Does Plato's Republic Propose A Rigid Class System?

Come on hundreds of thousands people in harm way compare to hundreds and billions of property damage compare to millions.

Those farmers should be made whole however it would be insane not to flood farmlands in order to save population centers.

Is this extreme weather going to continue? We've had a lot of flooding over here in the last few years, but we're not that far from the sea, yours hasn't got anywhere else to go. Is what we're calling flooding today going to be called a lake in fifty years time?

The flooding in Canada is an historical imperative which cannot be avoided--there were more than 160 floods considered disastrour in the 20th century in Canada. This just happens to be the first time that a decision was made to do the least harm to the fewest people.

In the Missouri-Mississippi-Ohio river system, levees have been built for upwards of two hundred years to protect property and fields, with the result that the water just gets shunted downstream. Further complicating the problem is the unrealistic fight of the Corps of Engineers to keep the Mississippi in its current river bed. Since the 1811-12 earthquakes, the Corps of Engineers has worked to attempt to keep the Mississippi in historical channels or to move it back to its historical channel (c.f., Robert E. Lee building wing coffer dams on the Illinois side to move the river back toward St. Louis, which otherwise would today be 15 miles or more from the river).

After the eathquakes, the river "wanted" to move into an old channel in the Achafalaya bayou. At that time, there was a centuries old deadfall which blocked entrance to the Achafalaya basin, but the Corps knew that the relentless action of the river would undermine it, the river would go into that channel, and Baton Rouge and New Orleans would have been left high and dry. So, eventually, the Old River Control Structure was built, and this is just one more factor which sends millions of cubic feet of water hurtling downriver to the Gulf, with Baton Rouge and New Orleans in its path.

The best thing to do would be to remove all the levees, and sorry 'bout your luck to those who have chosen to build in bottom land along the rivers; and then, too, to blow up the Old River Control Stucture and let the river go where it wants to go--Baton Rouge and New Orleans be damned. Of course, as that's the sensible thing to do, it won't get done.

Come on weather had been kicking human ass since there been human ass to kick.

When I first learned about Plato in high school, I was disappointed by the division of human beings into gold, silver, and iron or brass.


thats not quite the whole section 415b

to add

True, I replied, but there is more coming; I have only told you half. Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently.

Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxillaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children.

But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son.

And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race.

They should observe what elements mingle in their off spring; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honour, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed. Such is the tale; is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it?

Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons' sons, and posterity after them.

I see the difficulty, I replied; yet the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another. Enough, however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of rumour, while we arm our earth-born heroes, and lead them forth under the command of their rulers.

I wasn't offering a judgement Bill. I was simply comparing the hegemony of city over countryside over 2.5 thousand years using two objective situations.

The danger to BR and NO is surely caused by economic growth being had on the cheap. You have defined "insane" as a city man would naturally do.

The teaching of evolution in schools looks to be a similar case of the city dominating the countryside. So here is "social evolution" setting aside real evolution. And once you do that it is then necessary, in order to be consistent and avoiding the charge of hypocrisy, to discuss religious belief from a social evolution point of view as well. Which City-media does not wish to do.

Science doesn't switch from one discipline to another to suit circumstances.

I can't see that the people of BR and NO were in harm's way with a fortnight's notice. It is just the property. If they were in harm's way then so are the people living on the artificially flooded land. They are thrown in the river because the cities lost their bet. Plato vindicated.

Nonsense and there would had been no Plato in the first place without him living in a culture that had gone far beyond farming and toward major population centers.

Second the bulk of the human race are now living in areas of the planet that without the "artificial" tools of clothing and fire buildings and shelter buildings would be dead within hours or at most months.

So why are dams and flood walls and other such technology to allow us to live in a place we normally could not live any difference then the technology to created and handle fire?

We still have not learn to handle fire with complete safety but it is far too useful and needful to give up and so is the technology to control flooding so we can build cities near rivers.

Sometimes as a result we end up needing to allow farm land to flood instead of population centers where the act of relocating millions of people would one way or another likely cost the lives of more people then the number who are living in those farm lands even with our technology.

But Plato's culture tanked. The city is deadly. It sucks until there is nothing left to suck on. It's insatiable.

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So you wish us to go back to being hunters/gathers in small tribes with an average life span of less then 30 years?

Even being low tech farmers end up needing the support of populations centers.

That's what we are evolved like isn't it? If social evolution is your game why do you use natural evolution to discredit religion? From what you say Bill you should discuss religious belief from an exclusive social evolution point of view. And recommend others do the same. Otherwise some of us might think that you use natural evolution as a trick to discredit religion for personal reasons. Social evolution provides evidence that religion is fundamental to society and that organised religions are city based.

Spendius said

the city dominating the countryside

Does it now, most of the ordinary people were booted out of the countryside and into the city by the Enclosure Act. Half of the countryside is owned by people with swank apartments in Mayfair. You try telling that to people on my estate, (council) as opposed to your estate (probably Herefordshire.)

We need cities to exist as anything but hunters/gathers however it is not proven that we need religions in any similar manner.

In fact so far it would seem we are evolving away from such silliness with special note to Europe and it sharply declining believers populations.

We are going back into English history to 1773 or so?

Look Bill--"silliness" is an assertion. You can't say religion is silly and then base an argument on such an important matter on it being silly. It's circular. When it comes to nonsense that's the real deal. It's really silly.

Scientific advice on diet would lead to a sharp decline in food consumption but that decline would not mean food was going out. That you live in a Christianised society might allow you to engage in activities which Christians don't approve of. You have no scenario in which everybody engages in those activities in an atheist world. You're comparing a fantasy with reality. You're having a free ride and playing at ducks and drakes with the future.

I am when I lock horns with Spendius.

I'm from the North West. The home of the industrial revolution. Winners of the FA Cup and the Premier League. We are being milked by fat cats in the south.

Ten or so years ago Lancashire was the most productive county in the UK both industrially and agriculturally. At the time our infant mortality rate was double that of bloody Herefordshire.

They even gerrymander our constituency boundaries to stop us having marginals. And no sooner do our MPs get to Westminster than they sell out to the flesh pots which are in plentiful supply in the sordid south. They even have to rig the banking system to keep going. And the housing market.

That makes my point.

Any belief system that is on the same logic and commonsense level as a believe in the tooth fairy is on it face silly.

No logical holes at all in so stating.



I live in a society who major founders such as Jefferson was far far from being Christian and who limit the abilities of Christians in the Constitution to interfere with us non-Christians.

A charming habit that they had been guilty of for most of their two thousands years history up to burning people alive to save their souls.

Now they are limited to such nonsense as trying to have pseudo-science taught as science in the public schools but given a free hand I am sure they would get those fire going again.

Your response would have greater credibility if you bothered to vote. As for the recent footballing success, again we're talking about rich overseas owners. If there was any justice in this world Stoke would have won. By the way I think you're losing focus. We're supposed to be discussing society, yet you seem to be describing your ideal woman. I quote,

It sucks until there is nothing left to suck on. It's insatiable.

There is not a soul alive who votes and retains credibility. Elections are for betting on. Plus other amusements.

Rich overseas owners are like sheep entering the shearing shed.

Stoke were second best throughout.

Discussions about society which eschew sport are crabbed and nowhere more so than in England.

My ideal woman scares me rigid.