'Democracy' Never Meant What People Think It Means

[Purandara88]

'Democracy' as such is invariably traced to the Greeks, specifically to classical Athens. Typically it is translated as 'rule' or 'leadership of the people,' with the root 'demos' being rendered as "people" and the second root 'kratos' being rendered as 'rule' or leadership.'

In fact, while 'demos' came to mean 'the people,' it originally referred (as in Homer) to those who collectively controlled a territorial unit, specifically, to the aristocratic warband that surrounded a Mycenean king or chieftain. In other words, 'demos' refers not to the people as a whole, but to the army. Which of course, is fitting, because the voting citizenry of the Athenian democracy consisted solely of the men of the army, the propertied men who could afford the full panoply of the hoplite infantryman.

As for 'kratos,' the rendering 'rule' or 'leadership' softens its actual meaning, which is 'power' or 'force' (specifically, force of arms).

In a literal sense, therefore, 'democracy' ultimately means 'the [coercive] power of the army.'

Not much has changed, really.

[Strummer521]

Interesting. Just out of curiosity...where'd you read that?

[Purandara88]

I was reading Loeb side-by-side some time ago of the Iliad when I came across the Homeric use of that root, and it reminded me of a comment an old professor had made about the softening of 'kratos' in modern renderings of 'democracy.'

The little mini-essay emerged out of a discussion of feminism on another forum (long story).

Interestingly, there is some evidence to suggest that 'democracy' was originally coined by opponents of the Athenian democracy (to suggest that it was, indeed, something on the order of mob rule by the army, underlain by naked force rather than aristocratic legitimacy).

[Golgot]

The Asterix comics taught me that woman couldn't enter the Roman games - and they sure couldn't vote in Athens either. And neither could the 'artisans' or the slaves.

Yeah, it's pretty clear that Athenian democracy's ideals only vaguely overlap with our modern idealisations of democracy. But they've got a lot of simularities too. The 'rule of mob' element has come more to the fore, but its still very-much tempered by 'top down' power group action.

Heigh ho - better than nothing ;)

Could be better tho, for sure.


Interestingly, there is some evidence to suggest that 'democracy' was originally coined by opponents of the Athenian democracy (to suggest that it was, indeed, something on the order of mob rule by the army, underlain by naked force rather than aristocratic legitimacy).

Heh, makes me think of the 'sophist' term, applied to the 'spin-doctors' who flourished amongst Athen's legal courts. Robert Pirsig argues that this was a damning bit of revisionism placed on the more experimental thinkers of the time (IE the guys who believed in 'change as the only constant', and other such precepts, which contrasted with the 'Socratean' movement towards logical positivism).

Whatever the case, i imagine the lawcourts were as dirty-dealing, and rhetoric-ridden, as they are now.

And hell, the Athenian period of democracy was sandwiched by 'oligarchy' periods i believe - so it's not like it was the worst gig in town. Potentially ;)

[7thson]

Certainly this is interesting, but many words of current English evolve to mean something different than their origins. The obvious barbs intended in this post are illuminating and actually help to reveal your true nature. You know what I mean, and others do also. Whatever.:yawn:

[Purandara88]

Yeah, it's pretty clear that Athenian democracy's ideals only vaguely overlap with our modern idealisations of democracy. But they've got a lot of simularities too. The 'rule of mob' element has come more to the fore, but its still very-much tempered by 'top down' power group action.

I would agree with both assessments.

I also think that democracy, even more than other political structures, is essentially the sum of its symbols. I'm not a fan, which, I suppose, is why I find it intriguing and worthwhile to 'deconstruct' those symbols, so to speak.

nd hell, the Athenian period of democracy was sandwiched by 'oligarchy' periods i believe - so it's not like it was the worst gig in town. Potentially

I dunno, Athens was pretty much destroyed from within by the stupid decisions made to placate the mob. Athens was built to greatness under an oligarchy, and was run into the ground in less than a century by 'democracy.'

[Golgot]

C'mon D. What has he said? Democracy was imperfect before, and it's still not perfect now. No great barb. Just a history lesson. Always worthwhile ;)

[Golgot]

I also think that democracy, even more than other political structures, is essentially the sum of its symbols. I'm not a fan, which, I suppose, is why I find it intriguing and worthwhile to 'deconstruct' those symbols, so to speak.

The question then would be, what is your alternative?

[I want a big post here. Big post]

[7thson]

Nah, you do not get my meaning in your strawguard post Gols, but thats okay;) . Nothing he has said in this thread equals to my statement here being justified, it is the overall vibeof his overall stance. If this were the only thread by P', then well hey all well and good. I know you get where I am coming from, but it is all cool, maybe I am wrong. I have been plenty of times before.

[Purandara88]

The question then would be, what is your alternative?

Big post]

A government of me

Sorry to disappoint.

At a more serious level, I don't think there is an 'ideal' government, but I do think that aristocratic rule of small polities is probably the most stable and least intrusive form of government, which is why, historically, they have been the most common expression of 'the state.'

[7thson]

See Gols see?....:) ;)

[Golgot]

I know the man likes to rip and thread D. But in fairness, he provided history, which ain't no strawman on its own terms. I understand your desire to rip back tho.

A government of me

Sorry to disappoint.

Heh, rubbish.

Stability is vital, but so is progression.

Try again. Until you do, the mob rules ;)

[Purandara88]

I suppose it's easy to 'deflate' an argument if you 'prick' the jokes and ignore the argument.

[Purandara88]

And the additions are sooooooo far from a thesis of good living.


Evidence?

[7thson]

Maybe I should go edit my post now to make myself seem less foolish...... Nah I admit I am a fool, but oh well I like to waller in my filth.

[Yoda]

What's all this talk of 7th "ignoring" an "argument"? The initial post here is an opinion surrounded by a lesson in philology. It breaks down the root of the word, not what it means in a modern context, nor the idea it embodies. Not that Gol hasn't tried to spark such a discussion, of course. :)

[Purandara88]

What's all this talk of 7th "ignoring" an "argument"? The initial post here is an opinion surrounded by a lesson in philology. It breaks down the root of the word, not what it means in a modern context, nor the idea it embodies. Not that Gol hasn't tried to spark such a discussion, of course. :)

Gol and I both edited posts after the other replied to them.

[Golgot]

At a more serious level, I don't think there is an 'ideal' government, but I do think that aristocratic rule of small polities is probably the most stable and least intrusive form of government, which is why, historically, they have been the most common expression of 'the state.'

Okaaay, we both edited our posts. Here's my response to both of them. (;) <--- edited-in smilie now that i've seen your recent post. -EXTRA EDIT- And yeah C, he was talking about a barb of mine that i removed ;))

The evidence you provide is that of past and current social stabilities. Viscious, cunning, top-down control is definitely the best way to maintain such a thing. In the short term. In the long term, societies have embraced, and need, change. Extreme examples of dicatorial control stifle this impulse. The ones we currently have in place gleefully convince the populace that they have control, but actually still provide leeway for new ideas.

It ain't even socialism, but it's a better system than the 'aristos know best' thesis that you've laid down so far.

You need to be a bit more cunning than that ;)

[7thson]

If nothing else I never "ignore" when I feel like I should speak......certainly I have gained that much of a rep at least. I am going back to my Starship Trooper mentality now and will see youse guys in the morgan ...fraulines r cool I say.:) ;)

[Golgot]

You have frauleins? Share! ;)

[7thson]

I only have one sorry, but hey one is better than nein, nien, nine? eh

[Purandara88]

The evidence you provide is that of past and current social stabilities. Viscious, cunning, top-down control is definitely the best way to maintain such a thing.

Close control is inherently unstable, the history of totalitarian societies is ample proof of this.

In the long term, societies have embraced, and need, change.

Aristocratic societies have historically been remarkably malleable without being as volatile as democratic societies, and the aristocratic state has typically been much less intrusive into the daily lives of its citizenry than more authoritarian forms or democracy.

In truth, modern liberal democracies have achieved considerable stability by essentially hiding their inner governing mechanisms (which are fundamentally oligarchic/aristocratic) behind the veil of democratic symbols (though, it should be pointed out that the United States, the liberal democracy par excellance, is increasingly open about the true nature of its government, witness the rise of dynastic politics in the last 25 years).

[Golgot]

Close control is inherently unstable, the history of totalitarian societies is ample proof of this.

Ok, so you're arguing for low-level 'aristocratic' control over local 'polities'?

Isn't that what we've already got? Why ain't you happy?

