The artistic nature of roleplaying and the people who actually play.
Freddy Contreras
I'm wondering, it seems to me that rping is a fairly creative, artistlic
activity, I wonder then why it is that it attracts so many people who
(hmm...how shall I put this as politely as possible...) wear pocket
protectors (get it?). I've gamemastered (I'm a graphic artist) and have
played only on a few occasions (and didn't like it, I like to be in control
(i.e.: GM) :p ). I can remember one game that was run by a guy I knew was in
engineering and although you could tell that his story was well thought out,
he just seemed to lack the charisma or something. Thank god I have a nice
voice. Although I would trade it for good looks =)
On a completely unrelated note, I am experiencing some difficulties with my
players. Since the very begining I I have basically only started our
sessions with a rough outline of where I want the game to go, and then I
simply wing it (I improvise the descriptions and stuff). Now that I'm
actually writing out scenarios (you know, "working at it"), my players get
mad at me if I read them _anything_! (can you believe them??). I started
writing the stuff because it easier for me to get a game started that way
(aren't players the SHIT=), but I guess I'll have to cease and desist unless
I want my ass whooped =). WHAT DO I DO? =)
Do any of you guys play Rifts? (the BEST science fantasy game out there
IMHO, perfect for us artsy types).
Do any of you draw your own stuff? (the BEST hobby in the world, along with
Quake)
Do any of you agree with me that growing up blows donkeys (jeez! I'm only
23...going on 17=)?
Do you think I suck? (It's ok doc, I can take it =)
Love, The little green guy with the raspy voice.
Freddy Contreras
John Scott
We've found a Rifts player! Get the gun, Martha ...
In article <KXtL.3$pH.1...@weber.videotron.net>, "Freddy Contreras"
<oc...@videotron.ca> wrote:
> I'm wondering, it seems to me that rping is a fairly creative, artistlic
> activity, I wonder then why it is that it attracts so many people who
> (hmm...how shall I put this as politely as possible...) wear pocket
> protectors (get it?).
Well, either they are also "fairly creative [and] artistic" or your
perception of what roleplaying is is flawed.
Roleplaying isn't (IMHO) inherently artistic, or even particularly
creative. It can be both of those, and much more. But there is nothing
which says it has to be.
> I've gamemastered (I'm a graphic artist) and have
> played only on a few occasions (and didn't like it, I like to be in control
> (i.e.: GM) :p ). I can remember one game that was run by a guy I knew was in
> engineering and although you could tell that his story was well thought out,
> he just seemed to lack the charisma or something. Thank god I have a nice
> voice. Although I would trade it for good looks =)
>
There are many, many styles of GMing (stick around in this group and
you'll see that) and many, many styles of playing. So the engineer had a
droning voice. Did that also mean that the story he told was boring? Was
your interaction with the other players affected by the engineers voice?
Or did you allow your prejudice about his profession affect your
perception of his game?
One of the things that scientists do is learn not to make assumptions
based on one data point.
>
> Do any of you guys play Rifts? (the BEST science fantasy game out there
> IMHO, perfect for us artsy types).
>
Yup - definitely flawed perceptions :-) ... how many other games have you
played?
John
The University and I agree on a lot, but not necessarily this ...
Yilbber Vargas
Freddy Contreras wrote in message ...
>I'm wondering, it seems to me that rping is a fairly creative, artistlic
>activity, I wonder then why it is that it attracts so many people who
>(hmm...how shall I put this as politely as possible...) wear pocket
>protectors (get it?). I've gamemastered (I'm a graphic artist) and have
>played only on a few occasions (and didn't like it, I like to be in control
>(i.e.: GM) :p ). I can remember one game that was run by a guy I knew was
in
>engineering and although you could tell that his story was well thought
out,
>he just seemed to lack the charisma or something. Thank god I have a nice
>voice. Although I would trade it for good looks =)
Cause the Pocket Protector types Love to Control Everything to the
Microcosmic detail.
>
>On a completely unrelated note, I am experiencing some difficulties with my
>players. Since the very begining I I have basically only started our
>sessions with a rough outline of where I want the game to go, and then I
>simply wing it (I improvise the descriptions and stuff). Now that I'm
>actually writing out scenarios (you know, "working at it"), my players get
>mad at me if I read them _anything_! (can you believe them??). I started
>writing the stuff because it easier for me to get a game started that way
>(aren't players the SHIT=), but I guess I'll have to cease and desist
unless
>I want my ass whooped =). WHAT DO I DO? =)
>
>Do any of you guys play Rifts? (the BEST science fantasy game out there
>IMHO, perfect for us artsy types).
I do, But I play it like I would play AD&D...
And Not let PCs do What ever the hell they want.. ( I seriously do not allow
for Party Franticide...)
I also use Rules from any game I feel like when I deem appropriate so I
don't have to Wing Details left and right.Or rely upon 1 text book...
My Games generally allow certain levels of power gaming depending on the
current theme of the campaign...
(IE if players would want to go munchkin.. They would then Face
Monstrosities who are Tough for even the Munchkins to take down by
themselves. If they went the Street level... They would end up facing
Opponents that would be their equal... and occasional monstrosity that would
need Group effort to take down.
If they all went JAck of All trades... They would face Situations which
Specialists would really be required.. Besides the Best way to deal with
Munchkins is to outnumber them. with Average enemies who will slowly but
surely defeat the offending munchkin or Power gamer.
I also view Power gamers *Players who wield more power or control in a 1000
square mile area of a fantasy world.... With more disdain then Munchkins
cause Munchkins tend to only be REAL Good in one area and severely lacking
in the others.
Power gamers tend to be Generally Real good at everything they do..
examples:
inmsh--- hercules was balanced out by the fact that he had much in powers
other than good stats...
coompared to silver surfer who was nigh invincible to all but cosmic
threats.
>
>Do any of you draw your own stuff? (the BEST hobby in the world, along with
>Quake)
i do... but don't have the hardware to bing it onto the high quality
realm...
>Do any of you agree with me that growing up blows donkeys (jeez! I'm only
>23...going on 17=)?
sort of..just depends onwho you hang out with... to be a kid hang with
kids...........
to be a powergamer hang with them etc....
Michele Ellington
Freddy Contreras (oc...@videotron.ca) wrote:
> I'm wondering, it seems to me that rping is a fairly creative, artistlic
> activity, I wonder then why it is that it attracts so many people who
> (hmm...how shall I put this as politely as possible...) wear pocket
> protectors (get it?). I've gamemastered (I'm a graphic artist) and have
> played only on a few occasions (and didn't like it, I like to be in control
> (i.e.: GM) :p ). I can remember one game that was run by a guy I knew was in
> engineering and although you could tell that his story was well thought out,
> he just seemed to lack the charisma or something. Thank god I have a nice
> voice. Although I would trade it for good looks =)
Well, being artsy and having charisma aren't necessarily linked.
Charisma is more of a performing arts talent, many conventional
artists are more reticent, uncommunicative and lacking in social
graces than the much defamed pocket protector crowd.
However, I think you need a certain creative bent to role-play
at all, otherwise you would be lacking in the ability to imagine
different worlds and peoples. I believe most people are innately
creative, that there is an artist born in each of us. But our
society doesn't really support artists very much, and I think many
people's natural creativity has withered of starvation and lack of
use.
> On a completely unrelated note, I am experiencing some difficulties with my
> players. Since the very begining I I have basically only started our
> sessions with a rough outline of where I want the game to go, and then I
> simply wing it (I improvise the descriptions and stuff).
That's my method. I am the world's laziest GM. I am usually trying to
think up a scenario while showering before the players arrive. I actually
have a half page of notes for the 8 week campaign I am running right now,
which is way out of character for me.
>Now that I'm
> actually writing out scenarios (you know, "working at it"), my players get
> mad at me if I read them _anything_! (can you believe them??).
Don't read it to them. That doesn't mean don't write it. But familiarize
yourself with it so that you don't have to read it verbatim. Or don't
write out the narrative, just make key notes and use them to jog your
memory on what you wanted the narrative to be. Most people get bored
silly when being read to, no matter how nice the voice doing the reading.
William H. Stoddard
> 23...going on 17=)?
>
Bill Stoddard
--
William H. Stoddard whs...@primenet.net
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.
(T. S. Eliot, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats")
Unknown
In article <KXtL.3$pH.1...@weber.videotron.net>, "Freddy Contreras" <oc...@videotron.ca> writes:
> I'm wondering, it seems to me that rping is a fairly creative, artistlic
> activity, I wonder then why it is that it attracts so many people who
> (hmm...how shall I put this as politely as possible...) wear pocket
> protectors (get it?). I've gamemastered (I'm a graphic artist) and have
> played only on a few occasions (and didn't like it, I like to be in control
> (i.e.: GM) :p ). I can remember one game that was run by a guy I knew was in
> engineering and although you could tell that his story was well thought out,
> he just seemed to lack the charisma or something. Thank god I have a nice
> voice. Although I would trade it for good looks =)
Let's see. How many offensive stereotypes can we pack into a single paragraph?
Perhaps you should try listening to what the GM says rather than how nice his
voice is- cut the guy a little slack. He's obviously thought a lot about his
game, the least you could do is to pay enough attention to what he's
saying rather than how well he is capable of saying it.
Charisma is certainly a helpful attribute in a GM, but then so is the ability
to tell a good story, improvise logically and coherently based on a set of
known data, create convincing characters and settings, make props, make
costumes, and not least the ability to act convincingly. Few people indeed
have all the attributes that might make up the perfect GM.
You should also realise that having a technical or scientific bent doesn't
prevent you from being creative or artistic. Perhaps you are too blinded by the
physical attributes of your fellow players to see to the creativity beyond?
Sure, not everyone who wears a pocket protector is a great GM. But not every
graphic artist is, either.
Cheers, Hywel Phillips.
--
| Hywel T. Phillips | Rutherford Appleton Laboratory | |
| (MC/4f Coordinator) | and DELPHI experiment, CERN | e+ e- -> f1 f2 f3 f4|
|=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*|
| H.T.Ph...@RL.AC.UK Hywel.P...@CERN.CH |
| Speaking personally, not on behalf of RAL or DELPHI |
Alain Lapalme
Freddy Contreras wrote:
> On a completely unrelated note, I am experiencing some difficulties with my
> players. Since the very begining I I have basically only started our
> sessions with a rough outline of where I want the game to go, and then I
> actually writing out scenarios (you know, "working at it"), my players get
> writing the stuff because it easier for me to get a game started that way
> (aren't players the SHIT=), but I guess I'll have to cease and desist unless
> I want my ass whooped =). WHAT DO I DO? =)
Actually, I can see why they might not like. Either they might feel
that they are being shoved a "plot" down their throat, or they might
feel they are being lecture. I would suggest, write the stuff anyway
(specially if it helps you get your thoughts together) but, during play,
paraphrase instead of reading.
You could also ask them why it bothers them, when you read the stuff!!!
> Do you think I suck? (It's ok doc, I can take it =)
Careful what you ask for....
Alain
Freddy Contreras
John Scott wrote in message ...
>We've found a Rifts player! Get the gun, Martha ...
>
>Well, either they are also "fairly creative [and] artistic" or your
>perception of what roleplaying is is flawed.
>
Probably is...
>Roleplaying isn't (IMHO) inherently artistic, or even particularly
>creative. It can be both of those, and much more. But there is nothing
>which says it has to be.
I disagree, I mean you basically have to be able to suspend disbelief and
who better to do it than artists who all live in their own little worlds
anyway. =) (zipping up asbestos pants =)
>There are many, many styles of GMing (stick around in this group and
>you'll see that) and many, many styles of playing. So the engineer had a
>droning voice. Did that also mean that the story he told was boring? Was
>your interaction with the other players affected by the engineers voice?
>Or did you allow your prejudice about his profession affect your
>perception of his game?
No, not at all, but a good story doesn't a great gamemaster make. (now, I'm
sorry I didn't play more often because I have nothing to say about the
gamemasters I've played with, I've had very few (3 I think)). You're right
about the prejudice about profession, I admit it, I expect them to be more
calculating and left-brained than Joe J. Average. Their plots may be better
(hmmm...I still gotta think about this one...) but the delivery is even more
important IMHO.
>One of the things that scientists do is learn not to make assumptions
>based on one data point.
I only HAVE one data point :( (well, ok, three)
>> Do any of you guys play Rifts? (the BEST science fantasy game out there
>> IMHO, perfect for us artsy types).
>Yup - definitely flawed perceptions :-) ... how many other games have you
>played?
Ask me how many I've GMed...:)
I've played AD&D, Werewolf, Warhammer 40k (does this count?), a few rifts
scenarios, Gurps and CP2020.
I've GMed:
TMNT (my very first RPG, remembered fondly), Robotech (one of my best
campaigns, although near the end they hadn't touched their mecha for a few
months...), CP2020, Rifts (to this day), there were a few false starts also.
Freddy
CHRISTOPHER S JACKSON
Freddy Contreras (oc...@videotron.ca) wrote:
: I'm wondering, it seems to me that rping is a fairly creative, artistlic
: activity, I wonder then why it is that it attracts so many people who
: (hmm...how shall I put this as politely as possible...) wear pocket
: protectors (get it?). I've gamemastered (I'm a graphic artist) and have
Because, until recently, Role Playing has been the strict pervue
of the truely geeky. Gothlings from the Theatre Arts dept. have crept
in, of late, but even they face derision from their more socially
concious peers for "slumming" with chess-clubbers.
: On a completely unrelated note, I am experiencing some difficulties with my
: players. Since the very begining I I have basically only started our
: sessions with a rough outline of where I want the game to go, and then I
: simply wing it (I improvise the descriptions and stuff). Now that I'm
: actually writing out scenarios (you know, "working at it"), my players get
: mad at me if I read them _anything_! (can you believe them??). I started
Is it because you're reading? Most people read in a voice
that would make Ben Stein yawn. Orate, man! Role Playing is grounded in
theatre. Use some tricks from there, and public speaking. Get your nose
out of that paper, and look at your audience. Change your pitch, tempo,
and volume some, to add power to the description. And don't go
over-board. Descriptions are a reflection of your PC's senses. If you
take time to descripe the bejesus out of some little box, obviously, it
must be important. Pay less attention to things, and more to people. Who
cares what the Imerial holding cell looked like, it's Vader that scared
the princess, and rightly so.
