>> ^lertad:
This is silly. Japan is still first and foremost an Asian culture built upon social hierarchy. This is a great CEO and an example to all, but I hate its inference that all Japanese CEOs are like this and all US CEOs are megalomaniacs by cherry-picking one company from each country.
The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. But unfortunately, the middle is never a good story.

Japan is indeed a hierarchical society, but it is a society where when an employee bows the boss bows too. What you're missing is that the American society is as much if not more hierarchical than Japan, only that fact is not formally recognized. The difference is that the American hierarchy is based on money more than on position. That's why there's idiots everywhere finding excuses for the ridiculous salaries of American C.E.O. Basically, the rationalizations are all based on the illusion called the "American Dream": maybe some day you too will be filthy rich, then you certainly wouldn't want a mob trying to put you down! In comparison, most Japanese know their place and will only accept what they can reciprocate: for example they will accept a raise only if they feel they can take on more responsibilities, even if they're in lower management and know they have no chance at a promotion because of the position game (of course, as in everything there are exceptions).

You've got to recognise the 'world system' that interprets money and wealth as things of value as a separate entity. Yes, we have created it, but now we are entirely reliant upon it and we slave everyday toward its maintenance.

When people turn to find meaning and spirituality they turn to other entities within this system, namely catholicism, mormonism, scientology and all the rest. They never ever leave the system and therefore never touch upon the things that really make us human.

If you really want to attack scientology, if you really want to turn people against it, you must show them that there are no answers, meaning or spirituality present in any of the major world religions. With the possible exception of Buddhism they are all hierarchical monetary based systems.

Somebody called Jesus once pointed out the exact same thing about the Roman church.

The ability to empathize with others is not the same for all of us.

From Wikipedia:

By the age of 2, children normally begin to display the fundamental behaviors of empathy by having an emotional response that corresponds with another person. Even earlier, at one year of age, infants have some rudiments of empathy, in the sense that they grasp the intentions of other people. Sometimes, toddlers will comfort others or show concern for them as early as 24 months of age. Also during the second year, toddlers will play games of falsehood or "pretend" in an effort to fool others, and this requires that the child know what others believe before he or she can manipulate those beliefs.

In 1997, Douglas Olsen defined empathetic maturity as the cognitive structure that determines whether a person can feel or not feel empathy, who one feels it for and how broad a group. Differences in empathetic maturity are differences in the way a person relates self-created meaning to meaning perceived in others. Empathetic maturity provides the criteria for determining whether another will be experienced as "like me" or "different." More inclusive criteria increase the number and diversity of others who will be perceived empathetically. The highest of the hierarchical stages of empathetic maturity is the most inclusive where all others are perceived as "like me." (Olsen, 2001) There are three stages of empathetic maturity (Olsen, 2001; and Olsen, 1997):

Stage 1 – This most primitive pattern and not common in adults. Persons at this stage see others as fundamentally different from themselves. The rationales for another's actions, feelings, or thoughts are not experienced as having human relevance in the sense that one’s own rationales do. Those operating at this stage perceive mutuality with others concretely.

Stage 2 – People at Stage 2 hold that their rationales for behavior are valid for everyone. And so, reasons for behaviors and feelings are legitimate to the degree they coincide with the person at Stage 2. Unlike Stage 1, the Stage 2 person sees others like him or her so long as they make sense of their world the same way. Therefore, positive regard for a sufferer perceived to be participating in negative behaviors is difficult for the Stage 2 person unless the behavior is explicable from his or her point of view. An example of such negative behavior would be AIDS as the result of sex practices not condoned by the Stage 2 observer. If the Stage 2 person believes the sufferer is responsible for the behavior, he or she will have no empathy. If the Stage 2 person can detect an acceptable reason why the sufferer is not actually responsible, for example, illness resulted from blood transfusion, beyond the sufferer's control, then empathy emerges. Caregivers at Stage 2 who want to feel empathetic toward their patients often try to find factors that mitigate responsibility. Most of society operates at Stage 2.

Stage 3 – At this stage, mutuality occurs prior to any judgment about the person's behavior. The other is perceived as human in the same way the self is experienced, based solely on being a creator of meaning rather than on the content of the meanings created. The perception of another person as responsible for a problem no longer has the power to hinder the development of empathy. If the sufferer is seen as responsible, there is no longer any need to mitigate that responsibility as a method for allowing empathy. A hallmark of Stage 3 is a person's ability to perceive another empathetically while simultaneously and without apparent contradiction perceiving that other as responsible for problematic behavior.

Oh - they're not "denied," per se - just that the process is delayed so long by the bureaucratic process that many people die before they are taken care of. Like I said - ask the craigslist community. I used to write up inquisitive posts, years ago even, on craigslist, and just take note of statistics based on the stories I'd receive about certain insurance providers.

What a benefit to make medical insurance mandatory - essentially that makes the demand for insurance 100% in that state, and even though there really is no such thing as "supply" in the insurance industry, you better believe insurance prices are going to rise there.

Was I speaking of hunter/gatherers? No - I was talking about the invention known as civilization versus many earlier methods of societal organization - hunting/gathering represents only a small portion of that, as most tribes in existence prior to civilization were not involved in hunting or gathering themselves - they traded services and products for other tribes' services and products...i.e. - today we'd have electronic engineers and computer programmers, but they would be organized into tribes, in very much a similar way to the tribe of Masons that has existed for centuries. Nowadays, members of the Masonic tribe often do not practice actual Masonry, but where do you think they originally came from?

I think you forget to recognize one important fact of modern hierarchical "civilization" - much of our society does not actually enjoy life - they simply enjoy the THINGS they receive from it - ask almost anyone, and you'll get the ignorant reaction of "you gotta do what you gotta do." That is quite indicative of the type of society we now live in, where very few people even do jobs that they want to do, and are governed by laws that should not actually be applied across the board in the way they are.

It does not have to exist like that. I'm of the opinion that George W. Bush is right when he says "This is a war for the very fate of civilization itself." It is - civilization is not helping us be happier, or live more productive lives - it's only helping us accumulate more stuff we don't need.

Let's assume that the figures you quote above would be the same in a tribalistic society. Do you not agree that humans are adaptive creatures, that if such a fact were true around the globe, humans would not begin to figure out ways to solve that, as well? Currently, the individuals that are responsible to see to it that humans do not die in the number you quote above are motivated, most often, by the same system most roles in this world are - a belief that money will help them, when in fact, most often money will not(as is evident by insurance companies' using technicalities to deny certain services).

Please note that the civilization we currently subscribe to was just an ill-conceived evolution of the tribal system that existed before it - a time that, of course, was not by any means "utopian," but in which humans most often held roles that they chose, that they knew, and that they cared about.

How many people do you know that are working in places/working on subjects they really want to work with?

Well, if you'd actually bothered to read the article itself (as opposed to a selective quotation on a hard-left blog), you'd have probably seen the following:

The realignment reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was, intelligence officials said, and a growing concern about Qaeda-inspired groups that have begun carrying out attacks independent of Mr. bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Agency officials said that tracking Mr. bin Laden and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened. Instead, the officials said, it reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals.

How about http://www.videosift.com/playlist/swampgirl/Christmas

or, even shorter, if the namespace can take it-
   http://www.videosift.com/swampgirl/Christmas

Clean, hierarchical, doesn't expose implementation.

Similar to http://del.icio.us/tag/videosift .. which is very easy to remember and tweak.