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I do not believe in countries
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I do not believe in countries

James.Aaron.R.A
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Posted 08/01/08 - 04:33 AM:	#21
First of all... humans have only been around for about... give or take, 13 thousand years. Zarathustra19 wrote: So, we just overcome hundreds of thousands of years of human nature, like that? Okay, cool. I only have one problem with not having distinctions between human beings: we lose anything that would be unique between us. We will become a "grey race", devoid of all difference. See, thats the thing about uniqueness. Where most people see a great thing, something special, there will always be those who think their uniqueness is more unique and will want to fight about it. Whether it is geological location, race, or religion, we can't simply overcome the human desire to be better than other human beings. Maybe some of us can...hell, even most of us. So... then... why do humans have a need to be unique from any other human? Is nature grey? In all of its fineries, order and balance. Is there good and evil in nature? Does one bumble bee care if its different from another? A "grey race" maybe, but a living one atleast. Zarathustra19 wrote: But there will always be those who want to compete because of our differences unless we eliminate all difference and live in a boring grey world. We are all the same are we not? So why try to make barriers and divides between us? So that we can try to overcome them? Come to blows over them? Try to jump over them to be like the person on the other side, who in essence is exactly like myself? You think that variety implies some sort of color as oppose to 'greyness'? Let me ask you then... If human A wears a red hat, and person B wears a blue hat, are they so different from one another that they must come to blows over their differences? If human A lives in africa, and person B lives in france, are they so different from one annother that they must come to blows over their differences? etc. Substitute anything... really, is it worth the human race making up figments of their imagination to individualize themselves? How backwards is that? So... for the need to be different, we will kill ourselves... good on'ya!

James.Aaron.R.A
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Posted 08/01/08 - 04:36 AM:	#22
The general reply to this will be a Capitalist view, blah blah, we divide to create competition which spurrs growth, blah blah. -> not worth it.

funkyfu
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Posted 08/01/08 - 09:30 AM:	#23
swstephe wrote: Its a nice dream, but people will all argue about how impractical it is. No matter how many reasons they give for why people need groups, and how you can run the whole world as easily as a small country I notice two things. First, its already one big country except in our minds, (and people come along and exploit the idea in your mind). The illusion creates a kind of artificial loyalty. Second, the only real reason is the same reason our cavemen ancestors had. Breaking up into smaller groups creates competition, which results in short-term progress as long as we can maintain the expenditure. But perhaps recognizing what it is, better ways of dividing people up than land boundaries could be created. More recently, I thought it would be interesting to divide people based on skills rather than location. At least we would be justified in asserting the benefits of having a skillset rather than some imaginary benefit of being in one square of land rather than another. you seem interested in setting world apart according the peoples abilities, would you care to explain this idea more fully? Under Idle thoughts in an Idle Economy You also seem to continue the support for this idea saying that the youth should be separated and educated according to their abilities. It doesn't sound right to me, do you think something like that is the best way to go? People gain experience by being part of a system like ours. I often think whether or not mankind could survive a Utopia. We are over evolved creatures which thrive within an environment full of organized chaos. It may be difficult to find the correct balance within any one country, but if the whole world were United then all our genetic material would really begin to rot away. I don't believe that competition should be a motivating factor to keep the borders in existence, but it is one of the few things left in our new technologically motivated lives which continues to push the boundaries of human potential.

FreeRadical
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Posted 08/01/08 - 02:43 PM:	#24
It is the opinion of most specialists (specifically historians and anthropologists, an example being Benedict Anderson) that the nation is a construct. Moreover, ethno-cultural communities are also artificial creations. These concepts represent a brutal hegemony, the elimination of local customs and peripheral cultures. This is not to undermine artistic or intellectual traditions. It is, rather, to question the notion that the nation-state is sacrosanct. That it is the only possible means by which humans might be organised. One can have a culture, indeed specifically one's own, and still exist within a broadly universalised framework.

