MATERIALIST DOT NET

I wonder will Bush or his people wait for an immediate pretext before starting an attack. Usually there is some sort of 'but he hit me first' thing, to make the attack seem like a reflex act of self-protection.

No snow here.

misteraitch () (URL) - 30 01 03 - 09:13

like damn. all they care about convincing is the american domestic public. which is enthralled by lies about iraqi intelligence posing as scientists &c. anyway...

still, most likely they will make up something to justify themselves. a convenient little attack performed by CIA operatives posing as Iraqi, or an iraqi armed response to an undercommunicated amerobellic act - iraqis shooting down an american spyplane or something...

damn their warlike hearts. we're a busload of snowballs going to hell with a rabid monkey at the wheel.

zeitgeist surfin\' monkey - 30 01 03 - 10:59

yes... all going to hell because of one man who looks like a hybrid of an elf and monkey. i just pray he will not be re-elected in 2004. i was surprised many of the european nations backed bush. especially denmark and italy. you do know now the american media will make it seem as if only germany and france are not on 'america's side'... i mean, don't they know there are many more countries in europe who HAVE NOT succumbed to bush's tyrannical speech of going forward into war. just a mess i tell you.

no snow here in california... just bright sun. i do wish for some rain though.

akstrgzr - 30 01 03 - 18:01

Being the feminist that I appearantly am, I relabelled our "Kikkoman" bottle at home with some wallpaper-tape, exchanging some letters with others and ending up with "Kick a man". Needless to say, our female dominated household appreciated this gesture.

Feline (URL) - 31 01 03 - 04:34

This is the coolest La Cocina.

kristina () - 18 03 06 - 15:01

Holla and Happy Thanksgiving.

carolee () - 18 03 06 - 09:52

Great. Thanks!

marvel () - 18 03 06 - 12:15

Actually, there is nothing remarkable about it...

In my opinion the majority of this world thinks along lines which are not based on facts. Instead it follows a small set of rules which are mainly conserned with determining owns identity. It seems to me that for most people it is extremely difficult finding out what they are, so instead they find out what they are not. Too often this means desiding on an enemy. Most likely the enemy will be an object which is so far removed from your world, that the likelyhood for ever meeting "the enemy" is approx. zero which sorts of the problem of being in error...

Wonco the sane - 20 01 03 - 21:06

save me from the hell i live in day to day. you don't even know how frustrating the american media has been lately... 24/7 it's talks about 'possible' war with iraq and patronizing reports of peace protests across the country and the world. and to make things even worst today was the 30yr anniversary of the legalization of abortion in the states and massive protests were going on in DC and bush gave a speech via satellite explaining his opposition to abortion. dear god... when he's done with his presidency, women won't be allowed to work, everyone will be driving gas-guzzling SUVs and there will be an oil rig where possible. at least that yahoo message person learned one good lesson... not to vote for bush again. :P

akstrgzr - 23 01 03 - 03:31

wonco: agreed, it is not really remarkable from the point of view of the present. it is remarkable from the point of view of what a lot of people [that I don't agree with] think the present is, ie. an enlightened and advanced place. rubbish notion. the question about deciding enemies is to what degree these enemies are decided for you. still, in the case of the guy above he seems even more eager than bush on killing the 'uncivilized monsters'...

the remarkable thing is how in a world where the entire rest of the world is accessible to practically anyone in America, such beliefs as these can continue to exist. fair enough in a world where you never ventured beyond your village because it took six months by horse to cross europe. in a world such as we have today, attitudes like this are simply inexcusable. people like this guy should be shot.

akstrgzr: believe me, I don't envy your position as a woman in the evil kingdom [I say kingdom very deliberately...]. the abortion issue is unbelievable. america is cutting support worldwide for NGOs that provide information about condoms in the context of birth control, advocating instead 'abstinence' and 'normal' sex in the context only of 'normal, monogamous marriages' as the 'norm' for human behaviour worldwide.

fuck the evil bastards. the worst thing is, bush sets a precedent that people are all too eager to follow. because of his popularity and media power, his successors are going to have to follow suit in his footprints. the next president, be it the monkey god himself or anyone else, will be only moderately less evil. in the best of cases. quite possibly, even more sick.

disgusting.

monkey monkey monkey - 23 01 03 - 11:41

"the question about deciding enemies is to what degree these enemies are decided for you. still, in the case of the guy above he seems even more eager than bush on killing the 'uncivilized monsters'..."