And it factors up... Bush is the big daddy of the US clans. China has always really been a divided but united land.

Your web of aristocracts exists. Possibly the only thing that could disturb it would be a mating between Kennedy and Bush ;)

[Purandara88]

The polities are too large, which is one of the costs of democratic ideology (and the consequent pandering to the masses) being overlain on an aristocratic governing framework.

It didn't work for the Romans, and it won't work now. The end result is always the same...

Hail Caesar!

[Golgot]

My God, this sounds almost like a power-to-the-people argument.

'Aristocratic' government is alright so long as the local district is represented?

Hail to the Roman grafitti artists :D

[Purandara88]

I'm looking at the city-state as sort of the ideal here. Not so much 'power to the people' as just political units that are small enough to govern without intrusive force.

[Golgot]

I'm looking at the city-state as sort of the ideal here. Not so much 'power to the people' as just political units that are small enough to govern without intrusive force.

Well, good luck with that (altho i suspect that force would still intrude, both internally and externally). I agree that this ideal has got a lot of things going for it - and that it should exist. But, there'll always be an over-arching sugar-daddy in these globalised days. Just kiss the ring and hope he doesn't notice if you don't work some days. That's kind of what i say ;)

I only have one sorry, but hey one is better than nein, nien, nine? eh

Indubitably ;) :)

[Purandara88]

Well, good luck with that (altho i suspect that force would still intrude, both internally and externally). I agree that this ideal has got a lot of things going for it - and that it should exist. But, there'll always be an over-arching sugar-daddy in these globalised days. Just kiss the ring and hope he doesn't notice if you don't work some days. That's kind of what i say

I would tend to agree. Liberal democracy is ideally suited to exploiting globalism, market capitalism and technology...and ideally suited to turning these towards the pacification of the masses. The limitation, of course, is sustainability, because liberal consumer democracy ultimately relies on its ability to keep providing pacification (i.e. plastic baubles for the landfill), which, given the finity of resources, isn't perpetually attainable.

[Golgot]

The limitation, of course, is sustainability, because liberal consumer democracy ultimately relies on its ability to keep providing pacification (i.e. plastic baubles for the landfill), which, given the finity of resources, isn't perpetually attainable.

Well, some would argue that it's more the spending power of imaginary-dollars that we should be worried about. If the US consumer stops shopping due to debt, then both the US economy, and hence the world's, does a little dive onto its own head. So i understand.

I'm sure Yods has plenty to say on the liability of such and occurance tho. I'm just a dabbler in economic to-and-fros.

If you wanna get 'sustainable' in eco-terms tho, you can check out my signature links for a start. There's plenty of long-term issues that our societies, and politicians, would rather avoid ;)

[Purandara88]

If you wanna get 'sustainable' in eco-terms tho, you can check out my signature links for a start. There's plenty of long-term issues that our societies, and politicians, would rather avoid

And the ideology of liberal democracy is a major element in that malfeasance...

[Golgot]

And the ideology of liberal democracy is a major element in that malfeasance...

On which grounds? The idea of rotating government? The idea of population-knows-best? (Which is regularly avoided, and can be overcome when necessary).

I reckon most forms of government focus on short-term risk over long-term. Groups do it. Individuals do it. What form of government do you think would handle long-term risks in a better way?

Given that not all local areas feel the affects of global warming in the same way, how could we expect a 'global' reaction from disparate city-states, for example? They could tackle obvious issues like landfill, if they were self-contained (altho frankly they might just send the waste elsewhere, if they were rich enough) - but could such proto-states deal with a global problem?

Eh? ;)

(I ain't saying the 'democratic' and 'other' states are doing a particuarly good job right now - but at least these power-blocks make tackling the problem feasible ;))

[Purandara88]

On which grounds? The idea of rotating government? The idea of population-knows-best? (Which is regularly avoided, and can be overcome when necessary).

Liberalism has two primary ideals: the first is limited visible coercion (liberty) and the second is material comfort (prosperity). And it's ability to deliver liberty and prosperity is the fundamental basis of democratic stability. Anything which would tend to result in a restriction of liberty or prosperity - which the most effective steps for renewing the ecological health of our planet would require - is a political impossibility in a liberal democratic society.

To deal effectively with environmental issues, you need a political structure that isn't directly beholden to the mass of people, and isn't primarily constructed by economic ideology. It's no accident that the only government in modern history that ever fundamentally intergrated ecological concerns into its ruling methodology was led by that crazy looking guy with the little tiny 'stache.

The primary advantage of smaller political units would be that they would tend to undermine the ability to maintain the technological infrastructure of (post)modern existence, which would have enormous ecological benefits.

[Golgot]

...it's ability to deliver liberty and prosperity is the fundamental basis of democratic stability. Anything which would tend to result in a restriction of liberty or prosperity - which the most effective steps for renewing the ecological health of our planet would require - is a political impossibility in a liberal democratic society.

There's an argument that says peacetime societies pursue individual liberty (and free spending ;)), whereas wartime encourages social responsability. To cast things in a harsh light, would you prefer a war-footing to force people to act responsibly on all fronts? There's still a social-responsibility perspective in democratic societies i'd say.

To deal effectively with environmental issues, you need a political structure that isn't directly beholden to the mass of people, and isn't primarily constructed by economic ideology.

a) The systems isn't directly beholden to the mass of people when it comes to executive decisions. They can still get things done if the right words are used. In advance ;).
b) Find me a system that won't pursue the 'easy option' (namely using available energy-resources for immediate-advantage, in this case)

It's no accident that the only government in modern history that ever fundamentally intergrated ecological concerns into its ruling methodology was led by that crazy looking guy with the little tiny 'stache.

Kinda backs up the first theory. Deprivation can lead to an ideal of whole-'wholesomeness'. Yes, the Nazis were Eco-warriors, amongst other things. But they'd just emerged out of ecological, social, and economic destruction. It's no surprise they wanted something more wholesome. I'm not sure that they can stand as an example on this.

The primary advantage of smaller political units would be that they would tend to undermine the ability to maintain the technological infrastructure of (post)modern existence, which would have enormous ecological benefits.

How so? Tech-transfer would mean that people would always want what they don't have. And someone, somewhere, would be making it.

[Purandara88]

There's an argument that says peacetime societies pursue individual liberty (and free spending ;)), whereas wartime encourages social responsability. To cast things in a harsh light, would you prefer a war-footing to force people to act responsibly on all fronts?

That's part of the idea behind small polities. It creates an atmosphere of tension and conflict that has all sorts of benefits.

There's still a social-responsibility perspective in democratic societies i'd say.

Yeah, but it's tied up with the idea of economic prosperity. It's pity based and ultimately self-destructive. We don't need to save everyone, we've got billions of excess humans as it is.

As one friend of mine put it, "If a few million Africans have to die for us to have more wild elephants, well, I never really liked Africans anyway, but elephants rock!"

How so? Tech-transfer would mean that people would always want what they don't have. And someone, somewhere, would be making it.

Not necessarily. Technological society requires large nation-states, for the simple reason that only nation-states have the internal resources to operate a technology infrastructure, or the ability to negotiate one.

[Golgot]

Simple answer:

Purandara88, go back to the feudal era, and die.


---epitaph---

Global population problems in no way justify what you've just said. You twat.

[Purandara88]

Well, I would modify it to say that we need to reduce population across the board, first worlders overconsume, so their population footprint is much higher than their numbers would suggest. But if you've got a population problem, well, there's only one way to fix that. Pity doesn't help ensure the long term survival of the species. This is one of the major reasons I believe the first world should eliminate ALL in-migration from the third world, you massively increase the ecological footprint of these people just by moving them to first world economies. Keep them out and salvage the future for everyone.

It's not popular, but you have to look at things holistically. Human life at the individual level is a meaningless thing. The species matters. Cultures matter, but people individually? Not very much. When weighed against the future, what do a percentage of the lives of the present really amount to? Again, not very much.

Here's what I think. If you've got people dying of famine, or fighting a bloody war over water and food, or a massive pandemic, that's a message from nature, and the message is, "There are too many people living here, it's time to thin the herd." The problem of pity is structurally akin to the problem we frequently face with wildfires; misplaced altruism now frequently means the coming disaster is made worse by several orders of magnitude. Technological society can temporarily sustain far more lives than could ever be sustained in the past (and 'temporary' could be quite a long time), but entropy being what it is, all it does is delay the big die off, and ensure that it will be more catastrophic when it DOES come.