: I want my ass whooped =). WHAT DO I DO? =)
Prepare for some SM? ;b
Seriously, though, write down some pertinant data, such as character
interests, motivations, and the physical and mental quirks that you want
to convey to the players. Those tend to be the important things. If you
simply must write us a full detailed description of a scene, ok. Print
out a half-dozen copies, and hand it around. It'll become one more
hand-out in the players' character folders. (What? Your players don't
keep folders with copies of their character sheet, background, diaries,
hand-outs, notes, etc? Why not? How else are they going to remember that
Mrs. Brubaker used to buy bread from the person who's just been
murdered? Or that their long-lost hlaf-brother, Phill's sent them a torn
out passage from "Sylvie and Bruno" before being carted off to the State
Hospital for the Criminally Insane?)
: Do any of you guys play Rifts? (the BEST science fantasy game out there
: IMHO, perfect for us artsy types).
Uhm, no, it's a Palidium game, therefore subject to a nasty stat
bell-curve, and no again, I'd rather play Star Wars. Less big guns, more
everyone humming the Mos Eisley cantina tune off key!
: Do any of you draw your own stuff? (the BEST hobby in the world, along with
: Quake)
Alas, no, my hands can't convey what my mind concieves. I'll
stick with being a writer and dramatasist. And I'm more of a Civ/
WarCraft II/ Master of Magic type.
: Do any of you agree with me that growing up blows donkeys (jeez! I'm only
: 23...going on 17=)?
Dunno. Haven't done so, myself (25, going on 25, and happy that
way!).
: Do you think I suck? (It's ok doc, I can take it =)
I'm not even certain that Monica Lewinsky sucks. You, well, you
*DO* play Rifts, so...
: Love, The little green guy with the raspy voice.
: Freddy Contreras
"...I don't know how to tell you this. You've got harpies."
-Atrolicus, "Hercules, the Ledgendary Journies"
-=CJ=-
csj...@omega.uta.edu
Freddy Contreras
Yilbber Vargas wrote in message <34fee...@news1.ibm.net>...
>>engineering and although you could tell that his story was well thought
>out,
>>he just seemed to lack the charisma or something. Thank god I have a nice
>>voice. Although I would trade it for good looks =)
>
>Cause the Pocket Protector types Love to Control Everything to the
>Microcosmic detail.
Hehehe, then I guess that would make me a pocket protector type...I make my
players keep track of how many Q-Tips they have left.
>I do, But I play it like I would play AD&D...
>And Not let PCs do What ever the hell they want.. ( I seriously do not
allow
>for Party Franticide...)
That's a serious no-no in my campaign as well (well, either way, munchkins
and power players get the message quick from the rest of the crew.
>I also use Rules from any game I feel like when I deem appropriate so I
>don't have to Wing Details left and right.Or rely upon 1 text book...
>My Games generally allow certain levels of power gaming depending on the
>current theme of the campaign...
I usually find the rules systems so bad, I have to make my own. The only
exception to this is Gurps, the Rifts rules are just about unusable...
>They would face monstrosities who are Tough for even the Munchkins to take
down by >themselves
Hehe, same here.
>If they all went JAck of All trades... They would face Situations which
>Specialists would really be required.. Besides the Best way to deal with
This I have to disagree with, unless you give them an alternate way of
solving the problem.
Thnak god I've never had to deal with real munchkins.
>>Do any of you draw your own stuff? (the BEST hobby in the world, along
with
>>Quake)
>i do... but don't have the hardware to bing it onto the high quality
>realm...
I have a ton of Rifts tech drawings sitting on a shelf...I'm afraid of
putting them on the web for fear that Palladium'll steal em (I've seen their
submission agreement) :) I'll bet a bunch of people are in my situation.
Maybe I should just build a personal gallery and then let GM's extrapolate
the weapon values=)
Then again, how many Rifts players can there possibly be? (not many in my
town anyway...doesn't seem like a popular game)
Freddy.
Freddy Contreras
Michele Ellington wrote in message <6dn1ej$j...@rgfn3.epcc.edu>...
>Well, being artsy and having charisma aren't necessarily linked.
>Charisma is more of a performing arts talent, many conventional
>artists are more reticent, uncommunicative and lacking in social
>graces than the much defamed pocket protector crowd.
Hehe, I guess both crowds are just about the same, the difference is one
side's trying to be Bill Gates, the other trying to be the Crow =) (I
haven't decided yet which is creepier =)
>However, I think you need a certain creative bent to role-play
>at all, otherwise you would be lacking in the ability to imagine
>different worlds and peoples. I believe most people are innately
>creative, that there is an artist born in each of us. But our
>society doesn't really support artists very much, and I think many
>people's natural creativity has withered of starvation and lack of
>use.
True, which is why I have to sell out. I just have to find a willing buyer
=)
It's a real shame that what you say is true. But then again, a society can't
progress without the pocket protector crowd, so IMHO (as much as it pains me
to say this...), they are basically more important for society than artists
(like me) are.
>That's my method. I am the world's laziest GM. I am usually trying to
>think up a scenario while showering before the players arrive. I actually
>have a half page of notes for the 8 week campaign I am running right now,
>which is way out of character for me.
Haha, finally someone worse organized than me ;o)
Fred
Brett Evill
In article <v7XL.68$Lk4.1...@weber.videotron.net>, "Freddy Contreras"
<oc...@videotron.ca> wrote:
>John Scott wrote in message ...
>>Roleplaying isn't (IMHO) inherently artistic, or even particularly
>>creative. It can be both of those, and much more. But there is nothing
>>which says it has to be.
>
>
>I disagree, I mean you basically have to be able to suspend disbelief and
>who better to do it than artists who all live in their own little worlds
>anyway. =) (zipping up asbestos pants =)
Statisticians?
--
Brett Evill
To reply, remove 'spamblocker.' from <b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au>
Bruce Baugh
> Because, until recently, Role Playing has been the strict pervue
>of the truely geeky. Gothlings from the Theatre Arts dept. have crept
You are cordially invited to expand on this point with reference to
M.A.R. Barker and Greg Stafford, both significant creators in the 1970s.
That is to say, this is a generalization, and not a very good one at
that.
>in, of late, but even they face derision from their more socially
>concious peers for "slumming" with chess-clubbers.
So? Theatre geeks have their problems too, and have ingrown cliques just
like every other group.
--
Bruce Baugh, bruce...@mindspring.com
Et in Tela Ego: http://brucebaugh.home.mindspring.com
New science fiction by S.M. Stirling, rolegaming, writers' tools
Freddy Contreras
CHRISTOPHER S JACKSON wrote in message <6dpdrp$fmb$1...@news.uta.edu>...
>: Do you think I suck? (It's ok doc, I can take it =)
>
> I'm not even certain that Monica Lewinsky sucks. You, well, you
>*DO* play Rifts, so...
Hmmm, yeah...I knew that at least a couple of cylinders weren't firing when
I made that half-assed post =)
Freddy
woodelf
In article <6dn1ej$j...@rgfn3.epcc.edu>, ad...@rgfn.epcc.edu (Michele
Ellington) wrote:
> Well, being artsy and having charisma aren't necessarily linked.
> Charisma is more of a performing arts talent, many conventional
> artists are more reticent, uncommunicative and lacking in social
> graces than the much defamed pocket protector crowd.
as long as we're defeating stereotypes, good point. i know lots of
outgoing, social, charismatic extroverts. and they're all engineers and
scientists. i also know lots of socially awkward or downright inept,
uncommunicative introverts who live in their own world. and they're all
goths...er, i mean, artists. and then there are the social scientists and
psychologists and comp sci geeks, who are either totally introverted
weirdoes, or well-adjusted social people. i can't even make
generalizations, much less bad stereotypes, about the humanities geeks i
know (and am a member of).
woodelf <*>
nbar...@students.wisc.edu
http://www.upl.cs.wisc.edu/~woodelf
Figures. All my life I've fought against Imperialism. Suddenly, I *am*
the expanding Russian frontier. --Ivanova
But with very nice borders. --Franklin
Gord Sellar
In article <StXL.114$Lk4.1...@weber.videotron.net>, "Freddy Contreras"
<oc...@videotron.ca> wrote:
> Michele Ellington wrote in message <6dn1ej$j...@rgfn3.epcc.edu>...
> True, which is why I have to sell out. I just have to find a willing buyer
> =)
> It's a real shame that what you say is true. But then again, a society can't
> progress without the pocket protector crowd, so IMHO (as much as it pains me
> to say this...), they are basically more important for society than artists
> (like me) are.
What does that mean? We have bridges and earthquake-proof highrises: that
doesn't really mean advancement. the arts may not be big money, but they
are necessary to society too: for example, literature is the main form of
intelligent and coherent critique of our messed up society, which I think
is neglected but necessary. Neglected because it doesn't fit with the
model of advancement rammed down our throats, as the sciences are: but
still asimportant if not more... I know I would never trade Wagner or
Debussy, or Monet, or Dickens, or Shakespeare, or eve "lesser art/artists"
for light-speed travel capability. Not even a thought: no way.
So there.
--
This was brought to you by Gord Sellar at:
gas...@mail.usask.ca
Brett Evill
In article <gas129-1803...@janus2-9.usask.ca>,
gas...@mail.usask.ca (Gord Sellar) wrote:
Then its a good thing that we pocket-protector types are here to make the
choice instead of you. You're quite welcome to starve to death with your
Shakespeares and Monets if that's what you want, but you don't get to take
the rest of us with you.
William H. Stoddard
In article <zbekric-1903...@ppp244.adelaide.on.net.au>,
zbe...@hempseed.com (Zoran Bekric) wrote:
>
> Personally, I draw a distinction between artists, scientists, technicians,
> craft-workers, etc -- you know, people who actually make something (be it
> entertainment, knowledge, products, services) -- and people like
> currency-speculators who donšt actually seem to serve any viable purpose
> in the grander scheme of things...
>
Currency speculators are actually doing something damned useful: they're
holding a commodity whose value is subject to fluctuations, and thus
enabling other people to do business without being impacted by those
fluctuations to nearly as great a degree. They make money from doing so
because a lot of people would rather have 95 cents for sure than a random
movement between 90 cents and $1.10 that averages a dollar; so in the long
run they come out ahead on the average. This is mainly a function for the
rich, as they can afford to wait out the downward movements.
If you think currency speculators are useless, try having all the shock
absorbers removed from your car and see how fast you can drive without
them....
Michele Ellington
Brett Evill (b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au) wrote:
(snipped for brevity)
BTW, I didn't write any of the stuff under my name there, I guess
it's all been snipped out. Just for the record. Don't want to
get flamed by the pocket protector crowd. Some of my best friends...
well, they don't wear pocket protectors, but they are definitely
computer...ahem...gurus. :) There's room for all of us here.
Zoran Bekric
Brett Evill (b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au) wrote:
Exactly *HOW* does not having light-speed travel capability equate with
starving to death? I mean, as far as I'm aware, we don't possess the
capability to travel at light-speed currently, yet a significant number of
people on the planet aren't starving to death (and, for those that are, I
sincerely doubt that giving up Wagner, Debussy, Monet, Dickens,
Shakespeare, etc. would make one whit of difference).
This argument seems to be predicated on some strange zero-sum view of the
universe: i.e. that every piece of technology we have is at the expense of
a work of art we could have had and that every work of art is at the
expense of a piece of technology. I think this is nonsense and would be
very surprised if any reasonable person thought otherwise.
If anything, the creation of good art and scientific/technical advancement
seem to go hand-in-hand; or , at least historically, bursts of innovation
in both the arts and sciences seem to occur in the same societies at the
same time. The relationship would seem to be less adversarial than
symbiotic. Good art breaks up the ruts in peopleąs thinking by presenting
new ways of look at the world and experience which encourages new ways of
looking at old problems which leads to scientific breakthroughs which,
when translated into technological innovations, changes the nature of
society which bolsters new ways of looking at things which leads to good
art which breaks up the ruts in peopleąs thinking... And so on. (The above
started with good art, but it could have just as easily started anywhere
along the cycle, so donąt read too much into that fact.)
The animosity between Science and the Humanities seems to stem from
primarily economic factors. Artists feel starved of funding and
appreciation because they see it all being diverted over towards research
and development of bigger and better consumer products. Alternately,
scientists look at the multi-million dollar budgets of most major motion
pictures and wonder why they seem to be struggling so hard to get funding
for some necessary piece of equipment to continue their research. Both
assume that their problems stem from the fact that the Śotherą group is
gobbling up all the resources for their own frivolous ends.
Personally, I draw a distinction between artists, scientists, technicians,
craft-workers, etc -- you know, people who actually make something (be it
entertainment, knowledge, products, services) -- and people like
currency-speculators who donąt actually seem to serve any viable purpose
in the grander scheme of things...
Thus, I would suggest that artistic types and technical types have more
interests in common with each other than either group has with certain
other bozos such as MBAs. Thatąs just my opinion, of course.
Regards,
Zoran
--
Zoran Bekric
(zbe...@hempseed.com)
purple prose is the prose for me,
purple prose is the best you see;
red prose only makes you mad;
blue prose only makes you sad;
yellow prose is the worst of the lot,
written only to boil the pot;
yes, purple prose is the prose for me,
happy and glad and grand to see.
Triad3204
>Then its a good thing that we pocket-protector types are here to make the
>choice instead of you. You're quite welcome to starve to death with your
>Shakespeares and Monets if that's what you want, but you don't get to take
>the rest of us with you.
If I ever see a farmer with a pocket protector I would actually take this
statement seriously.
Anyway, to sum up my feelings on this matter:
Society not only needs to meet the material needs of its people (shelter, food,
etc.), it must also meet their spiritual/intellectual side (art, philosophy,
etc.). Meeting only material needs without the spiritual is a hollow,
animalistic life. Meeting only the spiritual needs without the material needs
leads to a very *short* life. It is not a matter of a "trade" between the two,
but of mutual importance.
Much like a well-rounded character creation system, in which you neither want
to give players the ability to abuse the system and create an "unfun"
atmosphere, but you also do not want to limit the character conceptions which
they are capable of playing.
(wow, that was some on-topic save, huh?)
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Nis Haller Baggesen
William H. Stoddard wrote:
>
> In article <zbekric-1903...@ppp244.adelaide.on.net.au>,
> zbe...@hempseed.com (Zoran Bekric) wrote:
> >
> > craft-workers, etc -- you know, people who actually make something (be it
> > entertainment, knowledge, products, services) -- and people like
> > in the grander scheme of things...
