Do People Choose To Be Pathetic Wretches...

[General Patton]

I have been hearing a lot of excuses made for the behavior of other people who are failing at life. Some people say that these complete nincompoops never had and never will have an opportunity. If there is one thing that can be said about the great country that I find myself living in, it is that we don't have an ascribed status. In America it is possible to go as far as your own imagination and ability will take you. If you are creative and resourceful enough you can become a success. However, I still hear claims that some people are destined to lose and never had a chance. It brings to mind a question that I answered not to long ago.

The question is this:

"In a world of odds, numbers, cause and effect, do we- do you and I have free will and choice- the power to be truely spontaneous? Or do our actions fall along a well tread road to point a, b, and c?"

The following is my response I think it goes a long way to refute claims that people are merely products of their environment and socio-economic status. This paper deals with the topic of free will vs. determinism, which is another essential ingredient at the heart of the debate between free societies and totalitarian rule, justice and injustice, logic and madness.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m glad you asked, especially in the way that you invoked numerical probability within the question. Judging by the way the question was posed; I am imagining that you want me to talk about seemingly unpredictable, complex, nonlinear systems and the predictability of such systems when they exude apparent patterns of behavior. In other words, order out of chaos.

It is true that some types of systems exhibit certain patterns when variability in the systems are high and the repetition of certain parameters is highly unlikely. Changes in initial conditions can and do drastically effect the outcome. However, behavior of the system from start to finish may demonstrate remarkable similarities. To be able to predict this behavior as the system moves from one set of conditions to another implies that the system is deterministic.

This is fine when we are trying to determine the behavior of certain types of systems. The problems become more complex and more difficult to predict when the human factor is involved, because humans do not always act in a preordained fashion, and often times their thinking defies logic or rationale. We can look at a persons birth, the family they were born into, their genotype, certain phenotypes they possess, the socio-economic status that they were born into, and their access to resources and wealth when trying to predict their chances for success. However, we are only able to assign a certain probability to the accuracy of the prediction because even if we feed the model as much reliable information we have about a person, we are unable to account for things like luck, outside influence, self-education, a person’s motivation, and the full range of human emotions that affect a person throughout their life. All those things that are left to chance and associated with the choices a person will make throughout their life become factors. Why does a person who is born with every opportunity available to them sometimes waste that advantage? Why does a person that is born into a life of poverty sometimes excel beyond expectations and become the epitome of the self-made man? Why do others live up to their assigned probability for success and fail to deviate from what the models predict? I would answer that the answer lies in chance, desire, and self-determination.

Perhaps those people who are more accepting about what society says their role and impact on the world should be are less likely to deviate from the behaviors and choices that will make the predictions about their success or failure true. Therefore, their behavioral patterns closely mirror those that imply a deterministic predictable system. Is it any surprise that those who have been told what to believe, and have accepted these believes without question, would apparently fulfill the predicted patterns of those who engineered the results in the first place? Can it be said that they allowed themselves to be the victims of a self-fulfilling prophecy by choice? Those that do break the mold have taken their destiny into their own hands and have refused to believe that the outcome of their life is set into stone. These cases tend to defy prediction. This would imply that a persons fate only acts in a deterministic framework if a conscious choice has been made to believe in some prescribed fate by the individual. Otherwise, all bets are off.

What can be said, remains the infinite amount of possibilities that exist when a person is born, despite the set of initial conditions that exist at the outset of a person’s life. Many would argue that given a person’s personality and background, when faced with a certain set of choices, the choice that is made is dictated by the predilection that is inherent in a person’s background and the way that they have been hard-wired to process information. Therefore, they never really had a choice, because the outcome of the choice was made a priori and independent from the actual thought process generated to decide between a spectrum of options. This thinking assumes that as a person’s life progresses choices are being continuously limited until no further choices are possible, as each choice which is determined by things like genetics, environment, and previous experience continues to eliminate future possibilities.

One could choose to look at it in this manner if they wanted, although I would argue that they are ignoring the reality of the situation in favor of a system of thinking the defies logic and ignores many key elements. First, why would humans possess the ability to reason, if it were nothing more than a mere illusion? The sole fact that we undergo a thought process to make a choice would point to the fact that real choices exist and humans have developed a complex set of tools by which to make the best choices for ourselves. That humans have developed a refined ability to make choices in perpetuity suggests that choices exist, and contradicts the very notion of determinism when dealing with human interactions with the universe. Secondly, the previous argument downplays the process of learning. The deterministic argument assumes that the learning process further limits our choices in the future rather than enhances them. In my experience, learning from the choices that I make opens the realm of possibilities, and does little to hinder my future prospects. Learning ensures that the choices I make in the future become more complex and educated because I now have more experience on which to draw from when faced with a decision. It doesn’t ensure that I will make a certain choice, but rather adds to the number of possibilities that I must calculate in order to make a decision when given a set of alternatives.

In addition, the determinist has little evidence to back up their assertion that human decision is preordained. They have never produced a shred of evidence to support their case. In fact, they ignore the fact that many people of similar backgrounds often choose different alternatives when given the same set of choices. In addition, they ignore the fact that the same person might make different decisions when faced with the same set of choices repeatedly. In fact, determinism seems to exist as an excuse for a person’s poor decision making, rather than a viable philosophical proposition. It is no accident that many that support the deterministic viewpoint also couple their philosophy with moral relativism. Like superstition, determinism exists as a reason to explain a person’s failings as a human being. How can a person be held accountable for their actions if they had no real choice in their decision-making, and if no metric exist by which to make value judgements regarding their behavior? Right and wrong is only defined by a person or a culture’s own perception, and furthermore they never had a choice in their actions. To me, these philosophies are attempts to declare war on human reason. It is a tool for those who seek dominion over the human mind. If you don’t have power over your own actions, then, of course, you won’t mind when someone else exerts power over you by force. Attacking reason is most often launched in conjunction with an attack on personal freedom.

