i love this guy.
some contemporary movies that deal with bradbury's premise:
equilibrium
and book of eli.
good flicks.

Wow, the cultural aire of superiority they exude...REGARD! The eyeball skirt she wears, is a pop transliteration of pop-cultural critique/artist Takashi Murakami, whom thought contemporary Japanese art to be “a deep appropriation of Western trends.” He sought to bring ridicule of this tendancy to embrace the non-Japanese through both classical and pop cultural grammar. Much of that same disdain for the foreign is displayed here, so our "WTF"- response is deeply appreciated. Hurray! We don't Get it!!!

@ChaosEngine, I don't think you can assert that it's a "fact that history has shown us that people, when left to their own devices, are absolute assholes to their fellow man." People are generally good, I find.

And what problems exactly would you like to see libertarians actually address that they haven't already? And statism is the "dominant" model because it derives its powers by force. It wouldn't be dominant if it didn't force itself on the people.

I think Alan Moore has a decent take on this, too. From his wikipage: "I believe that all other political states are in fact variations or outgrowths of a basic state of anarchy; after all, when you mention the idea of anarchy to most people they will tell you what a bad idea it is because the biggest gang would just take over. Which is pretty much how I see contemporary society. We live in a badly developed anarchist situation in which the biggest gang has taken over and have declared that it is not an anarchist situation – that it is a capitalist or a communist situation. But I tend to think that anarchy is the most natural form of politics for a human being to actually practice."

I agree with the concept here, but I think he is overstating it a bit. Actively selling out your own people/family while slavery was actively occurring is rather worse than forgetting (or never learning) that your religion was used as a tenuous justification for slavery many many generations ago.

On the other hand, a more contemporary spinoff of this that lends further weight to the argument can be found in the widespread apprehension amongst whites back in the 60's and 70's that all or most of the African American population would convert to Islam. A lot of writings by prominent white people of that era show just how terrifying that prospect was for them, and many candidly justified that fear by saying that it would reduce or eliminate the level of control that whites had over the black population. Pretty disgusting stuff to read from a modern point of view.

Actually, I'm fairly surprised that wave petered out as quickly as it did. Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and others brought the trend of blacks converting to Islam into national attention; but it didn't gain as much traction as many whites of the time feared. It would be interesting to see a study into the whys of that -- my best (yet unfortunately rather stereotype-based) guess is that many single-parent or head-of-household African American mothers were reluctant to let their sons convert from their family's traditional Christian upbringing and suppressed or quashed a lot of the momentum of the movement in its early stages.

Yes those are good points, however one thing I've found in my studies (in part, sitting through an ethics class every week for the past 2 years) and elsewhere is that the Nazi regime is used as a way of objectively describing what 'bad' is and contemporary examples are overlooked. The main examples of this 'bad' are the way in which they conducted human research, the genocide they committed and the fear they instilled in their own population to be obedient through the SS, propaganda etc. Of course there are many other examples but those are a few of the main ones. The issue I always have sitting there listening to these lectures is that we are turning a blind eye to what is happening in the world today, it's easy to understand why if you do a bit of thinking on the matter, but most people don't seem to be able to do that, or they are simply too scared to talk about it for fear of reproach.

So to start with, I could name countless things that America (and other countries such as the UK/France etc) has done over the past 50 years that would make any rational person cringe if they hadn't known about it previously, however you can find those things out yourself with a little research on the internet, so there's no point listing them here (and I'm sure you know many of them already anyway). I think what is important is why these things don't seem as objectively bad to you as what's been done in the past. The answer would have to be pretty complex, however I think one reason is that things are not done as overtly these days. Wars are often waged by proxy, or people are led to 'buy in' to the excuses that are often given to begin wars, change leaderships etc.

I mean, it's easy to think, ,OK so the Nazi's sent around death squads to ensure people were obedient and that's objectively bad, but how does one quantify how immoral or unethical it is to watch/listen to and record almost the entire world's digital communication exchange between individuals and groups and then have the ability to send drones with bombs on them to kill anyone they feel like (with an unknown amount of collateral damage) without fear of reproach. No reproach being literal, the US has ~half the worlds military expenditure after all.

Now you might say, well nobody is knocking on my door making sure I'm pro-Obama and killing my entire family if I'm not, however I think the thing people often overlook, and it comes back to my previous two points. These things are happening in other countries and they are often by proxy, so to fully comprehend the level of immorality the US has sunk to, one first has to educate oneself on all these events, then one has to have enough empathy to care about the events and people involved, then one has to be educated enough in morals and ethics to be able to make some measurement as to how bad they are.

In my opinion it's a tall order to get most people to understand/learn all these things, most people are too worried about keeping their jobs, looking after their families or friends etc. Even those that meet all those requirements won't all agree that these things are bad, and even if they know they are bad, they are too fearful to speak their mind about it, or perhaps they have a specific agenda (i.e. someone like Jay Carney who is paid to spout BS for the president all day). There are lots of ways things can be justified, and lots of angles that can be taken in arguments.

