Monday's Rant

Thanks for your in depth analysis/rebuttal CDK. It certainly goes a long way to shed light on this issue Rolling Eyes

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It certainly does. It illustrates your insistence on the either/or when it is logically inappropriate.

In any case I did rebut an earlier post of yours after which you simply disappeared for a few days. So I do not think that explaining it in length is of help with you.

The indictment of your either/or logic when dealing with things not mutually exclusive is not something that needs much explanation.

And it does shed light on the logically flawed argument you proposed by illustrating said logical deficiency.

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Noah The African wrote:

My simple proposition is that when humans see other humans as competitors, due to a culture that promotes hyper competition to fuel economic activity via materialism and status, then humans will not be their brothers keepers and attempt to help better the lives of the disadvantaged or unfortunate.

Well...this is not a simple proposition at all -- although it is an interesting one.

Unfortunately, you have involved so many variables in this one paragraph that your underlying thesis gets short changed.

And some of your reasoning does not necessarily follow.

Humans can see other humans as competitors, for instance, and still "make attempts to help better the lives of the disadvantaged or unfortunate" -- even if only for self-interest motivated purposes.

You seem like an intelligent person who is allowing a huge chip on the shoulder to circumvent a reasonable discussion of reasonable gripes about the society in which we find ourselves.

Clean up your arguments. Try less editorializing while making the initial presentation.

Everyone should be convinced by now that you are articulate and can put together a coherent, well-worded written advocacy. But you are all over the goddam place -- and your editorial coloring gets in the way of understanding the issue you want to discuss.

Or at least that is my opinion.

For the record:

If you are saying that life is not fair -- I agree.

If you are saying that capitalism as practiced in the United States has lots of faults and may make life even more unfair (unnecessarily) -- I agree.

If you are suggesting remediation, I don't see it.

But then again, as I've probably made clear, your lack of focus doesn't lead me to want to deal with your observations.

AND I WOULD LOVE TO DISCUSS THIS WITH YOU.

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Given your puerile postings, NtA, i'd say i know at least as much economic theory as you, and likely a good deal more. As for capitalism, you don't belong in the same room with me on that topic--you've already displayed a profound ignorance of history; what you do claim to know about history is questionable at best.

You've not answered my questions. I didn't expect that you would. That your response opens with an attempt to slur my knowledge does not surprise me in the least. It is the source of my insulting riposte. You get out of these forums what you put into them.

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Frank, I am well aware that humans can see others as competitors and work to help the disadvantaged, however, it is a conflict to the first law of nature, which is self-preservation or selfishness. It is not a general rule to find people who truly value rank in human competition threatening their own rank by assisting others. Sure, they can help people, but not to the degree that threatens their rank. I am not talking absolutes as your rebuttals assumes. I am talking about the preponderance of the general rule.

Furthermore, do not try to handle me or control the way that I chose to present my thesis. I respect intellectual repudiation when it is the form of not simply saying what is wrong, but detailing what is right. If you do not know what is right, you cannot tell me that I am wrong.

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Noah The African wrote:

Frank, I am well aware that humans can see others as competitors and work to help the disadvantaged, however, it is a conflict to the first law of nature, which is self-preservation or selfishness. It is not a general rule to find people who truly value rank in human competition threatening their own rank by assisting others. Sure, they can help people, but not to the degree that threatens their rank. I am not talking absolutes as your rebuttals assumes. I am talking about the preponderance of the general rule.

Furthermore, do not try to handle me or control the way that I chose to present my thesis. I respect intellectual repudiation when it is the form of not simply saying what is wrong, but detailing what is right. If you do not know what is right, you cannot tell me that I am wrong.

Have it your way, Noah.

Sounds like you don't even realize the bare essentials are not working.

But perhaps your intentions are not to discuss or persuade -- but merely to rant.

If so, allow me to apologize for my earlier remarks -- because you are succeeding beyond reasonable expectations.

