[Unknown Target]

How about setting up collectives in more developed countries to send food and supplies to the protesters camping out in Tahrir Square?

[redsniper]

The elite don't give a **** about you. They don't give a **** about you. They don't give a **** about you. Or me. Or anyone but maybe their families and buddies. Nothing will ever be achieved by trying to convince the political and corporate elite to act in the interest of human society. They don't give a **** about society. They got theirs so **** you.

The real problem at the root of all our societal woes is human greed and selfishness, and those won't go away any time soon. To really solve all this ****, you'd have to fundamentally restructure society, and you'd have to somehow work it around greed so that greed works to society's advantage somehow.

Hell if I know how to do it though.

[General Battuta]

Radical posthuman engineering!

[redsniper]

Or put JC Denton/Helios in charge.

[Unknown Target]

The elite don't give a **** about you. They don't give a **** about you. They don't give a **** about you. Or me. Or anyone but maybe their families and buddies. Nothing will ever be achieved by trying to convince the political and corporate elite to act in the interest of human society. They don't give a **** about society. They got theirs so **** you.

The real problem at the root of all our societal woes is human greed and selfishness, and those won't go away any time soon. To really solve all this ****, you'd have to fundamentally restructure society, and you'd have to somehow work it around greed so that greed works to society's advantage somehow.

Hell if I know how to do it though.

The writers of the Constitution did that with the three branches of US government; they counted on people's desire for power to keep the branches separate, as any movement of one branch to gain power would encroach upon another's.

As for your first point; that honestly is something that's in all parts of the US society, and frankly it annoys me greatly. I actually had someone flat out say to me "while your idea sounds great, I don't see any gain for me or my family so why should I do it" - of course, not realizing that a gain for all is a gain for them too.

The problem with US politics atm is that everyone's been sectioned off into their own little interest groups so all they care about is them and their own, and they don't see any reason to change. Some people say that it's human nature. I'm not like that, and I know a lot of other people who aren't like that either. Unless you want to start saying you're human and people who care about other people somehow aren't human, then you've got to deal with the fact that it's YOU who's the greedy bastard, and you can't hide behind a limp wristed excuse of "oh it's human nature, we're all greedy".

For the record that "you" isn't directed at you redsniper. Just in general, in fact it's more directed to the person I'm referring to, if anyone.

[General Battuta]

I think one error in your reasoning may be that you think something is wrong now as if something's changed from 100 or 200 years ago.

[redsniper]

The writers of the Constitution did that with the three branches of US government; they counted on people's desire for power to keep the branches separate, as any movement of one branch to gain power would encroach upon another's.

As for your first point; that honestly is something that's in all parts of the US society, and frankly it annoys me greatly. I actually had someone flat out say to me "while your idea sounds great, I don't see any gain for me or my family so why should I do it" - of course, not realizing that a gain for all is a gain for them too.

The problem with US politics atm is that everyone's been sectioned off into their own little interest groups so all they care about is them and their own, and they don't see any reason to change. Some people say that it's human nature. I'm not like that, and I know a lot of other people who aren't like that either. Unless you want to start saying you're human and people who care about other people somehow aren't human, then you've got to deal with the fact that it's YOU who's the greedy bastard, and you can't hide behind a limp wristed excuse of "oh it's human nature, we're all greedy".

For the record that "you" isn't directed at you redsniper. Just in general, in fact it's more directed to the person I'm referring to, if anyone.

No, people are all greedy bastards for the most part. That's my point. No matter how many times you overthrow the government or bourgeoisie or whoever, the system that replaces it will end up just as bad, as evidenced in the beginning of this thread.

The other thing is, it's easy to be nice to the people you know, and to the people you interact with day-to-day. Those bastard CEOs and politicians I'm railing on, are probably quite decent people in person, at least some of them. For all I know they could be great spouses and parents BUT I would also say with confidence that most of them wouldn't bat in eye if hundreds of their employees had to be laid off, wouldn't pause for a heartbeat to let thousands of third-worlders die if it could boost their profits by a few fractions of a percent.

Talking, voting, killing can't fix any of that. I figure you have to either harness those bad qualities of people somehow or find a way to drive it home that ALL people are worth treating well, some way to get that feeling of in-person interaction, but with everyone.

