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"Maher"
Jedi Knight
Joined September 2005, Proud padawan of Laziana, Grandpa of Senatu Family
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Elessar - Student 
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You are old, Grandpa Maher
a poem by Lewis Carroll, edited by Elessar ‘You are old, Grandpa Maher,’ the young man said, ‘And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head - Do you think, at your age, it is right?’ ‘In my youth,’ Grandpa Maher replied to his grandson, ‘I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again.’ ‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door - Pray, what is the reason of that?’ ‘In my youth,’ said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, ‘I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box - Allow me to sell you a couple?’ ‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak - Pray how did you manage to do it?’ ‘In my youth,’ said his grandpa, ‘I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life.’ ‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose - What made you so awfully clever?’ ‘I have answered three questions, and that is enough,’ Said his grandpa; ‘don’t give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!’ _______________ The Senatu philosophy: every JKA player is essentially a baboon who likes to hit stuff . -Senatu brother to Buster and Dracolich. -Proud owner of Draco's 50th, 99th, Degor's 500th and Maher's 3519th comment! -Proud owner of the last word in the everlasting conversations with Maher. This comment was edited by DJ Sith on Mar 26 2010 05:04pm. |
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Laziana - Jedi Instructor 
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Merry Christmas, Maher  _______________ Proud owner of Buster Senatu's 200th & 300th, Muro's 370th, Maher's 2100th, Henkes' 1639th, Johauna's 400th, 666th and 900th, Sho Koon's 2000th and Kain Sol's 600th comment Download Laziana's lightsaber here! Glory to Arstozka! |
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Siren_Mintaka - Student 
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The concept, as outlined by Marx is that at first there has to be a temporary elite group of leaders that gets phased out as the community decides they no longer need a leader. Were there a leader, not everyone would be equal  .
- Rin _______________ Former padawan of RoseRed, and cofounder of the Wii! Triumvirate! Quote: In the words of Old Ben, "Not as retarded or as stupid as a public, but an elegant community for a more civilized age." - Jedi_Pimp
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Siren_Mintaka - Student 
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True communism assumes that in a group of people, no one will attempt to lead or gain power. That just kind of goes against what people need. People would gather around someone regardless of whether they wanted to be followed or not- and people would either try and blatantly gain power, or do so using more... subversive or sneaky methods...
- Rin _______________ Former padawan of RoseRed, and cofounder of the Wii! Triumvirate! Quote: In the words of Old Ben, "Not as retarded or as stupid as a public, but an elegant community for a more civilized age." - Jedi_Pimp
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Siren_Mintaka - Student
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Of course I define communism at the route- Marx would probably kill himself were he alive today and saw the Chinese and North Korean perversion of his ideals.
As for human nature, I don't really know all that I feel about it- it's a tricky thing. I do, however, find myself somewhere between the conflict and functionalist theories, if you know anything about sociology. - Rin _______________ Former padawan of RoseRed, and cofounder of the Wii! Triumvirate! Quote: In the words of Old Ben, "Not as retarded or as stupid as a public, but an elegant community for a more civilized age." - Jedi_Pimp
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Siren_Mintaka - Student
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I define communism as the ideology set forth by Karl Marx and Frederick Engles.
- Rin _______________ Former padawan of RoseRed, and cofounder of the Wii! Triumvirate! Quote: In the words of Old Ben, "Not as retarded or as stupid as a public, but an elegant community for a more civilized age." - Jedi_Pimp
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Siren_Mintaka - Student
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I define communism as the ideology set forth by Karl Marx and Frederick Engles.
- Rin _______________ Former padawan of RoseRed, and cofounder of the Wii! Triumvirate! Quote: In the words of Old Ben, "Not as retarded or as stupid as a public, but an elegant community for a more civilized age." - Jedi_Pimp
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Siren_Mintaka - Student
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Quote: Rin... [Communism] works in small communities...
These people has cut out theirselves from the system, some are completely and some are partly... And well, we are just exchanging ideas with Amik in healthy manner, no personal offense has intented at any part... I just meant that the concept of Communism goes against human nature .
- Rin _______________ Former padawan of RoseRed, and cofounder of the Wii! Triumvirate! Quote: In the words of Old Ben, "Not as retarded or as stupid as a public, but an elegant community for a more civilized age." - Jedi_Pimp
This comment was edited by Siren_Mintaka on Dec 14 2009 05:09pm. |
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Dash Starlight - Jedi Instructor 
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That's good to hear. Yeah, these are busy times indeed, but the Christmas holidays will make up for 'em  _______________ The name is Bond. James Bond. |
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Dash Starlight - Jedi Instructor 
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Hey Maher, it's good to hear form you. I'm pretty good, thanks for asking. Things are busy with my study this week, but fortunately it'll settle down the coming weeks again. How are things on your end? _______________ The name is Bond. James Bond. |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student 
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I just don't believe communism works, that is all. Everything else is a joke. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student 
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Of course I accept, I won't hold it against you. You seem a little off ease on my view of greed so I wont make a scene out of it.