[Lockheed Martin]

Well, I would modify it to say that we need to reduce population across the board, first worlders overconsume, so their population footprint is much higher than their numbers would suggest. But if you've got a population problem, well, there's only one way to fix that. Pity doesn't help ensure the long term survival of the species. This is one of the major reasons I believe the first world should eliminate ALL in-migration from the third world, you massively increase the ecological footprint of these people just by moving them to first world economies. Keep them out and salvage the future for everyone.

It's not popular, but you have to look at things holistically. Human life at the individual level is a meaningless thing. The species matters. Cultures matter, but people individually? Not very much. When weighed against the future, what do a percentage of the lives of the present really amount to? Again, not very much.

Here's what I think. If you've got people dying of famine, or fighting a bloody war over water and food, or a massive pandemic, that's a message from nature, and the message is, "There are too many people living here, it's time to thin the herd." The problem of pity is structurally akin to the problem we frequently face with wildfires; misplaced altruism now frequently means the coming disaster is made worse by several orders of magnitude. Technological society can temporarily sustain far more lives than could ever be sustained in the past (and 'temporary' could be quite a long time), but entropy being what it is, all it does is delay the big die off, and ensure that it will be more catastrophic when it DOES come.

Nonsense.

How long do you think western universities could continue to offer courses to home students for the prices they do without foreign students paying a premium?

How long would the health services of the post-industrial world last without foreign doctors?

How long would the American and European economies stagger along without migrant workers willing to work for one-eighteenth of a pittance?

And what about the political reprecussions? If the west closed its borders, how long do you think it'd maintain prefered trader status with the rest of the world? With trade deficits deepening on both sides of the atlantic, we can't afford to have emerging markets in the East boycotting American cola, British financial services and German engineering. It'd kill us faster than we're killing ourselves. Not to mention the risk of the Indians and Russians falling in with a new Chinese power block that became hostile to the west. We can say goodbye to Russian gas and Russian oil, then we'd be fully dependent on an increasingly volatile OPEC (Except America, but how many more years of Candaian oil do you think there's left? Less than five before peak, according to Paul Roberts' excellent book). Do you realise how many chemicals are only obtainable in Africa? How many loans, how many trillions of dollars of infrastructure investment we have in the developing world? How many oil pipelines and exclusive mining contracts that are only maintained due to keeping certain borderline-tribal nations sweet?
Not to mention the dangers to the pharmacutical industry. Hell, if we upset the Chinese enough they might stop investing in us. The economic fallout could make the Great Depression look like 80's Wall Street.

In these days of waning American power and collapsing European birthrates it's more absurd than ever to suggest isolationism. We're more reliant than ever on the rest of the world and it's going to take incredible feats of diplomacy to keep us in the manner to which we have become accustomed over the next two decades.

As for the individual vs. "culture and species". What rot. Only the individual is capable of the genius we need to get out of this mess. Humankind has never been advanced in quantum leaps by a committee of mediocrity. Charles Babbage, Nikola Tesla, Adam Smith, David Hume, Isaac Newton, Henry Ford, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Seymour Cray, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Albert Einstein, Francis Bacon and Christ. There is a tendency to dismiss great individuals as myths, a by-product of the human mind's desire to create totemic heroes. But each of these individuals have shaped the world around them in ways a collectivist "culture" never could. I gurantee you, when we perfect fusion or hydrogen technology, it probably won't be because of a team, it'll be a revelation to an individual.

Global warming, water shortages, global pandemics and international strife don't scare me. What scares me is the reactionary measures people'll resort to when faced with these problems. What's important is we keep a grip and don't abandon our reason, tolerance and common sense. Simple solutions never work in a complicated world.

And since when did we take "message[s] from nature"? We shut her up with the enlightenment.

[Purandara88]

Nonsense.

How long do you think western universities could continue to offer courses to home students for the prices they do without foreign students paying a premium?

Indefinitely, if they're compelled to. Foreign students make up a tiny fraction of university students, so their impact isn't that significant anyway.

How long would the health services of the post-industrial world last without foreign doctors?

We'd have to restructure incentives and educational funding, but it could be done. The attraction of foreign doctors is that they work cheap.

How long would the American and European economies stagger along without migrant workers willing to work for one-eighteenth of a pittance?

This is vastly overstated. Even undocumented workers in the US make on average far above minimum wage ($5.15 an hour). They just make less than native born workers in the same fields.

And what about the political reprecussions? If the west closed its borders, how long do you think it'd maintain prefered trader status with the rest of the world?

Forever. The rest of the world lacks the resources and technology to operate and maintain even a semi-modern infrastructure without Western products and expertise, and they lack the economic wherewithal to operate without access to Western markets. It might, however, force third world countries to fix their problems instead of shunting excess population to the West. The 'safety valve' only ensures that things never get quite bad enough to force change.

With trade deficits deepening on both sides of the atlantic, we can't afford to have emerging markets in the East boycotting American cola, British financial services and German engineering.

Sure we can. Those 'emerging markets' rely on the established markets of the West for their economic security. Not to mention the fact that none of these countries is even remotely able to feed itself without importing American grain staples.

It'd kill us faster than we're killing ourselves.

Bull****. They need us FAR more than we need them, because we have the food. China and India are the world's largest net grain importers. Not one of the major Asian nations is self-sufficient when it comes to staple food production (unlike, say, the US, which has enormous grain surpluses every year). If an all out trade war developed, the US might see unemployment jump to 10% (similar to what is found in the advanced economies of Western Europe). China and India would teeter on the verge of starvation. Corn may not be as expensive as Saudi light sweet crude, but you can't eat a barrel of oil, even if you sell it for $300.

Not to mention the risk of the Indians and Russians falling in with a new Chinese power block that became hostile to the west.

You think Russia or China gives a rats ass about Mexican and Honduran lettuce pickers? They know where their bread is buttered, and it ain't in El Salvador. Your whole theory falls apart because it isn't based on realistic calculations of national interest. The West could freeze immigration tomorrow and the Chinese, the Indians and the Ruskies wouldn't bat an eye. Neither would the Saudis. Why? It wouldn't be any skin off their teeth. And it sure as hell would be skin off their teeth if they no longer had solid access to European and American markets.

How many loans, how many trillions of dollars of infrastructure investment we have in the developing world? How many oil pipelines and exclusive mining contracts that are only maintained due to keeping certain borderline-tribal nations sweet?

Not one of which would stop doing business with their cash cow if the West cut off immigration. They need those dollars and euros, and they've got nowhere else to go to get them.

Not to mention the dangers to the pharmacutical industry. Hell, if we upset the Chinese enough they might stop investing in us. The economic fallout could make the Great Depression look like 80's Wall Street.

You still haven't provided a lick of evidence to suggest that closing the West to third world immigration would result in China cutting off its nose to spite its face. Your whole theory pretty much depends on the Beijing government being intimately concerned with the fate of Nicaraguan dishwashers and Libyan bellhops when they aren't all that concerned with the fate of their own people.

In these days of waning American power and collapsing European birthrates it's more absurd than ever to suggest isolationism.

You seem to have forgotten to read anything in this thread. The world is overpopulated, I WANT fewer people, especially in the West, where the ecological footprint of individuals is massive.

We're more reliant than ever on the rest of the world and it's going to take incredible feats of diplomacy to keep us in the manner to which we have become accustomed over the next two decades.

We can't afford to sustain this ridiculously overconsumptive lifestyle. The world is overpopulated, ecosystems are overtaxed. In the long run, we have to dismantle hypertechnological society, not maintain it.

As for the individual vs. "culture and species". What rot. Only the individual is capable of the genius we need to get out of this mess.

Absolutely, but we don't need excess individuals, just, say, the best 20%.

Global warming, water shortages, global pandemics and international strife don't scare me. What scares me is the reactionary measures people'll resort to when faced with these problems. What's important is we keep a grip and don't abandon our reason, tolerance and common sense. Simple solutions never work in a complicated world.

All solutions are fundamentally simple. The 'complex' aspect is making sure they are implemented.

And since when did we take "message[s] from nature"? We shut her up with the enlightenment.

The Enlightenment is a hundred years dead. Nature is still there. It's a little bit like the God and Nietzsche bumper sticker.

[Lockheed Martin]

Alright. I'm going to adopt your post style, it's much more sensible.

Indefinitely, if they're compelled to. Foreign students make up a tiny fraction of university students, so their impact isn't that significant anyway.

