(January 4, 2015 at 1:27 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: What is there to be particularly proud of in America?

If you like the political system over there you are mad. Ours is better and there are probably even better systems elsewhere.

I know you can't like the health system coz it's the worst in the developed world.

The social programmes suffer in comparison as well.

I've heard it said that America is the richest nation on earth but actually it's the most indebted.

It's not the worst nation in the world but is it something to be proud of now, in a post Bush world where the glitter has been blown off and all standards abandoned at the first sign of trouble?

America is neither the most indebted (per capita) nor does it have the worst health care system in the developed world. Not according to the WHO, which ranks the US 37th in the world, ahead of a few first world countries like New Zealand and South Korea and only a few notches behind Canada. I agree that the health care isn't what it should be for sure, but it's just inaccurate to say it's 'the worst.' Maybe for accuracy you can say 'one of the worst.' http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-hea...h-systems/

(January 4, 2015 at 12:48 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote:

(January 1, 2015 at 5:36 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: I don't get racial pride of any stripe. Getting born into this or that ethnicity is not an accomplishment.

I'm the same with patriotism.

I agree. I see patriotism and nationalism as throwbacks to a time with poorer communication and more barriers to travel. Those barriers enhanced the efficacy of de-humanizing your neighbor which lead to easier rationalization of going over, killing them and taking their stuff. These days it's harder to deny that people 'over there' are ......people. I'm not totally sure that what replaces nation states is an improvement: rapacious corporate totalitarianism. But how can I object to organizations whose sole purpose is to give me any and everything I've ever wanted...and to take my money.

(January 4, 2015 at 1:27 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: What is there to be particularly proud of in America?

If you like the political system over there you are mad. Ours is better and there are probably even better systems elsewhere.

Well, I don't really know where you are so I don't know what my opinion of the latter would be - but so what if it were? Is pride only warranted when you have the gold ring in hand? Imagine a world with no U.S.A. Just remove that, nothing else - and tell me how you think history would have played out? Nothing there strikes you as being worthy of pride?

On the former, do you want an itemized list - and how helpful would it be? Our lists would differ, clearly.

Quote:I know you can't like the health system coz it's the worst in the developed world.

The social programmes suffer in comparison as well.

My healthcare was taken care of before Obamacare rolled out (I'm a vet). It's probably not the best but even if it were the -worst- that wouldn't stop me from feeling pride for a job well done. You work with what you've got - try to nudge it for the better, and the metrics by which you judge how you're doing have to be sober and realistic or else what use are they? My bar for pride isn't "Number 1 in the world for free for everybody".

Quote:I've heard it said that America is the richest nation on earth but actually it's the most indebted.

It's not the worst nation in the world but is it something to be proud of now, in a post Bush world where the glitter has been blown off and all standards abandoned at the first sign of trouble?

Sorry, Bush doesn't really have the power to strip the US of the luster it's built over centuries, for me. I haven't abandoned my standards - and despite whatever asshattery is going on up "at the top" the people I know in the middle and bottom still manage to wring some good out of our squalid american existences.

No clue whether or not we're the most indebted - but we do have alot of stuff, relative to others - and I've seen that first hand. It's difficult for me to describe that first experience (and I'm a wordy motherfucker) - but you go into it with alot of ideas that, at least in my case, didn't pan out precisely as we might imagine. For example, I'm familiar...painfully familiar, with what most of us would consider poverty. Being hungry, being broke, having the utilities shut off every other month. Digging food out of dirty places. But that idea of poverty, and the poverty that -others- experience...night and day.

So, even if we aren't the wealthiest, or even if we're the most in debt - I'm still pretty proud that the US doesn't find itself in -that- sort of poverty. It doesn't "just happen" - people work to make it happen.

(January 3, 2015 at 12:07 pm)JuliaL Wrote:

(January 3, 2015 at 6:41 am)Losty Wrote: I'm sorry I don't know if I'm just super dense today...but I honestly don't see how either of your responses were relevant to my post. I'm not a member of a real tribe...
Killing someone for doing whatever it takes to feed their children is pretty fucking sick if you ask me.

