My Italian is pretty basic, but I don't think it quite got the start right.

"Paoli Marco, young rapper and 1st year nursing student from Rome, has produced..."
>> ^bareboards2:

Google translate says:
"Paolo Marchi Roman young rapper as well as the 1-year nursing student has produced this project that is sweeping the web and is being proposed as the true anthem of students in nursing and health professions."
Well, maybe in Italy....
Welcome to the Sift!

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

I said it before, and I will say it one more time. Rome burns and I hear a fiddle.


There was no such thing as a fiddle that long ago...he probably played the lyre.

I said it before, and I will say it one more time. Rome burns and I hear a fiddle.

And Rome burns again. I hear a fiddle.

>> ^blankfist:

Well, history has shown that more individual freedom (less collectivist government) leads to enrichment of lives, protection of the poor, etc. The US government early on was built on some basic and fundamental Libertarian ideas, though back then they were called liberal.
Prior to that, no other human government ever allowed such individual freedom. Not to say the US wasn't plagued with its problems, but it was a step in the right direction. Why go backwards?


I would say Rome did, and Greece. But that was more because of certain circumstances than how a government ran. I.e., we were a land of plenty, slaughtered the Indians, kept slaves to work, and then after those, indentured servants, and then illegal aliens and prisoners. However, those have dried up...

Greece was crap until conquest. Macedonia-what? Oh yeah, that poor state that Alexander came from...

Don't get me wrong, we love our Freedoms Blankfist, but history bodes for the circumstances of a nation--not the people themselves or how it is run. (I wouldn't say that Greece and Rome were particularly generous or freedom oriented, just like I wouldn't say America is.)

... when in Rome!... talk like... a roman...

Christ you know I love you.
Did you see I waved?
I believe in you and God
So tell me that I'm saved.
Christ you know I love you.
Did you see I waved?
I believe in you and God
So tell me that I'm saved.
Jesus I am with you.
Touch me, touch me, Jesus.
Jesus I am on your side.
Kiss me, kiss me, Jesus.

SIMON ZEALOTES

Christ, what more do you need to convince you
That you've made it, and you're easily as strong
As the filth from Rome who rape our country,
And who've terrorized our people for so long.

CROWD

Jesus I am with you.
Touch me, touch me, Jesus.
Jesus I am on your side.
Kiss me, kiss me, Jesus.

Christ you know I love you.
Did you see I waved?
I believe in you and God,
So tell me that I'm saved.

Christ you know I love you.
Did you see I waved?
I believe in you and God,
So tell me that I'm saved.

Christ you know I love you.
Did you see I waved?
I believe in you and God,
So tell me that I'm saved.

Christ you know I love you.
Did you see I waved?
I believe in you and God,
So tell me that I'm saved.

Jesus I am with you.
Touch me, touch me, Jesus.
Jesus I am on your side.
Kiss me, kiss me, Jesus.

SIMON ZEALOTES

There must be over fifty thousand
Screaming love and more for you.
And everyone of fifty thousand
Would do whatever you asked them to.
Keep them yelling their devotion,
But add a touch of hate at Rome.
You will rise to a greater power.
We will win ourselves a home.
You'll get the power and the glory
For ever and ever and ever
You'll get the power and the glory
For ever and ever and ever
You'll get the power and the glory
For ever and ever and ever
You'll get the power and the glory
For ever and ever and ever
Forever Amen! Amen! Amen!

>> ^Xax:

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Nothing is going to change until we get mad enough and take to the streets to demand real change.

I think you're right. But the scary thing is, I don't see that ever happening... and if it ever did, the government would shut it down with as much force as required.
It's over.


Mebbe they will, mebbe they won't. The armies, the government, the police forces etc, there are people there who would be as disillusioned and disenfranchised as anyone.

All great empires have fallen. From Babylon to Persia to Greece to Rome to the British empire. The cycle shortens each time and the US is already teetering on the edge with it's enormous debt and continued deficit spending. I feel for people like RP who can see clearly what is coming but can do nothing on their own to stop it other than the "cry out in the wilderness".