swstephe
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Posted 08/01/08 - 09:16 PM:	#25
funkyfu wrote: You seem interested in setting world apart according the peoples abilities, would you care to explain this idea more fully? Under Idle thoughts in an Idle Economy You also seem to continue the support for this idea saying that the youth should be separated and educated according to their abilities. It doesn't sound right to me, do you think something like that is the best way to go? People gain experience by being part of a system like ours. I often think whether or not mankind could survive a Utopia. We are over evolved creatures which thrive within an environment full of organized chaos. It may be difficult to find the correct balance within any one country, but if the whole world were United then all our genetic material would really begin to rot away. I don't believe that competition should be a motivating factor to keep the borders in existence, but it is one of the few things left in our new technologically motivated lives which continues to push the boundaries of human potential. I agree with equal opportunity. I don't think anyone should be prevented from doing what they want. I'm just using some very generic system-strategy analysis on the problem. One rather successful strategy is to concentrate specialized members on a function which matches their skills and interests. As an analogy, lets say I decided to send some ships into war, but I decided to assign tasks randomly. The person trained in navigation ended up being a cook, the cook was the navigator, etc. A better strategy would be to train individuals for a specific task, (according to skill and interest), and use them for that functionality. I think society does the same thing at an unconscious level. Everyone knows which country makes the best chocolate in the world, or who are the best cooks, and who are the worst, who makes the best cars, who makes the best electronic gadgets. We associate based on country, but what we are unconsciously saying is that some aspect of their environment, (resources, education, cultural attitudes), was more favorable to that skill. Many skilled groups of people are global and trans-cultural. Why not map function to functionality, rather than physical region? I think it would create even greater opportunity with regards to specific functionality, than insisting they stay within their borders. I predict, and already see lots of evidence, that humanity will naturally specialize along functional lines anyway. People will migrate to where their specialty is in demand and borders will become less relevant. They will even develop specialized sub-languages and dialects for their skills.
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

Lord Drivel
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Posted 08/03/08 - 12:23 AM:	#26
enkidu wrote: Colossus was designed by Tommy Flowers not Tommy Franks (who is a contemporean US general, retired in 2003, who has nothing to do with that, he was not even born at this time), and it was not even the first electronic digital computer, which is the ABC and had been developped in Iowa State University in a time of peace. I agree with VichyInsurrection, for once: War is not helping much science, it simply provides an incentive to adapt existing science to wartime goals, that's all, it may provide with some very punctual and limited new knowledge (rockets, nuclear bomb), but really not much in comparison with what goes on in peace time, there's a very serious logical problem in thinking the opposite in that it contradicts the whole history of mankind, and especially the history of scientific progress; and it leads you to a sector, it most often comes from publicly financed researches. Yes, Tommy Flowers, first practical electronic computer (did a quick search in Enkudu's Bible and entire source of knowledge, where he successfully looked up 'Flowers'). As to whether it is applied science or science this is just quibbling, the main point being that inventions can come out of strife and conflict including war; as well as need (which is a form of conflict), manifested in a multitude of forms. It is true that inventiveness also thrives best in an environment of the utmost liberality, as it was in Ancient Greece and the start of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, as well as in the 20th century in the United States. Because liberality is in decline I believe that you will see inventiveness gradually follow suit and there will be a period of long consolidation and relative stagnation. Maybe such outcomes are ineluctable. By the way, if you want to play QUIBBLE the word is CONTEMPORARY and not CONTEMPOREAN. Edited by Lord Drivel on 08/03/08 - 12:33 AM