Your apology is not required.
I don't know what you mean by a 'real' tribe. I used that term for convenience in referring to identifiable replicating patterns which include you. You are, by definition, members of these patterns and you and they may or may not profit from your membership. These replicating patterns are subject to natural selection as are all replicating patterns. Those patterns which persist and replicate best are those patterns which we observe. The characteristics which allow them to persist and replicate may be considered 'good' in the context of their persistence and replication.
For example, your distain for killing starving children would be 'good' for the replication and persistence of humans and by extension human society. It would not be good from the standpoint of an elephant whose children would be threatened by the flourishing of the human population.
As a human, I find human suffering disagreeable. I also find the gratuitous death of human children evil. However, I try to consider viewpoints other than my own. From the contexts of the above replicators e.g. the elephant or more abstractly, human society you get different answers. Is bacon good? Most people you ask say yes! but the pig would disagree.

Lilith? Is that you?!

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(January 3, 2015 at 8:52 pm)Creed of Heresy Wrote: Animals can, indeed, feel pain. However, they cannot reason, they cannot rationalize, and they have no personalities. We know this because of neuroscience; the human frontal lobe is unique in the animal kingdom, and the human frontal lobe is where personality and reasoning come from, ergo to value a non-person to the equal level of a person is a far less reasoned stance to have than my response of "you're sick," which, by the way, is VERY reasonable, given what it was that you had said which I had been addressing.

The idea that animals cannot reason is ignorant of the facts on the ground. The simple fact that you can train a dog to sit means that the animal can reason at least to the extent of if I sit when he commands, I'll get a pat on the head or a treat.

As for rationalization, we've seen primates -- chimps and orangutans practice deception upon other individuals, including humans.

And personality? Well, if you don't think higher-order animals have personality, I don't know what to tell you. It seems so obvious to me that I haven't really put together an argument to support it, the same as I haven't constructed an argument for the proposition that breathing is useful for living beings.

(January 4, 2015 at 6:13 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: The idea that animals cannot reason is ignorant of the facts on the ground. The simple fact that you can train a dog to sit means that the animal can reason at least to the extent of if I sit when he commands, I'll get a pat on the head or a treat.

It goes much deeper than that, and that's only scratching the surface of recent cognition experiments. Dogs understand that if someone closes their eyes, they can't see what's going on. That means, they not only know that closing the eyes means having no vision, but they are able to project that knowledge to a different species.

(January 4, 2015 at 12:19 pm)Chas Wrote:

(January 3, 2015 at 6:24 pm)Losty Wrote: I don't understand why people hate the poachers. Whoever purchases the ivory is to blame. You don't blame poor people for taking whatever job they can find to survive.

This is what a poacher looks like (warning there is a dead elephant in the background of this picture )

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Here is what an ivory purchaser looks like (warning there is a fat cat counting money inside his ivory tower in this picture)

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I don't understand why people hate contract killers. Whoever puts out the contract is to blame. You don't blame the poor guy for trying to make a living.

That's an unfair comparison chas, but sure I'll go for it.
If the contract killer is so poor that his children are starving and the only job available to him is a contract killer job then I wouldn't blame him either.
Now tell me where you saw a group of protestors with signs that read "Save the humans, stop contract killers before it's too late!" :p

(January 4, 2015 at 7:09 pm)Losty Wrote: "Save the humans, stop contract killers before it's too late!" :p

Humans aren't an endangered species. They endanger other species.

I'm all for stopping the poachers with some brainpower envolved. There are actually some African states that employ former poachers as gamekeepers now. Also some programms educating poachers on endangered species have shown more success than simply punishing them.

(January 4, 2015 at 7:17 pm)abaris Wrote:

(January 4, 2015 at 7:09 pm)Losty Wrote: "Save the humans, stop contract killers before it's too late!" :p

Humans aren't an endangered species. They endanger other species.

....I think that was my point...I seem to be complete shit at getting my point across today though. I'll just shut up.

(January 4, 2015 at 6:13 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: Lilith? Is that you?!

Why thank you. I would much rather be Lilith than Dianne or Rebecca.
Though in fact, I'm probably a little more Carla.

(January 4, 2015 at 7:42 pm)JuliaL Wrote:

(January 4, 2015 at 6:13 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: Lilith? Is that you?!

Why thank you. I would much rather be Lilith than Dianne or Rebecca.
Though in fact, I'm probably a little more Carla.

I didn't think Carla knew all them high-falutin' words.