As far as “how” and “what,” wasn’t the point of your first comment that “how” was not only important, but neglected by progressives? You bring up a failing, you’d better check to make sure you’ve looked in the mirror, and leave the whining and demands for special treatment at the door. Your “what” is just as senseless as it was before.

So I’ll scroll and you can vent.

Point it out. It sounds like you are only critical of me personally, attacking me personally because you cannot attack my ideas. You can disagree as Lex has done, he disagrees with utilitarianism and consequentialism, which is an intelligent and legit criticism of the basis of my ideas. All you are critical of is how I express myself, you are resorting to being critical of how I speak rather than what I say.

It’s not important to me that I win any of you over. What I wanted to do is trigger an intelligent discussion about practical solutions, and you have offered none.You now make the claim that my teachers weren’t talented or were all bad, which is not the case. Yes a lot of them were bad, but some were talented and very good and it was the good teachers who complained about the standardized testing the most. They wanted the freedom to focus maximizing knowledge rather than simply teaching students to ace the test. The test decided not only who could graduate and who could not, influencing the graduation and drop out rate, the test scores also make teachers look better and the school itself look better. This brings more funding to the school in the future.

The no child left behind as a system is up for debate, and it’s not coming from me but from teachers who claim to not support the system. I personally do not support the no child left behind system, I don’t think there should be any teaching or testing standards beyond reading, writhing and arithmetic and it should be done anonymously so that the schools which are doing bad don’t have to look bad but the government can still track the US ranks. I do not think students should hae to pass that test to graduate. Students have enough to worry about with the ACT and SAT.

“Does the end ever justify the means, Lucian? Is that equation a valid form of ethical measurement? Are ends ever fully separate from means, or does every consequence become an action in itself? You’ve expressed multiple and mutually exclusive opinions on every one of these questions so far. I still don’t know what you think, or even if you do, and I suspect a lack of critical, rational, calm thought may be precisely the problem. ”

Just because you aren’t logical enough to make sense of consequentialism it does not mean that what I said is without logic. The ends/results/consequences are more important than how we reach them. To take any other position is to be a pacifist. It took violence and bloodshed to put an end to the aggression of Germany, Italy and Japan. The means were brutal, violent, and bloody. The end result is that many more lives were saved. This is an objective conclusion based on the fact that Germany was conducting genocide and had plans to spread it globally. If you value human rights then you will agree that it is justice to put an end to genocide whenever we see it and are capable of doing so. In the case of stopping genocide, the ends justify the means.

If you want to talk about whether it’s rational or not, and you can shut your emotions up and stop “feeling” how I express my words and start paying attention to the content and reasoning behind it, you’ll see that there have been no contradictions at all. What I have said has been relatively consistent. I never made the claim that all ends are equally just. I claimed that when the ends are just, the means are just. This does not mean the ends and means are the same thing, or mutually exclusive.

The ends/results/consequences of an action decide whether or not an action was correct on a rational level. If a man decided today to try and drive humanity into extinction by building some death ray device, it is logical, rational, and ethical to kill that man to save humanity from extinction. In this case the ends would justify the means. This is saying that no action is always wrong in every situation, every action must be evaluated within the context of the situation it is placed in.This allows us to objectively measure the correctness and incorrectness of an action based on a set of core principles such as whether or not those actions preserve human rights, or protect the human species from extinction. Extinction from a natural law perspective is never an option for a reasonable actor.

Killing/steaing/lying, these are acts. If a bunch of people kill some guy, we cannot obectively say this is right or wrong until we know the context with which this happened. A deontologist will believe killing is always wrong because the nature of the act itself is wrong. A pacifist will say killing is always wrong including in self defense. I’m not a pacifist, and I don’t think pacifism is a realistic/rational political policy.

I don’t think we have any more to say to each other because you care more about my “tone of voice” and how I put it out there than what I’ve put out. You can agree with me, or disagree and its fine, but do not attack me personally.

Further, either you’re interested in exchanging ideas in a way which engages others, promotes real conversation and provokes further thought (”I want your criticism”) – or you simply want to screech your own frustration and ideologies in a public forum (”you can take it or leave it”). Which one? If it’s truly the first, then I refer you back to the term I borrowed from you – marketing, or learning to express yourself courteously, concisely and clearly.