Source: http://www.aip.org/fyi/2004/111.html
Foreign Students make up 13% of total graduates and in the region of 50% in some science and technology fields. It's even higher here in the UK. Considering foreign students pay much more to study in western higher-education, that's a massive loss in terms of revenue for universities. That translates either to a massive hike for home students, which will discourage all but the most privileged from attending or a drop in the quality of facilities, which will damage the west's competitive edge in high technology.
Regardless of direct financial consequences, this would constitute a crippling brain drain for the west. We're already running low on hard-science graduates as more and more people opt for, haha, "degrees" in media studies or art history.
Source:http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9895/math.htm
Mathematics students tend to gather in the strongest research centers, a tradition that began over a century ago. Before 1940, it was common for the best U.S. students to study in Europe; after World War II, the U.S. reputation in mathematics grew rapidly, and for the past 15 years, a majority of Ph.D. graduates of U.S. institutions have been non-U.S. citizens. In 1996, non-U.S. citizens earned 55% of total doctoral degrees in mathematical and computer sciences(see Endnote 8) (http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9895/endnotes.htm). Other strong international research centers are also attracting foreign students. In France, international students now earn one out of three doctoral degrees awarded in all fields of science; in Japan, that proportion is 40%; and in England, 27%, with many students from commonwealth countries and the United States(see Endnote 9) (http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9895/endnotes.htm). Germany supports foreign graduate students and postdoctorates on Humboldt Fellowships.
Sounds like the US might be crippling itself slightly if it lost 55% of its Maths and Computer Studies PhD graduates.

We'd have to restructure incentives and educational funding, but it could be done. The attraction of foreign doctors is that they work cheap.

The west isn't training enough doctors. In the UK they're paid the same wage as doctors born here. As for the US:
Source:http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=20&artnum=2&issue=20060606
Admittedly an article attacking the notion of universal healthcare, but the figures stand. "By 2020, the U.S. could be short 90,000 to 200,000 doctors, Merritt, Hawkins estimates."
I wouldn't fire those Indian radiologists just yet. Although I'm keen to hear what you're willing to offer people to train as doctors.

This is vastly overstated. Even undocumented workers in the US make on average far above minimum wage ($5.15 an hour). They just make less than native born workers in the same fields.

Wait. How do you know how much undocumented workers are being paid? That's like saying "unreported crime is on the rise". There are no figures.
Source: http://www.management-issues.com/display_page.asp?section=research&id=2088
"left-leaning think tank" Oh dear. Although the point still stands. Also check out the other related articles.
Source: http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/60009
Specific to Utah, but makes an important point. Particularly the "agricultural labour" native-born workers don't want to do. Lose them, and you might see that grain surplus diminished.

Forever. The rest of the world lacks the resources and technology to operate and maintain even a semi-modern infrastructure without Western products and expertise, and they lack the economic wherewithal to operate without access to Western markets. It might, however, force third world countries to fix their problems instead of shunting excess population to the West. The 'safety valve' only ensures that things never get quite bad enough to force change.

Hubris. You may be able to hermetically seal borders against people getting in, but do you propose you also stop people leaving? Legion western engineers work abroad at the behest of private firms. Third world countries are perfectly capable of paying for western expertise and essential technology without buying the vast majority of what we produce. McDonalds needs a restaurant in Tiananmen Square and Coke needs every store in Ecuador to sell its bottled vile to keep their shareholders happy.

Sure we can. Those 'emerging markets' rely on the established markets of the West for their economic security. Not to mention the fact that none of these countries is even remotely able to feed itself without importing American grain staples.

You're right on the first point, although it's an interdependence. That's the heart of globalisation. By the way, america's not the only country with a surplus. The eastern-european nations have been over-producing grain for years, and India has a mountain of the stuff:
SOURCE:http://www.guardian.co.uk/GWeekly/Story/0,3939,843366,00.html
60m tonnes of surplus. Well, India has an estimated population of one billion, so that's 60kG of grain for every living person in India of surplus. Sure, the corruption and bureaucracy is letting this go to waste at the moment, but it indicates the majority of indians'll survive without importing from the US if needs must. And for those who don't? Well, the dynastic nature of indian politics indicates that the deaths of a few untouchables won't upset things too much.
As for China...
Source: http://www.inquit.com/chinas-food-imports-in-perspective
But can US farmers survive without selling their grain to the third world?

Bull****. They need us FAR more than we need them, because we have the food. China and India are the world's largest net grain importers. Not one of the major Asian nations is self-sufficient when it comes to staple food production (unlike, say, the US, which has enormous grain surpluses every year). If an all out trade war developed, the US might see unemployment jump to 10% (similar to what is found in the advanced economies of Western Europe). China and India would teeter on the verge of starvation. Corn may not be as expensive as Saudi light sweet crude, but you can't eat a barrel of oil, even if you sell it for $300.

Addressed above. I think China and India could survive without US exports, and even if they experienced a deficit that might threaten their political stability (which would have to be huge, China is a very stable country, much more so than your average western liberal democracy) there's always some of Eastern Europe's grain going cheap.
On what do you base the 10% figure?
Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
Current US unemployment stands at an average 4.6%, a paltry rise of 5.4% seems unlikely.


You think Russia or China gives a rats ass about Mexican and Honduran lettuce pickers? They know where their bread is buttered, and it ain't in El Salvador. Your whole theory falls apart because it isn't based on realistic calculations of national interest. The West could freeze immigration tomorrow and the Chinese, the Indians and the Ruskies wouldn't bat an eye. Neither would the Saudis. Why? It wouldn't be any skin off their teeth. And it sure as hell would be skin off their teeth if they no longer had solid access to European and American markets.

Did I mention Mexico? Or Honduran? My point was we rely on China, India and Russia. My particular example was Russian oil and gas. If we close our borders to these countries it'll be taken as a snub, which it is. Russia is a wounded bear, but a recovering one. With its mineral assets, fossil fuel reserves, vast desperate workforce and personal property laws that date from the days of the Tzar, it's not hard to imagine Russia having the strength and flexibility to return as a world power and it's in our interests to have them on our side this time around. If India, China and Russia formed an anti-western block they'd have the edge over us in every area except technology, which can be easily aquired. (See The Economist for full details)

Not one of which would stop doing business with their cash cow if the West cut off immigration. They need those dollars and euros, and they've got nowhere else to go to get them.

These nations tend to be very capricious. I wouldn't be so quick to predict the actions of peoples who change their leaders more often than most people buy new jeans. There have been countless instances of western business having their fingers burned in the developing world by assuming their rules work the world over.

You still haven't provided a lick of evidence to suggest that closing the West to third world immigration would result in China cutting off its nose to spite its face. Your whole theory pretty much depends on the Beijing government being intimately concerned with the fate of Nicaraguan dishwashers and Libyan bellhops when they aren't all that concerned with the fate of their own people.

hah, I don't expect altruism anywhere but to assuage the guilt of the middle classes. My point is that closing western borders could have a dangerous geo-political domino effect. Not to mention that the chinese elite aren't likely to take kindly to being denied the priviledge of buying a New York summer pad or sending their children to Oxford, Harvard or MIT. I admit I'm extrapolating, but I did use the caveat "if".

You seem to have forgotten to read anything in this thread. The world is overpopulated, I WANT fewer people, especially in the West, where the ecological footprint of individuals is massive.

It'll be hard for the west to impose its will on the world, or maintain its various economies without young people. The pensions alone could throttle even the most advanced state, and who'd serve in the armies? It's all well and good to demand smaller ecological footprints in the west by letting the population wither, but that's not going to stop China building cheap coal-fired power stations or dumping arsenic in the rivers. In the west we're developing technologies to reduce our carbon footprints, from sequestering carbon for clean-burning coal to perfecting solar power, Germany has made some marvellous advances in this field. Also, the middle classes seem to have taken up the eco-cause with avengence and any reader of decent socio-political literature will know that once the middle classes care, the gears of government start to grind into action.

We can't afford to sustain this ridiculously overconsumptive lifestyle. The world is overpopulated, ecosystems are overtaxed. In the long run, we have to dismantle hypertechnological society, not maintain it.

