(December 24, 2011 at 7:26 am)Azazylix Wrote: Can these two systems combine into a single idealistic way of life, though? An amalgamation of both the self-centred inclination that is necessary for the functioning of a (modern) free market and efficient resource allocation, as well as the capacity and motivation to care for one another as fellow human beings?
I mean, you spoke of them as if they were mutually exclusive extremities, and admittedly they do seem to be pretty incompatible. But just maybe..?
What, the materialistic Sith and the idealistic Jedi? Why would they wanna get along? Peace is boring.

When I was a kid it was the Age of Aquarius. When I was a young punk hanging with the hippies, they were either old and jaded sellouts or young and idealistic dreamers. Now I'm older, and it's the emergence of the neural network of Gaia.
Hopefully; peace, love, and small furry animals. I read what I write, the meaning behind the words; just wanna say, I don't do hippie-dippie new age nonsense. What you are looking at is what has been mentioned earlier; the internet and the potential for unity from the bottom up. Here, we are avatars. We're not male, female, white, black, American, Chinese; we are words and simulation built form words.
This. Is all the marbles. As long as the technology stands - and we are on the threshold of tribulation, make no mistake - we can scrap these local identities and find unity in the human identity. You get talking heads on the idiot box talking about finite resource and pimping the gospel of us versus them, and all that is going to happen is war. Seven billion people - can't support it. Bullshit.
We can't support giving everybody a 747 and a harem; so we start to think such things can be earned, because we believe in paper currency based on nonsense. What's a 747 go for, twenty mil? So you take an average bloke like me, say he's taking home a wage of 7.50 an hour; assuming a fifty year productivity span; and that Boeing is twenty six lives. That's to put it in your lot, not to actually fly it or anything...
I ain't doing that math; I don't see how anybody can do that math other than by not paying attention and believing in entitlement. Do people really want this shit? No. Only a select few sociopaths. What people what, is what the stuff means. And what does it mean? I am somebody special? Human is not special enough? I think so; I just think many have lost touch with this capitalist consumerism bullshit.
The new world order of the Sith is a war for global resources where those with the "money and power" live out the downfall of civilization in their comfortable manors while billions die. They're not "evil," what they are is conditioned to a lifestyle and a pragmatic philosophy; being a "have" doesn't encourage the desire to become a "have not." Therefore even if individuals of the Sith see what I see they won't credit the possibility because it is not their nature.
The hidden variables are peak oil and chaos mathematics. If we're not fucked, we're fucked; if there was enough room to maneuver it would be business as usual and glacial evolution. I don't hate the greedy corporate type because they are futurists, economists, strategists. It's the religious mindset on top of such, with this burning people in hell for eternity crap because we are saved and they are sinners; that's the dangerousness of the Sith.
You know what I want? To be fucking wrong. To find error in my research, to have some fucking nerd make it all go away by pulling zero-point out of his ass; I'm just not counting on it.
Therefore, Jedi. Rather than us versus them how about us? Why not us versus Luna? Why that rock ain't our base of heavy industry, beats the fuck out of me. Fucking Mars ain't doing nothing but waiting for some monkeys to get off their ass and take it. Let's worry about extra-solar primitive lifeforms before worrying about human pollution because we're the primitive life-form that needs to be preserved.
That's what tool-using monkeys do. They explore. They conquer hostile territory. They ask questions. They don't sit on their fat ass collecting retirement...