Courtesy in public dialogue does not connote weakness, Lucian. On the contrary, your arguments will gain weight and force if you can at least pretend to respect your opponent – perhaps your potential ally, if you tone it down long enough to listen.

Concise means focus, Lucian; self-editing which forces you to deal in specifics to support your ideas is the ultimate credibility booster. It will also help you avoid contradicting yourself, which you’ve done frequently in this thread. Authors get lost in their own words all the time; that’s why editors have jobs. I’d suggest you a) compose your response in Notepad or something first and b) leave it alone for oh, five minutes and then LOOK AT IT before you copy and paste, which will almost inevitably lead to greater…

Clarity. There’s no prize for posting speed, Lucian. The thread will be here. Make sure the words you use are the ones you mean, throw in a bit of punctuation to help the reader, and then read it aloud to yourself, for the love of God. Your “ends and means” comments degenerate almost immediately into drivel; your enchantment with “-ists” and “-ologies” seems to make you forget to make sense.

Does the end ever justify the means, Lucian? Is that equation a valid form of ethical measurement? Are ends ever fully separate from means, or does every consequence become an action in itself? You’ve expressed multiple and mutually exclusive opinions on every one of these questions so far. I still don’t know what you think, or even if you do, and I suspect a lack of critical, rational, calm thought may be precisely the problem.

Have a drink, shut up for a minute, think and then post. You could very well be worth listening to.

If for example we are talking about defending the constitution and preserving national security, then we should stop at nothing to do that. It does not matter how we do it, whether it be through war, whether hundreds, or thousands of lives are lost. This country was founded upon the ends justifying the means. The union was preserved during the civil war because the ends justified the means. The founding fathers were utilitarians. And I’m going to say a military leader MUST be a consequentialist to win.

What I mean is, you set a prime objective or mission to be accomplished. Then you gather your best men and you set about accomplishing that mission. There are hundreds or thousands of groups of men who also have missions to accomplish as well, and in this context the ends justify the means in that the mission must be accomplished by any means necessary. This is not to say that blood and death is the best way to accomplish anything. It’s just an acknowledgment that if something truly is worth defending at any cost, then the ends do justify the means. I think human rights are an example of something which must be defended at any cost, much like how the constitution must be defended at any cost.

In the context of consequentialist ethics, an action’s rightness or wrongness is measured entirely by the consequences. To illustrate: If there is a train track with a fork in the track, on one end of the fork there are 5 people who will be certainly hit by the train unless you pull the lever, yet on the other end of the track there is one person who will certainly hit by the train if you pull the lever, assuming all of these lives are of equal value, what is the most ethical(correct) solution?

A consequentialist would pull the lever, bringing certain death to 1 person to save 5. Why? Because the ends justify the means to this person. However a person who is not a consequentialist would freeze up, allow 5 people to die, because the ends never justify the means. If the ends never justify the means reasonably it follows that the consequences of an act do not matter. If the consequences don’t matter the how can you measure the correctness or incorrectness of the act? Merely by the nature of the act? Killing is always wrong because it’s killing? Stealing is always wrong because it’s stealing? I’m guessing you are a deontologist, and I disagree with deontology because I do believe the consequences are all that matters, this is from a completely scientific and rationalist perspective.

I think that not caring about the consequences is more scary than consequentialism. The only problem with consequentialism (the ends justifying the means), is when the ends aren’t just. Human rights are just so unless you have a valid argument against human rights, when your rights are violated thats when the ends will justify the means for you personally.

I don’t really have a political agenda beyond human rights. I do want a libertarian style society which means if you aren’t harming anybody, the government and corporations should leave you alone. I don’t support authoritarianism,I see authoritarianism as the source of all problems. The problems in the USSR and in Germany came from authoritarianism. Socialism isn’t bad, Capitalism isn’t bad, it’s Authoritarianism that is bad. It’s having the government practically enslave it’s citizens to keep them safe, that is what is bad. It’s having corporations practically and functionally enslave it’s employees, that is what is bad. The authoritarianism simply is not necessary.

