h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

well loopy i await with baited breath could not resist pun

We could open a betting book...on content..or on time to clear...look on the bright side. Tango survived..another stupid person like me I love it!

love it when a plan comes together "hannibal smith the A team"

Loopy, just because greed is rampant doesn't make it a virtue.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=482947

"Adam Smith made but one reference to unkind people of an inhumane disposition. It's unnatural to be "kind"."

I don't quite understand your logic, loopy. If it were natural to be unkind, wouldn't Adam Smith have been referring to unkind people of an inhumane disposition all the time?(not for a moment acknowledging any agreement with your understanding of the writings of Adam Smith, of course.)

Zoom..I agree. As I said people are not a scarce resource.

I don't know if you use or know of the term "postmodernism" in Canada but that it all fits my picture. People are expendable. Poor people go first after they've given all.

Yes Zoom I cry too. I know.

Just did a computer search of a pdf version of Wealth of Nations and I'm afraid Adam Smith never used the word "unkind" even once. I don't propose that that fact has any meaning for this discussion whatsoever; I'm just showing off.

Well as I remember his work THE WEALTH OF NATIONS of 1776AD, I believe he thought that efficiency would bring benefit to all. He referred to "certain men in a certain condition" only once. This class kept all the gains. Kept the serfs in poverty.

I think overall he was right, things for the common man have improved, especially for women here in the UK.

Many would believe GW and fiends fitted into the aforesaid class. Could well be if all the stuff you post up on here is correct. In that case I would expect him to be voted out in the coming election.

Makes no odds to me. I respect the office. The incumbent is irrelavent. I know most of you can't understand that but that's how I see it. Bit like this site. It's BBC..h2g2 is a mere platform.

Okay, I'll hold my hand up on Stalin and genocide; not the best example. I was trying to suggest that even murdering your political opponents on a mass scale doesn't necessarily constitute genocide.

<...the prime motivator of man is greed not love.>

I know it's a bit off topic, but I don't think people have a single prime motivator, but a whole collection of strategies for satisfying their needs. An important part of the process of civilisation is to make it profitable to choose peaceful strategies rather than violent ones, and to extend the boundaries of those who count as "us" rather than "them." On those criterion GWB doesn't seem to have much grasp of civilisation.

Noggin

Loopy I didn't mean that as criticism of you I just am impatient waiting to see what your posts say!

Tango survived..another stupid person like me ,I love it!
no sorry your 50 tango now probhably 16/17 dont think so
whilst i agree opinions and style od presentation are simuler the content does tend to differ now Arpegio is a different matter
oops no intentional meaning should be assosiated with the style and content of any mentioned researchers should be infered by my observations or camparrisions to any researcher or virtual identitie

*Postmodernism* is just another sad excuse, like *I know it's wrong, but it's only good business*. Ethics and morals are in sad supply in every modern consumerism based capitalism system. That isn't a result of Adam Smith, it's the result of greed taking the place of standards we are born with. You aren't born greedy, you have to be taught how to be that way. As a race we have always striven to be better, but not better monetarily, better to our fellow man, wouldn't you agree?

Well I'll say this Zoom. Every account manager in The City of London knows Marx economic theory backwards. And everyone of 'em has used it to make the poor man poorer and the rich man richer.

The stuff they get taught in universities gets put into reverse gear to reverse the spirit in which it was taught.

So you're right they get taught it. Most of 'em use like an AK47.
Irresponsibly. Excuse me folks this mod stuff is wearing and I'm off to bed. But not yet.

H Sapiens is an intelligent carnivore. An agressive warlike mammal that often uses legal and illegal violence to acquire scarce resources. Contemporary thinking promotes division and encourages greed at the cost of the poor.

The next USA president needs to address the growing gap betwwen those that exist and those that thrive globally. He needs to address Africa in particular,

But the action that matters is in the E Pacific..Korea, China and not least Japan.

That's why I prefer 4 legged beasts...mor predictable.

Not entirely, Zoomer (see my post above), but self interest in the wider sense is often not best served by compulsive greed, or society by the self deceiving philosophies that defend it. Adam Smith at least recognised that there was a downside to capitalist efficiency, unlike the Institute set up in his name.

Noggin

Agreed, individually we desire our own bodies to survive as a healthy entity, then those who are close to us, then our nation state I suppose. Disease, addiction, etc. can affect the first, emotions and natural events affect the first two, and the wants of others affect all three. What is the goal, then? Merely survival? Or improvement? Once an individual, family unit, and then nation is secure, what is the goal of individuals and states? To improve the lot of everyone. The problem would be that the framework, the structure of that betterment has become economic rather than moral.

Ferretbadger:
From the dictionary.com online dictionary... when have the US done that? (committed genocide)...

not done with the backlog yet, but just in case no one's answered...oh, pretty much the entire 19th century. Remember native americans? That's pretty much my definition of genocide right there.

Blicky, I have, like ES, read heaps about OJ and the trial, both at the time and since. The DNA evidence is incontrovertible, as is the testimony of others. Fuhrmann was not a racist, his use of the 'n' word was in a screenplay he was writing!
OJ's aquittal was expedient, that's all.

<>
Don't forget 12 years of sanctions, and ten years of bombings, plus the events of August '90 to Feb '91...
(Child deaths due to sanctions are estimated at half a million. Madeleine Allbright is famous for having said she thinks it was worthwhile.)

<>
Exactly, zoomer!

Okay. The way I remember it Bush talked before the invasion like American Intelligence knew what Saddam had and where it was. They even showed some (inaccurate) pictures to the Security Council. Everybody was getting mad because American Intelligence wouldn't share what they "knew" with the UN inspectors. It was clear then and it's like crystal now that American Intelligence didn't know jack and that the WMD pretext for war came out of the hind end of a bull. And, of course, we also know now, as we knew then, that Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda (it's Saudi Arabia that does), so the revenge for 9/11 pretext doesn't wash either. Of course, if it was George's kind, gentle feelings for the Iraqi people that were the reason for the bombing and invasion, then George should have said that in the first place. Does anybody really buy that reason? So, seriously, those of you who think that Bush's invasion (not the downfall of Saddam, not the "freeing" of the Iraqi people) was a good and proper and honest thing, tell us why. We all know that Saddam was a stinker to his people, but we also know that George didn't give the order simply to dispose of Saddam. Not one of George's reasons for the invasion stands up to scrutiny. What do you think the real reason for the invasion was? Twenty words or less, please.