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Frank...are you done intellectually masturbating yourself? Have a cigerette....

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Frank has a point. The important thing of a debate is how you present your arguments. Since this thread started, i've barely seen anything that was on topic. They merely commented on the way you post and presentation.You may be knowledgable, you may even be right, but as a debater you suck.

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I am curious Noah...where in Africa do you live?

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My my. we seem to have gone quite around the barn from our opening remarks there noah. Arguing about who knows moree about a particular economic theory isnt the point. Your broad brushed droppings shouldnt be passed off as anything profound when evidence to refute it is all over. You provide evidence, then we have a discussion. right now, you sound like my Uncle stash. Although a very intelligent man and a PHD degreed scientist, he hated Navajo Indians. When questioned hed come up with all sorts of big bore statements (kinda like yours) and thats when I learned that intelligence and wisdom dont always go hand in hand.

frank has been a noble wind of reason in this Bash noah thread. Im sorry I joined in , cause I thought there was a way we could connect. However I see this going the way of many threads ,
opine
gang up
divert
hijack
occasional redirect
continued hijacking
thread puffs out like a light bulb

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What farmerman said....if Noah is too blind to see Frank's olive branch, this thread warrants no more attention. Once again, Noah posts with huge pre-suppositions, and we are all wrong before we even have to post.

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I liked the discussion about Toronto, though . . . as digressions in a hopeless rant thread go, it was rather nice . . .

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Dang, Setanta, you just reminded me....my sommelier's fiance worked with me on Saturday, and told me about a great authentic, homestyle Italian restaurant that we are planning to go to, all together with Mrs. cav and Zoltan the sommelier, but for the life of me, I can't recall the name. I'll have to find out again. She said that the aroma when you walk in is unbelievable.

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this is most likely the last time I'll bother to read anything of yours Noah, that's more than 2 paragraphs long. So, let's have at it, shall we?

Quote:

Having status and feeling good about oneself in this culture is largely relative, with resulting in a hyper competition for rank

I am motivated to 'feel good about' myself simply because of my nature. My status is life is well below that of a lot of people I know, and that doesn't make me feel back. When I think about success, it's in relation to what I feel is a success to my life on a personal level, not in relation to what I've seen as evidence of success in the lives of other people.

Quote:

" It is not that I must succeed, it's that others must fail".

Because I have a knowledge (albeit not extensive) of notable Africans, I know of Hannibal. This is his view - not the view of everyone, and I doubt is the view that many who 'succeed' in life are taking. Not the 'reasoning' of their succeeding.

Quote:

At that instant, your first thought is likely to be that you have failed and, consequently, not likely feeling very good about yourself. However, you later learn that your 65% was the highest score of the class and miraculously. you know feel better, even though your absolute performance is the same. Why? The reason being is that much of the way we feel about ourselves is due to our relative rank when juxtaposed with others. Had you scored 100 on the exam, your initial reaction would be a good feeling. However, if you then learned that everyone scored 100, and then your good feeling would likely be reduced.

I get a yucky feeling when I do bad on a test no matter HOW many people did or did not do bad and the opposite is true when I do well. My gut feeling is that if you do bad or well on a test, your feeling about that is based on how well you know you could have done and other personal issues with you and the testing subject. Not "i feel good cause everybody else got failed the test worse than i did"

Quote:

This is all due to the nature of seeing other humans as competition.

Uhm.....I see other humans as ........dare I say???? HUMAN. Often times, I see them as friends and neighbors - not people I'm competing with.

Quote:

The act of seeing other people struggle often makes us feel sympathy, but also fortunate or better about our lives in comparison

No, seeing people who are less fortunate than myself doesn't make me feel better (or worse) about my life. It makes me appreciate my life, certainly, for what it is and it serves to check me when I think about things that I can do when providing a future for my children.

Quote:

Implicit in the social and economic hierarchy is the assumption that higher order and rank is due to superiority in effort and or intellect, in other words, working harder and smarter.