I am a capitalist, I do think we need to use capitalism as a tool to make the world better. I do think we should use capitalism and money as a tool to bring about human rights. I don’t believe we can get anything done without using the system of rewards on some level, whether it be rewarding people with money, drugs, beads, it has to be something. Yes technically the common man some power, but it’s very limited at this time because the average citizen isn’t educated, and the media is brainwashing them.

2. Finally, your belief that the ends justify the means scares the living shit out of me. That idea has been used to perpetrate the most awful crimes, time and time again. There is no difference between the ends and the means; they cannot be separated.

If the ends do not justify the means, you will never have human rights and your destiny is slavery. You can quote me on this. I will explain why I say this, the ends justify the means in the context of defending the constitution, defending human rights, but the ends themselves must be just. To say that the ends NEVER justify the means is to say that you’ll never fight for any cause and you’ll just let any determined person run you over and enslave you. At some point the consequences matter, and when you find the point where the consequences are more important than anything else, then the ends do justify the means.

If for example we are talking about defending the constitution and preserving national security, then we should stop at nothing to do that. It does not matter how we do it, whether it be through war, whether hundreds, or thousands of lives are lost. This country was founded upon the ends justifying the means. The union was preserved during the civil war because the ends justified the means. The founding fathers were utilitarians. And I’m going to say a military leader MUST be a consequentialist to win.

What I mean is, you set a prime objective or mission to be accomplished. Then you gather your best men and you set about accomplishing that mission. There are hundreds or thousands of groups of men who also have missions to accomplish as well, and in this context the ends justify the means in that the mission must be accomplished by any means necessary. This is not to say that blood and death is the best way to accomplish anything. It’s just an acknowledgment that if something truly is worth defending at any cost, then the ends do justify the means. I think human rights are an example of something which must be defended at any cost, much like how the constitution must be defended at any cost.

In the context of consequentialist ethics, an action’s rightness or wrongness is measured entirely by the consequences. To illustrate: If there is a train track with a fork in the track, on one end of the fork there are 5 people who will be certainly hit by the train unless you pull the lever, yet on the other end of the track there is one person who will certainly hit by the train if you pull the lever, assuming all of these lives are of equal value, what is the most ethical(correct) solution?

A consequentialist would pull the lever, bringing certain death to 1 person to save 5. Why? Because the ends justify the means to this person. However a person who is not a consequentialist would freeze up, allow 5 people to die, because the ends never justify the means. If the ends never justify the means reasonably it follows that the consequences of an act do not matter. If the consequences don’t matter the how can you measure the correctness or incorrectness of the act? Merely by the nature of the act? Killing is always wrong because it’s killing? Stealing is always wrong because it’s stealing? I’m guessing you are a deontologist, and I disagree with deontology because I do believe the consequences are all that matters, this is from a completely scientific and rationalist perspective.

I think that not caring about the consequences is more scary than consequentialism. The only problem with consequentialism (the ends justifying the means), is when the ends aren’t just. Human rights are just so unless you have a valid argument against human rights, when your rights are violated thats when the ends will justify the means for you personally.

The only point I’m attempting to make in my posts is that any solution we invent will require that we use the same system of incentives and rewards to engineer the changes. Basically you have to use incentives to change whatever the behavior is that is causing problems for society.

“
1.The difference, Lucian, between how you see the world and how i see the world is that you seem to believe that we are powerless and we must take power to make things right. I see us as ignoring all the power that we already possess.

I think you are over-estimating the intelligence and power of the masses. We just had Bush in office for the last 8 years, and he had approval ratings of less than 20%. When you say the power “we” have, you and I have no power. The top 1% of families have all the power, they are the people in all the critical leadership positions. Whether it be the head of all the Banks, the Dean of all the Universities, the Generals in all the branches of the Military, the heads of State, the Governors Association, the all of the top CEO’s and most of richest most influential Americans. Leadership comes from the top down even if the ideas and planning come from the bottom up. What this means is that yes we can decide as a country that we want change, but just changing the faces is a lot like musical chairs. Obama does not control the federal reserve, he does not control the banks, the banks and federal reserve represent a separate shadow government unto themselves. This is why they have been unregulated for so long, they controlled the money so why should it matter who the politicians are? Politicians can be bribed.