Perhaps we can continue at a later date. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." This comment was edited by Augusta_Mintaka on Nov 28 2009 06:25am. |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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Quote: Irrelevant! I have allready said my opinion about you... My way of speaking shouldn't affect you personally, anymore...
The way you speak[type] tells a lot. This was the first time you said "bull****" in our debate and it's incredibly offensive. Even if you didn't mean anything by it, it is a direct attack. Regretfully, I have to withdraw. If a debate turns into an argument then we will both seem foolish. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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I believe you pointed to greed being one of the deadly sins earlier, correct me if I'm wrong. You also said you follow these moral beliefs, so you must think it is evil.
Oh, just because you must bend to a few formalities of capitalism like buying stuff you are free of greed? By that logic you are inherently greedy regardless because you live in a capitalist society. Maher, that is just an excuse really. If you want to do more, then put forward ALL of your spare time and resources towards it. Avoid capitalism, it is very possible. You can just go into the forest, gather food and distribute it to people who need food. It sounds absurd, yes, but you are trying so hard to avoid the simple fact that you are greedy just like me. If you want to be a martyr then I present you a paradox. That means you want to leave behind your real loved ones for a spiritual cause, which is also greedy. When you are a child, you help with whatever skills you already have. A baby likely doesn't have enough self awareness to help, but it does have many many needs to fulfill. A six year old can pick up trash instead of play video games. You can give your time talking to the homeless, that's not stupid. We have social needs, after all and the homeless often are exiled from working class society. If you believe my belief in greed being an instinct is wrong, you could have just respectfully disagreed. That is quite an offensive way to put it. That's like if I said you were a moron for your beliefs. This is what separates an argument from a debate. Mutual respect of stances and if you cannot come up with a reason to refute my claims, you can kindly withdraw and I will respect your decision. I don't respond to you to prove I am right, just to see if you have anything to say which might change my stance. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." This comment was edited by Augusta_Mintaka on Nov 27 2009 11:54pm. |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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Who said it had to be official charity? You could simply purchase groceries, like I said, and give it somebody you know needs them. It's as simple as that, no need to go through the administrative fees of a charity. Isn't that just an excuse for greed? Saying giving to charity is just a way to buy good conscience... I disagree completely. It is "A" way to buy your way to heaven, so to speak, but it is not the only reason. You can simply give to charity out of plain logic which is objective:
"I will give anything over my needs to charity because other people have needs which they cannot meet. If I have free time which I cannot make good use of, I will aid with distributing surplus goods to those who I know need them." The fact which you will refuse to be a martyr is greedy too. What if sacrificing your life will do JUST a little more good than if you lived through your entire life? There is no escaping greed, Maher. Whatever reason you have for not donating all your spare time and capital will inevitability lead to greed. This is where I tell you greed is not necessarily bad. Albeit not a godly trait, it is useful for a reason. I'm not sure if you just resent calling it greed because you have related the word to evil, but we all succumb to its use. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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There is a way to devout all your money and resources which you do not need in an affective manner. Ignorance of the way to do so, I say that in a non offensive manner, is not an excuse. You are still greedy just like me and almost everybody else in the industrialized world simply because you live beyond your needs.
For every instance where charity would have just made a situation worse for a person, there are dozens where it would have the situation better. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." This comment was edited by Augusta_Mintaka on Nov 27 2009 08:37pm. |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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Come now, Maher, you know greed is almost absolute around the world. You do not even explain why you don't devout your extra money to charity besides saying you want to help them in more concrete ways. I believe you can go buy food from a super market and drop it off at a homeless shelter. That is a very concrete way. Care to explain why you do not do this with ALL of your disposable income? I'll explain why I don't: because I'm moderately greedy. I like my designer jeans...new computers...etc.
I am quite sure you have disposable income at one point. Unless, for some strange coincidence, you make exactly the amount of money it takes for you to live to the penny. Is that what you imply? I don't exactly say greed is good, but I say it is wrong to see it as pure evil. I have said again and again, greed is a human trait which we should direct for better outcomes. Can anything be ONLY evil? I believe everything is a mixture of both and Greed is quite even in that sense. Greed augments our survival instinct, we subtly use it constantly. I'm short for time so I'll leave it at that. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." |
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Masta - Jedi Council 
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Well, China's growth is undeniably present - tt's very rapid as well as sustained. However, it is also unequal and uneven with major tensions between the coastal vs mainland and urban vs rural areas. Nevermind the huge challenges that China faces: environmental issues, the state owned enterprise problem, demographic and social problems, i.e. lots of inequality, poverty, displacement and unemployment.