As you may have notice, this message is very long. Please take a while and read it a few times, in chunks, before you respond. I ask a lot of questions here so I’d like it you pretended as if you were asking the questions to yourself.

I should have qualified my statement about religions. I meant to clarify that in the Persian and Pre-Rome regions of the world, which were primarily Pagan, a huge majority of the religions didn’t have religious structures that were based around fear, for the most part. Yes, I admit that there was the concept of retribution from the gods but it wasn’t anything to the degree of everlasting punishment. I currently don’t know anything about the religions of the very early Americas (Mayans, etc). It wasn’t until the god concepts became more personalized and more humans that it became more about fear. There is a natural progression in the ideological development in religions that goes from being nothing about humans to being all about humans. Eternal suffering or anything resembling a “hell” is relatively new and came about around the time of monotheistic religions.

Let me ask you a question. Why do you trust your personal revelation?

I ask this because I used to be very “spiritual” and I’ve even had out-of-body experiences, experiences that I can only call past life regressions. I grew up in a practicing Christian family and I have memories of experience that I can only call “personal revelation”. I’ve come to a lot of reasons why I shouldn’t trust those personal revelations; I want to know if you’ve come to understand how the human brain is very easily tricked into irrational behaviors and beliefs (not just religious)

You say that this has been an ongoing revelation since you were 14. If you had not had this history of personal revelation at all and it came to you suddenly today, would you find it believable? I imagine that you’re beliefs have been challenged many times. Are you certain that the strengthening effect of the challenges aren’t just from the boomerang effect, caused by a need to justify something that you feel committed to?

Here is another great question. How much of your belief system is tied to your identity; how much do you identify with it, personally or socially? Meaning, if you came to disbelieve what you now believe, would you know who you are or would you have a sort of identity crisis? If you stopped believing as you do now, do you feel that you would you lose a part of who you are?

You ask a good question in “Maybe it is you who is delusion and I see things as they actually are.” Yes, perhaps I am and perhaps you are and perhaps we both are. So how can we know, how would we find out, what kinds of tests and experiments could we do to illuminate the answer. It isn’t good enough to simply say that we both might be delusional; therefore our views are equally valid. Either one of us is correct and the other is not, or we are both incorrect.
You know, I used to have a dualistic view on the nature of humans. I used to believe in the soul or the spirit as something separate from the body. I used to resonate heavily with the lyrics of Tool and the ideas behind the art of Alex Grey.

I guess my biggest question would stem from this statement that you made
“My faith is that i have a spirit, a soul, a divine spark that is connected to the ALL, the ONE, also known as "the source".”
What makes you think that there is an “ALL”, a “ONE” or “the source” and how do you know that you’re not just fooling yourself? What would it mean if you discovered that it’s probably not true, and that the real explanation for the subjective experiences that you’ve had are far more elegant and interesting than the ideas of spirituality that you currently hold?

To be blunt, I don’t think that you’re thinking this whole notion of an ego through far enough. It sounds like you’re just accepting the ideas as being true without going through the motions of analyzing what the concept implies. The notion of an ego implies several things; one of which is that we as humans are special to the degree that we have egos when, either, other animals don’t, or, other animals are better than us in controlling it. The questions then become, do other animals have egos? If so, how does the ego operate in them? Do other life forms, such as plants or bacteria, also have egos, or does the ego require a certain degree of cognitive function? If the ego does require certain cognitive functions to be noticeable, and since we are extremely closely related to other apes such as chimpanzees, do they also exhibit features of having egos? If they don’t and having an ego is strictly a human feature, what happened during the development of the brain that allowed for the access to what we might call the ego and at this point, do we really believe that the “ego” is actually something that exists outside of the brain? If it doesn’t exist outside of the brain than how can we separate who you perceive as yourself and what you perceive as the “ego”? Are all “ego’s” the same or is it brain dependent with variations depending on brain structure and chemistry? Can you see why I would say that the notion of the ego as something outside of or separate from oneself is inherently egotistical.