> >
> holding a commodity whose value is subject to fluctuations, and thus
> enabling other people to do business without being impacted by those
> fluctuations to nearly as great a degree. They make money from doing so
> because a lot of people would rather have 95 cents for sure than a random
> movement between 90 cents and $1.10 that averages a dollar; so in the long
> run they come out ahead on the average. This is mainly a function for the
> rich, as they can afford to wait out the downward movements.
>
> If you think currency speculators are useless, try having all the shock
> absorbers removed from your car and see how fast you can drive without
> them....
>
fluctuations than currency speculators. This is because it works with a
greater budget, giving it a greater buffer effect, and it is free of
profit specualtions, and only has to balance the budget in the long
term, as a state budget is very resistent to short term fluctuations.
Nis
Frank G. Pitt
In article <b.evill-1903...@tynslip1.apana.org.au>,
b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au (Brett Evill) wrote:
>
>Then its a good thing that we pocket-protector types are here to make the
>choice instead of you. You're quite welcome to starve to death with your
>Shakespeares and Monets if that's what you want, but you don't get to take
>the rest of us with you.
Y'know, when you said "pocket-protector" in this context, Brett.
I immediately thought you meant a " small Pak Protector ".
It wasn't until after that I realized you meant them things you put pens in.
Frankie
Psychohist
After making a lot of good points about synergistic effects between art and
science being stronger than the competitive effects, Zoran Bekric posts, in
part:
Personally, I draw a distinction between artists,
scientists, technicians, craft-workers, etc -- you know,
people who actually make something (be it entertainment,
knowledge, products, services) -- and people like
currency-speculators who dont actually seem to serve any
viable purpose in the grander scheme of things...
Actually, even currency speculators serve the useful purpose of moving capital
to where it is used more efficiently - that is, to where artists and
technicians can use it the best. In the process, they smooth out more random
fluctuations than they create.
Contrary to what Nis Haller Baggesen states, the state can't serve this purpose
well by itself, since a state has a lot of decision making baggage related to
the interests of its own citizens vis a vis the citizens of other states.
Currency speculators, on the other hand, can operate internationally.
Now if somebody could just think of a use for lawyers....
Warren Dew
Gord Sellar
This is actually a reply to an earlier post which I am not getting anymore
on my newsgroup server . . . the original post was:
>What does that mean? We have bridges and earthquake-proof highrises: that
>doesn't really mean advancement. the arts may not be big money, but they
Of course it means advancement! These things save lives! That's the way I
look at it. When I'm in that building and it's starting to sway, what would
you rather have, well built sway suppressors or a wall full of rembrandts?
(I vote number 2 =)
>are necessary to society too: for example, literature is the main form of
>intelligent and coherent critique of our messed up society, which I think
Define literature... I don't want to give you a rebuttal on this point
unless I know clearly what you mean =) (don't wanna get in trouble)
>is neglected but necessary. Neglected because it doesn't fit with the
>model of advancement rammed down our throats, as the sciences are: but
Not rammed down our throats, we're the ones creating the need for progress.
You're assuming that the average citizen is content to be a tiny part of the
proletariat and never questions his place in the world. This is no longer
true. Joe Q. Average has some amount of (at the very least perceived) power.
Simply because he doesn't have to worry about hunting or chopping firewood
or basic survival (well, in most cases anyway, I'm in North America, so...)
>still asimportant if not more... I know I would never trade Wagner or
>Debussy, or Monet, or Dickens, or Shakespeare, or eve "lesser art/artists"
>for light-speed travel capability. Not even a thought: no way.
Neither would I, but I certainly trade the collected works of shakespeare
(who BTW, was not very highly regarded in his time, kinda like Stephen King
today...) for *faster* than light travel. I don't want to simply dream, I
want the reality to reflect that dream, and no artist I know of is smart
enough to do that these days. Leonardo DaVinci was one, but that's because
he was an artist/engineer.
>So there.
Hehe, yeah, the truth hurts. I know...I had to come to grips with the fact.
You can't just say "so there", and you have to admit that most of us with
our critical minds (meaning we snob people and say things suck because
everyone likes them) and liberal views are really full of shit. I noticed a
while back that artists are only the people who dream and imagine things,
and then show them to you. But they are not the people who bring them to
you. And let's be frank, anyone can be a visionary person (we all are), but
not everyone has the required capacities for the complex skills necessary to
become an engineer or a doctor.
And you have to admit, artists are only necessary when all other human needs
are satified, this is why I've come to the conclusion that we ARE
superfluous (most of the time anyway). Society doesn't need us until it has
finished worrying about everything else.
Oh yeah, one more thing...
Define "artist".
Freddy Contreras
Montreal Canada
###################################################
And my reply was:
>>What does that mean? We have bridges and earthquake-proof highrises: that
>>doesn't really mean advancement. the arts may not be big money, but they
>
>Of course it means advancement! These things save lives! That's the way I
>look at it. When I'm in that building and it's starting to sway, what would
>you rather have, well built sway suppressors or a wall full of rembrandts?
>(I vote number 2 =)
I think we are talking different kinds of advancement: we can advance the
technological landscape we are living in, but we can deteriorate in other
ways, such as moral, social, intellectual, etc. I don't think that
technology directly translates into advancement. For example, we are
discovering that Westerners work way more and eat way worse than people in
pre-literate societies, which replaces the diseases that "advancement" has
obliterated with other diseases.
Think of it this way: in some ways, humanity sunkn to a new low during the
Industrial Revolution. And now the reality is still there, its just
arranged spatially through colonial endeavours to the periphery. And since
we're such a distracted society, we don't notice that. Sure, we can buy
sneakers and not have to make them or get the local cobbler to do so: but
we don't know who had to make them, or what they got paid - even if it
says "Made in USA" or, in our case "Made in Canada."
>>are necessary to society too: for example, literature is the main form of
>>intelligent and coherent critique of our messed up society, which I think
>
>Define literature... I don't want to give you a rebuttal on this point
>unless I know clearly what you mean =) (don't wanna get in trouble)
Literature being mainly textual cultural production: I would consider it
to include web pages, books (of MANY kinds, including some gaming books),
poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction. Of course, in my opinion most
literature is crap: I am not going by the "Great Literature" definition,
but still I think there is outstanding literature, and then there is just
the reams and reams of other stuff. I am also starting to wonder if TV and
Film don't belong in that category of literature too. My main problem with
that inclusion is that they are non textual, they are dramatic forms too:
but still dependent for the most part on written/spoken text.
>>is neglected but necessary. Neglected because it doesn't fit with the
>>model of advancement rammed down our throats, as the sciences are: but
>
>
>Not rammed down our throats, we're the ones creating the need for progress.
>You're assuming that the average citizen is content to be a tiny part of the
>proletariat and never questions his place in the world. This is no longer
>true. Joe Q. Average has some amount of (at the very least perceived) power.
Yeah right. I don't think people have more power now, in fact I think we
are disempowered psychologically by our media. For example, we see the
poor on TV. Therefore they exist in the same land that Sbrina and Mulder
and Xena live in, not in MY world. I don't know about you, but I have
worked a lot out in the "real world (tm)'', and my experience is that VERY
FEW people really think about things, question them in any kind of
engaging manner, etc.
>Simply because he doesn't have to worry about hunting or chopping firewood
>or basic survival (well, in most cases anyway, I'm in North America, so...)
Um , no. Now they work way more hours trying to afford their microwaves
and RPG books. Seriously, as I said, people in literate industrial
societies work WAY MORE than people in non-literate, non-industrial
societies (I seem to recall anthropological stats of 6 hrs a week for
hunters -males- and 10 hours a week for gatherers -women - as an average
across many societies). Think about it, REALLY. Most people I know work
way too many hours, and do very little else while they are working.
>>still asimportant if not more... I know I would never trade Wagner or
>>Debussy, or Monet, or Dickens, or Shakespeare, or eve "lesser art/artists"
>>for light-speed travel capability. Not even a thought: no way.
>
>Neither would I, but I certainly trade the collected works of shakespeare
>(who BTW, was not very highly regarded in his time, kinda like Stephen King
>today...) for *faster* than light travel. I don't want to simply dream, I
>want the reality to reflect that dream, and no artist I know of is smart
>enough to do that these days. Leonardo DaVinci was one, but that's because
>he was an artist/engineer.
I know about Shakespeare, man. If you traded Shakespeare for faster than
light travel, I'd slap you: HARD! and don't imagine you'd enjoy it,
either!
There are plenty of "artists" who are involved in the sciences. I know one
chemist who writes wonderful, engaging poetry and really good short
stories (she reads David Brin, who is another example though there are
others).
The point is that reality IS reflected in art and especially in
literature: look at a novel, and you will see themes our culture is
grappling with. Reality is sometimes reflected best in the most abstract
and surreal short story.
>>So there.
>
>
>Hehe, yeah, the truth hurts. I know...I had to come to grips with the fact.
Well, that's too bad, because you were mispersuaded. I refuse to accept
that idea.
>You can't just say "so there", and you have to admit that most of us with
>our critical minds (meaning we snob people and say things suck because
>everyone likes them) and liberal views are really full of shit.
No, they aren't. On my campus, there's a prof who wants to do away with
the study of humanities because it doesn't bring in the ca$h that
engineering and chemistry do. He is unthinkingly valuing everything at the
dollar level: which, although necessary on some level with everything, is
also a serious mistake. If we simply look at things on that level, we miss
the deeper significance of arts and literature. Sciences hardly ever call
us to question if something is acceptable, it provokes other questions.
Both the questions of science and the questions of art are significant,
one cannot supplant the other.
There are some stupid academics who are full of shit, but there are also
so great artists, critics, academics, and writers who are not full of
shit, but very honest and dedicated to their work.
> I noticed a
>while back that artists are only the people who dream and imagine things,
>and then show them to you. But they are not the people who bring them to
>you. And let's be frank, anyone can be a visionary person (we all are), but
>not everyone has the required capacities for the complex skills necessary to
>become an engineer or a doctor.
Or a great writer or painter: trust me, these are talents, talents just as
those a surgeon or programmer may have. And all of it takes hard work. I
agree that anyone can be a visionary person: that's the easy bit (though
not as easy as one might think, judging by most peopple either of us
knows, I'm sure - most people are complacent and sheep-like). The tough
part is the work of art or literature. Don't fool yourself into thinking
it's easier to become a writer than to become a doctor or engineer. Guy
Vanderhaeghe admonished me that it takes ten years to "become a writer",
and even then its only maybe . . . it takes a lot of hard work and
studying writing, your own and others'. It's the same with music and the
arts (and I don't really mean pop music, most of which will pass by the
wayside, excepting some supposedly canonical stuff like the Beatles and
Stones - I don't like these bands-, or in jazz John Coltrane andf Charlie
Parker and Miles Davis - all this I DO like. Not that you ought to care.).
>And you have to admit, artists are only necessary when all other human needs
>are satified, this is why I've come to the conclusion that we ARE
>superfluous (most of the time anyway). Society doesn't need us until it has
>finished worrying about everything else.
WRONG. It's true that people have been taught to think this way, but look
at the roots of the arts. Storytellers (being that they are historians)
become very important, for their perspective on the world (read
Solzetnytsin- however that is spelled, Berliner's anti-apartheid novel (I
don't remember the title), Dickens' many novels on the State of ENgland
during (ok around) the Industrial Revolution ). Music accompanies all
activity - people march to battles with music to fill them with strength,
people make music to let out their sorrow, to celebrate (Listen to Bob
Marley, Johnny Clegg, John Coltrane, Shostakovitch . . .). Visual arts
range in importance from religious signifcance (Lascaux, anyone?) to
revolutionary statements. Photography has played a huge role in the
documenting of and artistic representation of MAJOR crisis situations in
our century. The problem is that society does need us, but doesn't know
why or really realize it until we have already done our thing.
>Oh yeah, one more thing...
>
>Define "artist".
YEah, right. I took a class on aesthetics and discovered that art itself
is highly difficult to define. I usually think of "art" as part of the
human creative impulse as channeled in western culture (rather
artificially channeled, for that matter), into abstract pursuits. I think
of artists and people who think they are doing some kind of art, or doing
what other people call art.
That's as good a definition as one can give, because art is really a kind
of artifical, constrcuted paradigm which selectively accepts certain kinds
of cultural production. I think its all too artifical, but who am I to
say?
What a fun argument!
Thanks!
Gord
Gord Sellar
> Exactly *HOW* does not having light-speed travel capability equate with
> starving to death? I mean, as far as I'm aware, we don't possess the
> capability to travel at light-speed currently, yet a significant number of
> people on the planet aren't starving to death (and, for those that are, I
> sincerely doubt that giving up Wagner, Debussy, Monet, Dickens,
> Shakespeare, etc. would make one whit of difference).
Well, exactly. What I am saying is that if we are pressured to sacrifice
serious and critical investigation of the humanities because of other
pressing interests, the whole of the culture will lose out on a huge
source of knowledge and meaning , and suffer as a result.
> This argument seems to be predicated on some strange zero-sum view of the
> universe: i.e. that every piece of technology we have is at the expense of
> a work of art we could have had and that every work of art is at the
> expense of a piece of technology. I think this is nonsense and would be
> very surprised if any reasonable person thought otherwise.
You are right to some extent. But, there are ways in which the
technologization of the world force transformations of the arts in
sometimes good and sometimes bad ways, right?
> If anything, the creation of good art and scientific/technical advancement
> seem to go hand-in-hand; or , at least historically, bursts of innovation
> in both the arts and sciences seem to occur in the same societies at the
> same time.
Yes, well that is very true. The violin or piano, for example, is a very
advanced technological device - same even for the drum! (many musicians
don't seem to understand this).
>The relationship would seem to be less adversarial than
> symbiotic. Good art breaks up the ruts in peopleąs thinking by presenting
> new ways of look at the world and experience which encourages new ways of
> looking at old problems which leads to scientific breakthroughs which,
> when translated into technological innovations, changes the nature of
> society which bolsters new ways of looking at things which leads to good
> art which breaks up the ruts in peopleąs thinking... And so on.
Yes , except that science doesn't really lead most people to question, as
it ought to. Neither does most art that is consumed by our culture. YES, I
really mean that. Look at Holywood.
What do you mean by good art? Revolutionary, avanty garde, aesthetically
mainstream, what?
> The animosity between Science and the Humanities seems to stem from
> primarily economic factors. Artists feel starved of funding and
> appreciation because they see it all being diverted over towards research
> and development of bigger and better consumer products. Alternately,
> scientists look at the multi-million dollar budgets of most major motion
> pictures and wonder why they seem to be struggling so hard to get funding
> for some necessary piece of equipment to continue their research. Both
> assume that their problems stem from the fact that the Śotherą group is
> gobbling up all the resources for their own frivolous ends.