What's wrong with this??? People who work harder & smarter are of course (most of the time) on a higher level of 'success' or in society. If I went to a university (which btw, i did) and so did person A, why would I begrudge person A their 100,000/yr job because I didn't do what I was supposed to do while in school and have a less financially 'high end' job? Effort + Work=Success. This, of course, is not refuting the fact that some people are where there are because nepotism (and I know black people who've benefitted from nepotism also).

Quote:

Thus, if one is not a member of the disadvantaged group, they are by default, a member of the advantaged and thus benefit.

How does this jibe with your whole AA thread? You basically say that black people deserve Affirmative Action (see how I did that in less than 10 paragraphs??? it can be done Noah) anyway. That puts us all inthe 'disadvantaged' group, yet here you say we don't benefit from anything, because we're not part of the advantaged'. Doesn't Affirmative Action give us an advantage? That's what it' supposed to do, right?

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Now, I have to go home and take care of my motherly & wifely duties. I'll finish my comments later this evening. Be looking Noah, alright?

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You go sister onyxelle. Well put. Hope I'm not making you bad again. Laughing

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Zoltan the Sommelier!!!

i can see him standing there, cape in the wind , in front of the maple leaf. Bringing truth, taste, and fair exchange to the parched Canadians.

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The ladies love him, farmerman, good for business, even if he is spoken for. :cool:

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Umm, no, he's not Mrs. cav...no cape or anything, just really really good-looking, not to mention talented, and with a heavy Hungarian accent. He worked a catering with me for my folks, and mom took him on a tour of their place. Dad says to Mrs. cav "I knew the first place she would show him would be the bedroom."

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Craven `s words are pithy and not stay away from the topic.

Why discuss white, brown, black (bear) here? Jeez~~

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Noah The African wrote:

This is partly why there can never be true healing and reconciliation between the races in America, because it is a conflict to the nature of competition to help people who will then use that assistance to compete against you and possibly alter your relative status and rank.

So how do you explain the existence of scholarships for minorities, job training programs, and public schools that are primarily funded by the oppressive majority?

Noah The African wrote:

Thus, the current problems of African Americans are purposely placed in a vacuum unrelated to the prior 300-year history in this nation, as if to say the present is not related to the past and that black problems today are the creation of blacks today.

Yeah, well, women have been oppressed longer than blacks. Get over it. Slavery has been outlawed for 140 years, discrimination for the last 40 years (I'm not saying that it does not occur sometimes, just that it is illegal). Isn't it about time you stopped whining about history and realized that many of the problems you face today really ARE created by blacks - today?

Noah The African wrote:

Consequently, if education is demanded in the economy and the supply of educated people does not meet demand, then those with education benefit from the increase premium from the misfortune of those without education.

What a load of crap. Those with good jobs (usually with an education) are the ones paying for schools, health care, welfare, social services, police, and everything else for those who failed to acquire sufficient education or job skills to support themselves and their families. It does not make me feel good to know that children suffer because they were born to uneducated parents of any race.

Educated people are not a manufactured commodity. When a free public education is available to EVERYONE regardless of race or economic status, anyone who remains ignorant does so by CHOICE. For higher education there are scholarships, grants, loans, work study programs, community colleges, libraries, and plenty of people who will help you - if you have even average intelligence and willing to work.

I don't know why many black children do worse in school than white children, even in schools with black teachers and administrators where they are in the majority. How do YOU explain it? Granted that economic status is correlated with scholastic success (the best predictor for scores on statewide school assessment tests here is the number of free lunches served), but the real disadvantages for poor children stem from the attitudes associated with poverty.

IMO, it is a lack of motivation, not ability. Root causes include negative peer pressure and parents who do not value education enough to ensure that their children show up for classes prepared to learn (on time, homework done, clean, fed, dressed, enough sleep, good attitude and behavior, drug-free, not distracted by events at home). If the black community would address these issues instead of blaming whites for their "misfortune" they might get somewhere.

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