The way that you talk about the ego makes it seem mystical and somehow separate from “self”. To me, that sounds like someone trying to escape responsibility. Why not just cut out the middle man and admit that you, not your ego, has the tendency to be possessive, needy, insecure, wishes for self-aggrandizement, etc. The notion that “negative” qualities are part and partial of some sort of external thing that is separate from “you” just seems childish to me, not to mention, completely unsupported by research.

For myself, I suppose that I recoil at the idea of an “ALL”, or “ONE”, or “the source” because it doesn’t really answer any questions. If someone were presenting these ideas to me for the first time, I would immediately start asking questions like “What is it made out of, what kind(s) of particles?” “How does it perpetuate?” “What is the physics of this thing?” “By what mechanism does it connect to everything?” “How does a source not also have its own source?” “What tests and experiments can we do to learn more about this thing?” “What objective information do we have about it?” “Does this thing operate differently between animate and inanimate objects?” “If spirit or soul is inherent in the system, do animals and plants also have a spirit or soul?” “What exactly constitutes as a spirit or soul, what can it be defined by?” “Did “the source” have a beginning or a history?”

I think you understand my point. My problem with subjectively believing something is true is that it’s more susceptible to not going far enough in scrutiny. It is much easier to subjectively believe something that feels good or feels right and not go any further than that. Very few subjective beliefs translate into objective or rational understandings of nature; it’s very easy to get it wrong. Subjective beliefs are as prone to fallibility as humans are to irrational thinking.


In reply to this comment by enoch:
hmmmm..
i disagree with your statement that only the monotheistic religion control by fear.
buddhism (yes..buddhism) shinto,mayan,toltec,arminianism,zoroastriasm..the list is legion and they ALL have punishment/reward doctrine.each at varying degrees but its in there.

i do enjoy hearing an atheists perspective on how my faith translates.
very..analytical of you my friend.
suffice to say my faith is born from personal revelation and has been an ongoing revelation since i was 14.
nothing i have encountered or experienced has taken away from this revelation,in fact it has strengthened it.
could i be delusional?
i guess its possible.
or maybe it is you who are delusional and i see things as they actually are.
not trying to be an ass,just pointing out the subjective nature of this particular polemic.

i guess..in its most simplest of terms.
my faith is that i have a spirit,a soul,a divine spark that is connected to the ALL,the ONE,also known as "the source".
freud believed that the ego WAS who you were.i could not disagree with that more.
the ego is who you THINK you are.predicated and perpetrated by those who are close to you.
we cant help that.it is very human.
so around 12 yrs old we start to have a sense of self.this self understands the world and how he/she interacts with it by rules set by his/her parents.
as we grow older so does the circle of influence i.e:friends,lovers,teachers etc etc.
think about this for a second because i am expressing a very huge idea in a very short amount of time and glossing over all the implications of said idea.

my philosophy..or my faith if you will,views the ego as my "false" self.
the ego wishes only to validate itself (thats why mass marketing is very VERY effective).
the ego wishes to perpetuate its own existence by way of constant feed-back.
the ego gets jealous and possesive.
the ego gets insecure and needy.
the ego has demands...and desires...which seek only for self aggrandizement.
now societal roles consisting of compassion and empathy will,and can,curb the destructive nature of the ego (think your teenage years and just how self centered you were to give you an idea of ego gone wild)

through my faith and discipline i am quite aware of my ego and have suppressed it to the point where it no longer manipulates my thinking nor my emotions.
so i have no urge nor a desire to be perceived as "correct" because to me that is irrelevant.
(though i do prefer to be "corrected" if i misstate something).
i do not experience jealousy,nor envy.
but i do experience pride.
i do not allow anothers limited perception of me based on their own subjective reasoning influence how i feel about who i am.
i am open and honest because my faith is that we are all connected with the divine and to lie,steal or cheat you is to be doing to myself also.
i do not judge anothers faith or lack of it because that is THEIR path and the only time i ever feel the need to intercede is when it flows into my domain and affects me in some way.

even as i write these words,which to me seem pretty articulate and clear,i know that you will understand them based solely on..well..your understanding.
i do not say that as a slight but rather a statement.
trying to convey complex thought patterns by way of text can be so..limiting.

everything i do or say i do so with spirit in mind.
sometimes i fail..sometimes i succeed.
i am human.
with a spirit! ziiiiing!
anyways..
i really do enjoy our conversations.
you are a pleasure my friend.
namaste.
(look that word up btw..its a great word)

(Sorry for the length of this response...)