Well, this isn't cynical enough. And therefore I think your point is irrelevant. ;-) Either you have the mental capacity to realize who your enemies are, or you don't. In the latter case, the choosing is always done by someone else than yourself, be it "friends", your "friendly" mobleader, your "friendly" government or some kind of "overfriendly" religious text.

Ok, maybe just a little simplified...

About abortion. I do understand these people's view. Embryos are in this enlightened and advanced place being reduced to nothing more than a interesting science study. Why we can destroy something with huge potential, while we let almost braindead people live with a cost beyond astronomical, is for me the best evidence that the humankind is more or less selfish in its endavours to scientifical righteousness. And why abortion is still a womans-rights question is also interesting. Because it should be something totally different.

But in the end its all politics. And contrary to the Athens I don't believe the average citizen is capable of ruling. And Bush is sadly average...

Wonco the sane - 23 01 03 - 13:10

hehe. interesting and argumentative comment. touching faith in the ability of people with large mental capacities to 'realize who their enemies are'... not really cynical enough though, is it? ;-)

ok, someone chooses the enemy for stupid people. still, there is always an element of choice on their part in adopting this enemy. equally, intelligent people who choose enemies make this choice influenced by different sources, choosing enemies that exist as 'enemies' within different discourses. you decide north koreans/republicans/gwbush are your enemy, you are making your decision based on information which is fed to you by others. you are also slotting into existing discourses of 'the enemy' - whether these are the government line or the anti-establishment line or your friends' line or whatever...

true, some people may be better at making their own minds up - but often this has less to do with 'mental capacity' than with other personal characteristics - such as stubbornness [me] or the will to disagree. I know a lot of intelligent but highly unreflexive people, who for example take the government li[n]e on enemies at face value...

simply put - stupid people choose the enemies that are chosen for them, intelligent people also have the enemies they choose chosen for them. to some degree or the other. the question is, to what degree. if you think you know who your 'real enemies' are, I think it always worth wondering why you think they are your enemies and who else's enemies they also happen to be.

re - abortion, I agree there are serious questions concerning the scientific use of embryos, etc. this is a peripheral issue however - the principal argument is about moralising bastards on high pulpits who feel themselves empowered to control the lives of other people and force them to bring accidental and unwanted children to the world - because of their bizarre moral obsession with the texts of a 6000-year old desert tribe. bottom line is, it is a form of moralising, 'besserwissende' imperialism of the sort that really pisses me off. my guess is, abortion is still a womans-rights question because people like GWBush still infringe on the rights of women. when this stops being the case, it'll be fair enough to call it something else.
the question of the scientific use of unborn and never-to-be-used eggs, rather than their destruction, is an entirely different can of worms. an ugly one, too...

on bush, I agree. in fact, he is sub-average. sub-simian even.

discursive monkey - 23 01 03 - 16:45

My two penn'orth is on the rebranding of the "abortion is sick'n'evil" brigade. Once anti-abortionists, they're now pro-lifers... pro Iraqi lives? pro mental-age-of-a-seven-yr-old-but-still-on-Death-Row lives? I think not.

On another note, I was sitting in a history lesson trying to restrain myself from physical violence when perfectly intelligent girls were trying to argue that freedom to choose one of 67 brands of toothpaste is a real freedom, and that socialist Russia's failure to provide it was a serious failing.

jess () - 24 01 03 - 04:58

Hmm... I would say that faith has nothing to do with it, more likely statistics. But then again, one can have different views on "mental capacities". :-)

I must say that I dont understand this "degree" thinking. Is it what kind of information people base their views on, or is what kind of action they are willing to take to "stop" their enemies?

BTW, I dont think stubbornness or the will to disagree makes people better to make up their own mind. It probably makes them react to information in a different way, but Im not willing to call it "better" in any way. And mental capacities and intelligence are different things.

Now abortion. OK, I must admit. The good old plan "Its the jews!" is fairly well tested and often gives the wanted result.;-)

"Forcing people to bring accidental and unwanted children into the world." And this does not happen, if Bush goes away?:-)

I can only assume your axioms for your logic. But most likely one of them is that embryoes are not human beings, and can therefore be killed/destroyed. It is ofcourse your choice to do so. You are pissed off because someone does not think so(or for another reason), and therefore wants abortion gone. Which is also your right, in a manner of speaking. Democracy is kinda tricky that way. :-) Moralising yes, besserwissende no, imperialism yes, all moralising is imperialistic, yours also. And I believe your reaction tells me that you are not a cynical man...

