Karl

You are transparent to me, but completely opaque to yourself. I glean your meaning on a thousand different levels that you are not even dimly aware of. I could pick any one of these, but you would not see it. You are pointing out something that is true, but you have the instinct that somehow it isn't right. You are accusing me of saying that something is untrue, but I am not, I am stating it is irrelevant. Everyone has a philosophy whether they think about it or regard it as such is irrelevant to the fact. That philosophy guides all the choices a person makes. The philosophy is composed of numerous things throughout history whether these things are right or wrong this is the view that will be held. So, if a woman has picked up part of this philosophy to mean that she should not code, or that it is a male occupation, then that's what she thinks. The fact is that coding is open to anyone, male, female, black, white, gay or straight. That's a fact, it is a concrete reality and there is no point considering why someone does, or does not choose that particular career.

Joe that just ain't right my friend. Wage suppression is a figment of the imagination. If there is more supply than demand then wages fall. Monetary expansion creates price inflation-eventually and then the chase of wage rises begins. Stagflation was a stagnant economy with rising wages and prices. This is what should have doomed Keynesian economics but unfortunately it came back even worse. Under Keynes wages and prices were supposedly 'sticky' in the reverse. Apparently, according to Keynes, manufacturers refused to cut wages and wages creating a glut of savings and low consumption. This is where the government had to intervene. Now, if you mean wage deflation, in other words rising prices destroying the value of wages, then that would be partially correct, although it does reach an equilibrium at some point. What does not reach equilibrium is taxation. As wages rise, the worker goes into progressively higher tax brackets despite the fall in the true purchasing power of his money. The Government claims this extra revenue despite the worker not actually gaining in real term wages-this does effectively push the actual value of wages lower, but the quantitative amount is still higher.

I don't know exactly how you are drawing these conclusions. Companies have a contract with their employees for a specific amount of time performing a specific task for a specific amount of renumeration. Germany for instance works shorter hours, but their employees work ethic would shock the average UK worker. There is no tossing it off and having a crafty look at Facebook or a chat with your workmate at the coffee machine. Germans workers just work and that's all, indeed there is concern that workers are now working well into their own time as they are expected to take calls at home. Its also erroneous to average these things out as if they applied everywhere and anywhere and not to take into account the productivity/ subsidies of businesses as a whole in countries.

The Russian October Revolution proved that they are difficult to defeat.

what we are 'collectively' willing to pay for. The social 'compact'. This man is an collectivist ideological idiot. He should take his sack of shit brain and emigrate to Venezuela where such ideas seem welcomed by the population. Not America. He isn't an American he is a communist.

"We have to win this thing regardless of ethics and laws" I have paraphrased, but this should be understood as the day democracy was shown as nothing but a path towards totalitarianism" If there are no laws and no morals applied to power, then we have power for the sake of power and that is totalitarianism pure and simple.

Didn't you read my rebuttal ? The key here is the concept 'machine'. Let us think of the simplest of machines, a basic lever. One man can shift an enormous weight by himself. Think of many men using levers and each trading this increased production with one another. The lever is in all of nature, but it is mans mind that has applied its principles to his own production in order to improve his chance of survival and promote his own happiness. The machines are human creations, products of human ingenuity designed for the sole purpose of improving life. So, now are you really talking about machines ? Or are you actually talking about intelligence, independence, autonomy and free will ? Isn't this what is at the base of what you fear ? That it is man and mans mind in particular that gives the greatest concern. You should try and find what frightens you, because something in the philosophy you have learned has been internalised in a parrot fashion and you have failed to question its premise. This is not an easy thing to change, a philosophy is a working system like that of a complex computer which has a task to perform and has continually performed it. It is immensely difficult to find such a lever as to change minds because it requires a rational and critical redevelopment and adults minds are less open to change. Why should anyone embark on such a course ? Because they are sick of living with a sense of omnipresent fear and the sense of powerlessness and crushing doubt that it creates in the mind.

