[p2p-research] john pilger on the greeks

[j.martin.pedersen]

I agree that post-this and post-that often tries too hard to sound
clever, but I just filter that if the political arguments are useful to
criticise the dominant elite and received wisdom  - and otherwise
philosophically engaging.

How do your ideals of technology and science differ from other ideals
(which you reject)?


On 25/05/10 00:26, Ryan Lanham wrote:
> 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.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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