There's something wrong with human nature.
- Thread starter Rearden Metal
- Start date
Alan Turing (1912-1954) was a brilliant English mathematician. During WW2, Turing figured out how to crack the German Wehrmacht's cipher code, enabling the allies to easily decrypt intercepted Nazi messages. Turing's work greatly contributed to the Nazis' defeat, and his scientific advancements were also a key foundation upon which the personal computer you're using right now was invented.
Turing contributed more to the advancement of mankind than you or I could ever hope to accomplish in a thousand lifetimes. Unfortunately for him, Turing was also a homosexual- a serious criminal offense in 1950's Britain. The British government gave Turing two options: Serve a lengthy incarceration for the 'crime' of being gay, or subject himself to drastic hormone injections to 'cure' his homosexuality. Turing chose the latter option, and found the effects of this hormone treatment completely unbearable. He died in 1954, several weeks before his 42nd birthday, from self-administered cyanide poisoning.
We can all look back on this now and lament the obvious injustice and senseless oppression, but you can be sure that all the Vhehn's of that time strongly believed that Turing's victimization was simply 'the right thing to do', for the 'good of society'. This is what primates do (and always have done) to other primates, and it will never change.
Escaping the rapidly deteriorating American regime at this time might be able to provide a junkie/prawn/'new nigger' with some measure of temporary relief, but there will always be something seriously fucking wrong with human nature. Death is our only genuine escape route in the end.
On the bright side, can you believe I just wrote all that without the help of opiates? Maybe I <i>can</i> still express myself properly despite being involuntarily clean!
Turing contributed more to the advancement of mankind than you or I could ever hope to accomplish in a thousand lifetimes. Unfortunately for him, Turing was also a homosexual- a serious criminal offense in 1950's Britain. The British government gave Turing two options: Serve a lengthy incarceration for the 'crime' of being gay, or subject himself to drastic hormone injections to 'cure' his homosexuality. Turing chose the latter option, and found the effects of this hormone treatment completely unbearable. He died in 1954, several weeks before his 42nd birthday, from self-administered cyanide poisoning.
We can all look back on this now and lament the obvious injustice and senseless oppression, but you can be sure that all the Vhehn's of that time strongly believed that Turing's victimization was simply 'the right thing to do', for the 'good of society'. This is what primates do (and always have done) to other primates, and it will never change.
Escaping the rapidly deteriorating American regime at this time might be able to provide a junkie/prawn/'new nigger' with some measure of temporary relief, but there will always be something seriously fucking wrong with human nature. Death is our only genuine escape route in the end.
On the bright side, can you believe I just wrote all that without the help of opiates? Maybe I <i>can</i> still express myself properly despite being involuntarily clean!
An alternative would be to have a society where excessive J behaviour is met with severe penalties. To some extent that has already happened in much of the west, where typical judgmental bollocks like extreme racism, sexism, homophobia etc sometimes gets you socially ostracized or fired.
What happened to Turing is a lot better than what happened to people like him in 1800 or 1600. Slowly, J repression is being rolled back and consigned to the dustbin of history (probably because education tends to dampen J tendencies among a lot of people). Also, Turing should have politicized his treatment and turned himself into a kind of martyr, instead of staying quiet and closeted. If you're going to be outside of mainstream society and behaviour, you have to show some balls or you'll get trampled.
Well, I am not debating this with people who form their views from mindless herd-following - I am assuming people amenable to reason (maybe an optimistic assumption). After all, if a herd of brainless cattle are charging towards me, I don't try to reason with them, I just get out of the way as best I can. But most people interested in discussing politics and morality will listen to reason, and those who form policy certainly do (even if they ultimately override it for various reasons).
One thing you are overlooking is that social democracy/liberalism is condemned by its own core values - it uses rights-based arguments to justify personal liberties in various areas (religious belief, expression/speech, sexual behaviour etc) but then tramples all over rights in the economic sphere (high taxation, heavy regulation, prohibition of freedom of contract and trade). Thus it is logically incoherent in objective terms, *regardless* of your political views - either rights exist in which case freedom matters in the economic as well as personal/sexual/political sphere; or rights don't exist in which case they can't be used to defend personal/sexual/political liberty.
That means that liberalism is equally inconsistent and logically flawed/impossible whether you are a communist, nazi, socialist, liberal, conservative or libertarian or anything else. It is wrong on objective standards.