Agreed. But, how would you rather do it? The complicated way of sophisticated psychological and emotional attack on the common people through the media, celebrity endorsements and the twin evils of lobbyists' rhetoric and political self-interest or just killing everybody? Guilt, shame and duty mould the public mind and once you have a grasp on that, you can do more than simple destruction ever will. (copyright, Niccolo Machiavelli)
Chin up, human beings are the most advanced species on the planet and we have become the masters of it through our ingenuity. Hypertechnical society is all that can save us at this point. There's a famous quote by someone I can't quite remember the name of, but it runs something like: "There are two cliff faces, between which there is a void. Technology has built a bridge of light half-way across and we now stand directly over the maw."
We can't return to the side we started at. Most credible scientists agree that the ecological damage we have inflicted has reached the point of no return. Fish stocks have largely dropped below sustainable, global warming has reached the dreaded feedback point where carbon sinks start releasing carbon without human intervention and we can't sustain half the world's population without GM crops. All we can do is keep progressing and rely on our technology to save us. I'm no techno-utopian, but we have very little choice, short of withdrawing entirely and hoping that we haven't bjorked the environment to the point that our constant supervision of it isn't necessary to maintain a handful of people.

Absolutely, but we don't need excess individuals, just, say, the best 20%.

How would you find the best 20%? Geniuses don't arise from particular social groups or backgrounds. It's just serendipity. The wealthy are no candidates, nor are those who score best on IQ tests. The actually skilled people reside in the lower socio-economic groups and the knowledgeable in the higher. I understand you have a certain disdain for the people at the bottom, but without them you couldn't survive.

All solutions are fundamentally simple. The 'complex' aspect is making sure they are implemented.

Everything's fundamentally simple if you reduce it enough. Boil DNA for an hour and you have something incredibly simple, but not terribly useful.

The Enlightenment is a hundred years dead. Nature is still there. It's a little bit like the God and Nietzsche bumper sticker.

The Enlightenment'll only be dead when the majority of the west doesn't confuse its fundamental philosophies for timeless virtues.

Anyway, I thought National Socialists were keen on Nietzsche. You're letting your side down.

[Purandara88]

Source: http://www.aip.org/fyi/2004/111.html
Foreign Students make up 13% of total graduates and in the region of 50% in some science and technology fields.

1. That's 13% of GRADUATE students...a tiny fraction of the overall total. Most college revenue comes from undergrads, which are overwhelmingly native born.

2. The vast majority of foreign students in the US and Europe are on temporary student visas. When they complete their education, they go home. Restrictions on permanent immigration would have no impact them.

It's even higher here in the UK. Considering foreign students pay much more to study in western higher-education, that's a massive loss in terms of revenue for universities.

No, it would be a drop in the bucket, even if you lost all the foreign students (but, as we've seen, you'd actually lose very few).

That translates either to a massive hike for home students, which will discourage all but the most privileged from attending or a drop in the quality of facilities, which will damage the west's competitive edge in high technology.

How so? The reason that third world students come to the West for technical education is that their own countries lack the means to provide that education. The limitations of non-Western higher education systems would keep them running behind regardless.


Regardless of direct financial consequences, this would constitute a crippling brain drain for the west. We're already running low on hard-science graduates as more and more people opt for, haha, "degrees" in media studies or art history.
Source:http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9895/math.htm


1. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The US job market in hard science fields is very tight (primarily due to outsourcing those jobs to foreign countries), and the pay and benefits in relation to costs of an advanced graduate school education are not favorable. Foreigners will work for less than Americans and Europeans, so those fields become less appealing. If the job markets weren't flooded with foreigners willing to work for 20-30% less than their native born counterparts, Americans and Europeans would make the investment in a hard science graduate education in much larger numbers. This is one of those 'jobs that Americans won't do' arguments that is really a 'jobs Americans won't do on the cheap' argument. Tech companies have extremely high profit margins, they can absorb the cost of paying all their workers at the going rate for Americans in the field.

2. You seem to be ignoring the big picture in this argument, which is that I don't care about maintaining a high-technology existence, and, in fact, want to see it rolled back to protect humanity from its own overconsumption.

The west isn't training enough doctors. In the UK they're paid the same wage as doctors born here.

Which is a **** wage in comparison to the cost of eduction due to the NHS.

As for the US:
Source:http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=20&artnum=2&issue=20060606
Admittedly an article attacking the notion of universal healthcare, but the figures stand. "By 2020, the U.S. could be short 90,000 to 200,000 doctors, Merritt, Hawkins estimates."

The US has and will continue to have plenty of native borns to fill the specialist positions, oncologists and the like, who make enough to more than compensate for the costs of education. The problem is for GP's, who by and large don't. The solution is pretty simple though. The state needs to subsidize the cost of education for all med school students. If the cost of becoming a doctor goes down, you'll have a lot more people going into the field. We have an RN shortage too, which could at least be partially alleviated through the same means. Especially if the state would partially underwrite salaries as well to make it a more financially lucrative option.

Wait. How do you know how much undocumented workers are being paid? That's like saying "unreported crime is on the rise". There are no figures.

Simple, we know what companies in fields that primarily employ immigrant (often undocumented) labor are paying. And while it's less than they used to pay (in fields like construction and warehouse work), it's still well above minimum wage.

Source: http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/60009
Specific to Utah, but makes an important point. Particularly the "agricultural labour" native-born workers don't want to do. Lose them, and you might see that grain surplus diminished.

Grain crops don't rely on immigrant labor, which is mostly reserved for labor intensive 'picking' crops like lettuce and fruit, which Americans could easily afford to pay more for, and would. Staples aren't labor intensive. They're grass man. You sow it, you grow it, you mow it.

Hubris. You may be able to hermetically seal borders against people getting in, but do you propose you also stop people leaving?

If the jobs are HERE, they won't have to leave on contract work abroad, and they won't. And how do you square this with your notion that all these foreign countries would suddenly cut off all trade contacts with the West if the West brought its immigration policies in line with the immigration policies already practiced by the rest of the world.

You're right on the first point, although it's an interdependence. That's the heart of globalisation. By the way, america's not the only country with a surplus. The eastern-european nations have been over-producing grain for years

Not in quanities large enough to make up for American grain if it were taken off the market.

and India has a mountain of the stuff:

India remains a net grain importer, however, and this will only get worse as its population grows AND the country continues to put most of its resources into urban technological infrastructure. It produces surpluses that it cannot deliver even to home markets because it lacks the internal infrastructure for distributing and storing surplus. The government isn't investing in developing this infrastructure because it is, for the time being, simply cheaper to buy American grain. The problem for India is that they are experiencing explosive population growth and, at the same time, their agricultural labor force is shrinking due to economic boom in the cities. Agricultural production and the ability to distribute it are not likely to keep up with increased demand, and it is highly unlikely that the government will take the necessary steps to shore up the infrastructure.

As for China...
Source: http://www.inquit.com/chinas-food-imports-in-perspectiv (http://www.inquit.com/chinas-food-imports-in-perspective)e
[quote]

This is actually something I've studied fairly intensely, and I disagree with the article's conclusions. China's agricultural shortfalls are related in part to the rising demands of wealth, but they are primarily the product of structural deficiencies in the post-Reform Chinese economy. The government poured enormous resources into modernizing China's urban regions and particularly into developing the nation's high tech capabilities, totally ignoring the agricultural sector, which has continued to muddle along with equipment and techniques that were obsolete at the time of Mao's death in 1976. Their agricultural techniques are MUCH more labor intensive than those of Western nations, but the combination of China's one child policy and the economic explosion in the cities has combined to reduce the rural agricultural labor force. There's no way that China can keep up with domestic demand unless it makes fundamental changes in how it allocates its resources internally, and it won't do that so long as high tech industry for the foreign market remains the goose that laid the golden egg. This is precisely the same phenomenon we saw in China during the last great wave of globalization (the 1920s), and when the crash came, the results were catastrophic (and, ultimately, resulted in the Maoist triumph).

[quote]But can US farmers survive without selling their grain to the third world?

As I've already indicated, the third world can't get by without US farmers. They're in no danger.

Addressed above. I think China and India could survive without US exports, and even if they experienced a deficit that might threaten their political stability (which would have to be huge, China is a very stable country, much more so than your average western liberal democracy)

What the hell are you talking about? China has endured multiple civil wars since the mid 19th century alone. We're less than 20 years removed from a massive internal dislocation that had to be suppressed with the full weight of the PLA. There are seperatist groups active in the northwest, and outside of their traditional heartland, the Han Chinese are HATED by the many ethnic minority groups. If someone has told you that China is more stable than Western liberal democracies, you've been sold a bill of goods.

On what do you base the 10% figure?

The very worst years of the Depression saw unemployment rise to 22%, and the US economy is far more resistant to massive dislocation than it was in those days. A rise to 10% would see unemployment go up my more than 100%, that's a huge jump. I just don't see even the worst trade war having anything like the kind of adverse consequences that the Depression.