He wants to be President, and? You imply he is a worse choice than say, the current President (Who has left open a facility to torture, predominately, Muslims,) or the President/s before him (a President who used a degree to fight two wars without batting an eye as to why.) I would hope you can admit he would have been FAR better than Obama or Bush…

So Paul has an issue with property rights and the government telling you what to do? Thoreau also had problems with that line of thought. I think the greater part of their argument, that he fails to articulate, is that---when a government takes power, it always takes more power in time. And when it has the power, it finds a way to abuse it. We see that has happened.

Oh, and I am so glad that the law in 1964 protects minorities... except that the wealthy and white have found 1 million loopholes around it with other laws... Blacks commit a crime? More punishment and jail time than a white. Blacks need a job? No, go away... How about, blacks need welfare? Sure, so long as you don't make anything of yourself. WE STILL HAVE JIM CROW LAWS IN THIS COUNTRY. GET OVER IT. ONLY SOCIETY AT LARGE CAN FIX THIS PROBLEM. AND WE WON’T, BECAUSE WE DON’T WANT TO.

So glad that the useless law does something ineffectively... Oh, and go to certain bars in PA as a black man, and lets see how far the patrons let you go before removing you. Glad that a law will protect your rights as your being stabbed to death--then protects him as the white, racist judge laughs and acquits his friends.

I also think the problem; we don’t ask, what is the principle behind Paul’s actions? Racism? No... Nor greed (The reason pot is illegal, for example.) It is relying on humanity to do the right thing. Unfortunately, as so often the case, Humanity is horrible (See Rome, genocide, and religion)--and we blame Paul for being naive; and he is. But so are we. Instead of holding accountability to the sign holders we laugh at Paul’s ignorance. Instead of blaming the murderer, or rapist, we blame the politicians who have not put laws out there to "protect us.”

Kind of like--"Well, she was wearing slutty clothes so we should blame her for being raped!" I know, I know, that is a far-fetched comparison, but it still fits to some degree. Both people do not deserve to be attacked for their statements (One who was making a statement by dressing physically attractive, and the other one who makes a statement verbally with good intentions.) But, as is the case, people do punish both in society.

I think Paul would be better off being a liar so he could actually get elected--because, though people may do it unintentionally, they elect the bad guy because the good guy always loses. But then, if he did become a winner through deception, he would just be another in a mold of thousands.

The funny part is that in matters such as this, Paul would have no sway in the agenda; he would only have a say in matters of Liberal agendas (Close Gitmo, stop wars, debt, cut down the drug war, end the Patriot Act., etc.) So even if you did elect him, Netrunner, you would get the best of both worlds. No gold standard, but most of your agenda would be fulfilled… Of course, Liberals suck at thinking logically (Even the part of me that is liberal, and there is quite a bit, has this problem.)

Speaking of society, here is my example…
http://videosift.com/video/The-new-Olympic-sport-Cunt-Punching

I agree... this is almost EXACTLY like Nero burning Rome!...What an obvious comparision.

But in truth... if as the host puts it... people with degrees... degrees FROM universities are saying it's a fake... thats enough for me!

This is going to sound downright quantumesque, but it's weird to see how optimistic we all were back then, not fully knowing how centrist Obama really is. I'm quite sure this feeling is well-covered ground since the glorious days of ancient Rome.

I just finished The Pacific. I really liked Band of Brothers, so I had high hopes, but in the end I felt it was not completely up to par with its predecessor. Nice to learn a little bit of WW2 history from the other side of the globe, though.

