General butthurt & pc faggotry etc

[calaverasgrande]

that is some ignorant shit there.
For example, do you think all of the mega-temple complexes in India were built during a period of economic stagnation?
India has had many prosperous epochs. The emperor Ashoka for example ruled over a large part of India, had vassals in neighboring countries and is largely responsible for the spread of Buddhism to countries in SE Asia.
Africa also has had many advanced, economically well off empires. Even when there weren't any white guys to show them how!
Egypt is in Africa you know. So is Tunis and Algeria. So was Carthage. It's not all just mud huts and zebras.
Both of those places were doing stuff like alphabets and math and chemistry when Northern Europeans were living in thatched huts with their livestock. Covered in fleas and excrement.
I say this as a nominally northern European guy myself. In the long lens of history we have mostly been shit streaked barbarians. Which I kind of think is funny.

[GEWALTMONOPOL]

It's not all just mud huts and zebras.

True. There's famine, corruption, poverty, genocide and epidemics as well.

[Fluid Fetish]

that is some ignorant shit there.
For example, do you think all of the mega-temple complexes in India were built during a period of economic stagnation?
India has had many prosperous epochs. The emperor Ashoka for example ruled over a large part of India, had vassals in neighboring countries and is largely responsible for the spread of Buddhism to countries in SE Asia.
Africa also has had many advanced, economically well off empires. Even when there weren't any white guys to show them how!
Egypt is in Africa you know. So is Tunis and Algeria. So was Carthage. It's not all just mud huts and zebras.
Both of those places were doing stuff like alphabets and math and chemistry when Northern Europeans were living in thatched huts with their livestock. Covered in fleas and excrement.
I say this as a nominally northern European guy myself. In the long lens of history we have mostly been shit streaked barbarians. Which I kind of think is funny.

I was going to bring this up as well, but I'm not the most well versed in Indian history, but to say that African and India have never been better off then they are now is utterly preposterous. I think people often forget Egypt is in Africa for some reason...

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

that is some ignorant shit there.
For example, do you think all of the mega-temple complexes in India were built during a period of economic stagnation?
India has had many prosperous epochs. The emperor Ashoka for example ruled over a large part of India, had vassals in neighboring countries and is largely responsible for the spread of Buddhism to countries in SE Asia.
Africa also has had many advanced, economically well off empires. Even when there weren't any white guys to show them how!
Egypt is in Africa you know. So is Tunis and Algeria. So was Carthage. It's not all just mud huts and zebras.
Both of those places were doing stuff like alphabets and math and chemistry when Northern Europeans were living in thatched huts with their livestock. Covered in fleas and excrement.
I say this as a nominally northern European guy myself. In the long lens of history we have mostly been shit streaked barbarians. Which I kind of think is funny.

I get the feeling you don't get what I'm saying. All these empires you are listing still had populations with an average life span of about 30-35 years, massive infant mortality and unheard of levels of violence. The quality of life in these areas NEVER matched even the crappiest states in Africa today.

Do you seriously entertain the notion that the places you discuss were "prosperous" in the sense that Western Europe and the US became prosperous from the 19th century onwards, and in the sense that most other portions of the world have become (slightly less) prosperous by adapting Western technology and social innovations? You do realize that fucking Liberia today has an over 20 years longer life expectancy than Egypt had during the heyday of its dynasties (https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/2015/03/02/old-age-in-ancient-egypt/ - http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/liberia-life-expectancy), and that this is a direct product of Western influence and medical science? My point is not that white people have always been "better" than everyone else - that is a completely uninteresting discussion, much like the alleged superiority of the Carthaginian infant furnaces over Northern European "mud huts" two thousand years ago. The point is that Capitalism and "Western Dominance" have NOT made the Third World poor - people in these areas were always, even in times of empire, much poorer than they are today, and if you bothered to click on the links I provided on literacy, infant mortality and life expectancy you might have grasped my point. The improvement in the living conditions of people in general of the past 50-100 years are completely unmatched in history, and it is a function of the expansion through various forms of imperialism of Western technology, to a lesser extent of the market economy, and perhaps to some extent of "Western values" like democracy and egalitarianism (though I'm not really sure about that last part). This may prove to have numerous terrible consequences in the long run, but to seriously suggest that "white people" have somehow made the world poor and miserable demands a complete lack of historical knowledge. It is an opinion held by idiots and propagated by liars.