Did I mention Mexico? Or Honduran? My point was we rely on China, India and Russia.

Immigration from these countries to the US is negligible. Your whole theory relies on the Chinese, the Russians and the Indians being willing to cut themselves off from Western markets if the West closes its borders to third world immigration.

My particular example was Russian oil and gas. If we close our borders to these countries it'll be taken as a snub, which it is.

And how would closing the borders to IMMIGRATION be a snub to Russia? The Russians don't care about immigration, they care about access to markets. You're spinning a nightmare fantasy on the basis of a reaction that would never occur.

These nations tend to be very capricious. I wouldn't be so quick to predict the actions of peoples who change their leaders more often than most people buy new jeans.

Russia has had two leaders in the last 15 years. China has had the same ruling cabal since 1977. Both countries have latent instabilities that could easily explode into civil war granted the right impetus (and Western countries cutting off immigration from nations that aren't Russia or China isn't going to be one of them), but neither of them is 'capricious' or unpredictable on the world stage.

There have been countless instances of western business having their fingers burned in the developing world by assuming their rules work the world over.

Sure, corruption in the developing world can bite big time, but saying that China is corrupt is not the same as saying that the Chinese government will act counter to its own interests just to spite the West. There aren't any altruists in the Beijing regime (or the Kremlin, for that matter).



My point is that closing western borders could have a dangerous geo-political domino effect. Not to mention that the chinese elite aren't likely to take kindly to being denied the priviledge of buying a New York summer pad or sending their children to Oxford, Harvard or MIT.

How would closing the borders to permanent immigration accomplish any of that? Not to trade. Not to student visas. Not to tourism. PERMANENT IMMIGRATION.

You're talking out your ass.

It'll be hard for the west to impose its will on the world, or maintain its various economies without young people.

You seem to operate under the notion that I give a rat's ass about maintaining Western hegemony and hypertechnological society. I don't. I couldn't care less.

The pensions alone could throttle even the most advanced state, and who'd serve in the armies?

The US is already moving towards fielding a robot army, they're talking about shipping 10,000 of the things to Iraq. But that's really a side issue. I WANT to see the collapse of the current social and economic order. It is necessary to preserve a future for humanity.

It's all well and good to demand smaller ecological footprints in the west by letting the population wither, but that's not going to stop China building cheap coal-fired power stations or dumping arsenic in the rivers.

The incentive to do so goes away when the markets do.

In the west we're developing technologies to reduce our carbon footprints, from sequestering carbon for clean-burning coal to perfecting solar power, Germany has made some marvellous advances in this field.

Sure we are, but reducing carbon footprint in world with 10 billion humans won't matter. You can't reduce carbon footprint faster than population growth, and there's no political will in the biggest offenders (the US chief among them) to implement technological changes anyway due to the expense. The Western lifestyle is fundamentally unsustainable. It requires far too much in the way of space, food and energy outlays. These are all finite, and all come at the cost of the natural environment.

And none of that addresses the problems of feeding, clothing and housing an exploding third world population without destroying ecosytems to do so, even if we don't take into account THEIR desire to live at a Western level.

Also, the middle classes seem to have taken up the eco-cause with avengence and any reader of decent socio-political literature will know that once the middle classes care, the gears of government start to grind into action.

The cream of the middle class was fired up about Maoism in 1968 too, but guess what, we're not addressing our heads of government as Comrade Chairman...

Agreed. But, how would you rather do it? The complicated way of sophisticated psychological and emotional attack on the common people through the media, celebrity endorsements and the twin evils of lobbyists' rhetoric and political self-interest or just killing everybody? Guilt, shame and duty mould the public mind and once you have a grasp on that, you can do more than simple destruction ever will. (copyright, Niccolo Machiavelli)

First step: remove the hand of pity. If Africans starve, they shouldn't have overgrazed their habitat. If ghetto children can't get medical care, well, that's a side effect of having children you can't afford.

Second step: education

Third step: a sensible program of eugenics

Hypertechnical society is all that can save us at this point. There's a famous quote by someone I can't quite remember the name of, but it runs something like: "There are two cliff faces, between which there is a void. Technology has built a bridge of light half-way across and we now stand directly over the maw."
We can't return to the side we started at.

Sure we can, we just have to kick the dead weight off into the chasm.

Most credible scientists agree that the ecological damage we have inflicted has reached the point of no return. Fish stocks have largely dropped below sustainable, global warming has reached the dreaded feedback point where carbon sinks start releasing carbon without human intervention and we can't sustain half the world's population without GM crops.

Then let them starve. It doesn't take nearly as much to sustain a population of 2 billion as it does to sustain a population of 7 billion. Long term, we probably need to get down to about half that (1 billion) and keep it there through strict monitoring and eugenics. If we don't, well, at that point, we're extinct so I guess it doesn't really matter.

How would you find the best 20%? Geniuses don't arise from particular social groups or backgrounds.

Not actually true, as IQ distributions will show you.

nor are those who score best on IQ tests.

Of course they are. Intelligence is the single most important factor (though you would want to screen out people with serious congenital physical or mental health problems) in human survival.

The actually skilled people reside in the lower socio-economic groups and the knowledgeable in the higher.

The intelligent can become skilled, the stupid will never be be knowledgeable. That's what education is for

I understand you have a certain disdain for the people at the bottom, but without them you couldn't survive.

Sure I could, I already grow or hunt about half of what I personally eat, and could manage the rest easily if the need arose.

The Enlightenment'll only be dead when the majority of the west doesn't confuse its fundamental philosophies for timeless virtues.

The Enlightenment is already dead among those that matter. Whe cares what the peons in flyover country believe?

Anyway, I thought National Socialists were keen on Nietzsche. You're letting your side down.

It's an analogy, not a statement of faith.

[Yoda]

It's not popular, but you have to look at things holistically. Human life at the individual level is a meaningless thing. The species matters. Cultures matter, but people individually? Not very much. When weighed against the future, what do a percentage of the lives of the present really amount to? Again, not very much.
Why? Why does "the species" matter? If you care so little for the individual, why do you think so highly of a mass of individuals? What makes the human race as a species greater than the sum of its parts, which you find eminently discardable? I see absolutely no reason why a person should care about human life in general when they do not care for it individually.

You're not going to live to see the survival or destruction of mankind, so why do you give a damn?

Here's what I think. If you've got people dying of famine, or fighting a bloody war over water and food, or a massive pandemic, that's a message from nature, and the message is, "There are too many people living here, it's time to thin the herd." The problem of pity is structurally akin to the problem we frequently face with wildfires; misplaced altruism now frequently means the coming disaster is made worse by several orders of magnitude. Technological society can temporarily sustain far more lives than could ever be sustained in the past (and 'temporary' could be quite a long time), but entropy being what it is, all it does is delay the big die off, and ensure that it will be more catastrophic when it DOES come.
I think this is a perfect example of just how tangled someone can get in their own convoluted ideology.

As you say, thermodynamics tell us that the extinction of the human race is inevitable (from a materialist's point of view, at least). You use this to demonstrate that we must allow some people to die and suffer now. Why? To ensure the survival of a species that you admit is doomed to suffer one way or the other. You claim that, unless we discard our pity and euthanize now, the suffering will be "more catastrophic when it DOES come."

But if the minimization of suffering is the ultimate goal, advocating that the species survive in the first place is counterproductive. The only way to avoid it is to preemptively kill ourselves before the "big die off." Any argument based on the prevention of suffering is self-contradictory.

I see little more in your worldview than a mangled web of motivationless goals. Survival for its own sake, and the sacredness of the collective without any regard for an individual's humanity. A level of respect for "nature," but apparently no regard for the self-evident truths our own nature screams at us when topics like eugenics are discussed.

[7thson]

I suppose it's easy to 'deflate' an argument if you 'prick' the jokes and ignore the argument.

No it was more like joking with the prick ;)

[Purandara88]

Why? Why does "the species" matter? If you care so little for the individual, why do you think so highly of a mass of individuals?

Individuals are interchangeable, and extinction is a rather permanent phenomenon.

What makes the human race as a species greater than the sum of its parts, which you find eminently discardable?

The only inherent value is living itself, and, in the long run, that's a question of species not individual survival. Any individual can be replaced, they are not necessary, but life in aggregate is irreplaceable. Once it's gone, that's it.

I see absolutely no reason why a person should care about human life in general when they do not care for it individually.