I don’t believe the American people have any real power on the global scale. Corporations don’t respect American citizens, to corporations we are just “consumers” which translates into a type of slave or zombie. A consumer does not even have rights, and there is no constitution which governs corporate behavior. I think the American Citizen is dis empowered for many reasons, but the main reason is because of the federal laws currently in place, and the second reason is the multi-national corporations which are free to commit acts of treason because they aren’t loyal to the nation of their birth, unlike citizens.

The only point I’m attempting to make in my posts is that any solution we invent will require that we use the same system of incentives and rewards to engineer the changes. Basically you have to use incentives to change whatever the behavior is that is causing problems for society.

“
1.The difference, Lucian, between how you see the world and how i see the world is that you seem to believe that we are powerless and we must take power to make things right. I see us as ignoring all the power that we already possess.

I think you are over-estimating the intelligence and power of the masses. We just had Bush in office for the last 8 years, and he had approval ratings of less than 20%. When you say the power “we” have, you and I have no power. The top 1% of families have all the power, they are the people in all the critical leadership positions. Whether it be the head of all the Banks, the Dean of all the Universities, the Generals in all the branches of the Military, the heads of State, the Governors Association, the all of the top CEO’s and most of richest most influential Americans. Leadership comes from the top down even if the ideas and planning come from the bottom up. What this means is that yes we can decide as a country that we want change, but just changing the faces is a lot like musical chairs. Obama does not control the federal reserve, he does not control the banks, the banks and federal reserve represent a separate shadow government unto themselves. This is why they have been unregulated for so long, they controlled the money so why should it matter who the politicians are? Politicians can be bribed.

I don’t believe the American people have any real power on the global scale. Corporations don’t respect American citizens, to corporations we are just “consumers” which translates into a type of slave or zombie. A consumer does not even have rights, and there is no constitution which governs corporate behavior. I think the American Citizen is dis empowered for many reasons, but the main reason is because of the federal laws currently in place, and the second reason is the multi-national corporations which are free to commit acts of treason because they aren’t loyal to the nation of their birth, unlike citizens.

As far as revolution goes, I don’t think we need a revolution. I don’t want tyranny either, I’m a libertarian. What I want is for the government to get out of this authoritarian mode that it is stuck in, because this authoritarianism doesn’t benefit the bottom 99% of the country and only benefits the top 1% of families who are so rich that they don’t really have to work for a living. I’m not saying we should change everything, the people who have money should be allowed to keep what they have. I’m not calling for revolution, the people who aren’t hurting anyone and who just happen to be rich and powerful, can stay that way. The only people who are a threat to our security are the people who are actively trying to harm us and our country.

I don’t really have a political agenda beyond human rights. I do want a libertarian style society which means if you aren’t harming anybody, the government and corporations should leave you alone. I don’t support authoritarianism,I see authoritarianism as the source of all problems. The problems in the USSR and in Germany came from authoritarianism. Socialism isn’t bad, Capitalism isn’t bad, it’s Authoritarianism that is bad. It’s having the government practically enslave it’s citizens to keep them safe, that is what is bad. It’s having corporations practically and functionally enslave it’s employees, that is what is bad. The authoritarianism simply is not necessary.

I am a capitalist, I do think we need to use capitalism as a tool to make the world better. I do think we should use capitalism and money as a tool to bring about human rights. I don’t believe we can get anything done without using the system of rewards on some level, whether it be rewarding people with money, drugs, beads, it has to be something. Yes technically the common man some power, but it’s very limited at this time because the average citizen isn’t educated, and the media is brainwashing them.

2. Finally, your belief that the ends justify the means scares the living shit out of me. That idea has been used to perpetrate the most awful crimes, time and time again. There is no difference between the ends and the means; they cannot be separated.