When it is actually some other area of society that is gobbling it up.
> Personally, I draw a distinction between artists, scientists, technicians,
> craft-workers, etc -- you know, people who actually make something (be it
> entertainment, knowledge, products, services) -- and people like
> currency-speculators who donąt actually seem to serve any viable purpose
> in the grander scheme of thiings:
Mmmm hmmmm.But they need to cooperate, etc.
> Thus, I would suggest that artistic types and technical types have more
> interests in common with each other than either group has with certain
> other bozos such as MBAs. Thatąs just my opinion, of course.
I have lots more to say but have to run!
More later, I am sure!
Brett Evill
>Brett Evill (b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au) wrote:
>
>>In article <gas129-1803...@janus2-9.usask.ca>,
>>gas...@mail.usask.ca (Gord Sellar) wrote:
>>
>>> I know I would never trade Wagner or
>>>Debussy, or Monet, or Dickens, or Shakespeare, or eve "lesser art/artists"
>>>for light-speed travel capability. Not even a thought: no way.
>>>
>>>So there.
>>
>>Then its a good thing that we pocket-protector types are here to make the
>>choice instead of you. You're quite welcome to starve to death with your
>>Shakespeares and Monets if that's what you want, but you don't get to take
>>the rest of us with you.
>
>Exactly *HOW* does not having light-speed travel capability equate with
>starving to death? I mean, as far as I'm aware, we don't possess the
>capability to travel at light-speed currently, yet a significant number of
>people on the planet aren't starving to death
But a lot of people are starving. It is only injustice that allows some of
us to live in obese comfort while the bulk of the world goes hungry.
Actually, though, I was looking a hundred years ahead. Ever hear of Malthus?
>This argument seems to be predicated on some strange zero-sum view of the
>universe: i.e. that every piece of technology we have is at the expense of
>a work of art we could have had and that every work of art is at the
>expense of a piece of technology. I think this is nonsense and would be
>very surprised if any reasonable person thought otherwise.
It was not I who suggested the tradeoff between Shakespeare and FTL
travel. I merely pointed out why I thought that the person who did had
made the wrong choice between the two.
Brett Evill
In article <199803190638...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
tria...@aol.com (Triad3204) wrote:
>>Then its a good thing that we pocket-protector types are here to make the
>>choice instead of you. You're quite welcome to starve to death with your
>>Shakespeares and Monets if that's what you want, but you don't get to take
>>the rest of us with you.
>
>If I ever see a farmer with a pocket protector I would actually take this
>statement seriously.
Farmers did not invent and do not apply the processes that we use to make
fertilisers. Farmers did not invent and do not build the
internal-combustion engine or the tractor. Farmers did not invent and do
not build the drills we use to sink artesian and subartesian wells for
irrigation water. Farmers did not and could not build our dams and
irrigation systems. Farmers did not and could not build the railways,
ships, and road that we use to distribute food from the farms to those who
eat it.
Yes indeed, if it were not for engineers only your starvation would save
you from being hip-deep in sewage.
Brett Evill
>In article <b.evill-1903...@tynslip1.apana.org.au>,
>b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au (Brett Evill) wrote:
>>
>>Then its a good thing that we pocket-protector types are here to make the
>>choice instead of you. You're quite welcome to starve to death with your
>>Shakespeares and Monets if that's what you want, but you don't get to take
>>the rest of us with you.
>
>Y'know, when you said "pocket-protector" in this context, Brett.
>I immediately thought you meant a " small Pak Protector ".
>
>It wasn't until after that I realized you meant them things you put pens in.
And you've never even met me!
Dave Brohman
Brett Evill (b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au) wrote:
> In article <199803190638...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
> >>Then its a good thing that we pocket-protector types are here to make the
> >>choice instead of you. You're quite welcome to starve to death with your
> >>Shakespeares and Monets if that's what you want, but you don't get to take
> >>the rest of us with you.
> >If I ever see a farmer with a pocket protector I would actually take this
> >statement seriously.
> Farmers did not invent and do not apply the processes that we use to make
> fertilisers. Farmers did not invent and do not build the
> internal-combustion engine or the tractor. Farmers did not invent and do
> not build the drills we use to sink artesian and subartesian wells for
> irrigation water. Farmers did not and could not build our dams and
> irrigation systems. Farmers did not and could not build the railways,
> ships, and road that we use to distribute food from the farms to those who
> eat it.
Farmers did not invent Nuclear weapons. Farmers did not invent
white-phosphorous rifle ammunition. Farmers did not invent napalm.
Farmers did not put DDT in pesticides. Farmers did not put CFCs in
aerosol cans.
> Yes indeed, if it were not for engineers only your starvation would save
> you from being hip-deep in sewage.
If it were not for engineers we would not have such a staggeringly high
incidence of date-rape in our colleges and universities.
JMPOV
Psychohist
Gord Sellar posts, in part:
I don't think that technology directly translates into
advancement. For example, we are discovering that
Westerners work way more and eat way worse than people
in pre-literate societies ...
Interesting point. I often think that living in preliterate societies, free of
technology, Shakespeare, or hard work, might be more enjoyable than modern
existence.
Truth is, though, a hunter/gatherer lifestyle can only exist at quite low
population densities. Art and technology are the prices we pay for having more
people around....
Warren
Allister Huggins
On 20 Mar 1998, Dave Brohman wrote:
> If it were not for engineers we would not have such a staggeringly high
> incidence of date-rape in our colleges and universities.
>
> JMPOV
CARE to retract that buddy?....Without engineers buddy, we would
still be in the stone age where a person is measured by the size of their
bicep. Think before you write...
Allister H.
Nis Haller Baggesen
Psychohist wrote:
> Contrary to what Nis Haller Baggesen states, the state can't serve this purpose
> well by itself, since a state has a lot of decision making baggage related to
> the interests of its own citizens vis a vis the citizens of other states.
> Currency speculators, on the other hand, can operate internationally.
>
I fully agree that a state cannot operate freely with its budget.
However neither can a speculator, since he has to consider what will
give him the greatest profit. And that doesnt have to be the same
investments as those that would preserve the current currency rates.
That why its the national banks and not private investors who continualy
have to 'save' a countrys currency, when it is endangered by the
investestments of currency speculators. Also - And I admit I wasn't
quite clear on that - the thing that makes a state a good financial
buffer is not that it can invest in its own capital, even though that is
a part of it. It is the fact that a big public sector (I dont know if
its the rigth term - Its just a direct translation from danish) provides
a 'natural' buffer against recessions (and correspondingly puts a brake
on economic growth (Again I lack the rigth term)) simply because it
cannot shift its investments as a speculator can.
Nis
William H. Stoddard
In article <351134...@daimi.aau.dk>, Nis Haller Baggesen
<u97...@daimi.aau.dk> wrote:
> >
> Actually the state is a much better buffer against financial
> fluctuations than currency speculators. This is because it works with a
> greater budget, giving it a greater buffer effect, and it is free of
> profit specualtions, and only has to balance the budget in the long
> term, as a state budget is very resistent to short term fluctuations.
>
that the state (at least the ones here in North America) is actively
involved in currency transactions as such. For another, given that the
state tends to make decisions in one large mass, there's a lot of
opportunity for it to cause damage if it guesses wrong, where private
currency speculation is a bunch of smaller traders who won't all jump the
same way. And finally, if the state were successful at stabilizing
against financial fluctuations, I wouldn't think there would be much room
left for private speculators; the fact that they still exist seems to
indicate that there's slack left to be taken up.
William H. Stoddard
In article <199803192217...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,We have a use for lawyers: slowing down the actions of the state when it
gets overenthusiastic. I note that the United States has a lot more
lawyers than the former Soviet Union and its client states used to have;
now that Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and other eastern
European nations are out from under, they've been reinventing civil law
for all they're worth. On the whole, I have to think lawyers are a good
thing--which isn't to say that you want them getting into everything, any
more than I want garlic on my cheesecake.
William H. Stoddard
It strikes me that part of the actual value of technologists is that they
make us rich enough to afford art. Consider that technology has given
everyone in the United States the ability to hear music more or less
whenever they feel like it, which only the very rich had 300 years ago,
and to own a library that Thomas Aquinas would envy.
William H. Stoddard
In article <b.evill-2003...@tynslip1.apana.org.au>,
b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au (Brett Evill) wrote:
>
> But a lot of people are starving. It is only injustice that allows some of
> us to live in obese comfort while the bulk of the world goes hungry.
>
of the Third World exists because its countries are ruled by thieves who
confiscate what their people do produce--and bleed off large fractions of
aid from other countries--and hide it in secret bank accounts. Foreign
aid payments largely serve to help keep these people in power. Then there
are the perverse effects of the aid that does get through, as when US food
aid drives down the price of basic foodstuffs to the point where local
farmers can't make a living from growing them, but have to grow cash crops
for export instead.
Red
William H. Stoddard wrote:
> Yes, and the injustice is often in nonobvious places. Much of the poverty
> of the Third World exists because its countries are ruled by thieves who
> confiscate what their people do produce--and bleed off large fractions of
Much like Capitalists then. Continually reciting the conventional
wisdom will not solve the problem - the problem is the crippling debt
with which the West keeps a population of slave labourers under
control. As long as the Third World is seen as a source of cheap goods
and cheap labour for the gluttons of the West, they will always be in
this situation.
Red
Dave Brohman wrote:
> Farmers did not invent Nuclear weapons. Farmers did not invent
> white-phosphorous rifle ammunition. Farmers did not invent napalm.
> Farmers did not put DDT in pesticides. Farmers did not put CFCs in
> aerosol cans.
>
But farmers did USE that DDT quite happily; farmers in Vietnam no doubt
dropped napalm. Their status as a farmer is not germaine to this -
engineers produce the tools we use, but they do not determine whether we
use them for good or ill.
Red
Psychohist wrote:
>
> Gord Sellar posts, in part:
>
> advancement. For example, we are discovering that
> Westerners work way more and eat way worse than people
>
> Interesting point. I often think that living in preliterate societies, free of
> technology, Shakespeare, or hard work, might be more enjoyable than modern
> existence.
>
Well this is partly as a result of the way we have constructed Western
societies. In pre-technological societies the power-multiplier of
technology is absent, and so the ability to extend power byond your
immediate surroundings is limited. Coupled with a sense of "it's us
against the world" rather than "it's us against each other" you find a
cooperative stance toward problem solving and wealth distribution,
radically different to western practice. Ironically, for all of our
machinery which acts as a power multiplier, we have used it the wrong
way - instead of using it to perform a laborious task, we have used it
to replace the worker doing the laborious task; machinery has been
inserted in a social bracket higher than the labourer. By contrast,
pretechnical societies inevitably inject their power multipliers
(animals, usually) into ranks subordinate to the populace, which allows
them greater freedom to exercise themselves, such as harnessing a horse
to the plow, and thereby extending their "wealth".
> Truth is, though, a hunter/gatherer lifestyle can only exist at quite low
> population densities. Art and technology are the prices we pay for having more
> people around....
I don't think so - I think technology made hunter gathering obsolete,
and that we have more people becuase of the technology rather than more
technology because of the people (although it is a positive feedback
loop). The lifestyles we have now came about as an adaptive response to
the altered environment we found ourselves in; several great changes in
technology (development of agriculture, development of metal working,
formal science, industry) have produced radically different worlds - all
of these has produced massive shifts in the sentiments and mores of our
societies (except possibly the Industrial and Information Revolutions,
whose impacts have yet to be played out).
Quite simply, I'm rather pleased to have both art and technology in our
societies; my differences with the modern world have other origins.
Red
William H. Stoddard wrote:
>
> It strikes me that part of the actual value of technologists is that they
> make us rich enough to afford art. Consider that technology has given
> everyone in the United States the ability to hear music more or less
> whenever they feel like it, which only the very rich had 300 years ago,
> and to own a library that Thomas Aquinas would envy.
>
Well in this case they have not made the individual rich enough to
afford music; having live music performed in your own home is as far out
of reach of the general populace as it ever was. However, technology
has provided us with new tools to convey that music around; and of
course the cost of a recording is substantially lower than the wages of
the performers; thus, technology has allowed us to buy a cut down
product. Fortunately, the cut-down product is possibly a better
solution and has allowed us to carry music around with us as a personal
experience - the first part of our angelic aura, perhaps?
Nis Haller Baggesen
William H. Stoddard wrote:
>
> In article <351134...@daimi.aau.dk>, Nis Haller Baggesen
> <u97...@daimi.aau.dk> wrote:
> > >
> > Actually the state is a much better buffer against financial
> > fluctuations than currency speculators. This is because it works with a
> > greater budget, giving it a greater buffer effect, and it is free of
> > profit specualtions, and only has to balance the budget in the long
> > term, as a state budget is very resistent to short term fluctuations.
> >
> I haven't noticed this to be the case. For one thing, it's not obvious
> that the state (at least the ones here in North America) is actively
> involved in currency transactions as such. For another, given that the
> state tends to make decisions in one large mass, there's a lot of
> opportunity for it to cause damage if it guesses wrong, where private
> currency speculation is a bunch of smaller traders who won't all jump the
> same way. And finally, if the state were successful at stabilizing
> against financial fluctuations, I wouldn't think there would be much room
> left for private speculators; the fact that they still exist seems to
> indicate that there's slack left to be taken up.
>
it (By way of the national bank) sets the interest rates for its own
currency. Also though the national bank the state has the option of
buying and selling its own currency to keep its value stable. Also its
the state that makes the decision to increase or decrease the value of
its currency. As for speculator not jumping the same way, I'm not to
sure. The currency exchange market is 'often' hit by greater or lesser
panics, when rumors of decreases in currency value start to spread. That
is one of the reasons that Sweden was forced to decrease the value of it
currency resently - The rumor the it would do that had already spread,
so people were selling kroner like mad, forcing the state to step in and
take control. Also since the specualtor who gets out in time can
actually make money on 'ruining' (Am not saying they willfullly do this
- I'm just saying it wouldnt cause problems for them) a countrys
economy.
There are also other reason that the state is a good buffer. A big
public sector will create a buffer against recessions (And conversly put
a brake on economic growth) simply because a state cannot change its
investments quickly and since it 'cannot' lay of its workers (It can of
course, but it still has to support them, so little is gained). This
keeps money in circulation during a recession, thus keeping the whole
economy alive. During high growth periods a big public sector suck up a
lot of money through taxes, thus keeping spending in check assuring a
controlled and steady growth.