[calaverasgrande]

yeah had nothing to do with penicillin, anti-malarial drugs, polio vax or anything else of a medical nature.
I really dont give two shakes about Africa. It does seem like there are horrific places on that landmass.

I just don't like when people write off whole continents as shitty. Or propose that there is some inherent goodness in magic hand of capital.

BTW, this is not a college credit course here. Nobody is compelled to click links because they are provided.

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

yeah had nothing to do with penicillin, anti-malarial drugs, polio vax or anything else of a medical nature.

Invented and distributed to the world largely by which civilization and sociopolitical system?

My point is not really to write off any particular continents. My point is that to the extent that life is about things like avoiding hunger and starvation, avoiding being randomly beaten or executed by Elephant and to be able to read and buy some stuff for yourself, Western dominance has been far more a good thing than a bad thing. This does not exclude various forms of radical criticism (overpopulation, the possibility that nationalism and the will to be autonomous as a collective is actually MORE important to people even than prosperity, the sneaking suspicion that once you have all this stuff you become so alienated and cynical that you're actually worse off... There's lots of takes). I'm basically not "defending Capitalism" either, it just disgusts me to see the the Left bitch about things which it should be ecstatic about, and pretend like white people invented or is even particularly prominent when it comes to historical or contemporary oppression.

If oppression and plunder by themselves made cultures prosper, the world would be ruled by Saudi Arabia and pirates.

[Andrew McIntosh]

If oppression and plunder by themselves made cultures prosper, the world would be ruled by Saudi Arabia and pirates.

Isn't it?

[calaverasgrande]

I've long been of the opinion that Marxism is an excellent critique of capitalism, but an awful idea about how to fix things. It seems there are a few Norse countries that have done a swell job of mixing capitalism and socialism. But they also have fucktons of some national resource to fund that. And a stable, generally docile society.

I do know that pax Romana, pax Germania and Pax Americus are all doomed to inevitable failure. Empires depend upon expansion and wars. They need to fuel the war industry. They need to steal, instead of negotiate for, resources. They need a populist mandate to justify their empire. I find it hard to think of any empire that was just, free and generally a good thing. All of them became horribly corrupt. In this you find a commonality with socialist nations like USSR, China and Cambodia. When you concentrate all of the power in one place, genocides, pogroms and other abuses happen.
The one thing that capitalism has over pure socialism is that the adversarial relationship between public and private keeps anyone from getting an upper hand for long.
I dont know maybe Jacque Fresco and his resource based model is the eventual way to go. Good luck getting there with the human nature of greed and avarice not getting in the way.

[tiny_tove]

I've long been of the opinion that Marxism is an excellent critique of capitalism, but an awful idea about how to fix things.

.

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

If oppression and plunder by themselves made cultures prosper, the world would be ruled by Saudi Arabia and pirates.

Isn't it?

My heart is surely ruled by that beautiful ne'er-do-well Jack Sparrow, so I guess you just closed the damn thread.

[Andrew McIntosh]

Even capitalists (the more thoughtful and honest ones) admit that Marx had their system worked out. If he was smart, he would have stopped short at analysing and critiquing. But, alas, he was that most horrible of humans, a humanist. He tried to come up with a "solution" and the rest is history. Bloody, oppressive, corpse-piled, gulag-stuffed history.

My heart is surely ruled by that beautiful ne'er-do-well Jack Sparrow, so I guess you just closed the damn thread.

By definition, anyone who has the cut-throat gumption, drive, will, desire and self-obsession to make themselves top maggot in the shit heap has the heart of a pirate. From African war lord to sheikh of Saudi Arabia to CEO of Money International to alpha dog of the biker or street or prison gang - pirates, the lot. Civilisation owes a great deal to the pirates of humanity. They are the do-ers, the go-getters, the achievers, the day-seizers, the ones who are out there making it while the rest of us just dream. It's only right we accept their rule.