[ssmit132]

The other thing is, it's easy to be nice to the people you know, and to the people you interact with day-to-day. Those bastard CEOs and politicians I'm railing on, are probably quite decent people in person, at least some of them. For all I know they could be great spouses and parents BUT I would also say with confidence that most of them wouldn't bat in eye if hundreds of their employees had to be laid off, wouldn't pause for a heartbeat to let thousands of third-worlders die if it could boost their profits by a few fractions of a percent.

Talking, voting, killing can't fix any of that. I figure you have to either harness those bad qualities of people somehow or find a way to drive it home that ALL people are worth treating well, some way to get that feeling of in-person interaction, but with everyone.

I read a good article about the problem with Dunbar's Number on Cracked once. It's just so easy for most people to not care about other people's feelings if you don't interact with them personally, which as you say we need to try to change.

[redsniper]

I've noticed the internet sort of helping with that. Sure it helps lots of people to be complete dicks anonymously, but it also helps show that most people around the world want more or less the same things. I mean right here we have people from all over the place united by a common love of blasting Shivans, you know?

[ssmit132]

Indeed, which can only be a good thing. Of course, there's still a long way to go and you'll always have one or two people who will be not nice to others because they can be anonymous, but yeah.

Perhaps I should have put "society" or something instead of "we", since I didn't mean that HLP itself had problems with it.

[Scotty]

So then what do you define as useful talk, Scotty?

There is none.  Action is direct, talk is circular and accomplishes nothing useful.  What form the action takes is another question.

[Bobboau]

so talk of the form "go perform this action" to which the other person responds positively, is not useful?

[Scotty]

Of course not.  No action has taken place.

[Mars]

Of course not.  No action has taken place.

I think you might be a little confused here.

Without words, action would be impossible to coordinate.

[redsniper]

This thread is turning dumb. You need both talk and actions. You need talk to plan your actions, but then you must actually act on your talk. Talk without action is useless.

[Scotty]

Talk without action is useless.

This is more what I meant than what I said.

[Unknown Target]

My greatest issue at the moment is that I have absolutely no cash. I still haven't been able to find a job to support myself during the summer, and many others I know have the same problem.

I doubt that I'm the only one with this issue. It's kind of a cyclical problem; the people who would be most willing to try radical change can't do it without monetary resources, and half the reason they're willing to try that chance is because they don't have those resources. :\

Personally I don't know what to do about it.

[Kosh]

My greatest issue at the moment is that I have absolutely no cash. I still haven't been able to find a job to support myself during the summer, and many others I know have the same problem.

I doubt that I'm the only one with this issue. It's kind of a cyclical problem; the people who would be most willing to try radical change can't do it without monetary resources, and half the reason they're willing to try that chance is because they don't have those resources. :\

Personally I don't know what to do about it.

Except that once you get monetary resources you have a vested interest in things as they are, and seek to resist change.

So what can you do? Run.


EDIT: One thing that needs to be pointed out is that the elites also use their control over the media to actively manipulate public opinion towards their ends.

[Mars]

My greatest issue at the moment is that I have absolutely no cash. I still haven't been able to find a job to support myself during the summer, and many others I know have the same problem.

I doubt that I'm the only one with this issue. It's kind of a cyclical problem; the people who would be most willing to try radical change can't do it without monetary resources, and half the reason they're willing to try that chance is because they don't have those resources. :\

Personally I don't know what to do about it.

Except that once you get monetary resources you have a vested interest in things as they are, and seek to resist change.

So what can you do? Run.

Only if you want to keep them.

[Unknown Target]

Aye. I only want those said monetary resources to work towards not needing those resources anymore. I would much prefer to live with no money than to acquire money and struggle to keep it or grow it for the rest of my life.


What I would love to do is get enough people together to start a self-sustaining community. The idea being that a lot of people (myself included) can't afford to go off and protest for days because they're to worried about losing their job or not being able to feed themselves. A self sustaining community would allow people to do this - it would provide a safety net so that people can actually get out there and start working to make things better.

In terms of protests, I had the idea to set up a protest camp in the middle of a city and keep this sort of sustaining thing going, with the aim of staying there until goal of X is accomplished. Beyond that then I would hope to get a voice to actually say "look at all these good ideas we can do" or at least get some sort of real discourse at the upper levels going, by real experts (not just "experts") who are willing to try new ideas. Look at nuclear power in new ways, in solar power in new ways, in education in new ways. Basically people that are willing to let go of the last 50 years of history and try again.
The world is really stuck in a false Cold War mindset and it's strangling us.