#1154 I have provided a link to explain it better. Free election democracies with mixed economies are the danger, those that seek equality. It would be fine to run a democracy of some kind if the Government was delimited to rights protection. In reality, a society that had advanced that far might well have very little to do in regard to domestic crime, they might be more concerned with external threats, including those such as large asteroid detection, or even intergalactic law keeping. I mean that the excellent producers are fewer than the mediocre producers and the mediocre fewer than the low producers. In a laissez faire political system this is not a concern. Even the low producers are engaged in the market which is heading forward like a ship through an ocean. As it travels forward it becomes ever more efficient and therefore productive and the entire ship travels ever faster. Democracies that vote away the productivity of the cutting edge and sails in order to give it to barnacles on the hull are slowing the ship down and everyone suffers as a result over time. A democracy with two parties offering free stuff to the poorer mob will inevitably be voted into power, there are more barnacles than sails or prow. It is going on in every western democracy. It is not just the money, but has now spread to prevent discrimination of people. We are talking in the UK of quotas of women in jobs and equalising pay for women. This obsession with equality is a race to the bottom. It is intervention by force in a natural market place of supply and demand. As long as women are not restricted by Government force -as they would be in certain religious communities-from competing in the market of course.

It's such an old story and absolutely true. The problem is that automation is seen as something terrible when it's absolutely brilliant. Automation reduces costs, improves quality and increases productivity. The is a straight net gain for humanity. It makes us wealthier. Everyone worries about the lower skilled being unemployed, whilst they simultaneously deny them employment through minimum wages and workers regulation. The reason a guy isn't pumping your gas, cleaning the wind screen and checking the oil is because the cost of labour is higher than the market price. The government has effectively priced the low skilled out of the market and forced them into unemployment. The first thing to understand about economics is that it is all about supply and demand. Demand is a given - despite Governments continually claiming it must be stimulated- there are hoards of people who would like a Ferrari, a penthouse in Manhattan, a yacht and to enjoy a dozen holidays a year whilst dining in Michelin star restaurants. The reason they don't have these things is not a problem if demand, but of affordability and affordability is related to price and price to supply. Produce more stuff and the price falls. Take any child who wants the latest toy-do they require 'stimulation' to nag there moms for it ? Secondly, the economy isn't fixed. Prices in a wealthy, productive economy should always fall as competition continually drives entrepreneurs to become more efficient and automated. The automation doesn't fall out of the air, neither are the machines fixed capital -they break down and they must be replaced. In order to keep up with the competition a manufacturer must constantly innovate their product and increase productivity of their machines and reduce the energy/maintenance costs. This means there are millions of automation companies that are making new machines and competing with each other all marketing products which move the game along further. Thirdly, there isn't a fixed number of things manufactured or services provided. Cars, motorcycles, mobile phones and the Internet have not always existed. There was no market for these things until someone began manufacturing them, then others began to purchase them. As numbers increased the number of jobs in those industries boomed. Once upon a time the people employed in those new companies would have ancestors that hand plowed the soil, scattered seeds from a sack and harvested with a scythe. Once they were freed from that harsh labour they could be productively employed in new industries. This is the reason why entrepreneurs are vital to an economy and why capital accumulation to fund new businesses is the lifeblood of production. If we didn't have capitalism we would still be dying from starvation as feudal serfs and digging the soil with our bare hands for 20 hours a day and have lifespans less than 30 years. It is capitalism and automation that has saved us.

As soon as you say that you can't 'prove' you immediately imply faith. As I said to you before Roger, it is not my place to question faith as it pertains to those who feel they wish it. I will only refute it if it is framed as a question, or as fact. As long as you can't prove it, this becomes an irrelevance to me and I can certainly see where you are coming from. My entire family including myself were into these things from a very early age, my brother retains a strong interest and runs a blog on ghosts and NDE-a even received a book about angels from him as a Christmas present. They struggle to understand how I could have lost my faith, but it's simply a case that I no longer required it, if others do, then I understand because it was true for me also. If you are asking me to refute, or to explain your experiences, I won't. You had them, I've had them, they are as real as they seem to be. You can no more give up faith than I can give up reason and that's where the conversation must end.

Judge and be judged. This would be the elements of giving and receiving. Judging is a love of ones own values which includes a love of the freedom to judge and hence a love of that same freedom by which others will judge us.