[Duality]

But, alas, he was that most horrible of humans, a humanist. He tried to come up with a "solution" and the rest is history.

Any political philosopher who offers a solution to our problems is a humanist. From the extreme left all the way to the extreme right, people offer ways for humans to coexist. Even the most discriminatory dictator that murders people for the colour of their skin (or whatever), believes in a very specific form of humanism, that a certain type of human should be protected, and that certain type of human can coexist with others of his type. Sadly, it seems that humans can't coexist, not just because of the colour of their skin or religion or whatever, but because they are human. It's probably a rather gloomy way of looking at it, but its the only true way to look at politics, I think.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

This seems rather inaccurate. It would be foolish to say humanism covers any idea what comes from mans brain. There is rather clear meaning for the word. If someone offers solutions what exclude emphasis on the value and agency of human being, setting values and action with barely emphasis on traditional humanist values as freedom and rational progress, there is no reason to call it "humanism".

Perhaps this is simply the disappointment how every humanist agenda provides failure and every anti-humanist ideal provides uncomfort and misery for lesser men who seek comfort and happiness?

[Duality]

This seems rather inaccurate. It would be foolish to say humanism covers any idea what comes from mans brain. There is rather clear meaning for the word. If someone offers solutions what exclude emphasis on the value and agency of human being, setting values and action with barely emphasis on traditional humanist values as freedom and rational progress, there is no reason to call it "humanism".

Perhaps this is simply the disappointment how every humanist agenda provides failure and every anti-humanist ideal provides uncomfort and misery for lesser men who seek comfort and happiness?

What I meant, and perhaps didn't state clearly, is any ideology that places value on any human life, is humanism, at least by my definition. Even the elitist dictator places a value on his life, and maybe some of his countrymen. Not traditional humanism but still what I'd call humanism. Not every idea from a man's brain is humanism, but almost all political ideology has some form of humanism.

Of course humanist agendas fail, it's only natural that any ideology that propose good for all men ( and women, whatever) will be conquered by those ideologies that don't. The less moral an ideology, the more likely it is to succeed, which is why capitalism reigns supreme. And as for being disappointed with humanist agendas, that would imply I had any expectations for them in the first place.

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

The less moral an ideology, the more likely it is to succeed

Hence the massive success of North Korean necrocratic Stalinism...

Seriously: no. The more realistic an ideology, the more likely it is to succeed. Morality may enter into it, but is not essential. Modern welfare state capitalism, with its combination of state "public relations" (propaganda), free market production/consumption and huge leeway for personal and (in the case of the US) even collective quirks and nonsense are largely adapted to how human beings work, and hence very durable. And it's certainly not the worst, though equally certainly not the best possible (which is probably pretty terrible too, but that's another story).

Inventing an ideology based on a type of human being that never was and most likely never will be, and then blame everyone else for failing to conform to one's own fantasies, is stupid. Communism and its various cousins aren't "good theories that don't work in practice". They are shit theories, and that is why they don't work.

If people like to own their own stuff rather than share it with every other asshole on the planet, then they should. People not too fond of "diversity"? Let them live where they want, and fuck diversity. Is it good if people share part of their resources, so others don't starve? Is there a point to know at least something about the people on the other side of the bridge? Probably and probably, so let's work with that, then. While human egoism and shortsightedness is probably a source of much suffering, on a political level the human will to spread its fantastic ideas about how to make everything much nicer for everyone is certainly pretty close to the top of the evil chart.

We are never really "good" except in concrete interaction with people we actually interact with. Making up redistribution schemes and bitching about how human beings fail to live up to our own "ideals" has nothing to do with morals, or even being a relatively decent human being. Which is probably why so many left wing people are complete and utter assholes in every respect; because they think their opinions make them good people. No opinions make us any better or worse by themselves, our behavior (and, perhaps, our internal state of mind) does.