Can someone provide a counter-argument against Objectivism?
It is against human nature.
>>1313019
Namely, that social truths, such as cultural practices, aesthetics, how you define a given social group, hell, even how you'd define an economic term such as 'utility' are not in fact objective and cannot be reduced to one right position and numerous deviations from that.
>>1313019
Ayn Rand.
What can history tell us about countries accepting refugees?
they generally sold them into slavery
>>1311821
Examples?
>>1311800
The same as it can about waging war, it's too general a thing to draw any causal links between accepting refugees and something particular happening.
>try monarchy
>get despotism
>try constitutional monarchy
>get despotism
>try communist utopia
>get despotism
>try liberal democracy
>get despotism
what is wrong with this country?
It has too many enemies to fuck around with faggy democracy. Continental Euros, Anglos, Turks, Jews, Steppe Muslims, Persians, and Chinese. The last two are sort of buddy-buddy with Russia now, but historically there have been issues.
>>1309080
maybe they like despotism
>>1309080
Should just have become a despotate.
Does God have free will?
Only if he wants to have it.
If god can create everything he should be theoretically capable of creating a rock so heavy not even he could lift it up
But if he could not lift it up it also means that he's not omnipotent and not the ultimate master of the universe
So either he can't create the rock in the first place or he can create it but then can't lift it up afterwards because what he just created was too heavy
Judeo-christfags have never been able to resolve this dilemma kek
Free will is a meaningless term.
Could Syndicalism work?
>Syndicalism is a proposed type of economic system, a form of socialism, considered a replacement for capitalism. It suggests that industries be organized into confederations or syndicates. It is "a system of economic organization in which industries are owned and managed by the workers".[1]
>Its theory and practice is the advocation of multiple cooperative productive units composed of specialists and representatives of workers in each respective field to negotiate and manage the economy. Syndicalism also refers to the political movement (praxis) and tactics used to bring about this type of system.
>For adherents, labour unions and labour training (see below) are the potential means of both overcoming economic aristocracy and running society fairly and in the interest of informed and skilled majorities, through union democracy. Industry in a syndicalist system would be run through co-operative confederations and mutual aid. Local syndicates would communicate with other syndicates through the Bourse du Travail (labour exchange) which would cooperatively determine distributions of commodities.
>>1308583
No
>Labour unions
>Mutual aid
In my society everyone will help everyone else. You cannot say that will not happen as it is true by definition of my society. Let's throw out the good but not great society we have now for the slight chance that we could reach my society. If it fails let's say we didn't try hard enough.
Neoliberalism killed syndicates.
>>1308583
Labor unions oppose anything that hurts them even if it will help other workers. Even though NAFTA has objectively added jobs, its been opposed by labor unions because it redistributes jobs. There is less of a notion of their own job security.
If anything its just tribalism.
Also enjoy never exploring the galaxy.
Is perspective really everything /his/?
Good guy vs Bad guy is just a meme, right?
Nah the axis powers were genuinely evil and terrible nations
Totally deserved the entire destruction of its people
>>1307988
good and bad are abstractions that don't really reflect reality that way
>>1308019
>implying the communists weren't evil as well
Who are the best historical counterparts for these guys?
>>1307556
i'm not such a nerd i watch anime but going from the pic
>UK
>Germany
>USA
>France
>Lenin
>Crusaders
>George Washington
>Hitler
>>1307568
>Korra
>Anime
Why were military tactics so retarded at one point?
>Durr lets all walk in a line towards another line with guns
firearms of that period were more effective than pikes and arrow, but not effective enough to stop using them in mass formation volley fire.
>>1314032
I'm not an expert, so I welcome correction, but I'd figure that in an era without radio and orders are given by drums, horns, and horseback couriers, it was easier to keep everybody's shit together if they were close like that.
>>1314032
To repel cavalry charges.
Is a Technocracy even possible? It seems like the ideal form of government to me, but I have no idea how you could maintain leaders based on their knowledge instead of their charisma. You could make them dictators, but then how do you handle succession?
>>1313378
> It seems like the ideal form of government to me
Why? It seems like a terrible form of government to me. Just because someone is a gifted scientist/engineer/doctor/whatever, doesn't mean they'd be a good administrator, negotiator, or lawmaker. Plus, you'd think that you'd want to keep your top scientists and technology people doing science and tech development.
>>1313395
This.
We only usually know the best course of action in hindsight, just because people have fancy technical degrees does not mean that they have superior judgement.
>>1313395
Its the idea of those people being able to create very well polished and effective laws.
What these theories fail to realize are that anyone who is above a certain level of intelligence is an autistic and depressed piece of shit. Ive never been happy nor have I met someone my intellegence level or higher who is happy, nor functional in society for that matter.
You are entirely right, these need to stay out of government beause all hell will break lose when laws that do no take into account social contracts betweem demographics are put into place.
Hell if you where to change united states law to be completely egalitarian the dindus and gibsmedats would fucking destroy everything around them.