(Ok, taking away contraceptives is a different story)

Hmmm, arent you insulting 99% of all living beings by calling Bush sub-simian? :-)

-Cogito ergo Doleo-

Wonco the sane - 27 01 03 - 20:50

heh. you are an argumentative one, arent you...

not at all sure what 'the jews' have to do with abortion or with my argument, so I'll let that pass.

re: degree, what I mean is the degree to which people are aware of the specific mechanisms by which they are manipulated into believing certain other people are 'enemies'. the more aware you are of how your consent is being manufactured, the less easily you are manipulated.

of course bush going away will not stop people having unwanted children. taking the gun away from the serial killer will not stop people killing each other in general. it might however stop certain people from dying.

moralising is only imperialist insofar as it is enforced and imposed. stating a moral opinion is not imperialism. my moral opinion remains my own. the moral opinion of bush is enforced by the enormous state apparatus of the US, domestically and abroad. quite a big difference, most people would agree.

I say 'besserwissende', because the anti-abortion argument is inextricable from a holier-than-thou attitude. people who force rape victims to carry through their pregnancies know far better what is 'good' than the victims themselves. personally, I tend to think that ethical decisions like this are ultimately best left in the hands of the victim. anti-abortionists know better though.

democracy is a tricky concept to invoke here. yes, people have the right to speak their minds - this is not a matter of speech however but of policy. of rights, of liberties and of the right of influential religious movements to infringe on what I consider the civil rights of women. analogously, the neonazis may or may not be allowed to speak their minds in public. even if they are however, it is a long stretch from there to the point where they are allowed to enforce their policies at the expense of other members of the 'democratic' community.

and nope, I'm just insulting bush.

monkey - 28 01 03 - 19:39

your position seems basically relativist. embryos are, embryos are not. I happen not to believe this sort of relativism is compatible with a 'democracy'. some think black people should be slaves - others do not. philosophically, the same thing. yet, is one of the two positions more 'just' than the other, and more compatible with a functioning social system as we live it? few would say no.

equally as I see it, the right of women to decide over their own body, rather than have some moralising fundo president decide for them, is as I see it a fundamentally social question. a fundamental one, too. not a philosophical question as much as a contextual, politically embedded policy question. and one in which for a change I disagree vehemently with bush...

monkey again - 28 01 03 - 19:48

Argumentative one? Me? Never! But hey, its you who have a website to tell the world what you think of it! ;-)

The Jews thing... Somehow you wrote Bush is obsessed with their writings, when you really mean its interpretation. Just a joke, thats all... :-)

Degree: I understand you now. But your point is still total irrelevant as to how these people wishes to treat their enemy. And you are assuming that because some people know they are being manipulated, they will resist it.

Every moral opinion is backed by force, of some sort. Common sense is such a force.
Stating a moral opinion is imperialism in you wanting others to accept it. Ok, so you dont use physical force, but still... Its imperialism because no human can state a moral opinion which they believe and not want others to agree to it. The western world is full of intellectual, moral imperialism.

---I say 'besserwissende', because the anti-abortion argument is inextricable from a holier-than-thou attitude.---

I guess you mean that in Bushs case, not in general? In general it would be quite wrong. A victim is not the best judger in a case like this IF its a ethical question. I do understand your position. But what you say is that you dont know the answer to the question, and that maybe it isn't a ethical question at all.

If the major of all people wishes abortion illegal, are they wrong then? If they wish abortion to be legal, are they right? But ok, I agree: There is a correct answer to the question. By saying that I have also said something about myself. I believe myself to be smarter than whoever has a different answer than me. But I have to realise that the "truth" exists in me. If it exists outside of me, there must be a universal moral. And if so, there must exist something of a god or power of some sort. And if so, shouldnt all life be holy or something like that... nah. I don't like this path at all. So Ill just stick with Im smarter than the rest of you. Im not a relativist, Im a subjectivist. The truth is not relative, its not comparable.

Embryos are. Embryos are more worth taking care of today than braindead people. There is a potential in an embryo. Thats a fact, not an opinion. You happen to believe that relativism is not compatible with democracy. But in your system, I would guess that in the end relativism is just the same as free will. Most likely you'll disagree, but the arguments against it, I would like to see. Your argument about a functional social system is weak. Few would say no. So now majority rules? What is a functioning social system? YOU have defined your answers, with rational thought, but still based on a quite a few axioms.
Saying a person standing is relativistic is meaningless. Its another way of saying I can choose for myself, and in choosing for myself, also choose for others.

