a human with a knife under any circumstances. I doubt this recent killer would have been any different.
QED: your counter argument is, as usual, not applicable.

Piltdownbrain wrote:
I concluded likewise, but with molotovs, which just shows it's not the tool, but the society. And anyway, chaz forgot about all of the children who die from neglect, and that maybe nations making and hording surplus military hardware are actually the most criminally intent entities around these days. But for god's sake, if knives were ever banned, I would commit hari-kiri with a sharpened stick.

I never forget those children either, but in a discussion about gun control and the massacre i fail to see how that applies to the argument. I assume you think that its okay to massacre 20 children with an automatic because other kids are dying of neglect? Pretty poor argument if you ask me.