The only justification for liberalism in the current form is purely utilitarian i.e. that the group as a whole are better off being given personal/sexual/political liberties, but not economic liberties (e.g. if "small government" would lead to a much more impoverished or brutal society than the modern liberal/social democratic state). That is an empirically testable question and thus again it is an objective, not subjective matter. Besides, I have never met a liberal who defends liberalism on purely utilitarian grounds - utilitarians tend to be very *illiberal*.
You might have heard that the workplace is not a democracy. A right easily overlooked is the right to a living wage. That is a wage that suffices to handle a reasonable budget that attends to just basic human needs like ... I don't have to list them. Now if a business can't provide that right then I'd submit theres no business there at all save for an excuse to exploit a body to enrich another. If we aspire to a civilization beyond the law of the jungle then ignoring a living wage too as a right is effectively
denying the right to self determination. As it unfolds in real life not everyone can be a chief, there have to be indians for there to even be chiefs and because of that reality a living wage is simply a sign of good faith.
Your reply is well composed and considered, thank you.
Sadly, I am too drunk and too lazy at the moment to give it the response it deserves.
However, I'll hurl the following out... ; )
It is not an either/or proposition. There is a natural tension between Man As Individual and Man As Social Animal. The tension creates an expected equilibrium somewhere in "the middle". Thus, we can have both personal (individual) action, and limits to that action (collective). But to strive for the complete victory of one of these opposing forces is to strive for the complete destruction of Man's dual nature.
Not so, for the reason I gave above. Collectivism alone is logically sound only if man has no individual nature, which is not the case. And the opposite is obviously true. I'm comfortable with an imprecise, imperfect middle ground, aren't you?
That utilitarian test works both ways. We know that individual action can and does benefit the group. It's also readily apparent that collective action can benefit the individual. But putting all value on individual action alone is the core tenet of anarchism, is it not? I have not spotted anyone on this board advocating anarchism.
So, what have I have said here? No more than why this discussion will never end!
You're aware that Prohibition was tried and turned out to be a failure. What makes you think things would be any different this time around?
A few moonshiners? Why a few? Why not tens of thousands, which is what you'd have if you banned the manufacture of alcohol. You'd have a lot of deaths from people drinking adulterated or poisonous product. You'd also have large spikes in drug use. Drugs which, as you say, are easily smuggled and/or manufactured.
You seem to be missing an most important point here. Any unregulated vice inevitably falls under the control of organized crime, and if you think that organized crime couldn't find a way to make massive profits from the Prohibition of alcohol today, you're kidding yourself, and you're unaware of what happened in the 20's.
I can assure you that you don't have any more experience in this than I.
Citing the example of one foolish kid doesn't make the case for Prohibition.
Legislating morality will never work, ever. Criminalizing the use of drugs is a massive waste of money, and drives control of the commodity into the hands of organized crime, who quite logically take over. There are men serving long sentences in the U.S. for selling a dime bag of weed, getting caught, and then getting caught a second time. This is so moronic, it defies belief.
Not to answer my own question or anything... but it looks like they're setting up the new open-season 'socially undesirable minority group' to be <b>illegal aliens</b>.
So if this is indeed the plan, I suggest it would only be fair to hoist the white flag over drug prohibition for once and for all, and redirect all that self-righteous 'I'm in the majority and I get off on fucking over those who are not' energy elsewhere, passing the <b>entire</b> baton from drug users over to illegal immigrants, their employers, and all others who commit 'conspiracy' to harbor illegal people. There's no sense in fucking with two separate isolated minority groups at once- that would just be redundant, after all.
The Mexican border should stay wide open, of course, therefore ensuring a perpetual fresh supply of new 'undesirables' to fuck with. All prohibition enforcement personnel can be reassigned to their new missions as alien-hunters. That way no jobs are lost, and the narcs get to retain their power trip of self-righteous superiority.
Of course, the vast majority of illegals who have already been living here for years will prefer to stay and take their chances as American outlaws, rather than going back to Mexico to live lawful but impoverished lives. The worse you treat them and the more you cut off their access to employment, the worse these people will behave, naturally (Just like with drug users). That'll give the public justification to get even tougher on the 'crime' they themselves created, filling up the prisons nicely with a new underclass to replace all the former 'drug criminals'... and everyone wins!