If the ends do not justify the means, you will never have human rights and your destiny is slavery. You can quote me on this. I will explain why I say this, the ends justify the means in the context of defending the constitution, defending human rights, but the ends themselves must be just. To say that the ends NEVER justify the means is to say that you’ll never fight for any cause and you’ll just let any determined person run you over and enslave you. At some point the consequences matter, and when you find the point where the consequences are more important than anything else, then the ends do justify the means.

If for example we are talking about defending the constitution and preserving national security, then we should stop at nothing to do that. It does not matter how we do it, whether it be through war, whether hundreds, or thousands of lives are lost. This country was founded upon the ends justifying the means. The union was preserved during the civil war because the ends justified the means. The founding fathers were utilitarians. And I’m going to say a military leader MUST be a consequentialist to win.

What I mean is, you set a prime objective or mission to be accomplished. Then you gather your best men and you set about accomplishing that mission. There are hundreds or thousands of groups of men who also have missions to accomplish as well, and in this context the ends justify the means in that the mission must be accomplished by any means necessary. This is not to say that blood and death is the best way to accomplish anything. It’s just an acknowledgment that if something truly is worth defending at any cost, then the ends do justify the means. I think human rights are an example of something which must be defended at any cost, much like how the constitution must be defended at any cost.

In the context of consequentialist ethics, an action’s rightness or wrongness is measured entirely by the consequences. To illustrate: If there is a train track with a fork in the track, on one end of the fork there are 5 people who will be certainly hit by the train unless you pull the lever, yet on the other end of the track there is one person who will certainly hit by the train if you pull the lever, assuming all of these lives are of equal value, what is the most ethical(correct) solution?

A consequentialist would pull the lever, bringing certain death to 1 person to save 5. Why? Because the ends justify the means to this person. However a person who is not a consequentialist would freeze up, allow 5 people to die, because the ends never justify the means. If the ends never justify the means reasonably it follows that the consequences of an act do not matter. If the consequences don’t matter the how can you measure the correctness or incorrectness of the act? Merely by the nature of the act? Killing is always wrong because it’s killing? Stealing is always wrong because it’s stealing? I’m guessing you are a deontologist, and I disagree with deontology because I do believe the consequences are all that matters, this is from a completely scientific and rationalist perspective.

I think that not caring about the consequences is more scary than consequentialism. The only problem with consequentialism (the ends justifying the means), is when the ends aren’t just. Human rights are just so unless you have a valid argument against human rights, when your rights are violated thats when the ends will justify the means for you personally.

And I’m not trying to market a specific point of view, you are free to accept my point of view or come up with something better. I offered my point to view because I want your criticism in hopes that somebody somewhere can generate a better idea and apply at least the core mechanisms of scientific approach to generating it.

When I say progressives tend to think everyone has the same brain, I’m talking about the preaching to the choir mentality. If I’m wrong, some me some progressives offering practical solutions.

Lex you and I both agree that the present state is unacceptable. If we share the same objective, then we can discuss and debate on practical solutions. If the premise is true that corporations control mankind by manipulating the tools and systems of control (money), then we also could come to the conclusion that the banks and investors are the true controllers of our society, not the politicians or the people. It is the banks and investors who decide where the rewards are and how they are distributed.

The only point I’m attempting to make in my posts is that any solution we invent will require that we use the same system of incentives and rewards to engineer the changes. Basically you have to use incentives to change whatever the behavior is that is causing problems for society.

“
1.The difference, Lucian, between how you see the world and how i see the world is that you seem to believe that we are powerless and we must take power to make things right. I see us as ignoring all the power that we already possess.

I think you are over-estimating the intelligence and power of the masses. We just had Bush in office for the last 8 years, and he had approval ratings of less than 20%. When you say the power “we” have, you and I have no power. The top 1% of families have all the power, they are the people in all the critical leadership positions. Whether it be the head of all the Banks, the Dean of all the Universities, the Generals in all the branches of the Military, the heads of State, the Governors Association, the all of the top CEO’s and most of richest most influential Americans. Leadership comes from the top down even if the ideas and planning come from the bottom up. What this means is that yes we can decide as a country that we want change, but just changing the faces is a lot like musical chairs. Obama does not control the federal reserve, he does not control the banks, the banks and federal reserve represent a separate shadow government unto themselves. This is why they have been unregulated for so long, they controlled the money so why should it matter who the politicians are? Politicians can be bribed.