China's obviously on the rise, but it's still got a long way to go. _______________ Find out more about the Jedi Academy Aurochs here and more about Masta here! Married to Kain. |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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You feel no greed, do you? Then why don't you give away every penny you have which will not go towards meeting your basic survival needs to charity?
Perhaps you are completely numb to greed, but that does not mean it is not present. Greed is universal and we all show it. Some are not aware, some have no ill intentions whatsoever, it does not matter. Unless you have the opportunity to live beyond your needs and completely reject doing so, you possess greed. By completely I mean C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E-L-Y. No buying tv, books, what have you. They meet wants, not needs, and paying for them instead of giving to the needy is greedy. Do you see how hard it is to avoid greed? If having needs is an instinct, going beyond those needs is part of your instincts. We can only be conditioned to suppress greed, but eliminating it requires a hard process. This can be genetic engineering, selective breeding or something which will diminish greed from our stocks. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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Maher, you're avoiding the point. This is merely about greed and I blatantly said the person was completely free of greed. Whether or not he was in a capitalist society is not of consequence because I have stated an absolute. Greed which affects the person does not come into this equation, it is HIS greed which we are looking at.
If you want to be this critical then I will make a blunt less colorful story for you. There is a man who lives in a COMMUNIST society and he is FREE OF GREED. Somebody tells him to be greedy or they will magically cause him to suffer for years in great agony. I know this story isn't realistic, but you leave me little choice. I won't reply to your criticism of capitalism because you said you wanted to switch this over to greed. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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Maher, is there any avoiding suffering? Even if you live your life in only the purest of virtues, there will still be suffering.
Let me give you this example: Say there is a man who devoted his life to helping others. Every penny he made which did not go to meeting his basic needs would go to charity. Let's also just assume there is absolutely no greed involved here, however unlikely this may be. Let's assume the government in the country he lives in requires a person to only pay for the cost of production of an item, no profit made whatsoever. One day he retires and he is diagnosed with cancer. It costs him a very trivial amount of money to treat his illness, but he does not have it because he spent his money on charity. For the next decade, he suffers is dire agony. He has others who loves him so he does not take his own life out of concern that his suicide would cause suffering for others. He eventually dies, while screaming is pain. Nobody was able to help him throughout this period of time. Because he was not greedy and did not save money beyond his needs, he was sentenced to a long and painful death. Do you believe greed, even a trivial amount, would have helped him in this case to live a better life? Oh, no thank you. I don't really wish to go on IRC. I read responses, think about them for a few minutes and type. I only use IM services for casual communication. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." This comment was edited by Augusta_Mintaka on Nov 26 2009 08:26am. |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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It's peculiar you would know of Kant, but not Mill. The two are compared complete opposites, often compared. How do you know Kant? _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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Quote: well yes, but who the heck is Mills ?
Somebody who doesn't know Mills ? I don't know if you're poking fun of me for making a simple typo or you truly do not know who Mill is. The former is rather critical of you, don't you think? I mean if I speak of Kant and I say "Mills'", then I'm sure you know I meant "Mill's". Wouldn't you find it annoying to have every typo you make to be pointed out? If you didn't know who Mill was, then you should read Utilitarianism. Although I prefer Kant over Mill, I respect his theory on morality. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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Well, actually I have read a good few pieces on conflict theorists. Still, you see, I believe in functionalism and I never really took the teachings of people like Marx to heart. I disagreed with their perspectives constantly and I never studied the dynamics of communism in earnest. After all...I only had taken two classes on sociology and two in economics. The entire subject doesn't peak my interest, but I enjoy a good debate.