Vale!

Wonco the quite so sane - 29 01 03 - 06:05

heh. dig this bickering. have not the time to reply thoroughly, but a few points.

relativism as I understand it is perfectly compatible with, even necessary for, democracy. what I meant was the kind of omnitolerant relativism that refuses to make moral judgements, without realising that it is itself predicated on a set of moral judgements. the rule of the majority? who says this is good? we live in an alleged democracy, and abide by certain [moral] principles. things such as the rights of the individual, women's rights, the right to participate as subjects in the political process. the right to freedom from certain interventions and interferences by others - such as violence.

relativism is good, in the sense that it fosters tolerance. you have to draw some lines somewhere though. black people are not slaves, women have the say in what happens to their bodies.

not entirely convinced by your argument re: moral imperialism. agreed the west is full of moral imperialism. yet: extending the notion of force in this way makes it so all-encompassing that it becomes empty.

not at all sure about this axiomatic idea that no one can state what they believe without wanting others to believe it as well. I happen to believe we are spiralling this world into some sort of manmade hell. yet I am perfectly indifferent as to whether I make others believe this or not. I think the philosophical axiom needs revision.

re anti-abortion and holier than thou, I meant in practice. most people who argue against abortion fall into modes of argument I find detestable. clearly, it is possible to have a reasonable argument about abortion. somehow though, reason seems not to fuel most anti-abortionists. including bush.

the question of when a fetus becomes a person: where do you draw the line? saying that a fertilised blastocyst with two cells is a human seems bizarre to me. a reasonable criterion for me would be at least anthropomorphic features. more likely, ability to survive outside the womb.

'few would say no' is not really an argument. it's a statement. would you disagree with the fact that slavery is unjust and incompatible with a functional social system as we strive to enact it? I make the same point about women's rights.

as I see it, truth exists not only 'in you' or 'out there' but between people. truth is situated, negotiated, challenged, contested and turned into practice. or the other way.

I am not smarter than other people [ok, maybe I think I am, but it bears not on the question]. I am merely stating one opinion among thousands, or millions. using this excuse of a website to map out what I think of things. were I in a position to enforce my views, my views would be radically different.

again, this point hinges on the possibility of stating things without desiring other people to think the same. I think it eminently possible to do so. thinking this impossible is practically tautologous - your speech is imperialist because all speech is imperalist.

it is an interesting observation of a particular form of thought that it universalises its own premises. I would say that the idea that no person can state something they believe without wanting everyone else to think the same stems from a particularly Western, monologic, imperialist form of thought. but hell, thats another subject.

anyway. proposal to write, no time for more virtual bickering. moritori te salutant :-)

monkey the still quite so monkey - 29 01 03 - 09:11

It looks like you really had a nice time.

yasmin () - 18 03 06 - 08:09

A very nice website !! Very well Done !!!

yasmin () - 18 03 06 - 10:13

I take it what you're talking about is if it was the invention & uptake of snowmobiles that caused changes in herding, or if it was changes in herding / environment that made the technology necessary? Depending on who's reading the essay, it's probably ok to be flippant... as long as you can flip out of sarky mode when it comes to writing the actual phd thesis thing.

flats () - 18 01 03 - 10:31

yup. let us hope so. I handed it in anyway. might make the examiner chuckle, or might make the examiner cross out the whole damn thing. who cares as long as they don't chuck me out.

misfit monkey - 23 01 03 - 11:46

There's a Sami/reindeer-related post on metafilter that might be of interest to you, if you've not already seen it:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/24148

misteraitch () (URL) - 10 03 03 - 07:12

The whole cannibalism thing reminds me of when my sister and I tried feeding our other sister's bird with chicken. He actually ate it, like he eats everything else we give him when we're eating. Mom was furious, though.

Feline () (URL) - 15 01 03 - 05:13

why why why is everyone so obsessed with rathergood.com? we were talking about it in my physics lesson for fuck's sake. am sitting reading proper anthropology (well, beginners' anth, carrithers and that sorta thing) like a good girl, and now want to run off and be a musician. life isn't fair.

flats - 11 01 03 - 15:53