Not rich at all. Democracy was always going to be circumvented, it was only the method that was in doubt. It is mob rule and this will invariably favour the lesser over the greater. The meritocratic success graph always has fewer at the extremes and therefore the mediocre and poor are always the majority. Once the Government realises it can bribe the electorate with its own money it will increasingly penalise the successful whilst pouring out the wealth onto those who least deserve it. You seem defensive and proud when you talk about your country. I hope you do have goats, because the entire western world depends on that. We never had the freedom of America.

Likewise.

This might help https://fee.org/articles/democracys-road-to-tyranny/ I could give you the axioms from which this is built, all the building blocks and all the proofs but that would be OTT at this stage.

LOL do you ever open your eyes. You are saw smitten with conspiracies and new world orders you cannot see what's going on. Look up the works of Alexis de Tocqueville. Then compare his work on American democracy written back in 1835. There are three ways democracies change into totalitarian states. The first was seen in Russia, the second in Germany, but the third is underway today.

Democracy is the system that legitimises a totalitarian state. It's literally a vote to be served up like a turkey dinner. Then the buzzards begin forming up to eat the feast. By this time it no longer matters who calls themselves Government and who doesn't as it becomes an ever more intense feeding frenzy as others decide to swap been dinner and decide they prefer to be minor buzzards getting at least some of the pickings.

Its an inevitable consequence of any democratic government. Governments need to borrow money and banks lend money. The tax payer is the debtor and the state uses its power to collect on that debt. Public debt is guaranteed to be paid because the Government has a monopoly on force, it's like the ultimate debt collector threatening to fine, imprison or kill those who dare not to pay. When the people are struggling a bit, then the central bank begins lowering the interest rate and devaluing the currency in order to shrink the debt- this is termed 'stimulation' but is really just a method of trying to increase the amount of money taken from the producers by stealth. There is only one end for financialisation and that is an imploding economy, first hit by severe hyper inflation followed rapidly by a currency collapse. Is it any wonder the Mystics in the fed building and the believers in the Government spend all their time consulting with their Goldman Sachs oracle. They just do whatever Goldman tells them, the stock maket stays high, the dollar stays strong and the Government can keep on borrowing.

What evidence ? Clintons emails are so remarkably boring that releasing 12K of them seems strange overkill. ZH keeps pointing out supposedly juicy bits, but quite frankly most of this could have been easily guessed. Clinton isn't well, we know because we have watched her being loaded into a van barely conscious, we have seen her being helped off stage several times and we know she had a serious concussion caused by a fall. We also know that the MSM is schilling for the state and the current encumbents. We have so much confirmation that she lies that there is little point in trying to refute that fact. She has been made fabulously wealthy through the Clinton foundation and her connections to Wall Street. Bill is a rapist and she intends to put him in the WH with her. I've never been interested in wiki leaks and Assange has gone to a lot of trouble if he is part of a Zionist conspiracy. Way above the call of duty to stay imprisoned in a house when he could have got on a plane and flown to Israel. The fact this YouTube clip is narration only and speaks of martyrs speaks seems to be Arabic.

"It's illegal unless it comes from us" !! Do we require anymore proof to see that the MSM is now an irrelevant puppet propaganda machine of an increasingly totalitarian state ? We heard Obama wanting to 'curate ' the Internet. This is the great mistake made by all tyrants, they think that if they can just wall off the population and feed them propaganda all day that they can control everything. The more that the control ping elements become exposed the greater becomes the backlash. As long as the ropes are subtle they can get away with it, but once people spot the ropes you can know that eventually a breakdown is coming. Slavery is a cruel business and slaves are always plotting ways in which they can sabotage their master invisibly. Eventually the sheer resource requirement to keep the slaves becomes greater than the production they provide.

Why a lady ? I woukd argue it is totally unsuitable for a rational woman. By that I don't mean she couldn't, nor that she wouldn't infact do a better job than the modern incumbents, but that it would not be a feminine act, it turns women into sexless androgenous matriarchs, nothing more than a mind. I was making this argument on the thread about gender gap and the differences between men and women. It is irrational for a woman to want to be president and that makes it a concern that a woman would be in that position. We are on our second female leader and Germany on their first, so there is no novelty left. A woman certainly can do it, she can do it very well, but should she do it ?