It is true that the universe seems to obey the law of causality. Newtonian physics presented people with the idea that if all the initial conditions and the parameters of the universe were known in advance then it would be possible to predict the resulting behavior of the system. Many people have tried to use this justification to support the idea of a deterministic framework in the human sphere, while conveniently ignoring that Newtonian physics deals with inanimate matter, lacking cognizance, on a macro scale. It is much easier to predict behavior in the physical realm when dealing with classical mechanics. It is true that classical physics was largely thought to be completely deterministic. However, once we started dealing with matter on a very small scale and extremely high velocities and accelerations, classical mechanics began to break down. Our beliefs about the deterministic nature of the universe were fundamentally changed. We went from thinking that we were about to fully explain the universe, to understanding just how little we actually knew about it. It is thought that the laws of classical physics are the manifestation of quantum physics when applied to nature on a macro scale. There is much work being done to try to understand the correspondence between quantum mechanics and classical mechanics.

When we start looking at things on the quantum level the certainty with which we can speak about a phenomenon becomes less absolute. In fact, we start talking about things in terms of their certainty or probability. The cause and effect becomes less clear, as electrons are defined and characterized as travelling in certain orbital levels in terms of their probability distribution. As we pin down the exact location of an electron or photon, we lose precision and accuracy when trying to describe the wave’s momentum. Interestingly, many of the chemical interactions within the human mind are happening on the quantum level. Perhaps this accounts for the type of uncertainty that we see in a person’s behavior.

Furthermore, we do see order stemming from the apparent chaos of the universe. What is the probability of life forming and randomly reconfiguring their systems to find selective advantages, and them incorporating these adaptations to benefit future generations? What is the probability that this would happen to such an extent that complex organisms would develop with the ability to think and reason? The fact that this did happen suggests that nature might tend to favor systems of organization over pure randomness. However, does this organization merely increase the overall entropy of the system, and result in a greater potential for chaos? Perhaps the arrival of life introduced another method by which to drastically effect the universe and manipulate matter so the overall predictability of the universe is further complicated by yet another factor. How does the billiard ball model hold up when there are beings capable of interacting with the system with the potential to cause large-scale effects? Would such a deterministic model be able to predict the timing and impact of a nuclear device? Would it be able figure out the destruction of a planet in advance, or the emergence of an intelligent civilization? Would it be able to account for all the interactions such a life force might have with its surroundings? Out of order comes more chaos, as intelligent life is introduced. The thought of predicting the life cycle and behavior of an intelligent civilization is not a new one. In fact, the social sciences are very concerned with this issue, exclusively on our planet. The success of making predictions with thousands of years of historical background to draw upon still leaves much to be desired. When was the last time a political scientist accurately predicted a war without two nation states being on the absolute brink?

The reality of the matter remains. When the human factor is involved, behaviors are extremely sporadic and unpredictable. Looking at past patterns increases the likelihood of making accurate predictions for the future when the types of predictions being made are very general and somewhat obvious. This applies to human behavior over a large population or at the individual level, and does little to convince me that the behavior of complex life forms is deterministic. Furthermore, it is easy to look into the past and understand the connection and apparent reasoning of an individual or a society in retrospect. However, no method exists that will allow for very specific predictability of human behavior into the future. Finally, the paradigm shift that occurred with the advent of modern physics caused most logicians to abandon their deterministic views of the universe. Therefore, the case remains stronger for the existence of freewill. Not surprisingly, if enough information about a system and its past is known it becomes much more likely to notice certain patterns of behavior and apply that knowledge to predictions of future behavior. If the assertion remains unspecific and weakly stated, the probability of predictive success becomes higher. However, this hardly leads one to the conclusion that any type of behavior is a foregone conclusion. Besides, I like to think that I am in control of my own destiny, barring any catastrophic astronomical event.

Copyright 2006

[jy00]

[/B]
In America it is possible to go as far as your own imagination and ability will take you.

A person raised in a good environment will has a huge chance of success in life.

A person raised in a bad environment will have less of a chance in life. That person can overcome his handicaps but it is difficult. The goal of socialism is to
create a good environment for all. This way all people will have an equal chance at success (life success not capitalist success since socialists want to destroy capitalism).

I would agree that persons raised in a bad American environment have a better chance at success than someone in the third world. That's why millions of Mexicans and others seek out the lowest jobs in America. The wage for bad jobs isn't that bad (looking from a global perspective).

It's all about what makes you happy. Are you happy with a simple or extravagant lifestyle? For example, Tony Montana (Movie Scarface) could have had a decent living washing dishes. But he did not want a simple life. He knew in America he could shoot for the stars. He did just that but had to use illegal methods. I agree with his mother when she told him to keep his dirty money.

I have many friends that are Filipinos. They live a simple life. They enjoy simple pleasures like talking, drinking etc.. It doesn't bother them to live simple lives.
They don't need American style homes (at least not for one family or person).
They don't need big cars or RV's. Why do Americans, Japanese, and Western Europeans need lots of stuff?? I think it's all an illusion. People want to be "King of the World".