Nis
Gord Sellar
In article
<Pine.GSO.3.96.9803...@ugsparc10.eecg.toronto.edu>,
hug...@ugsparc0.eecg.toronto.edu (Allister Huggins) wrote:
> CARE to retract that buddy?....Without engineers buddy, we would
> still be in the stone age where a person is measured by the size of their
> bicep. Think before you write...
The Stone Age? You mean the time when all our wtare wasn't polluted, and
our food wasn't crammed full of chemicals and steroids? Soudslike an Eden
to me . . .
What's so bad about the stone age? Many stone age cultures are far
healthier than ours in many ways.
Gord Sellar
> But a lot of people are starving. It is only injustice that allows some of
> us to live in obese comfort while the bulk of the world goes hungry.
Good observation for a technocrat. (grin)
> Actually, though, I was looking a hundred years ahead. Ever hear of Malthus?
No, and please explain "Malthus"to me.
> It was not I who suggested the tradeoff between Shakespeare and FTL
> travel. I merely pointed out why I thought that the person who did had
> made the wrong choice between the two.
No, I am convinced I didn't. You have to understand what I am saying about
literature: it has a profound and important formative place in the Western
identity. Without a written literature, without that kind of thinking that
is molded by being in a literate culture, you would never get scientific
developments like we have now. Try thinking about things like fridges and
mircowaves being invented in pre-literate cultures.
Okay, if literature is formative on a psychological level, etc, why ought
we to retain something like Shakespeare at all costs? (I am exaggerating
here: nobody COULD erase Shakespeare if they even wanted to: not
completely. It is too disseminated and well-known in toom many cultures)
For example, in the Caribbean, the play "The Tempest" has become a focal
work for the criticism of Western Imperialism, allowing people to
articulate and discuss their situation in ways deeper than plain
discussion cannot access. I guess what I am saying is that the arts, and
the legacy of the arts i human culture, is central, and sometihng we
depend on and NEED in a deep way. Think of a culture without drama, music,
religion (or some kind of belief system(s)- including atheism, if you must
include 20th Century Western Culture).
I bet you'd disagree, but my thought is we ought to get our "shyt"
together on this planet before we start heading out into the great beyond
of Space. The European Imperialists didn't get their "shyt" together, and
look what they did to the world. It is still a mess. Of course, I don't
mean that we ought to postpone space exploration forever (and thus
light-speed or faster technology development - if such a thing is even
possible), just that we have too much still to figure out right here at
home. Millions starve, millions live in bloody trailers or worse
conditions, and it seems to me disgusting that some of us, the privileged,
want to direct our money into space. We need to know some of space right
now, that's true, but I think manned missions to Mars can wait till we
figure out what to do about the massive starvation on this planet.
Of course, I say "we" but those in charge of science don't listen to "us"
as in the concerned members of world population - they, like authors, have
their own agendas.
What a great topic for discussion!
Gord Sellar
> If it were not for engineers we would not have such a staggeringly high
> incidence of date-rape in our colleges and universities.
Although the rest of your post is brilliant, I think this is an unfair
generalization: though if you have stats, I'd love to see them!
Engineering colleges DO encourage a kind of arrogance, however, that
troubles me - or at least that is my experience... They don't teach people
that all human endeavours are tied intricately to one another and are
interdependent.
I guess faster-than light speed travel is more dependent on Shakespeare,
is what I was trying to say earlier (because it is dependent on literate
culture as it exists, of which Shakespearte is an important part).
Gord Sellar
mr evill writes:
> Farmers did not invent and do not apply the processes that we use to make
> fertilisers.
Really? that's funny, I remember that - what was it called? Dung,
rotational farming, - age old techniques. Fertilizers simply allow one to
farm land excessivelyt and farm on damaged land. Land that would not have
been damaged if the fertilizers weren't a guarantee on the end of the
deal.
>Farmers did not invent and do not build the
> internal-combustion engine or the tractor.
But until the technological revolutions which made over-population seem
viable, they didn't really need them either. Have you read Shopenhauer? He
points out most of the technology we have and use is excessive. Which is
true. But we must "imrpove" on it even more, all the time . . .
>Farmers did not invent and do
> not build the drills we use to sink artesian and subartesian wells for
> irrigation water. Farmers did not and could not build our dams and
> irrigation systems. Farmers did not and could not build the railways,
> ships, and road that we use to distribute food from the farms to those who
> eat it.
etc. etc. etc... But I again ask where the need comes from for these
wondrous inventions? The need is a product of technological society, which
makes our overpopulation dependent on the developments of science. It's
really just science cleaning up the mess it creates.
> Yes indeed, if it were not for engineers only your starvation would save
> you from being hip-deep in sewage.
Well, I hate to say it but the original inhabitants of North America were
not hip-deep in sewage. No, they weren't. Really! Granted, some technology
does eliminate problems, but it also creates them . . . let's not pretend
that lots of what you are talking about didn't arise out of the need
created by metropolitanization - creating huge demands for food, waste
management, Which simply would not have developed without the vast
developments in science and tech.
What am I saying? Take the historical big picture into account, please!
Gord Sellar
> > But a lot of people are starving. It is only injustice that allows some of
> > us to live in obese comfort while the bulk of the world goes hungry.
> >
> Yes, and the injustice is often in nonobvious places.
Like in every major city in North America.
Gord Sellar
In article <whswhs-1903...@ip-104-203.san.primenet.com>,
whs...@primenet.com (William H. Stoddard) wrote:
> It strikes me that part of the actual value of technologists is that they
> make us rich enough to afford art. Consider that technology has given
> everyone in the United States the ability to hear music more or less
> whenever they feel like it, which only the very rich had 300 years ago,
> and to own a library that Thomas Aquinas would envy.
True, Bill. But, one has to question a few things about this statement.
1. Would Thomas Aquinas really envy our libraries?
2. What does the idea of "affording art" have to do with cultural production?
3. What is the way we listen to music, and how has musical technology
affected the way we listen to and appreciate music, and what we listen to?
All the answers lay in two points.
1. Consumerism caters to the bulk of the society, and serve the deamnds of
a society which is not very well equipped for complexity and critical
thought, for the most part (I like to think WE are excepted, but maybe we
aren't - maybe not all of us anyway). Therefore, mediocre books (such as
romances) dominate the market, making it harder for the "truly good" books
to get published (but at least they rake in the revenue to make it
possible at all). The publication and marketing of anything besides novels
is marginal: philosophy books, etc, are marginal except for academic
presses. It's true of a lot of music too. Most is background, as opposed
to "art" to be listened to alertly and critically.
Aquinas would probably be envious of my library, but I'm a student and so
I have books I think he'd appreciate. Most people I know (even those who
work in bookstores) unthinkingly buy what is marketed to them.
2. IS more better?
We listen to music very passively. I read an account of someone hearing a
symphonny for the first time - 300 years ago - and you know what they
said? It was like a magical spell. Now, go to any Wal-Mart, and you are
assailed continually. The mechanization, iteration, and gutting of the
arts doesn't seem a good thing to me. I appreciate CD's, books, etc. for
ewhat they are (luxury items of the western world), but I don't think they
give technology a value in and of themselves. Actually, they facilitate
the commodification of the arts, which is usually a dangerous and bad
thing. Instead of Bartok and Coltrane and Beethoven, we have millions of
one-hit wonder pop groups and talentless freaks cashing in on teenaged
anxiety and identity-crises.
Am I a bitter musician? Well, yes.
But I think what I am saying is valid.
Gord Sellar
In article <35125C38...@hotmail.com>, Red
<red_army_b...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> But farmers did USE that DDT quite happily; farmers in Vietnam no doubt
> dropped napalm. Their status as a farmer is not germaine to this -
> engineers produce the tools we use, but they do not determine whether we
> use them for good or ill.
List for me the good (say, non-violent) uses of the atomic bomb . . . Of
napalm . . . of seren nerve gas?
You are saying that the constructor of a slave-ship during the 1800's
could say "I don't know what he'll use it for: that'shis concern. SLave
shiips that relied on people laying prone, or kneeling, all the way across
the Atlantic, so that the cargo could be at maximum. The designer is just
as much at fault - just as involved in the colonial process - as the
slaver. They are in cahoots. Same with napalm, with atomic bombs, etc.
What you are implying is that engineers need not consider morality, or
even the implications of their inventions: that's someone else's concern.
Whose? Someone else's.
That's it - pass the buck.
Gord Sellar
In article <35126484...@hotmail.com>, Red
<red_army_b...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Well in this case they have not made the individual rich enough to
> afford music; having live music performed in your own home is as far out
> of reach of the general populace as it ever was. However, technology
> has provided us with new tools to convey that music around; and of
> course the cost of a recording is substantially lower than the wages of
> the performers; thus, technology has allowed us to buy a cut down
> product. Fortunately, the cut-down product is possibly a better
> solution and has allowed us to carry music around with us as a personal
> experience - the first part of our angelic aura, perhaps?
Until you consider that the cut-down product also makes it more difficult
to make money as a musician. Which is bad for music all around: it makes
it more difficult for innovation to spread, too, because the
commodification side of it encourages new music to be mostly like
everything else, but with a slight twist: the truly innovative is usually
ignored, as it doesn't sound like everything else - that is, if it is ever
marketed at all.
Psychohist
Gord Sellar posts, in part:
the cut-down product also makes it more difficult
to make money as a musician.
I think you're fooling yourself here. Do you really think everyone who spends
a few hundred bucks a year on CDs would otherwise spend thousands a year on
live performances?
People who really do have the money to go to live performances still do so,
despite the availability of their home stereo systems.
And people who have the money to sponsor artists or troupes full time have
always been rare. And if you think FTL is less worthwhile than giving this
money to the starving third world, why do think it's okay to starve the third
world so a few of us can be fat artists?
Warren Dew
Psychohist
You posted, in part:
I fully agree that a state cannot operate freely with
its budget. However neither can a speculator, since he
has to consider what will give him the greatest profit.
And that doesnt have to be the same investments as those
that would preserve the current currency rates.
I agree that the state also has a part to play.
I'm just pointing out that the value of currency speculators is that they do
force states to reevaluate their currencies when they are over- or under-
valued. Although I'm not sure about the Swedish example that you provided, in
most cases, attacks against currencies are successful only when the currency in
question has become overvalued, generally because the state has a relatively
weak economy being propped up by imports.
Warren Dew
Psychohist
'Red' posts, in part:
Ironically, for all of our machinery which acts as a power
multiplier, we have used it the wrong way - instead of using
it to perform a laborious task, we have used it to replace
the worker doing the laborious task; machinery has been
inserted in a social bracket higher than the labourer. By
contrast, pretechnical societies inevitably inject their
power multipliers (animals, usually) into ranks subordinate
to the populace, which allows them greater freedom to exercise
themselves, such as harnessing a horse to the plow, and
thereby extending their "wealth".
Don't be so sure that the horse doesn't displace a laborer as well. In parts
of India or China, it has.
It's only later that society adjusts - the displaced plow pullers, or the
displaced assembly line workers, die off; no one new has to take their place
and do the heavy labor any more. Thus, the social class that was below the
horse or machinery disappears, and everyone moves 'up' - unless you count the
people who have to take care of the machinery, or horses, as 'below' them.
In response to my comment that hunter/gatherer lifestyles require low
population densities:
I think technology made hunter gathering obsolete,
and that we have more people becuase of the technology
rather than more technology because of the people
(although it is a positive feedback loop).
Um ... if it takes six hours a week to support myself with hunting/gathering,
and some new technology pops up that lets me support myself with agriculture on
30 hours/week, I go with the new technology? I mean, maybe some people would,
but not me.
I rather suspect that what happens is that the population of hunter/gatherers
grows, and the resources get overexploited, until it takes more effort to
support oneself that way than with agriculture. People then switch to
agriculture, perhaps via pastoralism, and only then do the changing land use
patterns make hunting/gathering completely obsolete.
In the tropics, hunting/gathering persisted because disease prevented the human
population from overburdening the resource base, at least until advanced
outside medical technology was added to the picture.
But then, I'm the one who would give up technology and art for the extra
roleplaying time.
Warren
Adam Buecher
Gord Sellar wrote:
>
> In article
> <Pine.GSO.3.96.9803...@ugsparc10.eecg.toronto.edu>,
> hug...@ugsparc0.eecg.toronto.edu (Allister Huggins) wrote:
>
> > CARE to retract that buddy?....Without engineers buddy, we would
> > still be in the stone age where a person is measured by the size of their
> > bicep. Think before you write...
>
> The Stone Age? You mean the time when all our wtare wasn't polluted, and
> our food wasn't crammed full of chemicals and steroids? Soudslike an Eden
> to me . . .
>
> What's so bad about the stone age? Many stone age cultures are far
> healthier than ours in many ways.
>
A life expectancy of 30 (that's a generous estimate) sound healthy to
you? Modern low-tech cultures are not the same as a true stone-age
culture. Most of the big predators and diseases are controlled by the
more advanced civilizations.
Adam Buecher
For the most part I would agree with you. An engineer is responsible for
the function of his design, bu only if that's it's purpose. Slave ships
are just overloaded cargo ships. They were based on a similar design
plying the waters with more conventional cargo. The captains just
decided to carry human cargo. That's not an engineer's fault. Nerve gas
and nukes, however are weapons of mass murder. An engineer who designed
them can't say he didn't know what they would be used for. I'm a
computer engineer so this isn't some diatribe against engineers. It's a
response to an ethics question.
Thomas R Scudder
Gord Sellar (gas...@mail.usask.ca) asieoniezi:
: 1. Would Thomas Aquinas really envy our libraries?
I hate Thomas Aquinas. Alla the time, he comes over and asks me, "Hey,
Tom, we got the same name, maybe you lend me a book?" And I say to him,
"Hey, kid, does this look like a library to you?"
And then I kick him inna face and he goes away.
: 2. What does the idea of "affording art" have to do with cultural production?
: 3. What is the way we listen to music, and how has musical technology
: affected the way we listen to and appreciate music, and what we listen to?
: All the answers lay in two points.
Ow! Ow!
Said the man, who tried to work his way up to the "bed of nails" trick,
one nail at a time, on day two.
: 1. Consumerism caters to the bulk of the society, and serve the deamnds of
: a society which is not very well equipped for complexity and critical
: thought, for the most part (I like to think WE are excepted, but maybe we
: aren't - maybe not all of us anyway).