There is no such thing as unconditional love, it would be the most wholly, irrational, vilest thing imaginable. We love the values that relate to our own survival and personal happiness. When we observe that these values are not apparent then they are effectively a threat to us. To say there is unconditional love for the divine in someone else regardless of their values is simply negation. It is a fantasy of zero to zero. It is to say there is a part of me which is not me, which loves a part of you that is not you. This is just another version of Plato's forms by which the extension of each person is to some unreachable, unknowable mystery dimension in which everything is magically resolved, we can't know it so we imply that some 'feeling' or 'intuition' some inner knowing is present in the lesser form which pertains to greater truth. I find it both astounding and amusing to see that this philosophy persists despite thousands of years of reason to the contrary. Not one proof exists of this 'divine' nor of those 'perfect forms' and yet people still cling to this notion that there is such a thing, not because they can prove it, but because some 'feeling' tells them it must be so. I can't argue with faith Roger. I can argue only fact. If it is your belief that there is a 'divine' and that intrinsic revelation or intuition reveals it, then no amount of anything I can say will change your mind, nor mine. We will just hit a beach and the discussion is over. You go your way carrying whatever symbol represents faith and I take reason, fact and reality to go in the opposite direction. I enjoyed your reply, it was well constructed, but the conclusion was one of faith not fact and here we must part company.

Where did I imply you were Stalin ? Don't exaggerate, I said that your underlying philosophy was one of violence, I could have said force, but ultimately one comes from the other it's only semantics. I do not label you as totalitarian and I don't support 'culture' either. You began using it as the mainstay for your argument. I don't have to query past cultural bias because it is an irrelevance. You were implying some blame on culture, whether you posed it as a question is irrelevant as it was you who asked it. You cannot go around posing questions as if they tumbled out of the sky anonymously. You asked it, so please at least have the courage to stand by it. If you were wrong then accept it with grace, if you don't think you are wrong then carry on fighting, but please don't expect leniency, because for me to grant you that would be the equivalent of you receiving my pity and you should certainly not want that:-)

It is not 'the sexes' it is two unique minds. All minds are unique not just male and female. It is the complete opposite to balance. A woman experiences her femininity most powerfully in the sex act with a male that she values for his masculinity as equals. These are not equals in the sense of a set of scales, they are values persisting in the mind. Men experience the same in the sex act with a woman they value as an equal. They can feel their masculinity intensely. It does not mean that we can simply couple up any man to any woman, this is a meeting of mind and body. Sex is a celebration, not of each other, but of ourselves, but only when values on both sides are satisfied. There is nothing related to culture, it is irrelevant. Everyone is entitled to the same rights be they men or women, but they are not entitled to succeed just because they are a man or women. They are free to pursue their own happiness, to produce what they can and to use their minds to do so. A man is not entitled to something more because his ancestor was a slave, nor if his ancestor was a King. A man is only entitled to justice if he first accepts the judgement of others of him as sacrosanct. That we freely associate with each other for the purpose of exchanging value with value.

Yes, you are making me angry because I see your philosophy etched into the words you write. It is the philosophy of violence, of 'might makes right' and that every nail must be hammered flat.

Because equality is a pipe dream of collectivists, of Mystics of both sides that refuse to accept the reality that consciousness has identity. That every person is not a soul trapped in a piece of meat, but an individual person. Part of the individualism is that men and women are uniquely different and must be in order to procreate. It is not simply a physical difference, it is a spiritual difference which manifests as masculinity and femininity. Humans are not rutting beasts attracted by pheromones, they are the product of their minds. Men necessarily have different values from women. For a woman it is to sexy and feminine and to be regarded in that sense so she can be free to express it and the best way she can do so is with a man she values as her equal. A woman shines in the light of masculinity as a man does in the light of femininity. A woman wants a hero and a man wants a heroine-these things are not equal, they are complimentary.