But on the other hand, I saw alot of terrible poverty in the Phillippines. I saw street children, beggars, and other horrors. A simple life is fine. But poverty is something that must be destroyed. There are Filipinos that live a simple life and those who really live in poverty. I want to destroy poverty. That is why I'm a socialist. What is poverty? A real inability to get food, shelter, clothing, health care, a safe environment and education.

Here is an interesting statement.

What is considered poverty in America is considered a simple life in the third world



Now going back to the topic of America. Your typical American has no excuse for
poverty (but it might just be a simple life). For example, I guy might be hooked a drugs or alcohol. Therefore, he can't live the American dream. Yes, he might have come from a bad home or from a bad background. In that case I pity him but, he is still light years better off than a street child in Brazil.

Of course, there might be bad apples. People that are just spoiled brats. They never did what mommy and daddy told them. Therefore, they turned into monsters. Or perhaps they turned into failures (not really monsters).
But I disagree with Richard Nixon's statement "These flower children need a good trip to my father's woodshed" (or something like that). There were a few punks but probably most "flower children" were idealistic young people.

Other people just lack any drive for success. For example, I have a friend who only completed one year of college. Later, however, he did start a successful vending machine business.

Maybe, some people just aren't interested in college. That may have been the case with my friend. Maybe, however, he just didn't want to do the work.

I disagree with RedStar2000's statement that a lack of college will turn America into a "Nation of Burger Flippers". Americans can get real work if they really want it. The foreign view that money grows on trees in America might be true.

Some people claim black americans and other oppressed minorities suffer from poverty. Considering my definition of poverty, the lack of quality educational opportunities and violence would cause poverty in the inner cities. However,
those (oppressed people) who lead simple lives (but have access to education, health care etc.) are not poverty stricken.


General Patton wants people to have the freedom to shoot for the stars. However,
this system creates poverty for many. Therefore, it must be destroyed. All must have a simple life. You can't have the American dream and the elimination of world wide poverty.

I am not angry that millions of people worldwide lead simple lives. I am angry about theft. Multinational corporations do not pay third worlders a fair wage.
The low wages do allow third worlders to lead simple lives (or maybe it doesn't). But that's not the crime in discussion. The crime is theft. The third worlders are not paid what their product is actually worth. The corporations pocket the huge difference. That's why the owners make millions and billions. Is that right General Patton? Should we at Revolutionary Left support such a system?

Let's look at the Middle East. The 1st world will always buy Middle Eastern Oil.
Who else will buy it? Angola? Bin Laden and his friends are angry because of theft. The people of the Middle East do not recieve a fair percentage of oil profits. It all goes to millionares who live Houston and Dallas.

Also there is the questions of workers rights, environmental standards etc..
The third worlders make enough money to lead a simple life. But they have to go thru alot of suffering to get it. Is that right?

So all in all I conclude that the American dream is bad. It's good for non-oppressed 1st worlders but nobody else. Yes, the American dream is a possiblity for most Americans. (of course it's the Leave it to Beaver dream, not Bill Gates).
But it's not possible for third worlders.


However, I still hear claims that some people are destined to lose and never had a chance. It brings to mind a question that I answered not to long ago.

Leading a simple life is not losing. Real poverty is losing.
Street children in Brazil are products of thier environment. They did not create the situation they are in at all.

Many oppressed Americans could escape poverty and enter a simple life. However, due to a combination of bad environment and bad choices they won't. They are victims in some ways and in other ways not victims.

People make bad choices. But it's society's role to help the people. Therefore, cleaning up the mess that society and personal choices have made.

I hold the same position for third worlders. They have made some bad choices. But society has also harmed them. For example, now many farmers in Mexico cannot grow crops. The multi-nationals have driven them out of business. The same is true in Africa. The continent is in poverty while it ships out valuable resources to the 1st world. So what has a greater negative effect? The personal choices or the outside influence?

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by General [email protected] 28 2006, 06:21 AM
I have been hearing a lot of excuses made for the behavior of other people who are failing at life. Some people say that these complete nincompoops never had and never will have an opportunity. If there is one thing that can be said about the great country that I find myself living in, it is that we don't have an ascribed status. In America it is possible to go as far as your own imagination and ability will take you. If you are creative and resourceful enough you can become a success. However, I still hear claims that some people are destined to lose and never had a chance. It brings to mind a question that I answered not to long ago.

The question is this:

"In a world of odds, numbers, cause and effect, do we- do you and I have free will and choice- the power to be truely spontaneous? Or do our actions fall along a well tread road to point a, b, and c?"

The following is my response I think it goes a long way to refute claims that people are merely products of their environment and socio-economic status. This paper deals with the topic of free will vs. determinism, which is another essential ingredient at the heart of the debate between free societies and totalitarian rule, justice and injustice, logic and madness.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m glad you asked, especially in the way that you invoked numerical probability within the question. Judging by the way the question was posed; I am imagining that you want me to talk about seemingly unpredictable, complex, nonlinear systems and the predictability of such systems when they exude apparent patterns of behavior. In other words, order out of chaos.

It is true that some types of systems exhibit certain patterns when variability in the systems are high and the repetition of certain parameters is highly unlikely. Changes in initial conditions can and do drastically effect the outcome. However, behavior of the system from start to finish may demonstrate remarkable similarities. To be able to predict this behavior as the system moves from one set of conditions to another implies that the system is deterministic.