I'm thinking that consumerism, it caters to alla the markets that it can
see, so it has a big ol' market for the big ol' group of mindless herded
cattle (not us, no no not us, nohow) and a small little tiny market for
the small little groups of high-brow-ed elites, such as me and mine and
you and yourn. Now, you say, it ain't fair nohow that these large group
of people (the cattle, you know) they get the more of the books, while us
guys don't, and I say to you, well, buddy, there's more of them than there
is of you and us and all that, see.
: Therefore, mediocre books (such as
: romances) dominate the market, making it harder for the "truly good" books
: to get published (but at least they rake in the revenue to make it
: possible at all).
This ain't so. You see, if the big market of sheep and cattle and
assorted livestock, they leave for something else, say, real-time virtual
reality barbershop quartet concerts, then the market, it don't turn around
and say to us in the little market, hey, you in there, do you want to buy
20 billion new philosophy books, and we say, hey, we got all we can afford
right now anyhoo, and it says, oh, well, guess we just go out of businees
and invest in those barbershop quartet thingies, instead.
: The publication and marketing of anything besides novels
: is marginal: philosophy books, etc, are marginal except for academic
: presses.
Well, the academic presses, I am thinking that they find themselves a way
to keep on, yes? And that's because they have some place they can sell
their stuff, if only to people who have to buy the book cuz their
professor assigned it in order that he can get enough of his own
royalties.
: It's true of a lot of music too. Most is background, as opposed
: to "art" to be listened to alertly and critically.
If I find someone who listens to music as background, I hit him over the
head with a big wooden mallet. Then his skull is cracked, but oh well.
: Aquinas would probably be envious of my library, but I'm a student and so
: I have books I think he'd appreciate. Most people I know (even those who
: work in bookstores) unthinkingly buy what is marketed to them.
Yah, whilst you, the student, instead buy them books what are written to
be understood by a person of your dignified intellectual stature, yes?
: 2. IS more better?
Much better. Also, less is more. Discuss.
: We listen to music very passively.
Except them of us what jump about and run into each other and get into
accidents, I tell you, kids these days, they're animals.
: I read an account of someone hearing a
: symphonny for the first time - 300 years ago - and you know what they
: said? It was like a magical spell.
I say that Christine Lavin gives good concert, and I say I'm right.
I sat a spell at one of her concerts, and it was, like, a magical spell,
y'know?
: Now, go to any Wal-Mart, and you are
: assailed continually.
You want earplugs? Very fine. One dallah, for you, because you my
friend.
: The mechanization, iteration, and gutting of the
: arts doesn't seem a good thing to me.
Hey, leave Philip Glass alone.
: I appreciate CD's, books, etc. for
: what they are (luxury items of the western world), but I don't think they
: give technology a value in and of themselves.
Well, I think they (the CD's, anyway) give my CD player a value, since it
would look pretty silly just sitting there if they din't exist.
: Actually, they facilitate
: the commodification of the arts,
I seen some good things drawn on bathroom walls, but yeah, most of it is
pretty forgettable. US TROOPS OUT OF NORTH AMERIKA!
: which is usually a dangerous and bad thing.
Which? Where? Who?
I think I am in rats alley, where dead men left their bones.
: Instead of Bartok and Coltrane and Beethoven, we have millions of
: one-hit wonder pop groups and talentless freaks cashing in on teenaged
: anxiety and identity-crises.
I'm thinking that diversity is a good thing. But what do I know? I'm
just a drifter who found an open net connection.
: Am I a bitter musician? Well, yes.
Well, if being the one-hit talentless freak to cash in is so easy, why do
you not do it? You can, like, found a foundation for musicians so they
don't have to cash in with the proceeds.
: But I think what I am saying is valid.
--
Tom Scudder aka tom...@umich.edu <*> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~tomscud
The University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan Society presents:
RUDDIGORE, April 2 - 5 - see http://www.umich.edu/~umgass/Next/Tix.html
for ticket ordering info - tickets are !!ON!! !!SALE!! !!NOW!!
Travis S. Casey
Gord Sellar <gas...@mail.usask.ca> wrote:
>hug...@ugsparc0.eecg.toronto.edu (Allister Huggins) wrote:
>
>> CARE to retract that buddy?....Without engineers buddy, we would
>> still be in the stone age where a person is measured by the size of their
>> bicep. Think before you write...
>
>The Stone Age? You mean the time when all our wtare wasn't polluted, and
>our food wasn't crammed full of chemicals and steroids? Soudslike an Eden
>to me . . .
>
>What's so bad about the stone age? Many stone age cultures are far
>healthier than ours in many ways.
You mean, other than the fact that many of us could never have lived
in the Stone Age? Without technology that was developed in the 1900's,
I would have died shortly after birth. However, I've been able to live
a healthy, perfectly normal life -- a life that I could not have had in
any previous century.
For some of us, living without modern technology would mean not living
at all.
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efi...@io.com>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' Keeper of the rec.games.design FAQ:
'---''(_/--' `-'\_) http://www.io.com/~efindel/design.html
James C. Ellis
Gord Sellar wrote:
>
> Until you consider that the cut-down product also makes it more difficult
> to make money as a musician.
How do you figure?
I'm no expert in the field by any stretch of the imagination, but it
was my belief that many of the great composers of the past were scraping
by on the edge of poverty (or supported at the behest of rich patrons).
Nowadays, they can become rich enough to buy small countries.
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
James C. Ellis
Gord Sellar wrote:
>
> List for me the good (say, non-violent) uses of the atomic bomb . . .
- Asteroid defense ;)
- Propulsion for an Orion-style craft ;)
- snuffing out Ebola outbreaks
> Of napalm . . .
- great movie special fx
- Quickie barbecue for entire herds of cattle
- handy aid for Leningen vs the Ants
> of seren nerve gas?
- pest control
- to surpress those nast Martian invaders
- IQ test for would-be terrorist groups
- tastes great on toast
<needless to say, all the above should be taken with a mound of salt>
Allister Huggins
On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, Gord Sellar wrote:
> In article <35125C38...@hotmail.com>, Red
> <red_army_b...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > But farmers did USE that DDT quite happily; farmers in Vietnam no doubt
> > dropped napalm. Their status as a farmer is not germaine to this -
> > engineers produce the tools we use, but they do not determine whether we
> > use them for good or ill.
>
> List for me the good (say, non-violent) uses of the atomic bomb . . . Of
> napalm . . . of seren nerve gas?
>
> You are saying that the constructor of a slave-ship during the 1800's
> could say "I don't know what he'll use it for: that'shis concern. SLave
> shiips that relied on people laying prone, or kneeling, all the way across
> the Atlantic, so that the cargo could be at maximum. The designer is just
> as much at fault - just as involved in the colonial process - as the
> slaver. They are in cahoots. Same with napalm, with atomic bombs, etc.
>
> What you are implying is that engineers need not consider morality, or
> even the implications of their inventions: that's someone else's concern.
> Whose? Someone else's.
Society.
*SNORT*..this argument is the same one they tried to use in my 1st
yr Engineering Society Course..The argument that a knife actually had an
"ALIGNMENT".....
Allister H.
Scott Taylor
Gord Sellar wrote:
> List for me the good (say, non-violent) uses of the atomic bomb . . .
> Of napalm . . . of seren nerve gas?
Nuclear devices;
Mining (deep space or Lunar)
Orion
blowing up asteroids on collision course for Earth :-)
Napalm;
rapid clearing of forests/jungle/thickets
(whine about the rain forests all you want (and I don't disagree);
but there are times when you need that chunk of land clear *NOW*).
Sarin/Nerve gas;
Many so-called "Nerve gases", properly diluted, can be used
as anesthetics, and other medicines; for instance, cuarare is a
nasty toxin that causes paralysis and death; and is also used,
in minute quantities, to deaden the muscles of the eye during
difficult cornea transplants, etc.
Turn about; name one technology that does *not* have a military
application.
> You are saying that the constructor of a slave-ship during the
> 1800's could say "I don't know what he'll use it for: that'shis
> concern. SLave shiips that relied on people laying prone, or
> kneeling, all the way across the Atlantic, so that the cargo could
> be at maximum. The designer is just as much at fault - just as
> involved in the colonial process - as the slaver. They are in
> cahoots. Same with napalm, with atomic bombs, etc.
Of course, the fact that neither the designer nor the slaver thought
that what they were doing was wrong is irrelevant to the discussion?
In context, your argument is specious; it presumes that both
knew what they were doing is wrong, and were doing it anyways.
> What you are implying is that engineers need not consider morality,
> or even the implications of their inventions: that's someone else's
> concern. Whose? Someone else's.
Of course, it could be argued that "analyzing the morality" of some
thing will inevitably result in it not being developed; there is
*no* development that does not have *some* negative impacts.
(Go ahead. Name one. I dare you.)
There is also that fact that, someone may not have your wonderful
sense of morality, and may decide to develop a technology that you
forgo, with possibly ruinous results. This is something we (the USA)
are running into now; since it have been nearly 30 years since we
ceased developing biological weapons (officially), we are now in
a place where we have few experts reminaing on the topic, which
has put us at a distinct disadvantage when trying to develop
defenses or counter-agents to them, and in hunting down facilities
that *are* developing such weapons; we just don't have the
experience and expertise.
Ask the survivors of the Boxer Rebellion how they feel about their
ancestors failing to develop gunpowder as anything other than a
toy... or the Japanese of the 1800s how they felt about earlier
Shoguns deciding on a path of isolationism.
(I'm not defending the actions of the British or of Adm. Perry;
merely noting that, in both cases, a culture or society failed to
react to advancing technology, or develop a tachnology they knew
about, and this resulted in their downfall/drastic changes in their
society).
Scott Taylor
Freelancer for Hire
Have Mac, Will Travel
Gord Sellar
In article <199803201720...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
psych...@aol.com (Psychohist) wrote:
> I think you're fooling yourself here. Do you really think everyone who spends
> a few hundred bucks a year on CDs would otherwise spend thousands a year on
> live performances?
They wouldn't need to. That's why people perform to groups of people,
called "audiences".
> People who really do have the money to go to live performances still do so,
> despite the availability of their home stereo systems.
Well, that's sort of true: except that the tours that get booked are now
based on CD sales anyways. - - - and most musicians don't make their money
off the CD's , the companies that produce,distribute, and sell them do:
most musicians make their livings by performing and touring. The
commercial music market has little to do with art, and more to do with
industry and marketing...
> And people who have the money to sponsor artists or troupes full time have
> always been rare. And if you think FTL is less worthwhile than giving this
> money to the starving third world, why do think it's okay to starve the third
> world so a few of us can be fat artists?
I'm not advocating "fat artists": I am just saying that the system is
completely unbalanced. IT's a fact that most artists aren't fat: I'm not
saying they shoudl be, but there should be a possibility for a more stable
lifestyle for the makers of our arts, along with that more stable life for
people in the developing world (including their artists). I want a more
stable life for everyone; its just that the arts are supported way less
than the sciences. . . and they are equally important to human existence.
Imagine a world without music. Really imagine it! Ugh.
Jo Hart
Allister Huggins wrote:
>
> >
> > What you are implying is that engineers need not consider morality, or
> > even the implications of their inventions: that's someone else's concern.
> > Whose? Someone else's.
>
>
Yes, and even engineers are part of it. Speaking as an engineer, I
promised myself when I was 18 and had just decided to study Elec Eng
that I would never work on defence projects. I like to think that any
legacy my research leaves to the world will not be measured in terms of
corpses :)
jo
Zoran Bekric
William H. Stoddard (whs...@primenet.com) wrote:
>In article <zbekric-1903...@ppp244.adelaide.on.net.au>,
>zbe...@hempseed.com (Zoran Bekric) wrote:
>>
>> Personally, I draw a distinction between artists, scientists, technicians,
>> craft-workers, etc -- you know, people who actually make something (be it
>> entertainment, knowledge, products, services) -- and people like
>> currency-speculators who donšt actually seem to serve any viable purpose
>> in the grander scheme of things...
>>
>Currency speculators are actually doing something damned useful: they're
>holding a commodity whose value is subject to fluctuations, and thus
>enabling other people to do business without being impacted by those
>fluctuations to nearly as great a degree. They make money from doing so
>because a lot of people would rather have 95 cents for sure than a random
>movement between 90 cents and $1.10 that averages a dollar; so in the long
>run they come out ahead on the average. This is mainly a function for the
>rich, as they can afford to wait out the downward movements.
>
>If you think currency speculators are useless, try having all the shock
>absorbers removed from your car and see how fast you can drive without
>them....
The key words in your analogy are "how fast you can drive..."
Given that I don't want to drive very fast (keeping within the analogy)
perhaps I don't like the fact that my life and the lives of my family,
friends and associates (not to mention complete strangers) are effectively
fucked over on a regular basis by those who, for whatever reason, do want
to drive fast.
I'm quite happy to live and let live, but that's not what's happening. As
a consequence, I get rather narky. If those who want to drive fast were to
engage in their activities without fucking over my life, I would have
nothing against them. To be fair, currency speculators may well cushion
the impact, sparing me and others the worst of it, but that doesn't mean
that I'm not going to consider them part of the problem.
BTW, I'm sure that the above could somehow be connected with gaming... (an
admitedly desperate attemopt to connect this post with the subject of the
newsgroup).
Regards,
Zoran
--
Zoran Bekric
(zbe...@hempseed.com)
ars longa, vita brevis
Triad3204
>> Actually, though, I was looking a hundred years ahead. Ever hear of
>Malthus?
>
>No, and please explain "Malthus"to me.
Malthus pioneered "Malthusian" economic theory -- which basically has the
pessimistic view that there aren't enough resources to go around and so those
of us on top should make sure nobody else gets up here because there isn't room
for both of us. There's some other stuff, but it basically boils down to: There
aren't enough resources, so explitation is inevitable, and therefore not a bad
thing.
It was and is idiotic. It also predicted the downfall of entire system in the
very near future . . . over 100 years ago, IIRC. Like some sort of horrific
religion it continues to have its supporters despite its obviously lack of
credibility.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Triad3204
>Farmers did not invent and do not apply the processes that we use to make
>internal-combustion engine or the tractor. Farmers did not invent and do
>not build the drills we use to sink artesian and subartesian wells for
>irrigation water. Farmers did not and could not build our dams and
>irrigation systems. Farmers did not and could not build the railways,
>ships, and road that we use to distribute food from the farms to those who
>eat it.
>
>you from being hip-deep in sewage.