It's not that I don't care about individuals, it's that I care more about the whole. The life and comfort of one individual is of no real concern when weighed against the lives and comfort of all humans to come. The humane thing to do is not to focus obsessively on the individuals alive right now, but to take the steps necessary to ensure that the most humans live the best existence for the longest time. If that means trimming the population now to avoid crises later, so be it.

You're not going to live to see the survival or destruction of mankind, so why do you give a damn?

Selflessness and nobility. I have it, most don't. It's a pity, really.


As you say, thermodynamics tell us that the extinction of the human race is inevitable (from a materialist's point of view, at least). You use this to demonstrate that we must allow some people to die and suffer now. Why? To ensure the survival of a species that you admit is doomed to suffer one way or the other. You claim that, unless we discard our pity and euthanize now, the suffering will be "more catastrophic when it DOES come."

Death is certain. Suffering is not. What is certain is that continuation of the present course will result in total death and total suffering. Why make the crises more terrible, more agonizing than it has to be?

But if the minimization of suffering is the ultimate goal, advocating that the species survive in the first place is counterproductive. The only way to avoid it is to preemptively kill ourselves before the "big die off." Any argument based on the prevention of suffering is self-contradictory.

Not at all. Some level of suffering is unavoidable, even suicide has its costs. The idea is to sustain life and minimize suffering for as long as possible. It's not infinitely sustainable, but it's better than continuing to forge a path where we create a situation that is pure misery for 10 or 12 billion people, and wreak such havoc that there is no recovery, not only for humans, but for any other life.

I see little more in your worldview than a mangled web of motivationless goals.

All goals are 'motivationless' in the sense that there is no larger meaning than existence itself. That doesn't mean we can't provide our own meaning and motivation.

Survival for its own sake, and the sacredness of the collective without any regard for an individual's humanity.

'Humanity' is nothing special or sacred, it is life and nothing more. Why should I value a human life more than any other life? If a human lives and a million other creatures die so he can have suitable plastic baubles to fill his emptiness, why should I celebrate that?

A level of respect for "nature," but apparently no regard for the self-evident truths our own nature screams at us when topics like eugenics are discussed.

Perhaps your nature is so weak that it 'screams' when faced with the hard choices, but my constitution isn't so limited. Necessity must trump emotion. Otherwise, we will fail those who follow us.

----

Of course, the reality is that nothing will be done and the best we can really hope for is less than total disaster and the possibility of salvaging a future from the ruins.

[Yoda]

Individuals are interchangeable, and extinction is a rather permanent phenomenon.
This does not even remotely answer my question. Neither does this...

The only inherent value is living itself, and, in the long run, that's a question of species not individual survival. Any individual can be replaced, they are not necessary, but life in aggregate is irreplaceable. Once it's gone, that's it.
...or this...

It's not that I don't care about individuals, it's that I care more about the whole. The life and comfort of one individual is of no real concern when weighed against the lives and comfort of all humans to come. The humane thing to do is not to focus obsessively on the individuals alive right now, but to take the steps necessary to ensure that the most humans live the best existence for the longest time. If that means trimming the population now to avoid crises later, so be it.
...or this...

Not at all. Some level of suffering is unavoidable, even suicide has its costs. The idea is to sustain life and minimize suffering for as long as possible. It's not infinitely sustainable, but it's better than continuing to forge a path where we create a situation that is pure misery for 10 or 12 billion people, and wreak such havoc that there is no recovery, not only for humans, but for any other life.
WHY? You continue to avoid the larger question of why, in an empty, purely material world, life itself is a good thing. Why is it good to exist? Simply because you desire to? Give me a reason, devoid of emotion or instinct, why the existence of intelligent life (or any life, for that matter) is "good." Better yet, explain to me what your standard of "good" is, given that you do not believe in right and wrong. Good to whom? Some humans over others?


Selflessness and nobility. I have it, most don't. It's a pity, really.
It would only be selfless and noble if you deemed yourself one of those who ought to die. Advocating the destruction of large swaths of people you've deemed useless does not involve any sacrifice on your part, and therefore is not selfless or noble.


All goals are 'motivationless' in the sense that there is no larger meaning than existence itself. That doesn't mean we can't provide our own meaning and motivation.
If "existence itself" is a sensible goal, then from what grounds can you criticize people who wish to continue existing? You continually ascribe some mystical value to future life as if it is inherently superior to the lives being lived today. All this talk of "the species" ignores the fact that "the species" is comprised of individuals. What reason do you have for valuing a human life 5000 years from now over one today?


'Humanity' is nothing special or sacred, it is life and nothing more. Why should I value a human life more than any other life? If a human lives and a million other creatures die so he can have suitable plastic baubles to fill his emptiness, why should I celebrate that?
If you find it entertaining, and truly believe the Universe is merely "emptiness," then why shouldn't you? You're trying to project morality in a very selective way, and it doesn't make sense.

You advocate an emotionless, rigidly logical approach when deciding how to handle humanity's problems (current or future), but you seem completely unaware of the fact that your rationale is just as emotional as the "pity" you deride. What logical reason do you have for wanting to prevent human suffering after you've died? I can see none.


Perhaps your nature is so weak that it 'screams' when faced with the hard choices, but my constitution isn't so limited. Necessity must trump emotion. Otherwise, we will fail those who follow us.
But you are not trumping your emotions. You're merely choosing one instinct (and one generation) over another. You've yet to explain why it is "weak" to value those who live today, but "selfless and noble" to value those who do not yet exist.

[Purandara88]

WHY? You continue to avoid the larger question of why, in an empty, purely material world, life itself is a good thing. Why is it good to exist? Simply because you desire to? Give me a reason, devoid of emotion or instinct, why the existence of intelligent life (or any life, for that matter) is "good." Better yet, explain to me what your standard of "good" is, given that you do not believe in right and wrong. Good to whom? Some humans over others?

Life explains its own value. We live an existence devoid of meaning except existence itself. The will to survive is built in, an inherent part of that existence.

It would only be selfless and noble if you deemed yourself one of those who ought to die. Advocating the destruction of large swaths of people you've deemed useless does not involve any sacrifice on your part, and therefore is not selfless or noble.

Sure it does. It is far easier to simply avoid the hard questions, and sacrifice to step up and embrace them, despite personal or emotional costs. No one will ever thank you for it, and it is an enormous burden. That is always the cost of leading.

[Purandara88]

You advocate an emotionless, rigidly logical approach when deciding how to handle humanity's problems (current or future), but you seem completely unaware of the fact that your rationale is just as emotional as the "pity" you deride. What logical reason do you have for wanting to prevent human suffering after you've died? I can see none.

As I've already indicated, life itself is logic enough, we are compelled by nature to value existence, therefore, existence has value independent of moral judgment. I only follow the internal logic of evolution, no emotion required.

[Yoda]

Life explains its own value. We live an existence devoid of meaning except existence itself. The will to survive is built in, an inherent part of that existence.
You're describing instinct, not logic or nobility. You instinctually feel that the human race surviving is a good thing. This does not set you apart in any way, shape, or form, from those who feel that their existence explains its own value. Your choice remains arbitrary, and the justification you've offered above is blatantly circular.

Sure it does. It is far easier to simply avoid the hard questions, and sacrifice to step up and embrace them, despite personal or emotional costs. No one will ever thank you for it, and it is an enormous burden. That is always the cost of leading.
No, it doesn't. You are not sacrificing in any tangible, observable way. If you want to make the claim that simply admitting that people need to die (even if you're not one of them) is somehow "noble" and entails an unverifiable psychological sacrifice, than the internal nature of your claim makes it impossible to disprove. It also sounds intensely silly to declare your own psychological discomfort noble in the face of those who would actually have to suffer and perish for your admittedly meaningless goal.

[Purandara88]

You're describing instinct, not logic or nobility. You instinctually feel that the human race surviving is a good thing. This does not set you apart in any way, shape, or form, from those who feel that their existence explains its own value. Your choice remains arbitrary, and the justification you've offered above is blatantly circular

Instinct is reality. Morality, on the other hand, is invented and reinvented by every generation. There's nothing 'arbitrary' about reference to manifest reality.

Will and desire are likewise inherent to being, and thus of inherent value. Morality is not.

[Yoda]

As I've already indicated, life itself is logic enough, we are compelled by nature to value existence, therefore, existence has value independent of moral judgment. I only follow the internal logic of evolution, no emotion required.
Nature compels the people you'd like to extinguish to continue existing, yet you think it necessary to override that compulsion.