enkidu
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Posted 08/03/08 - 08:30 AM:	#27
Lord Drivel wrote: Yes, Tommy Flowers, first practical electronic computer (did a quick search in Enkudu's Bible and entire source of knowledge, where he successfully looked up 'Flowers'). As to whether it is applied science or science this is just quibbling, the main point being that inventions can come out of strife and conflict including war; as well as need (which is a form of conflict), manifested in a multitude of forms. It is true that inventiveness also thrives best in an environment of the utmost liberality, as it was in Ancient Greece and the start of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, as well as in the 20th century in the United States. Because liberality is in decline I believe that you will see inventiveness gradually follow suit and there will be a period of long consolidation and relative stagnation. Maybe such outcomes are ineluctable. By the way, if you want to play QUIBBLE the word is CONTEMPORARY and not CONTEMPOREAN. I am not quibbling, there is a very clear difference between science and technology(applied science), to the point that some civilization simply did not develop very much any technology while they did some impressive science. Your linking scientific inventiveness with liberality is flimsy at best. How liberal was India when it outperformed the West in Mathematics and Physics until the 18th century. Newton and Leibniz predated the industrial revolution, this later refers to technological development not to scientific discoveries (the technology was actually based on these discoveries). As for stagnation, it already exists in sciences from the second part of the 20th century, there has indeed been very little scientific achievements during this period. While we surely have seen tremendous technological progress, our understanding of the universe has hardly been affected at all from the discoveries from Quantum Mechanics that occured at the beginning of the 20th century. What is surprising is that many more scientists are at work in many more domains, so statistically we could expect some discoveries, but we did not get them, for the simple reason that private interests which finance most of these scientists have no regard for fundamental science. That's what explains the stagnation much more than some vague notion of liberality.

FreeRadical
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Posted 08/03/08 - 08:56 AM:	#28
enkidu wrote: I am not quibbling, there is a very clear difference between science and technology(applied science), to the point that some civilization simply did not develop very much any technology while they did some impressive science. Your linking scientific inventiveness with liberality is flimsy at best. How liberal was India when it outperformed the West in Mathematics and Physics until the 18th century. Newton and Leibniz predated the industrial revolution, this later refers to technological development not to scientific discoveries (the technology was actually based on these discoveries). As for stagnation, it already exists in sciences from the second part of the 20th century, there has indeed been very little scientific achievements during this period. While we surely have seen tremendous technological progress, our understanding of the universe has hardly been affected at all from the discoveries from Quantum Mechanics that occured at the beginning of the 20th century. What is surprising is that many more scientists are at work in many more domains, so statistically we could expect some discoveries, but we did not get them, for the simple reason that private interests which finance most of these scientists have no regard for fundamental science. That's what explains the stagnation much more than some vague notion of liberality. Political or economic liberalism and technological or scientific progress are not inextricably linked. This is a inviolable assertion, one that you were correct to make. I do, however, take issue with the implication that "liberality" (an abstract appreciation for individuality, if inadequately articulated by most liberal theorists) does not precede greater intellectual freedom. Surely intellectual freedom expedites the process of discovery?

enkidu
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Posted 08/03/08 - 09:20 AM:	#29
FreeRadical wrote: Political or economic liberalism and technological or scientific progress are not inextricably linked. This is a inviolable assertion, one that you were correct to make. I do, however, take issue with the implication that "liberality" (an abstract appreciation for individuality, if inadequately articulated by most liberal theorists) does not precede greater intellectual freedom. Surely intellectual freedom expedites the process of discovery? Yes, I agree, I was referring here to the notion of "liberality" used by Lord Drivel, which, I believe relates to some economic liberalism. But clearly, a society intellectually(religiously) liberal, to some extent, will promote scientific discoveries. To come back to the example of India, for instance, many discoveries were made under the influence of buddhist forces who can rightfully be ranked as a "liberal" influences to an otherwise very strict hinduist society (though this must be qualified, since hinduism itself is an aggregation of diverse influences, some of them being liberal).

FreeRadical
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Posted 08/03/08 - 09:42 AM:	#30
enkidu wrote: Yes, I agree, I was referring here to the notion of "liberality" used by Lord Drivel, which, I believe relates to some economic liberalism. But clearly, a society intellectually(religiously) liberal, to some extent, will promote scientific discoveries. To come back to the example of India, for instance, many discoveries were made under the influence of buddhist forces who can rightfully be ranked as a "liberal" influences to an otherwise very strict hinduist society (though this must be qualified, since hinduism itself is an aggregation of diverse influences, some of them being liberal). Ah, my mistake. I had been rather lazy. If that is his view? He's entirely incorrect. The USSR, for example, was more scientifically advanced (in many areas) that the US. Economic liberalism has nothing to do with it.

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