I don’t believe the American people have any real power on the global scale. Corporations don’t respect American citizens, to corporations we are just “consumers” which translates into a type of slave or zombie. A consumer does not even have rights, and there is no constitution which governs corporate behavior. I think the American Citizen is dis empowered for many reasons, but the main reason is because of the federal laws currently in place, and the second reason is the multi-national corporations which are free to commit acts of treason because they aren’t loyal to the nation of their birth, unlike citizens.

As far as revolution goes, I don’t think we need a revolution. I don’t want tyranny either, I’m a libertarian. What I want is for the government to get out of this authoritarian mode that it is stuck in, because this authoritarianism doesn’t benefit the bottom 99% of the country and only benefits the top 1% of families who are so rich that they don’t really have to work for a living. I’m not saying we should change everything, the people who have money should be allowed to keep what they have. I’m not calling for revolution, the people who aren’t hurting anyone and who just happen to be rich and powerful, can stay that way. The only people who are a threat to our security are the people who are actively trying to harm us and our country.

I don’t really have a political agenda beyond human rights. I do want a libertarian style society which means if you aren’t harming anybody, the government and corporations should leave you alone. I don’t support authoritarianism,I see authoritarianism as the source of all problems. The problems in the USSR and in Germany came from authoritarianism. Socialism isn’t bad, Capitalism isn’t bad, it’s Authoritarianism that is bad. It’s having the government practically enslave it’s citizens to keep them safe, that is what is bad. It’s having corporations practically and functionally enslave it’s employees, that is what is bad. The authoritarianism simply is not necessary.

I am a capitalist, I do think we need to use capitalism as a tool to make the world better. I do think we should use capitalism and money as a tool to bring about human rights. I don’t believe we can get anything done without using the system of rewards on some level, whether it be rewarding people with money, drugs, beads, it has to be something. Yes technically the common man some power, but it’s very limited at this time because the average citizen isn’t educated, and the media is brainwashing them.

2. Finally, your belief that the ends justify the means scares the living shit out of me. That idea has been used to perpetrate the most awful crimes, time and time again. There is no difference between the ends and the means; they cannot be separated.

If the ends do not justify the means, you will never have human rights and your destiny is slavery. You can quote me on this. I will explain why I say this, the ends justify the means in the context of defending the constitution, defending human rights, but the ends themselves must be just. To say that the ends NEVER justify the means is to say that you’ll never fight for any cause and you’ll just let any determined person run you over and enslave you. At some point the consequences matter, and when you find the point where the consequences are more important than anything else, then the ends do justify the means.

If for example we are talking about defending the constitution and preserving national security, then we should stop at nothing to do that. It does not matter how we do it, whether it be through war, whether hundreds, or thousands of lives are lost. This country was founded upon the ends justifying the means. The union was preserved during the civil war because the ends justified the means. The founding fathers were utilitarians. And I’m going to say a military leader MUST be a consequentialist to win.

What I mean is, you set a prime objective or mission to be accomplished. Then you gather your best men and you set about accomplishing that mission. There are hundreds or thousands of groups of men who also have missions to accomplish as well, and in this context the ends justify the means in that the mission must be accomplished by any means necessary. This is not to say that blood and death is the best way to accomplish anything. It’s just an acknowledgment that if something truly is worth defending at any cost, then the ends do justify the means. I think human rights are an example of something which must be defended at any cost, much like how the constitution must be defended at any cost.

In the context of consequentialist ethics, an action’s rightness or wrongness is measured entirely by the consequences. To illustrate: If there is a train track with a fork in the track, on one end of the fork there are 5 people who will be certainly hit by the train unless you pull the lever, yet on the other end of the track there is one person who will certainly hit by the train if you pull the lever, assuming all of these lives are of equal value, what is the most ethical(correct) solution?