This is fine when we are trying to determine the behavior of certain types of systems. The problems become more complex and more difficult to predict when the human factor is involved, because humans do not always act in a preordained fashion, and often times their thinking defies logic or rationale. We can look at a persons birth, the family they were born into, their genotype, certain phenotypes they possess, the socio-economic status that they were born into, and their access to resources and wealth when trying to predict their chances for success. However, we are only able to assign a certain probability to the accuracy of the prediction because even if we feed the model as much reliable information we have about a person, we are unable to account for things like luck, outside influence, self-education, a person’s motivation, and the full range of human emotions that affect a person throughout their life. All those things that are left to chance and associated with the choices a person will make throughout their life become factors. Why does a person who is born with every opportunity available to them sometimes waste that advantage? Why does a person that is born into a life of poverty sometimes excel beyond expectations and become the epitome of the self-made man? Why do others live up to their assigned probability for success and fail to deviate from what the models predict? I would answer that the answer lies in chance, desire, and self-determination.

Perhaps those people who are more accepting about what society says their role and impact on the world should be are less likely to deviate from the behaviors and choices that will make the predictions about their success or failure true. Therefore, their behavioral patterns closely mirror those that imply a deterministic predictable system. Is it any surprise that those who have been told what to believe, and have accepted these believes without question, would apparently fulfill the predicted patterns of those who engineered the results in the first place? Can it be said that they allowed themselves to be the victims of a self-fulfilling prophecy by choice? Those that do break the mold have taken their destiny into their own hands and have refused to believe that the outcome of their life is set into stone. These cases tend to defy prediction. This would imply that a persons fate only acts in a deterministic framework if a conscious choice has been made to believe in some prescribed fate by the individual. Otherwise, all bets are off.

What can be said, remains the infinite amount of possibilities that exist when a person is born, despite the set of initial conditions that exist at the outset of a person’s life. Many would argue that given a person’s personality and background, when faced with a certain set of choices, the choice that is made is dictated by the predilection that is inherent in a person’s background and the way that they have been hard-wired to process information. Therefore, they never really had a choice, because the outcome of the choice was made a priori and independent from the actual thought process generated to decide between a spectrum of options. This thinking assumes that as a person’s life progresses choices are being continuously limited until no further choices are possible, as each choice which is determined by things like genetics, environment, and previous experience continues to eliminate future possibilities.

One could choose to look at it in this manner if they wanted, although I would argue that they are ignoring the reality of the situation in favor of a system of thinking the defies logic and ignores many key elements. First, why would humans possess the ability to reason, if it were nothing more than a mere illusion? The sole fact that we undergo a thought process to make a choice would point to the fact that real choices exist and humans have developed a complex set of tools by which to make the best choices for ourselves. That humans have developed a refined ability to make choices in perpetuity suggests that choices exist, and contradicts the very notion of determinism when dealing with human interactions with the universe. Secondly, the previous argument downplays the process of learning. The deterministic argument assumes that the learning process further limits our choices in the future rather than enhances them. In my experience, learning from the choices that I make opens the realm of possibilities, and does little to hinder my future prospects. Learning ensures that the choices I make in the future become more complex and educated because I now have more experience on which to draw from when faced with a decision. It doesn’t ensure that I will make a certain choice, but rather adds to the number of possibilities that I must calculate in order to make a decision when given a set of alternatives.

In addition, the determinist has little evidence to back up their assertion that human decision is preordained. They have never produced a shred of evidence to support their case. In fact, they ignore the fact that many people of similar backgrounds often choose different alternatives when given the same set of choices. In addition, they ignore the fact that the same person might make different decisions when faced with the same set of choices repeatedly. In fact, determinism seems to exist as an excuse for a person’s poor decision making, rather than a viable philosophical proposition. It is no accident that many that support the deterministic viewpoint also couple their philosophy with moral relativism. Like superstition, determinism exists as a reason to explain a person’s failings as a human being. How can a person be held accountable for their actions if they had no real choice in their decision-making, and if no metric exist by which to make value judgements regarding their behavior? Right and wrong is only defined by a person or a culture’s own perception, and furthermore they never had a choice in their actions. To me, these philosophies are attempts to declare war on human reason. It is a tool for those who seek dominion over the human mind. If you don’t have power over your own actions, then, of course, you won’t mind when someone else exerts power over you by force. Attacking reason is most often launched in conjunction with an attack on personal freedom.

It is true that the universe seems to obey the law of causality. Newtonian physics presented people with the idea that if all the initial conditions and the parameters of the universe were known in advance then it would be possible to predict the resulting behavior of the system. Many people have tried to use this justification to support the idea of a deterministic framework in the human sphere, while conveniently ignoring that Newtonian physics deals with inanimate matter, lacking cognizance, on a macro scale. It is much easier to predict behavior in the physical realm when dealing with classical mechanics. It is true that classical physics was largely thought to be completely deterministic. However, once we started dealing with matter on a very small scale and extremely high velocities and accelerations, classical mechanics began to break down. Our beliefs about the deterministic nature of the universe were fundamentally changed. We went from thinking that we were about to fully explain the universe, to understanding just how little we actually knew about it. It is thought that the laws of classical physics are the manifestation of quantum physics when applied to nature on a macro scale. There is much work being done to try to understand the correspondence between quantum mechanics and classical mechanics.

When we start looking at things on the quantum level the certainty with which we can speak about a phenomenon becomes less absolute. In fact, we start talking about things in terms of their certainty or probability. The cause and effect becomes less clear, as electrons are defined and characterized as travelling in certain orbital levels in terms of their probability distribution. As we pin down the exact location of an electron or photon, we lose precision and accuracy when trying to describe the wave’s momentum. Interestingly, many of the chemical interactions within the human mind are happening on the quantum level. Perhaps this accounts for the type of uncertainty that we see in a person’s behavior.

