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

Hi. Since you visited my site, I should vist yours but obviously you don't need the attention. Just so you know, I disagree with government but maybe if it changed its ways about schools, war, schools, money and schools I wouldn't mind. Government as a word I don't mind but specific goverments I ENTIRELY disagree with. I am also into anarchatic theories but I forgot to mention it before.
RULE ANARCHY.

Well, there's no garuntee we'd even have schools in a pure anarchy, and that seems to be one of your major issues. I think government (especially the U.S.'s current government) is seriously messing up education, not only so far as the curriculum goes, but also funding, organization, etc, etc, etc. I think we need more teachers who get better pay, smaller class sizes, and decent equipment in our public schools in the U.S..

What country are you from, by the way?

And which theories?

I live in the U.K in a small country called Wales. The government is also c**king up our schools. Schools in pure anarchy would be wrong. Schools in hidden anarchy is pretty much what we've got at the moment.
Schools have been messed up alot recently. Especially since labour said 'we will focus ourselves on education, education, education'. TONY, THIS MEANS ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING. O.k I'm done shouting at the Prime Minister.

RULE ANARCHY.

Tony Blair's main problem recently, from my perspective, is that he appears to be the lap dog of the U.S. President. When Clinton was in office over here, he and Clinton got along great. Now he does whatever Bush says. Bush and Clinton are so politically different, I have to assume Blair is just playing to America, though I can't fathom why. It wouldn't seem like that would help his political career in the U.K. I don't know what he gets out of it.

Bush over here campaigned on a promise to be the "education president." He said he'd "leave no child behind." School districts all over the nation are now firing teachers, finishing the school year early, and crowding more students in smaller classrooms because they have no budget. He's turned out more to be the "bomb Arabic nations and provoke nuclear confrontations with North Korea" president.

It's much like that over here too. Maybe if we stopped bombing people we'd have the money. But why would we want to stop bombing people? Just because there's a 1 in 10 chance they MIGHT have nuclear weapons and because they MIGHT be able to bomb colonies belonging to U.S/K. Did they actually find nuclear weapons?
RULE ANARCHY.

Not as such, but they're not really trying anymore, as I understand it.

If Bush get's re-elected in 2004, I'm going to scream. Now he's talking about "Destabalizing the Iranian Government". Ugh.

Iran is a country just like any ...erm... other country in the world. How would he like it if I went over there and destabilized America? People have always been natural nomads. So if every Iranian moved, where would Iran be then? This is why I believe in ANARCHY and that there shouldn't be country borders. Or countries. Did Chris Colombus know what he was doing when he sailes his boat into a chunk of rock instead of falling of the edge of the world. Why is it called the middle east because it depends where you start from. And the far east (china etc) isn't far east to America, it's near west! Am I aking any sense at all? Monty Python rules.
RULE ANARCHY.

I got the Monty Python bit

Chris Columbus didn't know what he was doing, period. He thought he was in India, or Asia, or something. That's why people ended up calling Native Americans Indians. It's bull to me. At the college level, if you find the right courses, you are likely to realize that what you talk about, in terms of calling it the "Middle East" or the "Far East" is a form of what people who like to think of themselves as smart call "Hegemony". Hegemony is the forcing of a certain way of thinking (an "Ideology") on other people who didn't necissarily think that way to begin with. England, Spain, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and other European countries made a whole bunch of maps and things, and did a lot of exploring. To THEM the Middle East is more East than the Near East, and less East than the Far East. Then, they took their maps to the New World (the Americas) where, despite people understanding that the world is round, the names all remained the same due to everything being based off of European thought.

What is really terrifying is that the labels we use effect how we think about things. Since we use terms that relate everything back to Europe, it entrenches the idea that Europe is somehow the standard, that it is the center around which the rest of the world revolves. Which of course implies that anything European is obviously going to be better than anything that isn't. Notice, though, that they don't call America the "Far West". It gets lumped in with Europe so that it's standard and superior, too.

I do debate in college. It earns me my scholarship. Believe me, I know that running "get rid of borders" can win debate rounds easily, especially if the other team is running something that claims immigration is a good thing. Then THEY have to claim "well, not ALL immigration is a good thing, they end up looking like hypocrites, and they loose. I think people have the right to create governments for mutual protection and service. I don't think those governments should create boundaries between people that cause millions deaths every year because:

a) governments can't agree on where the boundaries should be (most wars)

b) people are trying to cross the boundaries illegally and therefore die in the desert for lack of water (immigration)

c) etc.

I think I got that.

Right. Anyway...

Just go through once more in lamans terms. It's been a long evening.
What's the deal with the cat?
RULE ANARCHY.

What cat?

The Ginger one with a link on your space. Something T Something.
RULE ANARCHY.

Greebo T. Cat?
RULE MONTY PYTHON.

Ah! I had thought that somewhere in that really, really long post I'd made above that I'd mentioned a cat and forgotten entirely about it!

Greebo is a researcher who I'd met fairly early on after joining the Guide. She generally refers to herself in the third person, and the running gags are that everyone loves her and that she loves doughnuts. It's all very silly.

The shorthand layperson's version of the really long post above is that the U.S. and Europe have done such a wonderfull job of ing up the world that even our languages are racist, sexist, and elitist. That's why we use terms such as "Mid East" to refer to places on a globe that are east of some areas, west of others, and different degrees of distance from all.

I agree. Changing the subject, have you read any of Eoin Colfers Artemis Fowl books?

Hoi hoi
Is this the thread you were talking about in the other thread? (If that makes any sense)
Just wondering how in your vision of anrachy you handle the problem of too many individuals doing the same thing...if there are no universal checks and balances how do you ensure the right % of the population are farmers (Which is important in a society where you might want everyone to, for example, eat)
Oh and on the war issue is possesing WMD enough to justify an assault? Brtain and America have WMD - a hell of a lot of them. Of course you could claim that we are okay because we aren't aggressive but er...theres no real evidence for that now is there.

Edgar, no I've never read those books. Should I?

Acid Override, I'd say that in terms of the right number of people being farmers in an anarchy, though I am not an anarchist, I'd have to say that particular issue wouldn't really be a problem. In a market economy (like the U.S.) a certain number of people naturally are farmers because they can make a profit being farmers, a certain number of people naturally are lawyers because they can make a profit being lawyers, and so on. If NO ONE was a farmer, for instance, someone somewhere would realize: "HEY! No one is growing food profit. If I made food, I could sell it at any price I wanted to, and people would have to pay or they would die." Then someone else would see how successfull that person was, and they'd try to get in on the profit, too. Pretty soon enough people would be farmers that the food would cost a reasonable amount, but the farmers could still profit. The same thing would happen in an anarchy, I believe. Demand leads to supply.

But with an Anarchy, if someone grew the food, he would have to protect it. With no government there are no laws therefore you wouldn't have to buy food, you could just steal it. You wouldn't need lawyers because there wouldn't be any crimes to disagree on. If that makes any sense to the subject.

You should read the Artemis Fowl books. Like D.A it puts a twist on something that people believe as not true. sort of. It's actually a childrens book but it works on lots of different levels. Look out for them.

Ah, but anarchy can have laws - so long as enough people get together to form the laws and agree amoung themselves to uphold them it would be possible.

However you then risk a series of communities forming which just start acting like different countries do now.