So I guess my point is that despite the fact things are not as bad for you as they would have been under the Nazi regime, that doesn't mean millions of people in dozens of countries are not being oppressed in similar ways to what they would have been back then. the US doesn't precisely meet Emilio Gentile's definition of a Fascist state, however it meets many of the criteria, and I think if you look at the big picture (primarily what's happening in countries that the US wants resources from) you can see that @Fusionaut's remark wasn't too far off the mark.

The notion that if it was deployed 3 months earlier it would have changed the outcome of the war is a bit short sighted. By 1944 things had changed significantly against the Luftwaffe. Of the many different types of problems, two are the most straightforward here, shortage of fuel and Goering's obsession with bombers.

At this stage of the war in 1944, fuel was scarce enough to force flight schools to cut their training times to less than half of what they received in 1942, receiving on average 111 hours of flight and of that only 20 hours in the combat aircraft that they were to fly, the rest would be in a trainer. To give a contemporary comparison, in the US you need an absolute bare minimum of 190 hours to earn a commercial pilot's license which is usually done in the same type of trainer the Germans used, THEN you start working on the plane your "really" going to fly. Training deficiencies were already showing in 1943, when during the first half of the year they experienced the same number of losses to accidents as they did to combat. So you can imagine that new and even experienced pilots, transitioning from the relatively lower speed of their prop driven planes to high speed jets, would have problems in tactical use and even accident avoidance. Even the Me-262 suffered from flameouts caused by aggressive use of the throttle, something that prop planes can manage much better, would otherwise cause the flameout that killed the test pilot Ziller.

Even if deployed in large numbers as a fighter-bomber, the probable use would be as a bomber. Goering was very much a part of the "cult of the offensive" in the air that meant holding to the old WW1 notion of "The bomber always gets through". Though to be fair, the technology in this aircraft might very well have helped proved him right, he pushed this notion at the cost of the defense. He refused committing more resources to the fighter wings, so while the Ho-229 might have been considered a "fighter-bomber", its use may have been predominantly focused on the bomber aspect. This is actually exactly what happened to the Me-262 in its earlier days, its capabilities as a fighter were ignored and preference as a bomber, preferred. Why does all this matter? Because at this point, Germany wasn't able to come close to stopping the bombers breaking through their lines. They needed the flow to stop since it was already disrupting their existing production to produce the "what if" fleet of Ho-229s. Goering proved that the bombers were getting through thanks to his belief that his would instead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_of_the_Reich

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Galland (The later part, when he commanded the fighter force)

I wouldn't say anything, I don't think that it would be particularly effective. We all have our own idea of what morality is, and Stalin's is a very complex result of innumerable factors like upbringing, disposition and circumstance, and it would be a bit self important of me to think that I could argue that out of him. He lived, acted, died and left his mark on history. The paremeters set forth by the physical world and the collective actions of everyone else who has lived either as a contemporary or since has judged which of those actions have value and will live on. It's a messy process, certainly, but it's just how things work.

In other words, you don't have any argument as to why Stalin should adopt your morality and abandon his own. If you do I invite you to post it here. How can you escape Ravi's charge that atheism is incoherent in the absence of any such argument?

Thankfully, we seem to be heading in a direction that diverges considerably from that Stalin would espouse. I think that a certain evolutionary tendency towards beneficial collectivism is responsible for that.

Mind you that I'm not arguing for a one world government here, but rather I think that a sense of connection and personal responsibility for the wellbeing of everything else on this planet, ecosystem and all, will bode well for how I and my descendants experience this thing we call life.

It's only one of many competing survival strategies, and nothing more.

So if Hitler had won and the world was in the grips of his totalitarian regime, this would just a particular evolutionary tendency playing out? What makes one better than the other?

"Do you believe that there has ever been a case where slavery has been justified, and do you believe that there has ever been a good reason for anyone to butcher a toddler with a sword?"

Why is it wrong to do either of those things?

Wrong, my question is in no way off topic and implying otherwise may be easier for you, but it won't do much to convince anyone. We are discussing the incoherence of atheism relative to the superior coherence of Christianity as it pertains to systems of morality. Therefore any question regarding the efficacy of a Judeo-Christian theistic moral compass is entirely relevant.

So my question remains, but I'll answer yours because it too is relevant:

I wouldn't say anything, I don't think that it would be particularly effective. We all have our own idea of what morality is, and Stalin's is a very complex result of innumerable factors like upbringing, disposition and circumstance, and it would be a bit self important of me to think that I could argue that out of him. He lived, acted, died and left his mark on history. The paremeters set forth by the physical world and the collective actions of everyone else who has lived either as a contemporary or since has judged which of those actions have value and will live on. It's a messy process, certainly, but it's just how things work.