Furthermore, we do see order stemming from the apparent chaos of the universe. What is the probability of life forming and randomly reconfiguring their systems to find selective advantages, and them incorporating these adaptations to benefit future generations? What is the probability that this would happen to such an extent that complex organisms would develop with the ability to think and reason? The fact that this did happen suggests that nature might tend to favor systems of organization over pure randomness. However, does this organization merely increase the overall entropy of the system, and result in a greater potential for chaos? Perhaps the arrival of life introduced another method by which to drastically effect the universe and manipulate matter so the overall predictability of the universe is further complicated by yet another factor. How does the billiard ball model hold up when there are beings capable of interacting with the system with the potential to cause large-scale effects? Would such a deterministic model be able to predict the timing and impact of a nuclear device? Would it be able figure out the destruction of a planet in advance, or the emergence of an intelligent civilization? Would it be able to account for all the interactions such a life force might have with its surroundings? Out of order comes more chaos, as intelligent life is introduced. The thought of predicting the life cycle and behavior of an intelligent civilization is not a new one. In fact, the social sciences are very concerned with this issue, exclusively on our planet. The success of making predictions with thousands of years of historical background to draw upon still leaves much to be desired. When was the last time a political scientist accurately predicted a war without two nation states being on the absolute brink?

The reality of the matter remains. When the human factor is involved, behaviors are extremely sporadic and unpredictable. Looking at past patterns increases the likelihood of making accurate predictions for the future when the types of predictions being made are very general and somewhat obvious. This applies to human behavior over a large population or at the individual level, and does little to convince me that the behavior of complex life forms is deterministic. Furthermore, it is easy to look into the past and understand the connection and apparent reasoning of an individual or a society in retrospect. However, no method exists that will allow for very specific predictability of human behavior into the future. Finally, the paradigm shift that occurred with the advent of modern physics caused most logicians to abandon their deterministic views of the universe. Therefore, the case remains stronger for the existence of freewill. Not surprisingly, if enough information about a system and its past is known it becomes much more likely to notice certain patterns of behavior and apply that knowledge to predictions of future behavior. If the assertion remains unspecific and weakly stated, the probability of predictive success becomes higher. However, this hardly leads one to the conclusion that any type of behavior is a foregone conclusion. Besides, I like to think that I am in control of my own destiny, barring any catastrophic astronomical event.

Copyright 2006
too long didnt read

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by General [email protected] 28 2006, 02:21 AM


Copyright 2006
We've already stolen all of your works and posted them everywhere without your permission. What are you going to do about it?

[red team]

I have been hearing a lot of excuses made for the behavior of other people who are failing at life. Some people say that these complete nincompoops never had and never will have an opportunity.

Sorry, I'm not a piece of meat for you to judge as to it's freshness and quality. I am extremely confident in my abilities and I can be my own judge. I can say with certainty that I am far more skillful and am far more competent than most people doing some routine paper shuffling job that you would inevitably find in all corporations. This is true for many people I know that are now unemployed and underemployed, so don't waste your time trying to sell the idea of me (or other workers) being inadequate. Your advertising is simply not convincing enough for me to buy it.

Furthermore, what are trying to prove? That under this system there is a correlation between competency and reward for labour? :lol: Alright, if that's the case why are many university graduates out of work who are from highly demanding fields while a single CEO of a company can claim rewards of hundreds of million after a poor performance for the company's fiscal year? This is really beside the point as even if the company is profitable where will the majority of this profit inevitably wind up and what justify this disproportionate distribution of rewards? The CEO is 400 times as productive as the average worker? Upper management is such a uniquely talented group of people that they are irreplaceable?


If there is one thing that can be said about the great country that I find myself living in, it is that we don't have an ascribed status. In America it is possible to go as far as your own imagination and ability will take you. If you are creative and resourceful enough you can become a success. However, I still hear claims that some people are destined to lose and never had a chance. It brings to mind a question that I answered not to long ago.

Or have your imagination and ability taken over as private property whether you agree to it or not, so people who did no work in coming up with the result of your imagination and ability can have their own private cash cow by building a fence around scientific knowledge. Having greater abundance for everybody because doing so takes little extra sacrifice in resources is irrelevant, so you guard what could be made publicly available and introduce poverty when when there was none before. The people doing this work is paid once for doing it, but for the company owners they can keep on selling "their" jealously guarded products indefinitely by doing a simple duplication of media.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m glad you asked, especially in the way that you invoked numerical probability within the question. Judging by the way the question was posed; I am imagining that you want me to talk about seemingly unpredictable, complex, nonlinear systems and the predictability of such systems when they exude apparent patterns of behavior. In other words, order out of chaos.

It is true that some types of systems exhibit certain patterns when variability in the systems are high and the repetition of certain parameters is highly unlikely. Changes in initial conditions can and do drastically effect the outcome. However, behavior of the system from start to finish may demonstrate remarkable similarities. To be able to predict this behavior as the system moves from one set of conditions to another implies that the system is deterministic.