Right now I'm at a loss as to what I should watch next. I watched the first two episodes of Mad Men, and while I enjoyed the retro scenery, the storyline didn't really drag me in. I'm thinking of continuing on with season 3 of Dexter, and watch Arrested Development for comedy, since everyone speaks so highly of it. When Game of Thrones comes out, I will watch that. I would love suggestions, though. Things I've seen and enjoyed in the past:

-Deadwood
-The Wire
-Battlestar Galactica
-Firefly
-Doctor Who
-Rome

>> ^blankfist:

@NetRunner, what's stimulus money got to do with money supply? Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll answer that question:
The Treasury Department borrows the money from the Federal Reserve. This money is printed new and is NOT already in circulation. So, once those trillions get circulated into the economy, what happens? It inflates the money supply. Presto!

Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll correct you.

The Treasury Department borrows the money by selling Treasury bonds on the open market. Domestic investors and banks buy most of it, a big chunk of it is bought by other governments. Some might be purchased by the Fed using freshly printed money, but that's entirely based on what the Fed wants to do with the money supply, and has nothing to do with whether we did stimulus or not.

Not to mention, even if the Fed prints money and buys a treasury, there's no guarantee the buyer won't just hold the dollars as a reserve of some sort, and keep it out of circulation.

>> ^blankfist:
And you asked what happens to wages during inflation? Well, I don't know

An honest answer. Too bad you kept writing...

>> ^blankfist:
[L]et's look at history, shall we? There are plenty of examples in history (Rome, Germany, Yugoslavia), but let's look at Zimbabwe in the 2000s because it's really easy to google. According to wikipedia, Zimbabwe's "annual inflation was estimated at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent (6.5 x 10108%, the equivalent of 6 quinquatrigintillion 500 quattuortrigintillion percent, or 65 followed by 107 zeros – 650 million googol percent)."

Yes, inflation can happen. But looking at nominal price levels alone doesn't answer why inflation is bad.

>> ^blankfist:
But that's fine, right? Because they just increased the wages and everyone went back to happy Krugman land and ate marshmallows and played with bunnies. Oh no, that didn't happen at all, did it? No. In the end the Zimbabwean Dollar was destroyed, and the people were forced to adopt foreign currencies.

Well here's the thing, have you actually looked at what's happened to the wage level in Zimbabwe? Is the problem that wages never increased at all, and that inflation meant no one had any purchasing power at all?

Or was it something a little more esoteric like a collapse of market confidence that really buggered them?

>> ^blankfist:
It's not as easy to fix as "putting upward pressure on wages". In fact, the people who are first impacted are the people on the bottom, because ALL (and I mean absolutely ALL) inflation enriches the government first, the big businesses with government contracts second, the rich third, and ultimately it's the poor and retired who suffer through the adjustment phase.

Again, you're hamstrung by not actually understanding the underlying economic principles. If the main issue with inflation was really this confiscatory debasement you're talking about, then that would in large part be fixed by greater wage flexibility.

>> ^blankfist:
And what of the people with savings? Are you so willing to write them off with a big dildo shoved up their asses, because they're not currently "earning" a wage? What of those people who saved and saved because that's what society told them was prudent for their retirement? What does your precious Krugman messiah say of the grandmothers and grandfathers who see their savings diminish while their social security payments play catch up with the current cost of living changes?

The answer there is that inflation screws people with large amounts of liquid money (the rich), and helps people with debt (the not-so-rich), while making holding assets look more promising than holding cash in any form. People who saved for retirement by stuffing $100 bills into their mattress get screwed. People who put their money in a savings account may get screwed if the bank doesn't offer them competitive interest rates. People who invested in a mix of stocks and bonds will see those stocks go up in nominal value, while the bonds will likely become worthless (depends on the exact terms though).

People who rely on Social Security will be fine, so long as a) wages as a whole go up with inflation, and b) conservative morons don't come in and cut the COLA below inflation for no reason. It's part of why anyone who wants to privatize Social Security is pretty much a fuckwad.

In the end, the negative effects of stable but high (~10% or so) inflation wouldn't be so bad. There's basically no downside to inflation around 2-4%. And by the way, we're sitting somewhere around 1% right now, with not even the remotest hint of hyperinflation.

The only way for us to really trigger hyperinflation right now is if conservatives follow through on threats to make the US go into default on its debt. But that won't be hyperinflation because of the Fed printing money, it'll be because conservatives will have trashed our nation's credit rating because they're stupid.