Thankfully, we seem to be heading in a direction that diverges considerably from that Stalin would espouse. I think that a certain evolutionary tendency towards beneficial collectivism is responsible for that.

Mind you that I'm not arguing for a one world government here, but rather I think that a sense of connection and personal responsibility for the wellbeing of everything else on this planet, ecosystem and all, will bode well for how I and my descendants experience this thing we call life.

It's only one of many competing survival strategies, and nothing more.

I'm still waiting for you to answer my question

Thankfully, there are no contemporary examples where ALL of what you describe has been attempted. That would be because it was done away with centuries ago as a discredited idea.

The closest attempt to what you describe would be in certain european countries around 1939-1946 (I will not invoke godwin! ). Is that really the model you want to follow?

And your technology argument is patently false. If technology was the primary factor in creating a safe community, then there wouldn't be such a huge disparity between crime rates in different parts of the world. Even allowing that poorer areas have less technology doesn't account for the vast difference.

Cite one contemporary example where what I describe (all of it, not just parts) has been attempted.

There are plenty of examples of unjust and tyrannical brutality. I can't think of any where the brutality was fair, consistent and logical. That's what you don't seem to be grasping here. Genocide or religious/political persecution are not comparable to what I propose.

We live in the safest period of history not because of liberalization or decreasing barbarism but because technology has made it much easier to enforce the law and maintain order. If you try to rob a bank, you'll be caught on camera and the cops will have you surrounded in minutes thanks to silent alarms. If you try to rape someone in the street, bystanders can whip out their phones, capture your face on camera and then call the cops. If you steal a car and try to speed off, you'll never get away from the police cars at every corner and helicopter in the air. Never before has it been so easy to defend yourself, get help or capture proof of a crime. It's no coincidence that the vast majority of crime occurs in poor areas with minimal surveillance and police presence. It was thanks to technology that the two Steubenville rapists were caught and successfully persecuted.

When was torture last sanctioned by the state? The dark ages? Of course violent crime was higher in the dark ages. It was pretty difficult to enforce the law back then due to the lack of cars, satellites, computers, security cameras, guns, etc, not to mention that laws varied greatly depending on which part of the land you lived in and what lords you served under. Does Pinker's book have any contemporary examples that support your position?

In any case, regardless of whether you favor punishment or rehabilitation, the real solution is to address the root of the problem: lousy upbringings. Anyone can have children, no matter how qualified they are. They can have a criminal record, a history of mental illness and be unemploymed and still have as many kids as they want. It's ridiculous and the reason why so many children grow up to be criminals. We need to have strictly enforced regulation of reproduction. Parents should have to go through a thorough testing process and meet certain requirements (like having enough money to actually support a family) before being allowed to have kids. If a woman walks into a hospital with an unlicensed pregnancy, both she and the father should be arrested and executed without trial. Legal births would be recorded in an international database, which employers and government workers would reference during any hiring, licensing or authorization process. Essentially, illegal children would have no chance of ever becoming a part of regular society, forcing them to the outskirts and slums. This would make it easier to focus raids and clear out the most prominent concentrations of criminals.

This may sound dystopian but it's really the only way to fix the root of the problem. You will never be able to make people better if you let them be raised under lousy conditions. Morality is learned, not innate. If we want everyone to follow the same rules, they need to be taught to respect them. If the parents don't, why would the children?

"Yo, lemme Instagram that joint." Wow, I have really not kept up with contemporary youth vernacular.

Seems Chucky is a lot less disturbing to people than is an empty car.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Best-Drive-Thru-Prank-Ever
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Drive-Thru-Invisible-Driver-Prank-2

See, the thing is that this is an actual joke. Multiple meanings of the word "knockers", potential embarrassment on the part of Dr. Frankenstein, unexpected grace when Inga accepts the 'compliment'; there's a lot going on in a seemingly simple joke. Too many contemporary movies would just have a big slob walk up to a woman, stare at her breasts, and say, "What a huge rack!" and consider that to be somehow funny.

It's pretty obvious that it's either a prank or performance art based on the works around them. Maybe they should have done it around some more contemporary works.

An agnostic is someone who doesn't believe *or* disbelieve in God. An atheist is someone who believes God doesn't exist. If you think atheism means a "lack of belief" then watch this video by one of your contemporaries:



It all comes down to whether you are an honest or dishonest skeptic. An honest skeptic investigates. A dishonest skeptic doesn't want to know.

As far as this video goes, this show often has Christians on that don't know the bible, and don't understand apologetics, so they often get frustrated and say something that comes out the wrong way. The caller was trying to make some kind of point that we're all sinners but it was misplaced and ill-timed. It's not as if you can't find a billion examples of atheists saying the most horrible things. I just had an atheist tell me he wanted to crucify me the other day.