This is fine when we are trying to determine the behavior of certain types of systems. The problems become more complex and more difficult to predict when the human factor is involved, because humans do not always act in a preordained fashion, and often times their thinking defies logic or rationale. We can look at a persons birth, the family they were born into, their genotype, certain phenotypes they possess, the socio-economic status that they were born into, and their access to resources and wealth when trying to predict their chances for success. However, we are only able to assign a certain probability to the accuracy of the prediction because even if we feed the model as much reliable information we have about a person, we are unable to account for things like luck, outside influence, self-education, a person’s motivation, and the full range of human emotions that affect a person throughout their life. All those things that are left to chance and associated with the choices a person will make throughout their life become factors. Why does a person who is born with every opportunity available to them sometimes waste that advantage? Why does a person that is born into a life of poverty sometimes excel beyond expectations and become the epitome of the self-made man? Why do others live up to their assigned probability for success and fail to deviate from what the models predict? I would answer that the answer lies in chance, desire, and self-determination.

define: self-made man
nobody helped him along the way... Not even his "incompetent" nursery teacher? I don't know that many nursery teachers are mathematics PhDs or even know the basics of high school math or are slick professional bullshitters like product marketers which is what really counts in this society, but here you go with this "self-made man" crap again.

define: success


Perhaps those people who are more accepting about what society says their role and impact on the world should be are less likely to deviate from the behaviors and choices that will make the predictions about their success or failure true. Therefore, their behavioral patterns closely mirror those that imply a deterministic predictable system. Is it any surprise that those who have been told what to believe, and have accepted these believes without question, would apparently fulfill the predicted patterns of those who engineered the results in the first place? Can it be said that they allowed themselves to be the victims of a self-fulfilling prophecy by choice? Those that do break the mold have taken their destiny into their own hands and have refused to believe that the outcome of their life is set into stone. These cases tend to defy prediction. This would imply that a persons fate only acts in a deterministic framework if a conscious choice has been made to believe in some prescribed fate by the individual. Otherwise, all bets are off.

A pair of unskilled hands can be useful given an unskilled job, so what do you mean by that?


What can be said, remains the infinite amount of possibilities that exist when a person is born, despite the set of initial conditions that exist at the outset of a person’s life. Many would argue that given a person’s personality and background, when faced with a certain set of choices, the choice that is made is dictated by the predilection that is inherent in a person’s background and the way that they have been hard-wired to process information. Therefore, they never really had a choice, because the outcome of the choice was made a priori and independent from the actual thought process generated to decide between a spectrum of options. This thinking assumes that as a person’s life progresses choices are being continuously limited until no further choices are possible, as each choice which is determined by things like genetics, environment, and previous experience continues to eliminate future possibilities.

One could choose to look at it in this manner if they wanted, although I would argue that they are ignoring the reality of the situation in favor of a system of thinking the defies logic and ignores many key elements. First, why would humans possess the ability to reason, if it were nothing more than a mere illusion? The sole fact that we undergo a thought process to make a choice would point to the fact that real choices exist and humans have developed a complex set of tools by which to make the best choices for ourselves. That humans have developed a refined ability to make choices in perpetuity suggests that choices exist, and contradicts the very notion of determinism when dealing with human interactions with the universe. Secondly, the previous argument downplays the process of learning. The deterministic argument assumes that the learning process further limits our choices in the future rather than enhances them. In my experience, learning from the choices that I make opens the realm of possibilities, and does little to hinder my future prospects. Learning ensures that the choices I make in the future become more complex and educated because I now have more experience on which to draw from when faced with a decision. It doesn’t ensure that I will make a certain choice, but rather adds to the number of possibilities that I must calculate in order to make a decision when given a set of alternatives.

In addition, the determinist has little evidence to back up their assertion that human decision is preordained. They have never produced a shred of evidence to support their case. In fact, they ignore the fact that many people of similar backgrounds often choose different alternatives when given the same set of choices. In addition, they ignore the fact that the same person might make different decisions when faced with the same set of choices repeatedly. In fact, determinism seems to exist as an excuse for a person’s poor decision making, rather than a viable philosophical proposition. It is no accident that many that support the deterministic viewpoint also couple their philosophy with moral relativism. Like superstition, determinism exists as a reason to explain a person’s failings as a human being. How can a person be held accountable for their actions if they had no real choice in their decision-making, and if no metric exist by which to make value judgements regarding their behavior? Right and wrong is only defined by a person or a culture’s own perception, and furthermore they never had a choice in their actions. To me, these philosophies are attempts to declare war on human reason. It is a tool for those who seek dominion over the human mind. If you don’t have power over your own actions, then, of course, you won’t mind when someone else exerts power over you by force. Attacking reason is most often launched in conjunction with an attack on personal freedom.

It is true that the universe seems to obey the law of causality. Newtonian physics presented people with the idea that if all the initial conditions and the parameters of the universe were known in advance then it would be possible to predict the resulting behavior of the system. Many people have tried to use this justification to support the idea of a deterministic framework in the human sphere, while conveniently ignoring that Newtonian physics deals with inanimate matter, lacking cognizance, on a macro scale. It is much easier to predict behavior in the physical realm when dealing with classical mechanics. It is true that classical physics was largely thought to be completely deterministic. However, once we started dealing with matter on a very small scale and extremely high velocities and accelerations, classical mechanics began to break down. Our beliefs about the deterministic nature of the universe were fundamentally changed. We went from thinking that we were about to fully explain the universe, to understanding just how little we actually knew about it. It is thought that the laws of classical physics are the manifestation of quantum physics when applied to nature on a macro scale. There is much work being done to try to understand the correspondence between quantum mechanics and classical mechanics.