Clearly, then, you believe that in some instances, logic can and should override our natural impulses. How, then, can you pretend that simply holding the impulses you do is reason enough to listen to them?

[Purandara88]

No, it doesn't. You are not sacrificing in any tangible, observable way. If you want to make the claim that simply admitting that people need to die (even if you're not one of them) is somehow "noble" and entails an unverifiable psychological sacrifice, than the internal nature of your claim makes it impossible to disprove.

The willingness to make those choices is inherently self-sacrificial. Just by declaring that willingness, I sacrifice the approval of many people. I have scorn heaped on my head (as this thread proves) I could avoid the questions entirely and retain that esteem and good will, but I choose to be honest instead. That is self-sacrifice in the purest sense.

It also sounds intensely silly to declare your own psychological discomfort noble in the face of those who would actually have to suffer and perish for your admittedly meaningless goal.

They'd perish anyway, and probably suffer. I could easily avoid the scorn of the short-sighted, but I choose the path of nobility instead.

[Yoda]

Instinct is reality. Morality, on the other hand, is invented and reinvented by every generation. There's nothing 'arbitrary' about reference to manifest reality.
"Instinct is reality" is vague and meaningless at best, and nonsensical at worst. People override their instincts in reality, as well, and I'll bet we can pinpoint any number of instincts you don't think so highly of. Thus, instinct is not its own justification.

Will and desire are likewise inherent to being, and thus of inherent value. Morality is not.
And why is everything "inherent to being" necessarily of value? You're just giving me "it's turtles all the way down (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down)" responses.

[Purandara88]

Nature compels the people you'd like to extinguish to continue existing, yet you think it necessary to override that compulsion.

No, our nature compels us toward the survival of the species, which is why we have an altruistic element in our personalities at all.

[Purandara88]

And why is everything "inherent to being" necessarily of value?

Simple, that which is inherent to being is fundamental to existence itself. In a purely material world, only the material facts of existence have 'value' (that is, a mechanical importance, value as a 'spiritual' concept is rendered meaningless in this context).

[Yoda]

The willingness to make those choices is inherently self-sacrificial. Just by declaring that willingness, I sacrifice the approval of many people. I have scorn heaped on my head (as this thread proves) I could avoid the questions entirely and retain that esteem and good will, but I choose to be honest instead. That is self-sacrifice in the purest sense.
This scorn is easily offset by the self-indulgence you tolerate in yourself in return. Scorn is not quite the sacrifice you claim it to be, for the same reason death is not so large a sacrifice for someone who thinks themselves a martyr. When you take pride in "making the hard choices," you've setup a scenario wherein the scorn you receive only multiplies your pride. The fact that you've gone so far out of your way to describe your sacrifice supports this. It's quite a little loop you've set up there.

[Yoda]

No, our nature compels us toward the survival of the species, which is why we have an altruistic element in our personalities at all.
And you wish to override that altruistic element (which exists next to, and not instead of, our desire for self-preservation, which is undeniable). Thus, my question (which you ignored) still applies:
"Clearly, then, you believe that in some instances, logic can and should override our natural impulses. How, then, can you pretend that simply holding the impulses you do is reason enough to listen to them?"

[Purandara88]

This scorn is easily offset by the self-indulgence you tolerate in yourself in return. Scorn is not quite the sacrifice you claim it to be, for the same reason death is not so large a sacrifice for someone who thinks themselves a martyr. When you take pride in "making the hard choices," you've setup a scenario wherein the scorn you receive only multiplies your pride. The fact that you've gone so far out of your way to describe your sacrifice supports this. It's quite a little loop you've set up there.

I feel no particular pride, only sadness that many can't seem to get beyond the simplistic "But we have to love everyone" phase.

[Yoda]

Simple, that which is inherent to being is fundamental to existence itself. In a purely material world, only the material facts of existence have 'value' (that is, a mechanical importance, value as a 'spiritual' concept is rendered meaningless in this context).
Again with the turtles. I asked you why existence is valuable, and you told me it's because it is inherent to being. So I asked you why something inherent to being is valuable, and you say it's because it's fundamental to existence. It's demonstrably circular.

[Purandara88]

And you wish to override that altruistic element

Not at all, I merely wish to broaden the horizons of altruism by looking beyond the emotions of the moment.

[Purandara88]

Again with the turtles. I asked you why existence is valuable, and you told me it's because it is inherent to being. So I asked you why something inherent to being is valuable, and you say it's because it's fundamental to existence. It's demonstrably circular.

No, I didn't. I pointed out that your concept of 'value' has no place in a purely material universe. The 'value' of instinct is purely mechanical - it preserves existence, which is why it is a part of existence in the first place.

The internal logic of a closed system (like the universe) is always going to be 'circular' in the sense that it is ultimately self-referrential.

[Yoda]

Not at all, I merely wish to broaden the horizons of altruism by looking beyond the emotions of the moment.
You're sidestepping the issue again. We have many instincts, one of them is self-preservation. You have claimed that, logically, we should override this instinct to satisfy another: the preservation of the species. Thus, I repeat my question for the third time:
"Clearly, then, you believe that in some instances, logic can and should override our natural impulses. How, then, can you pretend that simply holding the impulses you do is reason enough to listen to them?"

[Yoda]

No, I didn't.
Yes, you did. Direct quotes, with sources:

ME (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showpost.php?p=332526&postcount=44):
Why is it good to exist?

YOU (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showpost.php?p=332527&postcount=45):
The will to survive is built in, an inherent part of that existence.

ME (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showpost.php?p=332529&postcount=47):
You're describing instinct, not logic or nobility.

YOU (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showpost.php?p=332530&postcount=48):
Will and desire are likewise inherent to being, and thus of inherent value

ME (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showpost.php?p=332534&postcount=51):
And why is everything "inherent to being" necessarily of value?

YOU (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showpost.php?p=332537&postcount=53):
Simple, that which is inherent to being is fundamental to existence itself.

After all this, you are still left with the baseless presupposition that existence is of value. Why? Because your instincts tell you it is. That is what is behind the curtain of your alleged "logic" and nobility: an instinct which, like any instinct, simply desires to be satiated. Your personal impulses do compromise a reasoned, rational argument, let alone justification for the eradication of billions of people.

I pointed out that your concept of 'value' has no place in a purely material universe. The 'value' of instinct is purely mechanical - it preserves existence, which is why it is a part of existence in the first place.
That's why it exists. Not why it is good, or desirable, or why people should be expected to sacrifice their lives for it.

The internal logic of a closed system (like the universe) is always going to be 'circular' in the sense that it is ultimately self-referrential.
That's right. The sensible thing to do, then (apart from renouncing all this silliness), is to follow your materialism through to its logical conclusion and stop trying to pretend that a logical reason for your goals exists. It doesn't.

[Purandara88]

I've never argued that logic should override instinct, just that it should guide our various instincts in complimentary directions (for instance, by widening the temporal horizon of the altruistic impulse, which is a subsidiary of the larger survival instinct).

[Purandara88]

That's why it exists. Not why it is good, or desirable, or why people should be expected to sacrifice their lives for it.

'Good' in a material universe is entirely mechanical, in this case, continued survival. The instinct to preserve the species creates its own imperative, independent of any 'good' or 'reason' or 'purpose.' Any other course leads either to premature death or to psychological dislocation.

Is it arbitrary? Yes, but it's an arbitrariness of reality, rather than of construction (like gravity or the speed of light).

[Purandara88]

Err, this is not an argument that can continue.

I bow to your superior logic. Next time, I'll stake out a defensible position when I'm looking to amuse myself.

[Krackalackin]

'Democracy' as such is invariably traced to the Greeks, specifically to classical Athens. Typically it is translated as 'rule' or 'leadership of the people,' with the root 'demos' being rendered as "people" and the second root 'kratos' being rendered as 'rule' or leadership.'

In fact, while 'demos' came to mean 'the people,' it originally referred (as in Homer) to those who collectively controlled a territorial unit, specifically, to the aristocratic warband that surrounded a Mycenean king or chieftain. In other words, 'demos' refers not to the people as a whole, but to the army. Which of course, is fitting, because the voting citizenry of the Athenian democracy consisted solely of the men of the army, the propertied men who could afford the full panoply of the hoplite infantryman.

As for 'kratos,' the rendering 'rule' or 'leadership' softens its actual meaning, which is 'power' or 'force' (specifically, force of arms).

In a literal sense, therefore, 'democracy' ultimately means 'the [coercive] power of the army.'

Not much has changed, really.

Damnit! I missed a great argument!! :bawling: