Browncoats... good guys or not? by Ghoulman

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Browncoats... good guys or not?

POSTED BY: GHOULMAN
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 02:07
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Friday, February 13, 2004 7:49 AM

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

Jasonzzz wrote:

Quote:
hmmm... That might be just us Homosapiens. Predators in the wild weed out their weak and sickly. Keeps the pack tight and fit. In fact, through competition, only the "fittest" get to pass on their genes. We don't seem to do that today as "predators".

We homosapiens are more like a virus, we use up all of the resources mindlessly in one area, we spread out and take up more area, we reproduce thoughtlessly without regard.

I agree that as a species we tend to use up our resources with little thought to preservation or effect of the usage. The loss of acres of rainforest everyday springs to mind, as does our reliance on fossil fuels.

I am not sure that we reproduce thoughtlessly, but it does seem that as a society, we do not think of the impact of our population growth on our enviroment.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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Friday, February 13, 2004 8:04 AM

LOADANDMAKEREADY

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:

Quote:

Question for you:

When it is moral for a group of people to do something that is IMmoral for one person to do alone?

Still waiting for an answer to this one.

loadandmakeready

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What's morallity but the definition by people. Differing people will have a different definition. So, by default, it is always *moral* to do whatever the hell you please. It's just not moral by "my" standards.

Well, you're a people aren't you? I was asking for YOUR answer. Simply trying to understand where you're "coming from," It's a problem I'm having with some people on this board ... we seem to be speaking different languages.

*L*

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Friday, February 13, 2004 8:11 AM

REDJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:
Homosapiens is a species of predator, and the only way a species of predator can survive, is by not preying upon itself.

Question for you:

When it is moral for a group of people to do something that is IMmoral for one person to do alone?

Actually Homo Sapiens is not, strictly speaking, a predator. But, even allowing for your assertion, you're still way off.

In fact it is common for predators of all species to kill off members of their own species in order to cut down on competition and to promote their own genetic line. Crocs, lions, chimps, bears, bugs, birds, the list is not endless but pretty damned long.

This is high school stuff, man. Really. Just flick on ANIMAL PLANET or watch a random NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC doc.

Humans do not survive by predation but by our ability to abstract complex forms from disperate inputs and to store that knowledge for future use.
That and these wicked cool thumbs.

Predation is but one of the tools we use and, mostly, we don't. Predation is inefficient. Farming, including the keeping and breeding of livestock, is efficient. That's why sport hunters are a bunch of sadistic throwbacks in our society but necessary and productive members of others.

Second point.

You have what seems to be a tenuous grasp on the concept of community.

Morals are abstract concepts which are not hardwired into humans but must be taught to the young of a given society. They are, invariably, stabilizers for the society into which the young have been born that the old have gleaned through trial and error.

Most current societies, for instance, do not cannibalize their defeated enemies as there are moral strictures- deeply indoctrinated from an early age– against it.

But SOME human societies did and do beleive that to consume the flesh of another person is to gain their knowledge and power. (Even Christian symbology includes the cannibalization of their Saviour.)

Morality, you see, is not fixed but a fairly movable feast. But, even in those societies, the act of cannibalism is only "moral" under highly ritualized group conditions. It's just murder when a guy does it alone.

In our society we are told that it's immoral to commit murder but soldiers and police officers get dispensation while abused women or oppressed minorities do not.

Shall I cite more?

The Price of Knowledge is Knowing.
Audrid Dax

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Friday, February 13, 2004 9:36 AM

GHOULMAN

... as far as I know - scientists can't agree on just what humans are so I've no hope for you guys. The best thoery is that we are scavengers. Always have been, but even that is just a basis for instinctual behaviour models as applied to a species.

So please... all this bullplop about what homosapians 'do' is getting really tired.

Oh, and as far as I know; morals are just rules for the tedious.

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Friday, February 13, 2004 10:24 AM

LOADANDMAKEREADY

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:

Question for you:

When it is moral for a group of people to do something that is IMmoral for one person to do alone?

Quote:

Shall I cite more?

Not necessary ... just answer the question.

*L*

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Friday, February 13, 2004 10:37 AM

LOADANDMAKEREADY

Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
The best thoery is that we are scavengers. Always have been, but even that is just a basis for instinctual behaviour models as applied to a species.

Scavengers eat things that are already dead. A predator kills what it eats. This is true whether it hunts it's prey in the wild, or raises it on a ranch, or in a stockyard. That isn't theory, it's fact.

*L*

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Friday, February 13, 2004 10:40 AM

GHOULMAN

^^^ oooh, that's a philosophy question one gets in, like, first year right? I think I know the answer but then I've never seen the inside of a college. However - I have seen the inside of a college student!

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Friday, February 13, 2004 10:55 AM

GHOULMAN

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:
Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
The best thoery is that we are scavengers. Always have been, but even that is just a basis for instinctual behaviour models as applied to a species.

Scavengers eat things that are already dead. A predator kills what it eats. This is true whether it hunts it's prey in the wild, or raises it on a ranch, or in a stockyard. That isn't theory, it's fact.

Did Homo Habilis hunt game, merely scavenge meat, or do both? There is agreement that humans were scavengers at least part of the time. Which is why I'm getting tired hearing so many 'facts'. It's not like the scientists know either.

And using such pseudo-scientific bullplop to rationalize a more and more elusive point is just stupid. Not that loadanmakeready did that.

Anyho', have a great week-end!

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Friday, February 13, 2004 11:57 AM

LOADANDMAKEREADY

Quote:

Did Homo Habilis hunt game, merely scavenge meat, or do both? There is agreement that humans were scavengers at least part of the time. Which is why I'm getting tired hearing so many 'facts'. It's not like the scientists know either.

And using such pseudo-scientific bullplop to rationalize a more and more elusive point is just stupid. Not that loadanmakeready did that.

Anyho', have a great week-end!

Whether or not Homo Habilis could scavenge, I don't know. But modern man can't. We don't have the bacterium in our systems to kill the other bacterium which "spoils" meat. The things that other scavengers (crows, magpies, eagles, even dogs and cats -- which ARE scavenger/predators)can eat, will kill humans.

and you have a good weekend too!

*L*

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Friday, February 13, 2004 1:58 PM

JASONZZZ

Hey, speak for yourself. If you mean "modern men" by them city-slickers - well alright. Plenty of people in the world still don't have refrigeration and have to eat meat that's been sitting around. Then again, city-slickers don't hunt or scavenge. Heck, we can't even start a fire even if it really meant saving our hide. Oh, what the heck am I talking about, most city folk stare at the light switch and think "ooooh, magic"...

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:
Quote:

Did Homo Habilis hunt game, merely scavenge meat, or do both? There is agreement that humans were scavengers at least part of the time. Which is why I'm getting tired hearing so many 'facts'. It's not like the scientists know either.

And using such pseudo-scientific bullplop to rationalize a more and more elusive point is just stupid. Not that loadanmakeready did that.

Anyho', have a great week-end!

Whether or not Homo Habilis could scavenge, I don't know. But modern man can't. We don't have the bacterium in our systems to kill the other bacterium which "spoils" meat. The things that other scavengers (crows, magpies, eagles, even dogs and cats -- which ARE scavenger/predators)can eat, will kill humans.

and you have a good weekend too!

*L*

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Friday, February 13, 2004 2:46 PM

LOADANDMAKEREADY

Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:

Hey, speak for yourself. If you mean "modern men" by them city-slickers - well alright. Plenty of people in the world still don't have refrigeration and have to eat meat that's been sitting around.

Too true!! But they have found ways to preserve it without refrigeration ... for a while at least. Drying in the sun, (jerky) salting, certain ways of pickling, probably others that I don't know about.

Quote:
Then again, city-slickers don't hunt or scavenge. Heck, we can't even start a fire even if it really meant saving our hide.

You could always try rubbing two boy scouts together. Won't work with me though, I was an Eagle Scout, and feathers don't burn readily ... and if you do get them burning, they STIIIIIIINK!!

Quote:

Oh, what the heck am I talking about, most city folk stare at the light switch and think "ooooh, magic"...

LOL! You got that right! When I was a teenager, I would work part of the summer on a cattle ranch. At the ranch house we had it good ... artesian well, a generator for electricity, refrigeration, a cesspool and indoor toilet ... we even had a water heater. But when I had to work at a line shack, we had to haul water from a stream in a bucket, light was by kerosene lamp, (although we did get a coleman lantern later ... much easier to read by) use an out house, and heat water for a bath on a wood burning stove. Oh, and no refrigeration.
Still not as rough as some people have it.

How many people do we both know who think of the grocery store as the ultimate source of food?

Have a good week end.

*L*

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Saturday, February 14, 2004 1:52 AM

DRAKON

Quote:
Originally posted by Redjack:
It is the nature of ALL primates to live in hierarchical structures, usually pyramid formed, with a single alpha or alpha pair at the apex.

This has always bugged me for some reason, and it took me a bit to figure out why.

First off, I don't think there is any such inherent or genetic tendency in the human species. I think the utilization of hierachical structures has to do more with Ricardo's Law of Comparitive Advantages than anything to do with genetics. It is just more efficient if you consentrate on one job, and let others do the same, then everybody trying to everything.

And that includes thinking and making decisions as much as operating the machines, or building the product.

Second, inherent in this proposition is the idea of humanity as nothing more than robots. That we come preprogramed from the start with a set of behaviour, and that cannot be changed even if the individual wants to change. This I think is a very dangerous concept to make, and I can see how it can be used to strip whole groups of thier rights, even slaughter them. They can't help being evil bastards, so we should just kill them.

Third: it dispenses with morality altogether. No one can be blamed for what he has no control over. Even if we could accomplish what I was talking about above, we would not be morally responsible for their deaths, we are just acting in accordance with our programming.

Anyway, I don't buy it.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Saturday, February 14, 2004 1:59 AM

DRAKON

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:
Homosapiens is a species of predator, and the only way a species of predator can survive, is by not preying upon itself.

False premise. Humans are omnivores. Some, quite many, eat plants. Some eat meat, and even those eating meat get finiky about what meat they eat.

Quote:

Question for you:

When it is moral for a group of people to do something that is IMmoral for one person to do alone?

loadandmakeready

Good question. I can't think of an example off the top of my heads, but am willing to bet you are talking about taxes.

Look, its wrong to accept a service and not pay for it, right? I feel the same way about taxes. Yes there are plenty of things I wish they would stop funding, but then again, I still get honest cops and honest judges. (Although I sometimes question the intelligence of those judges) I get a strong military, willing to stand on the wall and protect and defend my freedoms. So I don't have as big a problem with it as some might.

But I am all for paying the least for the most, just like everyone else.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Saturday, February 14, 2004 9:55 AM

REDJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
Quote:
Originally posted by Redjack:
It is the nature of ALL primates to live in hierarchical structures, usually pyramid formed, with a single alpha or alpha pair at the apex.

This has always bugged me for some reason, and it took me a bit to figure out why.

First off, I don't think there is any such inherent or genetic tendency in the human species. I think the utilization of hierachical structures has to do more with Ricardo's Law of Comparitive Advantages than anything to do with genetics. It is just more efficient if you consentrate on one job, and let others do the same, then everybody trying to everything.

And that includes thinking and making decisions as much as operating the machines, or building the product.

That's a sound theory but it doesn't apply to primate behaviour or, more importantly, to animal behaviour on the whole. Expanding out from the primate model, which, as I said, is uniform in respect to heirarchical structures, you find considerable diversity in the animal kingdom vis a vis survival structures.

What works for one species, in short, doesn't work for all. Penguins, for instance, are hardwired to be pack animals while eagles are not.

Lions are pack animals but tigers and bears are not. There's no "choice" invovled.

This genetic hardwiring doesn't make us robots and couldn't be used to remove or assign ethical responsability to a given group except by a madman.

It merely describes firmly imbedded tendancies which, for the most part, can't be modified without extreme (read surgical or chemical) meddling.

Quote:
Second, inherent in this proposition is the idea of humanity as nothing more than robots. That we come preprogramed from the start with a set of behaviour, and that cannot be changed even if the individual wants to change. This I think is a very dangerous concept to make, and I can see how it can be used to strip whole groups of thier rights, even slaughter them. They can't help being evil bastards, so we should just kill them.

Look at it this way: we are hardwired to choose a leader or leading pair. That is evidenced by 100% of human societies. What is not hardwired is who is chosen or how that choice is made (though recent studies have begun to show that those with certain skill sets tend to rise to the top).

And, yes, to some degree, we are, like ALL animals, partially controlled by our hardwiring.

We are hardwired for sex, for pattern recognition and for langauge too.

Quote:
Third: it dispenses with morality altogether. No one can be blamed for what he has no control over. Even if we could accomplish what I was talking about above, we would not be morally responsible for their deaths, we are just acting in accordance with our programming.

Morality is not hardwired. Humans, like all animals, are born amoral. There is no built-in desire to "do right" as it were. These things must be taught.

Again, looking at the various human societies you can easily see how "morality" shifts from culture to culture. What's "right" in Western eyes is not necessarily seen that way elsewhere. What's "right" according to Christians is not when you talk to an animist.

All morality is local.

Quote:
Anyway, I don't buy it.

You don't have to. But it's true nonetheless.

The Price of Knowledge is Knowing.
Audrid Dax

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Saturday, February 14, 2004 4:33 PM

LTNOWIS

Quote:

Quote:
There are greater differences between individual human beings than there are between entire species of other mammals.

Um. No. Not genetically there isn't. We are almost completely interchangeable at that level. Perhaps you should leave off the history texts for a year or two and look into that whole biology thing. It's a hoot.

You're both right. It has been proven that there is more genetic variation in a single family of chimpanzees than there is in the entire human race. However, we've got lot's of non-genetic differences, in culture, ethics, morals, environments. If you looked at 50 chimps, they'd all be pretty much the same. 50 people, on the other hand, would have radically different ideals, personalities, races, etc.

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Tuesday, February 24, 2004 6:37 PM

JASONZZZ

arggh! you are right... ran ran ran ran ran ran ran... runned is only for pantyhose. sorry. ;-)

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:

Quote:

Lysander Spooner, again. It might be true of some governments in our world, but why do some people keep believing that our government is runned with a programmed and specific determination towards malice - is it just me or the militant radicals in Montana?

Runned?

Governments always end up becoming the very thing they were created to prevent.
A revolution that was begun in protest of a Stamp Tax, and a small tax on tea ended up with the IRS.

Who is going to fight harder for public office? Your honest neighbor who knows he will have to put his life and career on hold in order to get into politics, serve a term or two in order to expand a freedom, or make freedom more secure ... then go back home and enjoy that freedom?

Or someone who wants to control the lives of others, and sees politics as a way to combine that sickness with a career which will bring him wealth, power, and fame?

loadandmakeready

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Tuesday, February 24, 2004 11:34 PM

LOADANDMAKEREADY

Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:

arggh! you are right... ran ran ran ran ran ran ran... runned is only for pantyhose. sorry. ;-)

Well, we all make errors ... especially when we are in a hurry. My father brought me up to question everything, and to be as accurate as I possibly could. Some times I over do it.

Speaking of my father ....

On this date 59 years ago -- 25 February,1945 -- my fathers Regiment, the Ninth Marines, went into combat on Iwo Jima. In the twenty days they were in combat, the Ninth Marines suffered over two thousand casualties. My father was one of those casualties. His injuries were severe enough that the Veterans Administration determined him to be 300% disabled.

Can you imagine it? In less than a month, American casualties in that single battle numbered 24,000!! Nearly 7,000 dead, and over 17,000 wounded. And that's just on our side! The Japanese had just over 20,000 dead!

And for what?!? Because a bunch of politicians got mad at one another?!? And told their people, "Let's you and them go fight?"

In his novel, All The Rage, F. Paul Wilson said it best ... "They jerk young men out of their lives, put guns in their hands, and send them out to kill other young men who have been jerked out of their lives and had guns put into their hands. While these young men huddle shivering in their foxholes hoping they will live to see the next sunrise, the people who cause all the problems; the politicians, the generals, the preists, mullahs, and tribal elders, sit back in their comfortable digs and move their chess pieces around."

For a very interesting view of what war is, see War Is A Racket by Smedley Butler, Brigadier General, USMC. You can find it at:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

loadandmakeready

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Tuesday, February 24, 2004 11:35 PM

LOADANDMAKEREADY

Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:

arggh! you are right... ran ran ran ran ran ran ran... runned is only for pantyhose. sorry. ;-)

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Wednesday, February 25, 2004 1:01 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:
My father brought me up to question everything, and to be as accurate as I possibly could. Some times I over do it.

Both admirable qualities. I suffer from an overly pedantic streak at times myself (especially with language!). Out of curiosity, do you question/challenge your own beliefs as regularly as you do those of the world around you?

Quote:
Originally posted by LoadAndMakeReady:

And for what?!? Because a bunch of politicians got mad at one another?!? And told their people, "Let's you and them go fight?"

Simplistic, but in essence about right. WW2 was, of course, far more complicated than that, but I'm sure you know that already. I was planning on going into a whole history of Serbian freedom fighters, political situations, and the driving pride/ego of people who are never likely to be shot at in anger (unless in a revolution, of course ) here, but even explaining why I'm not going to is taking far too long, which I'm guessing is the reason for your brevity, too!

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Wednesday, February 25, 2004 2:07 AM

LOADANDMAKEREADY

Quote:

Both admirable qualities. I suffer from an overly pedantic streak at times myself (especially with language!). Out of curiosity, do you question/challenge your own beliefs as regularly as you do those of the world around you?

I'm always ready to examine my views in the face of new evidence.
I figure if I don't, I stagnate. Although I really have to closely examine the new evidence. My father used to say, the first words I learned were; "why," "who said so," and "how does he know?"

loadandmakeready

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