When we start looking at things on the quantum level the certainty with which we can speak about a phenomenon becomes less absolute. In fact, we start talking about things in terms of their certainty or probability. The cause and effect becomes less clear, as electrons are defined and characterized as travelling in certain orbital levels in terms of their probability distribution. As we pin down the exact location of an electron or photon, we lose precision and accuracy when trying to describe the wave’s momentum. Interestingly, many of the chemical interactions within the human mind are happening on the quantum level. Perhaps this accounts for the type of uncertainty that we see in a person’s behavior.

Furthermore, we do see order stemming from the apparent chaos of the universe. What is the probability of life forming and randomly reconfiguring their systems to find selective advantages, and them incorporating these adaptations to benefit future generations? What is the probability that this would happen to such an extent that complex organisms would develop with the ability to think and reason? The fact that this did happen suggests that nature might tend to favor systems of organization over pure randomness. However, does this organization merely increase the overall entropy of the system, and result in a greater potential for chaos? Perhaps the arrival of life introduced another method by which to drastically effect the universe and manipulate matter so the overall predictability of the universe is further complicated by yet another factor. How does the billiard ball model hold up when there are beings capable of interacting with the system with the potential to cause large-scale effects? Would such a deterministic model be able to predict the timing and impact of a nuclear device? Would it be able figure out the destruction of a planet in advance, or the emergence of an intelligent civilization? Would it be able to account for all the interactions such a life force might have with its surroundings? Out of order comes more chaos, as intelligent life is introduced. The thought of predicting the life cycle and behavior of an intelligent civilization is not a new one. In fact, the social sciences are very concerned with this issue, exclusively on our planet. The success of making predictions with thousands of years of historical background to draw upon still leaves much to be desired. When was the last time a political scientist accurately predicted a war without two nation states being on the absolute brink?

Lot's of assumptions about human beings valuing "success" above everything else so they "logically" act like psychopathic money gluttons. Who are you to make that assumption? A better question is what gives the ruling financial oligarchy the power to force me to act in a way so that I have to assume everything that they assume is important?


The reality of the matter remains. When the human factor is involved, behaviors are extremely sporadic and unpredictable. Looking at past patterns increases the likelihood of making accurate predictions for the future when the types of predictions being made are very general and somewhat obvious. This applies to human behavior over a large population or at the individual level, and does little to convince me that the behavior of complex life forms is deterministic. Furthermore, it is easy to look into the past and understand the connection and apparent reasoning of an individual or a society in retrospect. However, no method exists that will allow for very specific predictability of human behavior into the future. Finally, the paradigm shift that occurred with the advent of modern physics caused most logicians to abandon their deterministic views of the universe. Therefore, the case remains stronger for the existence of freewill. Not surprisingly, if enough information about a system and its past is known it becomes much more likely to notice certain patterns of behavior and apply that knowledge to predictions of future behavior. If the assertion remains unspecific and weakly stated, the probability of predictive success becomes higher. However, this hardly leads one to the conclusion that any type of behavior is a foregone conclusion. Besides, I like to think that I am in control of my own destiny, barring any catastrophic astronomical event.

Exactly, human beings are not "rational" economic calculators from birth, so why assume that we are now when we're "adults"? Because we're forced to "grow up"? That is we're forced to assume being a "rational" economic calculator where being "rational" means gaining the most "money" for yourself while fucking over everybody else is all that is important in "life"?

You assume too much.

[black magick hustla]

why do you guys even sacrifice precious minutes reading such a tiresome and long stream of regurgitated bullshit?

i mean general patton is one of those macho style right wingers with a military username that somehow cannot understand why it is unfair that children coming from immigrant workers have much less opportunities than his middle class ass.

http://epickid.com/kitty/happycat.jpg

y hello general :blush:

[Ol' Dirty]

Some people say that these complete nincompoops never had and never will have an opportunity.

Nincompoops? Fuck you, asshole. :angry:

Most young urban youth never do get a chance, because their parents came from mainly uneducated, poor, lower-class backgrounds. They don't stand a chance in a world that they don't understand. That is why they find themselves in ghetto's, crack-houses and brothels. They don't have any skills, thuisly they can't find work. If they can't find work, they can't sustain themselves. If they can't sustain themselves, they most cettainly find joy. Without joy, they will be sad and lonely whether they like it or not. They pass this down to their progeny, and, thusly, the cycele starts over again.


If there is one thing that can be said about the great country that I find myself living in, it is that we don't have an ascribed status.

Legaly no; socio-economically yes.


In America it is possible to go as far as your own imagination and ability will take you.

Not for a 19 year old meth addict single mother with three jobs that can barely make sustanance wage. Well, it is possible, but the odds are heavily stacked against her.


If you are creative and resourceful enough you can become a success.

Peaople aren't born with inherant traits other than the genetic ones perscribed to them. They learn about what they are exposed to. A person without creative parents won't be creative, thusly she wiill pass on her trait s throug her children.

[bezdomni]

Most young urban youth never do get a chance...
As opposed to what? Old urban youth? :P

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[General Patton]

Most young urban youth never do get a chance, because their parents came from mainly uneducated, poor, lower-class backgrounds. They don't stand a chance in a world that they don't understand. That is why they find themselves in ghetto's, crack-houses and brothels. They don't have any skills, thuisly they can't find work. If they can't find work, they can't sustain themselves. If they can't sustain themselves, they most cettainly find joy. Without joy, they will be sad and lonely whether they like it or not. They pass this down to their progeny, and, thusly, the cycele starts over again.

Precisely, the point I was making. You want to find excuses for these people and blame their failures on external factors, instead of laying the blame squarely where it belongs. The blame should be placed on those people who do not take advantage of the plethora of opportunities that exist in the world. If someone chooses not to try to understand the world around them, and allow their parent’s view that education is unimportant to influence their decision about whether or not they want to succeed at school, despite the fact that they can see, first hand, the benefit of an education, then their failure and lack of success is determined by that individual’s own choice. I disagree that a person has no other choice but to end up in the ghettos, crack-houses, and brothels. Once again, this is a choice that is made despite the knowledge that this lifestyle further contributes to their own decay. At some point, the individual made a choice that that person’s degeneracy was easier to live with than the hard work necessary to climb out of the rubble that they may have been born into. Leftists like to excuse this behavior, because they want it to continue to exist, so they can point at things like brothels, crack-houses, and ghettos as evidence that the capitalist system is failing the poor. When really, it is the poor who are failing themselves, their children, and a system that provides them with every opportunity to escape their miserable death-styles.


Legaly no; socio-economically yes.

Not socio-economically either. Whose stopping the poor from slinging burritos on the street and making enough profit to possibly invest in a more lucrative business that will provide their children with more opportunities than they, themselves, had? The answer is no one. The fact of the matter is this. Perhaps those people don’t take the initiative necessary to provide for their families because they would rather spend time further degrading themselves with drug use, promiscuous sex, and all the other debauchery that you seem to excuse and point to as joyful experiences for the people you are pretending to advocate. Maybe if you really cared, you would stop excusing these things and point to them as a possible source of the poor’s continued desperation.


Not for a 19 year old meth addict single mother with three jobs that can barely make sustanance wage. Well, it is possible, but the odds are heavily stacked against her.

So you think it’s okay for a mother to use meth because she can’t feed her child(ren). Doesn’t her use of meth take the precious little resources that she has away from her child(ren)? Doesn’t her involvement in that lifestyle make it impossible for her to care for her child(ren)? Isn’t she being entirely irresponsible for making a choice to do drugs rather than take care of her child(ren)? This is a failure on her part, and this is one instance where I would condone the state taking a person’s children away from them, at least until they can start making responsible decisions that do not effect the outcome of her child(ren) negatively. There is no excuse for this type of behavior, especially when you have children that depend upon you for support, both financially and emotionally. The odds are stacked against her because she made the choice to use drugs, not because of capitalism. Besides, I would like for you to demonstrate a case where a drug addict has been able to hold down three jobs. Most of them also make the choice not to work, as it interfers with the gratification that they seek in their own self-destruction.


Peaople aren't born with inherant traits other than the genetic ones perscribed to them. They learn about what they are exposed to. A person without creative parents won't be creative, thusly she wiill pass on her trait s throug her children.

There are many instances where children exhibit traits that their parents do not possess, including creativity. It’s true that the genetics and environment both play a factor in a person’s development. However, it is the choices a person makes and their attitude on life that most directly effects their life’s outcome, just as I have said.

[General Patton]

Of course, if you are so inclined, I'd like to see you use your superior argumentation to defeat what I have said here, Brooklyn Mecca. I notice that every time I have anything of substance to say you are no where to be seen. Shall we debate this?

[Entrails Konfetti]

Too long to read about pointless ramblings, could someone throw this in the trash?

[General Patton]

Of course you wouldn't care to debate it, because you are on the losing side.

[C_Rasmussen]

Its due to the closedminded capitalist dog-eat-dog conservative nature. People end up pathetic wretches due to having to live up to shitty standards and fashions and that sort of shit. Maybe if people wouldn't have to live up to society's standards and be able to live life freely maybe we wouldn't be so fucking miserable. Every consider that?

[General Patton]

Maybe if people wouldn't have to live up to society's standards and be able to live life freely maybe we wouldn't be so fucking miserable. Every consider that?

Who's stopping them from living how they want now? I must have missed that part. It seems to me that this sort of interference only happens in communist and/or fascist countries were the state dictates what people should be, think, feel, and believe. If this is your argument, wouldn't people be be even more miserable and wouldn't society be filled with more wretches because of communism, because now they are not only subject to cultural pressure to conform, but now they are being forced to conform at the point of a gun? Which type of pressure is more persuasive?

[C_Rasmussen]

Originally posted by General [email protected] 31 2006, 12:21 AM

Maybe if people wouldn't have to live up to society's standards and be able to live life freely maybe we wouldn't be so fucking miserable. Every consider that?

Who's stopping them from living how they want now? I must have missed that part. It seems to me that this sort of interference only happens in communist and/or fascist countries were the state dictates what people should be, think, feel, and believe. If this is your argument, wouldn't people be be even more miserable and wouldn't society be filled with more wretches because of communism, because now they are not only subject to cultural pressure to conform, but now they are being forced to conform at the point of a gun? Which type of pressure is more persuasive?
No actually you see its the fucking pressure to conform to the current standards, expectations, gender roles and that shit. Like people dont know when to shut the fuck up about how other people look. Cant have long hair without getting hassled. Can't look or act (so long as its not hurting anyone else) how you want without some shithead making a scene about it.

EDIT

My 500th post on here :D

[General Patton]

Yeah, I see that, as I have already acknowledged. My question to you was this. Wouldn't it be worse if you were actually forced to conform by the point of the gun, thereby elliminating that choice altogether? Would you rather have social and cultural pressure to conform, but still retain the right not to conform, al biet while facing some ridicule, or would you rather be forced to conform at the point of a gun, at the whim of a communist beauracrat? You're avoiding the question.