Date sent: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 09:27:19 -0700 (PDT)

The parts Roger has written are in italics. The parts Toby has written are in normal text. 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Toby: >> If you mean they didn't use violence from day one, i agree; if you mean manipulation and a touch of violence (creating riots, diseminating self-serving lies isn't "taking" power) ... ok they got elected though trickery and a promise to do violence to innocents rather than "taking it".

Roger: In any population, at any time, there are always some people willing to conduct this kind of chicanery to gain power. The question I have asked (and you may want to ask yourself) is when does this kind of chicanery succeed? And conversely, under what circumstances does it fail? When will a community support this kind of chicanery, and when will it rebuke these sleeze-balls as too low-life to even be a politician?

Can using the good-and-evil axis as a model of prediction give you a good answer?

Roger, the good and evil axis is not a predictive tool; there is no logic to your question or assertion,

the valid question is: What stops evil (or whatever Hitler and Stalin were) from doing more harm than good over centuries? what are the tides of "good" times and "bad" times if not a battle between good and bad/evil?

When I was younger, I used the good-and-evil axis as my model for prediction, just as you are doing now.

NO it is not predictive.

What I found was I could never produce good explanations of what people did, or good predictions of what people would do. The "bad guys" never acted like they were supposed to.

After years of watching this good-evil model fail to explain bad guy actions very well, I started researching the world using the cooperator-defector axis as my view point, and I found the results much more satisfying. I found I could predict peoples' actions much better! An example of the predictive value I've gained is what I wrote about the 9-11 Disaster, in the days and months after it happened. Look at the dates on those articles.

The good and evil axis may be a comfortable one from which to view the actions of mankind, but it's not very useful as a predictive tool of what actions people will take. That's why I prefer the alternatives I've been developing.

Well, i am not surprised you gave it up as a predictive tool, wasn't ever meant to be such a thing? I am facinated, though, what made you think it would predict?

Date sent: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 18:17:41 -0700 (PDT)

No afterlife: does it matter what happens to our children? why

no sentient god -- where did the u come from, first cause isn't new to you.

Religion is not the root, only virtue keeps cruelty in check, and virtue is from god (natural law at its root) natural law is an involved god.

those who profess religion can be lying --- Osama? Hitler? Etc. They field followers who are EDUCATED, HAVE MONEY, but are frustrated.

the cooperative concept is a misnomer and proved as self-distructive over and over: freedom rules, not even democracy is necessary, a king can offer freedom and a judiciary. the strange mix between freedom and self interest is what stimulates progress since it computes the wants of the people so fast and over such a wide spectrum, unlike central planning which tells people what they want/need (hello shortages and food lines)

this too is based upon the dignity of the human and virtue to hold greed and cruelty in check You see, the non-religious conduct is from natural law (god).

things other than power -- not ultimately the other things you mention are adjectives not conduct

totalitarianism occurs many times when a guy (group) grabs power, there is always stress -- darn that fallen state, there is no nirvana on earth.

totalitarianism is on the rise, mideast, china, east-central africa, kosovo. its about power and mass murder or oppression, not tv.

Einstein himself said his scientific inquiry lead him to coclude there was intelligent design and a benevolent god at that.

predictive value: if the laws of nature aren't "intelligently designed" you face promethian pagan nonsense, and science can't exist, ie., pre-christian science -- yuk

so what if there is a physical continuum?

soul: I asked you first,

moreover, no proof of soul? no proof of evolution!

evolution has huge problems, to wit:

1) precambrian explosion

2) fossile record is complete (even for softies)

3) DNA and molecular phylogeny - wrong again. Life recovering and and diversifying is descent with modification -- not new speicies; also you are wrong about the little guys there is a very good record on them in fossils.

 

The parts Roger has written are in italics. The parts Toby has written are in normal text. 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36