A consequentialist would pull the lever, bringing certain death to 1 person to save 5. Why? Because the ends justify the means to this person. However a person who is not a consequentialist would freeze up, allow 5 people to die, because the ends never justify the means. If the ends never justify the means reasonably it follows that the consequences of an act do not matter. If the consequences don’t matter the how can you measure the correctness or incorrectness of the act? Merely by the nature of the act? Killing is always wrong because it’s killing? Stealing is always wrong because it’s stealing? I’m guessing you are a deontologist, and I disagree with deontology because I do believe the consequences are all that matters, this is from a completely scientific and rationalist perspective.

I think that not caring about the consequences is more scary than consequentialism. The only problem with consequentialism (the ends justifying the means), is when the ends aren’t just. Human rights are just so unless you have a valid argument against human rights, when your rights are violated thats when the ends will justify the means for you personally.

I’m actually a freeper mole, sent here to undermine the progressive movement.

We are “enslaved” by the corporate police state because we chose to allow ourselves to be enslaved. Our present state may well prove Skinner correct in terms of mass psychology. Having been offered trinkets and baubles as rewards we’ve done what we’re told by the marketers and cowered beneath our politicians. But no one forced any of the present state upon us, we did it to ourselves.

We freely gave the meager fruits of our labors to slick hucksters promising ever growing returns from the stock market. We could have invested that money locally, but we didn’t. We might have deposited that money in local banks that lent to our coworkers and neighbors, but we sent it far away.

We might use our income as a political tool, purchasing from locals or companies that we believe in…but we poured it into WalMart to save a few pennies.

The difference, Lucian, between how you see the world and how i see the world is that you seem to believe that we are powerless and we must take power to make things right. I see us as ignoring all the power that we already possess.

Any deep reading of the totalitarian literature proves one point: that freedom and dignity are aspects of the individual soul. When it is strong, not even decades in the gulag or being tossed into Auschwitz can destroy it. Those things do not come from without or above, they come from within. Consequently, it is not possible to build a system that creates them. At best, a system of governance can nurture these ideals.

The idea of forcing them only leads down the path of throwing a revolution that ends up creating a tyranny worse than that which it overthrew. As someone who’s read the primary source material in it’s original language concerning the Bolshevik revolution, i can tell you that your best intentions sound an awful lot like those works…not in detail, but in tone. To mold man for the better, whether he knows that he wants it or not, works out fine on paper. Reality can be stunningly different.

But our differences are probably deeper. I’m not a utilitarian, though that does not suggest that everything about utilitarianism is wrong. I find significant points of agreement with utilitarianism, but not with how those conclusions are reached.

Finally, your belief that the ends justify the means scares the living shit out of me. That idea has been used to perpetrate the most awful crimes, time and time again. There is no difference between the ends and the means; they cannot be separated. That is, the ends are the means. They have to be, because there is no such thing as independent origination. (see Nagarjuna)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, i simply must get back to preparing for the big brown shirt rally that i’m hosting.

Also, news flash – no bonuses now, none on the horizon. Schoolwide dollars are on the line with test scores and dropout rates, not individual incentives. And yes, Lucian, I have heard of No Child Left Behind. I spent a year and ahalf analyzing its specific impact on my school district and the gap between its requirements and the actual funding provided to meet them.

It’s nice to see that a complete lack of knowledge and experience hasn’t dampened your enthusiasm for poorly organized, deeply superficial and narrow-minded pontification. Fortunately, not every progressive assumes every brain works the same way, or I’d be in despair right now – and extremely creeped out to boot. Any valid point you may have is lost in a sea of blathering rage; perhaps you should go back to your marketing studies for a refresher on basic communication.

That’s all.

We should do whatever it takes to save the world and our country. Its better to do change engineering than to build a prison state and put everybody in prison. I’m offering an alternative to the police state.

“Dear Leader or something equally catchy.”

I said as a group we should reward and punish, I did not say we should give all power to one man. I believe power should be distributed and divided amongst the best people, I want a Republic not a dictatorship. Stalin like Hitler, had a dictatorship, and the USA is moving towards dictatorship as we speak.

“will bring us a brave new world of utopian delight where everyone smiles all the time and everyone is polite and friendly. They’ll have to be, because the barcode tattooed on their forearm will be constantly monitored by change engineers in charge of assessing their taxes and their societal status.”