I come from a catholic family but don't believe in a higher power. Does anyone have a convincing argument for the existence of a god/ higher power. Doesn't have to be of a certain religion pic related
>>1313377
> devout Catholic
> what's the best argument for the existence of God
Aquinas. Check out Edward Feser for an explanation.
I was in a similar situation to you about a year ago.
Then I found this website is be started reading articles in the 1906 Catholic Encyclopedia, I started with the article about the etymology of the word "God": http://newadvent.org/cathen/06608x.htm
Then the article dedicated to arguing the existence of God: http://newadvent.org/cathen/06608b.htm
I was an agnostic, leaning towards atheism, but the article does make a reasonable logical argument for theism (it doesn't try to assert Catholicism or even Christianity, it just tries to argue for simple theism).
Be sure to read other articles in this encyclopedia too, you will see that Catholic scholars are actually very well balanced and are serious academics.
>>1313377
Look up the ontological proof.
The short version is that "God" is simply the greatest being that we can conceive of. This follows with Genesis, where the greatest being we know exists is Nature, and so the greatest being we can conceive of is the creator of Nature
There's some branch of philosophy that deals with this. Martin Heidegger focuses on it a fair amount. Do yourself a favor and follow the idea of "being" up from Descartes if you want to understand it. Don't work from wikipedia either, because they'll bring some master-level thesis at you in the introductory phases. Either take a class on it, or self-teach by reading their books and asking questions
My thoughts:
God is not a person like George Clooney or James Joyce is a person. "God" is simply the name we give to the greatest being, whatever that may be. As our knowledge of the universe expands and we become aware of things greater than Earth (i.e. Gaia i.e. Nature), what we call "God" also expands.
It's like if a peasant knows only the local lord, who we'll call Lord Joffery. Lord Joffery is not the greatest lord, he in fact owes allegiance to Lord Henry, and Lord Henry in turn owes loyalty to King George. As the peasant becomes more worldly, he may hear of these greater powers than his own Lord Joffery. King George of course, is not even the greatest power, only the greatest power of some small island or mountainous region. There are the greater Kings Mark, Matthew, and so on, who are owed loyalty by more Lords and control larger lands.
This does not mean that Joffery does not exist or does not hold power, it simply means that the "greatest being" the peasant is aware of is expanding, and he'll shift who he says the greatest being is based on how much he knows of the outside world.
Moreover, "God" as a title shifts from Joffery on up. That does not mean God is wrong or does not exist, but that our understanding of him was initially incorrect and has now been adjusted to be more correct.
Anyone else who doesn't feel like we as the West shouldn't be ashamed of the fact that we "killed and colonized millions of people"? I honestly can't sympathize with that shit. The only thing we can do is make things better, but to go on and apologize for every single encounter between us and others that ended up in a bloodbath seems the biggest waste of time...
I just don't get why we should feel guilty for winning while everyone else would've taken the same shot if they had the opportunity.
I thought of this too. What I found was that conquered peoples COULD have been worthless sacks of shit.
Namely because they did real horrid things. Like all is a slave and sometimes someone gets his heart cut out while being alive. (South America)
Or constant bloody barbaric war that will probably never end. (the indians, though not entirely sure)
Lots of own baby killing without reason and going to war too much without this being necessary for self preservation. (the Phoenicians, Africans)
Is there anyone that knows more about this?
Preach to the choir: the thread
>>1313292
It comes down to whether you see conquering other lands and people as something glorious or evil
Is the middle class unsustainable?
>>1313236
Under pure market conditions yes because r > g, where the return on capital accumulation naturally outstrips the rate of growth, fueling income inequality which creates a negative feedback loop of suppressing aggregate demand, creating economic deflation, creating more inequality which exacerbates the problem.
The only way to create a sustainable middle class is with state-interventionism. Otherwise your society ends up like the other 99% of human societies: conspiratorial oligarchy.
>>1313263
that's not true, the middle class can invest in the stock market and property as well
The only reason they still exist is because of debt and low interest loans
Was he really an effeminate fag?
No but he was redpilled about the jews
>>1313228
Wasn't everyone back then?
He was if nothing else, a terrible leader and would've never gotten the job if it was a merit-based position
Because why not?
I'll post mine in a second. I wish my state had a better flag, you know?
Also general vexillology discussion.
>>1313098
>My state's flag
Literally just the state seal in front of a white background. Disappointing as hell considering the centennial flag looked so cool.
>>1313108
Here's the centennial flag.
state flags aren't the best
I have you internet because you turned kids into absolue idiotsI'm an History teacher and during a class about Hinduism (we teach a bit about all religions) some girls suddenly started to scream, refusing to look at the pictures of Shiva, Ganesh, Brahma, etc... why ? Because their meditating pose with the typical handgesture looks like a "6" which is a sign of "illuminaties".At this point I was incline to ask what the fuck are they talking about and tried to explain how a shitty modern european secret society can't possible have anything to do with one of the oldest religion in the world but my word wasn't valid since the almighty YouTube had spoken.I fucking hate this job when this kind of crap happened.
>>1312977
were they black?
>>1312977
fucking lol
>>1312994
Yes