I know you didn't mean to offend me, but the way you put it is very inappropriate. If we were to point out our lack of information on the subject, then this would turn out to be quite a bitter exchange, don't you agree? Moving on... You can argue greed destroyed much, but I would say it created much more. Every scientific advance made by curiosity? Then explain to me why we patent our ideas? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to let everybody experiment with it? Of course, but greed stops us from doing so and greed started a great many of these advances in the first place. Assembly line...greed Machinery...greed The internet...greed "Charles Darwin - Theory Of Evolution Albert Einstein - Theory of Relativity Stephen Hawkings - Theory of Black Holes" Do these people take credit for their accomplishments? Yes, why? They want the recognition, that is greed. Even charity is often greedy because we expect something in return, no matter how subtle it is. Some give to charity to feel as though they are "good" which assumes you are better than the "bad" and you will receive more rewards in the long run. We can easily pull out the under determination of theory and argue on this for ages, but denying that greed takes a part in all of this seems a little blind. No offense of course, but it is very blatant. Do you believe homosexuality to be scientific? Do you know research is pointing to it actually being biological pertaining to the brain? Greed is so universal that it would be hard for us to "prove" it to be biological 'for we would need people who do not carry the trait. Since everybody does carry the trait and even animals show greed, it is very acceptable to say it is a biological trait. You know what bothers me? That truly you think greed as evil. That is the kind of thinking that starts wars, causes society to step backwards due to crippling politics and creates judgmental abominations. None of which I am pertaining to you personally, but I am merely stating what it leads to. I call it an evil because that is what people define it as and there is not a better thing I can call it. Believing it is an evil is something else. Greed should be harnessed, not suppressed. It is a powerful trait which will eventually show itself in anybody, no matter how resistant that person is. In my eyes, the best thing to do is make as much good out of it as possible. Onto communism... I don't have much to add to what you just said. It was mostly about greed. If you wish to switch the debate to just greed, then I'm happy to oblige. Not both though, far too much typing. If we were to become a communist society, then I believe the world will be much worse off than it is today. There will be no starvation which places checks on the population because of that saying "to everybody his needs" or something like that. We will multiply quickly, exhaust resources far faster and I believe the lack of incentive will slow down our scientific development. I know it's horrible to say that about starvation, but one must play devil's advocate, no? I predict you will say there is incentive in things like pride and good will, illusions like that. In an ideal world that will be enough, but this is not an ideal world is it? Neither you or Masta has answered this for me yet: "Why hasn't communism worked for an extended period of time in any significant civilization?" perhaps we are not ready for communism, but when will we? _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." This comment was edited by Augusta_Mintaka on Nov 26 2009 05:42am. |
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Augusta_Mintaka - Student
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I would advise not to assume what I have or haven't read, or you will turn a debate into an argument. We are not comparing knowledge, only ideas. If you wish to compare knowledge, I'm afraid I have to ask you to cease your participation in the debate I am carrying with Masta. Just to clarify, I say "blowhearts" in satirical fashion like I always do when I speak about the UN. I believe you are aware of that.
Anyways... I push the idea of total equality so much because that is the only way communism can work in present day society. Hate it or love it, our worth is decided by our capabilities AND income. Without the latter, people will feel the former to be under appreciated. Which is why many countries face the crises of skilled labor moving to countries with a more liquid economy. Doctors are paid much more in the United States than they are in say Germany. If you even have one bit of social inequality, people will strive to have more than their neighbor. This is greed and jealousy, both will be traits for quite some time without artificial intervention. That is a debate for another time, though. Do you not see that having commons will deprive humanity of their strongest traits? I know I'm like a broken record saying this, but we NEED greed. It is what caused so many scientific, philosophical, medical and astronomical advances in society. Sure there are exceptions, some people do it purely for humanitarian reasons, but come on... the majority wish to fatten their wallets or have their clocks washed. Capitalism exploits this trait and this is why it is so successful. Do you believe the world would be better as a social economy? What will happen to the world resources? They will surely deplete much faster because hardly anybody will care. I'm sure you will say "in a communist society we will regulate our resource gathering...yada yada yada". Do you actually believe that? The same people who created nuclear stockpiles and contemplate anti-matter weaponry will care about resources more than they do now without incentive? Whether or not you agree, it is plain as day that private ownership provides us with incentive to preserve our resources. I'll admit, we could do a better job at that, but this is also another debate. I daresay that without the incentive of profit, communism will prove do be quite detrimental to the world. Like I keep saying, don't avoid the traits that humans instinctively have, USE them. Moving on, these communities you mention. I'm not sure what it has to do with today. We are becoming globalized at an accelerated rate, there will eventually be one community, mankind. We cannot run the world on a system of bartering like we would in a village. Finally, greed IS an instinct. Animals do have it... have you ever seen an animal overeat just so he didn't have to share with others? I see it all the time on the nature channel, it is quite common. The only difference between them and us is that we realize our greed, animals just act on it. We can control it to a certain extent, but we will never be rid of it. Will humans lose greed? Maybe, not likely, but maybe. It is a word because we needed a way to label it. Murder is also a word, but it represents something. The same goes for greed. _______________ "Deos fortioribus adesse." |
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Masta - Jedi Council
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(Pssst Maher, tell her that communism is by definition stateless and doesn't even involve governments!) _______________ Find out more about the Jedi Academy Aurochs here and more about Masta here! Married to Kain. This comment was edited by Masta on Nov 25 2009 09:06pm. |
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