It’s a choice between a brave new world and 1984. We are already headed towards the prison/police state. At least my idea would preserve civil liberties, you could do anything you want under my system, vs the system we are currently choosing where the government and corporations tell us what to do. The point being, is that we have to influence behavior using incentives because its better than simply building a prison state and oppressing everyone. At least with a system of incentives you still have a choice to accept the incentives or not, and this is as far as I think government and corporations should go. I do not believe in using force to control people, but I do believe in using incentives and rewards.

“You mean like slavery?”

The government and corporations already own us. Slavery? No, I mean giving incentive for the government and corporations, as well as individuals to invest in human resources. If you think having someone else have a stake in your future is slavery, what better options do you offer? build more prisons? If you have a job where you get paid by a corporation, are you a slave? If you follow the laws of the US government and pay your taxes, are you a slave? By your logic the answer would be yes to both of those.

” As determined by the government phrenology exam required for the barcode tattoo, required for tax/social status purposes.”

How do you think targeted advertising works? When did I ever say I want to have the GOVERNMENT or the CORPORATION do this? Obviously you are a social conservative who is afraid of change, every post you have made is all about trying to make sure nothing can change because you are afraid of the brave new world. Do you like the path we are currently on? We are headed to 1984, so I’d take a Brave New World over that. But honestly, we have to change something and ANY change requires engineering, so if you don’t like the change I’m offering, offer an idea of your own, but to simply say change is always bad is dumb and simple.

“Ja, das finde ich auch. Und arbeit macht frei.” You should read more books. The Justice system is supposed to be built around the concept of reward and punishment. We do a good job punishing people in our society when they do wrong, but we don’t reward anybody when they do right, and I see people like you don’t mind that millions of Americans are in prison being punished while millions are outside of prison struggling. The only Americans being rewarded as the corrupt and wealthy.

“Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated” I see you are a flat earther who does not support human rights. Let me guess, you agree with Sean Hannity? Torture is okay? Well I disagree with you on this and on a range of subjects. I believe every human should have certain rights because it’s better for humanity to have rights. If we don’t have human rights, your world of slavery, of Stalin and Hitler style dictatorships, of Brave New World, will surely become a reality across the globe.

And since you don’t have any ideas or any intentions on stopping it, I’m guessing you are an authoritarian, you like the idea of slavery, of telling people who they can marry, of having the government and or the corporation control every aspect of our lives.

Nope. Sorry. Even now it doesn’t work that way.

A) use the tax system to reward/train good behavior into people That’s a brilliant idea, maybe next we should try locking children in sensory deprivation chambers to prove our theories of behavioral psychology.

as a network we can decide to give them a different kind of elite status like commissar or Dear Leader or something equally catchy.

change engineering will bring us a brave new world of utopian delight where everyone smiles all the time and everyone is polite and friendly. They’ll have to be, because the barcode tattooed on their forearm will be constantly monitored by change engineers in charge of assessing their taxes and their societal status.

If we can buy and sell shares in corporations, why can’t we buy and sell shares in people? You mean like slavery?

if you want to actually get things done you must reward and punish. Ja, das finde ich auch. Und arbeit macht frei.

I believe when in support of human rights, the ends justify the means. And if you want to make an omelet, you’ll have to break a few eggs…or so my Uncle Joe told me.

If their brain type is greedy, selfish, shallow and they have no empathy or compassion As determined by the government phrenology exam required for the barcode tattoo, required for tax/social status purposes.

If you are a consequentialist or understand that the most important thing is to accomplish the prime objective of creating and securing human rights for all, then it does not matter how we get people to do it, or why individuals support it, just that they support it and that human rights created and secured. Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

because in the end the only thing that matters is the effectiveness of the marketing campaign, not how many people cried when watching the commercial. Nor how many children cried when their parents were dragged off to re-education camps…or any of that other, sissy bullshit.

Will we be allowed to leave this Skinnerian paradise? Will i be allowed to own a gun to blow my own brains out? Honestly, i’d prefer to perform fellatio on a leper for cheap smack than live in a country run like the above description.