[p2p-research] john pilger on the greeks

[Ryan Lanham]

I rather like the Cybernet book chaps I scanned.  Good argument.  Very h+.
 Personally I am increasingly in the Michael Anissimov camp and find the
Dale Carrico's tedious and typically wrong.  I am very pro technology as the
salvation of anything worth living for.  I am very against ideals.  I am
pro-science, anti metaphysical in the extreme.  I tend to believe
metaphysics has been the most profound evil visited on the planet--with the
possible exception of Marxism and other forms of naive metaphysical
idealism.

As to Tiqqan in general, it sounds rather 1980s, but I don't know enough
about it.  When I hear all that sort of post-structuralist rubbish I sort of
lose hope.  It reminds me of smart people wasting their lives trying to be
clever.  Personally, I admire useful.  Clever or enlightened...not so much.


In terms of Tiqqan as a vehicle of faith...kabbalism is no more absurd than
any other superstition...nor any less so.  If I could find one I could buy
into, I probably would do so.  It makes aches and pains and the thought of
death a bit more tolerable, I suppose.

Spiritualism to me is, like socialism, and maybe like capitalism (though not
markets) a great idea in decline.  It fulfilled a period of usefulness in
human history that appears, to me, to be ending.

On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 4:54 PM, j.martin.pedersen <
m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> Acted honourably?!?
>
> I have grave problems taking serious professors who make 40k a year and
> talk about social issues. People who are born with a silver spoon up
> their arse and make 300k a year and live in huge castles and what not,
> are simply beyond the limits of my taste. I cannot take such people
> serious. I find them disgusting. Being a friend of Dawkins and defender
> of Lomborg suits him well. Atheists are generally spiritually
> impoverished people.
>
> ?I wonder what you think about a text like this, which has recently been
> translated:
> http://cybernet.jottit.com/
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiqqun
>
> It is more to my taste, philosophically and politically. Anyone can
> cheer on the status quo and root for the side that's winning. Not much
> of a challenge.
>
> On 24/05/10 21:09, Ryan Lanham wrote:
> > No I read it completely.  Do you know the story?  He was the one person
> who
> > acted honourably in the whole affair and almost single handedly stopped
> the
> > banking crisis when Northern Rock fell.  By the way, he immediately
> resigned
> > when he was criticized by the state.  He was non-executive and still
> waded
> > in up to his neck to save the firm and the system.
> >
> > In addition to that, he's written two or three books on the evolution of
> > cultural and social norms that top biologists I know regularly pass on to
> > their graduate students.
> >
> > He is an economic and social conservative to be sure.  Many of his ideas
> and
> > arguments are outlandish and unsupportable (he was, for instance, an
> early
> > defender of Bjorn Lomborg.)
> >
> > Intellectually, he's remarkably courageous, he's shown himself to be a
> man
> > of convictions and swift action, and is unafraid of offending those on
> "his
> > side."  As a conservative, he is an outspoken atheist often seen speaking
> > beside and in support of Richard Dawkins.
> >
> > Try him out, I think you'll be favourably impressed.
> >
> > Ryan
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 2:57 PM, j.martin.pedersen <
> > m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Oh yes, I know. I think you missed the main part of my post - below your
> >> post.
> >>
> >> On 24/05/10 20:53, Ryan Lanham wrote:
> >>> Yep.  Been following him longer than I've followed John Robb.  He's a
> >>> polymath genius...
> >>>
> >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Ridley
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 2:44 PM, j.martin.pedersen <
> >>> m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Ridley?
> >>>>
> >>>> On 24/05/10 20:20, Ryan Lanham wrote:
> >>>>> Michel,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I am reading a good book now by Matt Ridley called the Rational
> >> Optimist.
> >>>>> He points out that doom and gloom about the future is an old sport
> that
> >>>>> rarely if ever plays out to be true or useful.  The reality he claims
> >> is
> >>>>> that things are getting wildly better rapidly, and will get wildly
> >> better
> >>>>> still.  Whether or not he is ultimately correct or not is, I suppose,
> >> in
> >>>> the
> >>>>> eye of the beholder.  He makes compelling arguments to my mind.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>  > _______________________________________________
> >>> p2presearch mailing list
> >>> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> >>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> p2presearch mailing list
> >> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> >> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > p2presearch mailing list
> > p2presearch at listcultures.org
> > http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> p2presearch mailing list
> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>



-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
Cayman Islands
(345) 916-1712
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20100524/ce052c24/attachment.html>