#1. You're right. I should have dropped smileys all over my text. I thought it
was obvious from context (since I went on one line later to show why *both*
segments of society were necessary), but obviously it was not.
#2. Actually, no. If it weren't for engineers there wouldn't be so damn many
people so there wouldn't be a need for fertilizers, combines, or sewage
systems. If there were ever an example of people who created work so they could
work it would be the scientists. :-) Well, and the Judeo-Christian religion
who, just to make sure nobody felt safe, damned everybody from birth.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Triad3204
>The Stone Age? You mean the time when all our wtare wasn't polluted, and
>our food wasn't crammed full of chemicals and steroids? Soudslike an Eden
>to me . . .
>
>What's so bad about the stone age? Many stone age cultures are far
>healthier than ours in many ways.
How old are you? The majority of the people on this list would already be
*dead* if they lived in the stone age.
In addition to which, a troll like you wouldn't be able to spew this type of
nonsense to the entire world if you lived in the stone age.
Grow up.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Triad3204
>List for me the good (say, non-violent) uses of the atomic bomb . . . Of
>napalm . . . of seren nerve gas?
The first gas weapons were developed using techniques which are used for
ammonia today. The atomic bomb, of course, precurses the amazingly clean source
of energy (in comparison with fossil fuels) available to us today.
Like they said -- science and its discoveries are tools. The tools are neither
good or evil. How we choose to use those tools casts judgment upon us, but not
upon the tools.
>You are saying that the constructor of a slave-ship during the 1800's
>could say "I don't know what he'll use it for: that'shis concern. SLave
>shiips that relied on people laying prone, or kneeling, all the way across
>the Atlantic, so that the cargo could be at maximum. The designer is just
>as much at fault - just as involved in the colonial process - as the
>slaver. They are in cahoots. Same with napalm, with atomic bombs, etc.
The guy who first invented the ship is responsible for the slave trade? Is he
also responsible for naval warfare? The subjugation of the Native Americans
following the "discovery" of the New World?
Meanwhile, back over here in reality.
Jusitn Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Triad3204
>Interesting point. I often think that living in preliterate societies, free
>of
>technology, Shakespeare, or hard work, might be more enjoyable than modern
>existence.
>
>Truth is, though, a hunter/gatherer lifestyle can only exist at quite low
>population densities. Art and technology are the prices we pay for having
>more
>people around....
By all means, Warren, I encourage you to go if that's what you really want.
I will also expect to see you again in a couple of weeks after you realize the
advantages of modern plumbing and food processing. I hope you realize it pretty
soon, though, because you probably won't survive more than 10 to 20 years
longer. Don't get any serious injuries, you're f*cked if you do. And I wouldn't
suggest having children unless you can deal with heartbreak . . . you'll lose
more than 50% of them at least.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Gord Sellar
> Gord Sellar wrote:
> >
> > In article
> > <Pine.GSO.3.96.9803...@ugsparc10.eecg.toronto.edu>,
> > hug...@ugsparc0.eecg.toronto.edu (Allister Huggins) wrote:
> >
> > > CARE to retract that buddy?....Without engineers buddy, we would
> > > still be in the stone age where a person is measured by the size of their
> > > bicep. Think before you write...
> >
> > The Stone Age? You mean the time when all our wtare wasn't polluted, and
> > our food wasn't crammed full of chemicals and steroids? Soudslike an Eden
> > to me . . .
> >
> > What's so bad about the stone age? Many stone age cultures are far
> > healthier than ours in many ways.
> >
>
> A life expectancy of 30 (that's a generous estimate) sound healthy to
> you? Modern low-tech cultures are not the same as a true stone-age
> culture. Most of the big predators and diseases are controlled by the
> more advanced civilizations.
I'mm just saying that for all our "developments" and "advancements", in
some ways we are worse off than people in "Stone Age"- ie. preliterate,
subsistence economy societies. Also, I think that the pathogens we have
defeated have been replaced to a large degree by the crap that poisons and
sickens so many of us now: ie. Cnacers, allergies, asthma and other
problems have gotten much worse, though it's nice to be free of the threat
of polio and the like. But I think we ahve created almost as many
illnesses as we have defeated. As for the predators, that's only because
of our urbanization: We have decided to live in naturally uninhabitable
zones - well except for roaches & rats.
Gord Sellar
> Gord Sellar wrote:
> For the most part I would agree with you. An engineer is responsible for
> the function of his design, bu only if that's it's purpose. Slave ships
> are just overloaded cargo ships. They were based on a similar design
> plying the waters with more conventional cargo. The captains just
> decided to carry human cargo.
Not to my knowledge: there were actually cargo holds specially designed to
be able to carry more slaves than they would be if they were just herded
into a hold: they were designed so that some slaves had to lay down all
the way across the ocean, some had to sit, etc. And that is a journey of
weeks. Little wonder so many of them died: often they were not let out of
the hold for exercise becaue they would jump ship - rather die than be a
slave to these European monsters. Often death was thought to bring the
slave's soul home (back to Africa) - but I digress.
Gord Sellar
In article
<Pine.GSO.3.96.98032...@ugsparc10.eecg.toronto.edu>,
hug...@ugsparc0.eecg.toronto.edu (Allister Huggins) wrote:
>
> Society.
>
>
> *SNORT*..this argument is the same one they tried to use in my 1st
> yr Engineering Society Course..The argument that a knife actually had an
> "ALIGNMENT".....
Huh? What do you mean? Like, as in Knives are evil?
I would never say that: but I would say there is something dysfunctional
in societies that produce weapons which can (even theoretically) totally
destroy all known life, or at least their own species - that there is a
sickness and a major problem in such societies, which MUST be confronted
and cannot be ignored.
Gord Sellar
In article <199803210749...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
tria...@aol.com (Triad3204) wrote:
> It was and is idiotic. It also predicted the downfall of entire system in the
> very near future . . . over 100 years ago, IIRC. Like some sort of horrific
> religion it continues to have its supporters despite its obviously lack of
> credibility.
Sounds like a section from Vampire: THe Masquerade (one of the hardcovers,
either Player's Guide or Main book) on the Mindset of Scarcity: it is
really a nightmare of a philosophy. Very much in line with Imperialist
thought, though.
Thanks for the elucidation.
Gord Sellar
In article <199803210754...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
tria...@aol.com (Triad3204) wrote:
> How old are you? The majority of the people on this list would already be
> *dead* if they lived in the stone age.
>
> In addition to which, a troll like you wouldn't be able to spew this type of
> nonsense to the entire world if you lived in the stone age.
>
> Grow up.
My my, aren't we rude?
I thought this was an interesting little conversation . . . can't someone
hold a different opinion from yours? Or does that threaten you?
I'm having fun, anyone who isn't can just go start some other thread! If
you're interested, contribute - I am learning a lot... but don't get
juvenile and insulting: r.g.f.a is much more intelligent than that,
Justin.
Gord Sellar
This thread is gonna fall apart soon, I think. We are gonna get into one
of those "my ideology vs. yours" debates that leads nowhere . . .
BUT . . .
It seems we all ought to open our eyes to the possibility that there are
both advantages and disadvantages to BOTH industrialized AND Subsistence
lifestyles. Justin here seems to feela need to point out the negative side
of one as much as I am compelled to criticize the other. But we can all
see that BOTH have advantages and disadvantages, right? Justin makes some
of them quite clear here:
> I will also expect to see you again in a couple of weeks after you realize the
> advantages of modern plumbing and food processing. I hope you realize it
pretty
> soon, though, because you probably won't survive more than 10 to 20 years
> longer. Don't get any serious injuries, you're f*cked if you do. And I
wouldn't
> suggest having children unless you can deal with heartbreak . . . you'll lose
> more than 50% of them at least.
This can be weighed against the advantages such as far less required
labour (and thus FAR more luxury time and family relationship cultivating
time), freedom from chemical toxins, possible freedom of movement, etc.
OK then!
So, it seems the next logical question is: can there be a middle ground?
Shumacher might be a good starting point . . . He writes about
intermediate technology: why get a tractor when a plough might do the job
for a small landowner? Why use a huge stereo when a radio serves your
needs . . . etc. He isn't against industrial technology, just against its
pointeless excessive proliferation, and the lack of concern for resource
(ie. fuel AND economic/consumeriust) consumption.
Other ideas for starting points of a possible middle ground between
industrialism and subsistence economy?
BTW, who started this thread, and what did this have to do with gaming, anyways?
Psychohist
I posted, in part:
You posted, in part:
I fully agree that a state cannot operate freely with
its budget....
Oops, that was supposed to be email. Apologies to everyone for the off topic
post.
Warren
Brett Evill
In article <199803200412...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
psych...@aol.com (Psychohist) wrote:
>Gord Sellar posts, in part:
>
> I don't think that technology directly translates into
> advancement. For example, we are discovering that
> Westerners work way more and eat way worse than people
> in pre-literate societies ...
>
>Interesting point. I often think that living in preliterate societies, free of
>technology, Shakespeare, or hard work, might be more enjoyable than modern
>existence.
Until they get a toohache. Or typhus. Or break a leg.
--
Brett Evill
To reply, remove 'spamblocker.' from <b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au>
William H. Stoddard
In article <gas129-2003...@janus1-5.usask.ca>,
gas...@mail.usask.ca (Gord Sellar) wrote:
>
> I'm not advocating "fat artists": I am just saying that the system is
> completely unbalanced. IT's a fact that most artists aren't fat: I'm not
> saying they shoudl be, but there should be a possibility for a more stable
> lifestyle for the makers of our arts, along with that more stable life for
> people in the developing world (including their artists). I want a more
> stable life for everyone; its just that the arts are supported way less
> than the sciences. . . and they are equally important to human existence.
> Imagine a world without music. Really imagine it! Ugh.
>
inherently rewarding activity, one that is so much fun that a lot of
people would do it for no money at all. The second is that it's possible
to do it with a fairly modest expenditure for working space, equipment,
and raw materials, which is not the case for, say, molecular biology. Put
these together and you have a very high supply, which inevitably drives
the price down.
Of course, given that art is enjoyable, the fact that people often don't
make much money from it is less of an injustice. There are a lot of
dirty, dangerous jobs that offer little income but are utterly necessary
to the survival of civilization.
Bill Stoddard
--
William H. Stoddard whs...@primenet.net
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.
(T. S. Eliot, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats")
Brett Evill
In article
<Pine.GSO.3.96.9803...@ugsparc10.eecg.toronto.edu>,
hug...@ugsparc0.eecg.toronto.edu (Allister Huggins) wrote:
>On 20 Mar 1998, Dave Brohman wrote:
>
>> If it were not for engineers we would not have such a staggeringly high
>> incidence of date-rape in our colleges and universities.
>>
>> JMPOV
>
> CARE to retract that buddy?....Without engineers buddy, we would
>still be in the stone age where a person is measured by the size of their
>bicep. Think before you write...
But we wouldn't have colleges. The rape would have to occur in caves, and
therefore would not be 'date rape in colleges'.
Brett Evill
In article <whswhs-1903...@ip-104-203.san.primenet.com>,
whs...@primenet.com (William H. Stoddard) wrote:
>In article <351134...@daimi.aau.dk>, Nis Haller Baggesen
><u97...@daimi.aau.dk> wrote:
>> >
>> Actually the state is a much better buffer against financial
>> fluctuations than currency speculators. This is because it works with a
>> greater budget, giving it a greater buffer effect, and it is free of
>> profit specualtions, and only has to balance the budget in the long
>> term, as a state budget is very resistent to short term fluctuations.
>>
>I haven't noticed this to be the case. For one thing, it's not obvious
>that the state (at least the ones here in North America) is actively
>involved in currency transactions as such. For another, given that the
>state tends to make decisions in one large mass, there's a lot of
>opportunity for it to cause damage if it guesses wrong, where private
>currency speculation is a bunch of smaller traders who won't all jump the
>same way.
A friend of mine used to manage a number of foreign exchange reserves for
the Reserve Bank of Australia. One day he decided that yen were
undervalued, so he took A$100 000 000 and bought yen. Right in line with
his prediction, the Australian dollar depreciated sharply against the yen.
(Australians will remember the day.) But my friend thought that the change
was an over-correction, so he bought his dollars (and an extra A$20 000
000) back. The World Bank sent some people to have a sharp word with the
governor of the Reserve Bank.
So much for the stabilising effects of government operations in the
currency markets.
I suggest that everyone go off and look up 'arbitrage', if you are feeling
confident 'intertemporal arbitrage'. Finally, look up 'risk aversion'.
Brett Evill
In article <whswhs-2003...@ip-104-203.san.primenet.com>,
whs...@primenet.com (William H. Stoddard) wrote:
>In article <b.evill-2003...@tynslip1.apana.org.au>,
>b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au (Brett Evill) wrote:
>>
>> But a lot of people are starving. It is only injustice that allows some of
>> us to live in obese comfort while the bulk of the world goes hungry.
>>
>Yes, and the injustice is often in nonobvious places. Much of the poverty
>of the Third World exists because its countries are ruled by thieves who
>confiscate what their people do produce--and bleed off large fractions of
>aid from other countries--and hide it in secret bank accounts.
Indeed. And a lot of the time they do a great deal of damage in excess of
what they actually manage to expropriate: for example, selling logging
licences for forests that produce a stream of goods with an NPV far
greater than the value of the timber. But having a logging licence doesn't
give you rights to the game, food plants, spices, and medicinals, so...
Brett Evill
In article <35125B84...@hotmail.com>, Red
<red_army_b...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>William H. Stoddard wrote:
>> Yes, and the injustice is often in nonobvious places. Much of the poverty
>> of the Third World exists because its countries are ruled by thieves who
>> confiscate what their people do produce--and bleed off large fractions of
>
>Much like Capitalists then. Continually reciting the conventional
>wisdom will not solve the problem - the problem is the crippling debt
>with which the West keeps a population of slave labourers under
>control. As long as the Third World is seen as a source of cheap goods
>and cheap labour for the gluttons of the West, they will always be in
>this situation.
Leftist conventional wisdom is no more the word of God than any other.
But I agree: let's ban all lending to and borrowing by governments.
Brett Evill
In article <gas129-2003...@janus1-19.usask.ca>,
gas...@mail.usask.ca (Gord Sellar) wrote:
>In article
><Pine.GSO.3.96.9803...@ugsparc10.eecg.toronto.edu>,
>hug...@ugsparc0.eecg.toronto.edu (Allister Huggins) wrote:
>
>> CARE to retract that buddy?....Without engineers buddy, we would
>> still be in the stone age where a person is measured by the size of their
>> bicep. Think before you write...
>
>The Stone Age? You mean the time when all our wtare wasn't polluted, and
>our food wasn't crammed full of chemicals and steroids? Soudslike an Eden
>to me . . .
>
>What's so bad about the stone age? Many stone age cultures are far
>healthier than ours in many ways.
90% infant mortality? Average life expectancy at 1 year under 30?
Starvation, disease, and death from injuries that now can be healed
routinely.
I suggest that you go and live in the New Guinea highlands for a year. Or
read a book about it.
Brett Evill
>> Yes indeed, if it were not for engineers only your starvation would save
>> you from being hip-deep in sewage.
>
>Well, I hate to say it but the original inhabitants of North America were
>not hip-deep in sewage.
No. Starvation kept their population in check.
Brett Evill
>> If it were not for engineers we would not have such a staggeringly high
>> incidence of date-rape in our colleges and universities.
>
>Although the rest of your post is brilliant, I think this is an unfair
>generalization: though if you have stats, I'd love to see them!
>
>Engineering colleges DO encourage a kind of arrogance, however, that
>troubles me - or at least that is my experience... They don't teach people
>that all human endeavours are tied intricately to one another and are
>interdependent.
When I was studying engineering (and no, I did not rape anyone) we
engineering students were generally held in contempt as unintelligent,
uncultured, uneducated, Rugby-playing meatheads. I always thought that
this was rather strange, seeing that the entry requirements for
engineering required much more intelligence and education than were
required for Arts, and I could quote more Shakespeare and Eliot, whistle
more Haydn and Miles Davis, and recognise more Rembrandt, Henry Moore, and
Roy Liechtenstein that any two Arts students I ever met put together.
Brett Evill
>> But a lot of people are starving. It is only injustice that allows some of
>> us to live in obese comfort while the bulk of the world goes hungry.
>
>Good observation for a technocrat. (grin)
Technical capacity does not make a person obtuse. Anyone can see what's
wrong with the world. It takes technicians to alter it.
>> Actually, though, I was looking a hundred years ahead. Ever hear of Malthus?
>
>No, and please explain "Malthus"to me.
The Reverend Dr Thomas Malthus was an economist of the last century, who
pointed out that continual population growth would challenge any finite
food production capacity, and that exponential growth (such as we expect
of population), no matter how slow, would challenge any linear growth, no
matter how fast.
<snip>
>I bet you'd disagree, but my thought is we ought to get our "shyt"
>together on this planet before we start heading out into the great beyond
>of Space. The European Imperialists didn't get their "shyt" together, and
>look what they did to the world. It is still a mess.
Healing our culture before moving into space is a very desireable thing.
Indeed, my SF setting 'Flat Black' is about the tragedy of a failure to do
so. However, with starvation and other overcrowding problem pressing on us
it might prove to be a luxury we cannot afford. Especially as the
theoretic basis of the program is unlaid, feasibility is not established,
the project is unplanned, its completion date a matter for speculation...
>Of course, I say "we" but those in charge of science don't listen to "us"
>as in the concerned members of world population - they, like authors, have
>their own agendas.
That's how it works.
Brett Evill
>We listen to music very passively. I read an account of someone hearing a
>symphonny for the first time - 300 years ago - and you know what they
>said? It was like a magical spell.
That's how I felt about Beethoven the first time I heard it played live
(in an orchestra pit in Martin Place one lunchtime long ago). But I have
heard another account of one of the first people to hear a modern
symphony, about 200 years ago:
"An interminable, turgid work, longer than a whole court concert."
That was Haydn's patron, commenting on one of the first modern symphonies,
which had been written especially for him, a little over 200 years ago.
Brett Evill
In article <199803201753...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
psych...@aol.com (Psychohist) wrote:
>'Red' posts, in part:
>
> Ironically, for all of our machinery which acts as a power
> multiplier, we have used it the wrong way - instead of using
> it to perform a laborious task, we have used it to replace
> the worker doing the laborious task; machinery has been
> inserted in a social bracket higher than the labourer. By
> contrast, pretechnical societies inevitably inject their
> power multipliers (animals, usually) into ranks subordinate
> to the populace, which allows them greater freedom to exercise
> themselves, such as harnessing a horse to the plow, and
> thereby extending their "wealth".
>
>Don't be so sure that the horse doesn't displace a laborer as well. In parts
>of India or China, it has.
I was amazed to learn, in a article in the 'Scientific American' a few
years ago, that the introduction of the horse into the American southwest
caused agriculture to be replaced by raiding and nomadism, causing a
collapse of urbanisation, population decline, and the loss of a whole
culture.
Of course, the loss of one culture was quickly replaced by the creation of
a new one: humans are like that.
Brett Evill
>For the most part I would agree with you. An engineer is responsible for
>the function of his design, bu only if that's it's purpose. Slave ships
>are just overloaded cargo ships. They were based on a similar design
>plying the waters with more conventional cargo. The captains just
>decided to carry human cargo.
Many were, perhaps. But I have seen reproductions of designs for
purpose-built slave ships. Made at Bristol, IIRC.
Brett Evill
In article <3512E6...@faerealm.com>, izzy...@faerealm.com wrote:
>Turn about; name one technology that does *not* have a military
>application.
Whitewash.
In vitro fertilisation.
Brett Evill
In article <3512E8...@cadvision.com>, "James C. Ellis"
<ell...@cadvision.com> wrote:
>Gord Sellar wrote:
>>
>> Until you consider that the cut-down product also makes it more difficult
>> to make money as a musician.
>
> How do you figure?
>
> I'm no expert in the field by any stretch of the imagination, but it
>was my belief that many of the great composers of the past were scraping
>by on the edge of poverty (or supported at the behest of rich patrons).
>Nowadays, they can become rich enough to buy small countries.
I believe that Beethoven was the first person to make a living writing
music for publication. Haydn survived on patronage. Bach made his living
as an organist and choirmaster. Mozart died young and poor.
Brett Evill
>>> Actually, though, I was looking a hundred years ahead. Ever hear of
>>Malthus?
>>
>>No, and please explain "Malthus"to me.
>
>Malthus pioneered "Malthusian" economic theory -- which basically has the
>pessimistic view that there aren't enough resources to go around and so those
>of us on top should make sure nobody else gets up here because there isn't room
>for both of us. There's some other stuff, but it basically boils down to: There
>aren't enough resources, so explitation is inevitable, and therefore not a bad
>thing.
You seem to have read a different edition of 'The Principle of Population'
than I did.
>It was and is idiotic. It also predicted the downfall of entire system in the
>very near future . . . over 100 years ago, IIRC. Like some sort of horrific
>religion it continues to have its supporters despite its obviously lack of
>credibility.
Uhuh. So tell me, how do you plan to support 1,000,000,000,000 people on
this planet? !,000,000,000,000,000,000 on solar energy output? If you plan
instead to limit population you are beginning to sound like a Malthusian.
Brett Evill
In article <199803210752...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
tria...@aol.com (Triad3204) wrote:
<snip>
> If it weren't for engineers there wouldn't be so damn many
>people so there wouldn't be a need for fertilizers, combines, or sewage
>systems.
<snip>
Brett Evill
In article <gas129-2103...@janus1-20.usask.ca>,
gas...@mail.usask.ca (Gord Sellar) wrote:
> Also, I think that the pathogens we have
>defeated have been replaced to a large degree by the crap that poisons and
>sickens so many of us now: ie. Cnacers, allergies, asthma and other
>problems have gotten much worse, though it's nice to be free of the threat
>of polio and the like. But I think we ahve created almost as many
>illnesses as we have defeated.
Demonstrably untrue. We now live over seventy years on average, instead of
under thirty.
Brett Evill
>In article <199803210749...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
>tria...@aol.com (Triad3204) wrote:
>
>> It was and is idiotic. It also predicted the downfall of entire system in the
>> very near future . . . over 100 years ago, IIRC. Like some sort of horrific
>> religion it continues to have its supporters despite its obviously lack of
>> credibility.
>
>Sounds like a section from Vampire: THe Masquerade (one of the hardcovers,
>either Player's Guide or Main book) on the Mindset of Scarcity: it is
>really a nightmare of a philosophy. Very much in line with Imperialist
>thought, though.
It is also in line with basic algebra.
>Thanks for the elucidation.
It was more of a calumniation.
I suggest that you who believe in continual growth had better acknowledge
your reliance on us 'technocrats'. Because without continual technical
innovation you are up against the wall. And an infinite amount of
Shakespeare won't save you.
Rupert Boleyn
b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au (Brett Evill) wrote:
>>Turn about; name one technology that does *not* have a military
>>application.
>
>Whitewash.
But course it does! It was used to keep soldiers busy.
R. Boleyn <rbo...@clear.net.nz>
Palmerston North, New Zealand
"This weak, degenerate generation - even their sins are watered down.
The old pirates of my father's day could have eaten them all for
breakfast and digested their bones before lunch."
_The Warrior's Apprentice_, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Gord Sellar
In article <b.evill-2203...@tynslip1.apana.org.au>,
b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au (Brett Evill) wrote:
> When I was studying engineering (and no, I did not rape anyone) we
> engineering students were generally held in contempt as unintelligent,
> uncultured, uneducated, Rugby-playing meatheads. I always thought that
> this was rather strange, seeing that the entry requirements for
> engineering required much more intelligence and education than were
> required for Arts, and I could quote more Shakespeare and Eliot, whistle
> more Haydn and Miles Davis, and recognise more Rembrandt, Henry Moore, and
> Roy Liechtenstein that any two Arts students I ever met put together.
Well, until you look at the behaviour that for example my local Engineer
College presents to the world (kidnapping agro's, disrupting classes,
engaging in juvenile pranks, etc), and then you hear Engineering profs (or
science profs ) at my university saying that the arts and humanities
should be completely scrapped on campus, because Engineering brings in
money and arts and humanities don't, you begin to see it isn't as simplke
as your remakabl;e case. I know several intelligent and artistic engineers
and scientists. but one Chemist-poet I know let it out at work that she
writes, and was harassed by her boss, for doing stupiud crap like going to
poetry redings and writing "that silly stuff".
Besides, a real humannities education does not enable to quote Shakespeare
and Eliot, or simply to liusten to good music. It allows on to be find new
ways to be critical, to read and listen and look which just aren't taught
in other colleges in those contexts. And I don't think Engineering's
requirement's mean you need to be more intelligent or educated: I have the
same highschool education as most engineers I know, and I could have gone
through Engineering if I'd wanted to: but I don't. And I have met
mindless, boorish, clod-headed engineers. And Arts students that are like
that too. It seems no matter what there is a minority who can slip between
worlds, on both sides of the fence.
Arts and Sceinces are intertwined, let's not pretend they aren't. I just
think that the system of support for these endeavours - which inform one
another - is skewed, and ought to be rectified.
Gord Sellar
In article <b.evill-2203...@tynslip1.apana.org.au>,
b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au (Brett Evill) wrote:
> In article <gas129-2003...@janus1-19.usask.ca>,
> gas...@mail.usask.ca (Gord Sellar) wrote:
>
> >> But a lot of people are starving. It is only injustice that allows some of
> >> us to live in obese comfort while the bulk of the world goes hungry.
> >
> >Good observation for a technocrat. (grin)
>
> Technical capacity does not make a person obtuse. Anyone can see what's
> wrong with the world. It takes technicians to alter it.
But technicians won't do it by themselves:or at least, they haven't. AND,
my feeling is, that not everyone can Really see the things that are wrong:
most poeople only see the surface of things. . . I am not saying I know
all and you know nothing, but that the real underlying problems, which are
rooted in our culture deeply, are not obviously apparent to most people,
and most people don't bother to consider it, either. Though GM's, like
novelists, like to.
> >I bet you'd disagree, but my thought is we ought to get our "shyt"
> >together on this planet before we start heading out into the great beyond
> >of Space. The European Imperialists didn't get their "shyt" together, and
> >look what they did to the world. It is still a mess.
>
> Healing our culture before moving into space is a very desireable thing.
> Indeed, my SF setting 'Flat Black' is about the tragedy of a failure to do
> so. However, with starvation and other overcrowding problem pressing on us
> it might prove to be a luxury we cannot afford. Especially as the
> theoretic basis of the program is unlaid, feasibility is not established,
> the project is unplanned, its completion date a matter for speculation...
But my concern is that the same underlying attitude that allowed European
Imperialism to fuck up the world in the first place, is underlying space
explorations: we even use the same rhetoric as was used in the "Age of
Discovery" to describe our Space Programs. And what if we meet another
species out there? Look what Europe did to other humans: I dread to
imagine it.
> >Of course, I say "we" but those in charge of science don't listen to "us"
> >as in the concerned members of world population - they, like authors, have
> >their own agendas.
>
> That's how it works.
Unfortunately.
Gord
William H. Stoddard
In article <b.evill-2203...@tynslip1.apana.org.au>,
b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au (Brett Evill) wrote:
>
> engineering students were generally held in contempt as unintelligent,
> uncultured, uneducated, Rugby-playing meatheads. I always thought that
> this was rather strange, seeing that the entry requirements for
> engineering required much more intelligence and education than were
> required for Arts, and I could quote more Shakespeare and Eliot, whistle
> more Haydn and Miles Davis, and recognise more Rembrandt, Henry Moore, and
> Roy Liechtenstein that any two Arts students I ever met put together.
>
fewer science majors on a floor largely occupied by English and journalism
majors. One of my co-workers used to read every Friday from a calendar
that listed major cultural figures. One day I remarked that I had noticed
that her calendar was all writers, artists, and philosophers, and that we
ought to note birthdays of people such as James Clark Maxwell. Not one of
my co-workers even recognized the name! I remarked that given Maxwell's
contributions to science this was about like not recognizing the name
Mozart, and was told (in a friendly way, but still...) "Don't be elitist,
Bill."
The Two Cultures are still with us.
William H. Stoddard
In article <b.evill-2203...@tynslip1.apana.org.au>,
b.e...@spamblocker.tyndale.apana.org.au (Brett Evill) wrote:
>
>
> But I agree: let's ban all lending to and borrowing by governments.
>
by (a) requiring strict auditing of lent funds by outside agencies, such
as corporations have to face, rather than taking government officials'
word for the way the funds are spent, and (b) lending funds only for
capital improvement expenditures, not for current expenditures. Of course,
it would be necessarily actually to stop granting further loans to
governments that failed to comply with these rules, and that's the hard
part.