81 replies to this topic

[nep808]

I'm from Argentina and I'm not attached to any party at all. Obama is a disgusting f...ing joke, the guy is so clueless I actually feel sad for him. He is bankrupting your country, licking Ben Bernanke's Ass and ppointing Geithner so that he could burn as much taxpayer's money as possible, all while spending billions hunting Osama (LOL WTF) during super hard economic times he really doesn't know how to deal with. Good luck if you are from USA, you will need it with this guy in charge (or with any other idiot you may elect, democrat or republican).

Edited by maxwatt, 17 August 2010 - 11:27 PM.
There are better ways to contribute to the discussion that will encourage intelligent discussion, etc

[taakinan]

This is semantics. They have more seats in the house and senate. Like I said, if Obama is incapable of getting a handful of republicans to avoid being filibustered, then that's really pathetic.

Um, pathetic on the part of *whom*? Republicans will filibuster their own former proposals. Think about that. This is a partisan gridlock. Almost nothing can get done, which is a certain way to fail no matter which party controls the white house. I agree that it is pathetic that not even a handful of Republicans can be dissuaded from pure partisan opposition. :/

[ChromodynamicGirl]

The government is just an organized crime ring, a legal monopoly on security with unlimited power to decide all cases between itself and its 'clients'. I really don't understand how people think that institutionalizing robbery and murder is supposed to generate positive results.

Science is not a public good. Watch this video with Terence Kealey.

Whether it's Obama, or McCain, or Ron Paul, or Robocop - same shit, different name. The American Government is just a variant on Nazism and Communism, and worldwide democracy isn't much less deadly considering all the international warfare the American government has caused.

Edited by ChromodynamicGirl, 12 October 2010 - 01:11 AM.

[niner]

The government is just an organized crime ring, a legal monopoly on security with unlimited power to decide all cases between itself and its 'clients'. I really don't understand how people think that institutionalizing robbery and murder is supposed to generate positive results.

Science is not a public good. Watch this video with Terence Kealey.

Whether it's Obama, or McCain, or Ron Paul, or Robocop - same shit, different name. The American Government is just a variant on Nazism and Communism, and worldwide democracy isn't much less deadly considering all the international warfare the American government has caused.

Okay. So what would you propose to replace government?

[ChromodynamicGirl]

Okay. So what would you propose to replace government?

I don't propose 'replacing' it, I propose allowing customary law and markets to function; everything that actually works is due to these and not to some imagined boon granted by this combination 'protection' racket and priesthood.

[niner]

Okay. So what would you propose to replace government?

I don't propose 'replacing' it, I propose allowing customary law and markets to function; everything that actually works is due to these and not to some imagined boon granted by this combination 'protection' racket and priesthood.

What do you mean by customary law? You can't have free markets without rules, so if you want free markets, you need someone to enforce the rules.

[ChromodynamicGirl]

What do you mean by customary law? You can't have free markets without rules, so if you want free markets, you need someone to enforce the rules.

First of all, the supposition that this would have to be (or even could be) a centralized state is obviously historically wrong, when you look at modern international trade, arbitration agencies, credit agencies and various other agencies engaged in ranking and evaluating risks and carrying reputation information. Furthermore it ignores the fact that most property and contract agreements are decided privately in almost all circumstances with no reference to the State, and that people not only have an interest in maintaining these (for reputation, lack of better alternatives, costs of violence, etc) but that they also demonstrate clear tendencies to avoid state 'arbitration' and the court system. Beyond that it ignores well documented cases of stateless customary law, recognizing variant but extremely well developed methods of arbitration and dispute resolution across all of human history in every part of the globe; from ancient Germany to modern Somali tribes. It also ignores the extensively documented cases of pre-Christian Ireland and Iceland (whose murder rate, at its worst, was better than modern America's) and systems such as the Law Merchant and the various rules and norms between the members of the Hanseatic league - all of this with not only no State, but no overarching government (and sometimes no formal government at all).

Really, it isn't the person who proposes that customary law can and does function who has to offer justification - since if this were not possible there would never be wealth available to expropriate for the State to set itself up to begin with - but it is on those who support a centralized monopoly of force to argue how their 'system' could possibly work as anything other than a generator of social chaos and a mortal enemy to actual civil order. Beyond that the box people live in, with the notion that even if you needed a government it ought to be a modern nation-state operating through centralized statuatory law is ridiculous, and ignores the fact that almost every system of organization in human history was something else; take for example the multilateral polycentric systems of central europe for about 1200 years running; of which Liechtenstein is a modern example.

Forcible monopolies in security and law don't work any better than forcible monopolies in shoes, and those that imagine these are 'necessary' have absolutely no theoretical or historical grounds to stand upon. The state is a colossus with feet of clay, supported not because it is required but because people have been selectively propagandized and terrorized into it.

[Ghostrider]

It's simply the fact that all big organization (government, corporate, charity, religious, any big organization) has a tendency to grow corruption like a smoker has a tendency to grow cancer. The political system has done a very good job of selecting the most greedy and corrupt individuals to put in power.

Edited by Ghostrider, 12 October 2010 - 08:25 AM.

[ChromodynamicGirl]

It's simply the fact that all big organization (government, corporate, charity, religious, any big organization) has a tendency to grow corruption like a smoker has a tendency to grow cancer. The political system has done a very good job of selecting the most greedy and corrupt individuals to put in power.

A state organization is already, by design, the worst possible thing a corporation or other private entity could ever hope to be. On top of that, there is no market test; rather there is a selection for pro-state bias and willingness to violate the ordinary rules of civil conduct.

[niner]

What do you mean by customary law? You can't have free markets without rules, so if you want free markets, you need someone to enforce the rules.

First of all, the supposition that this would have to be (or even could be) a centralized state is obviously historically wrong, when you look at modern international trade, arbitration agencies, credit agencies and various other agencies engaged in ranking and evaluating risks and carrying reputation information.

Ok, this could work for some things, although the credit rating agencies failed spectacularly in the events leading up to the '08 meltdown.

Furthermore it ignores the fact that most property and contract agreements are decided privately in almost all circumstances with no reference to the State, and that people not only have an interest in maintaining these (for reputation, lack of better alternatives, costs of violence, etc) but that they also demonstrate clear tendencies to avoid state 'arbitration' and the court system.

But those contracts are drawn entirely in the context of a set of rules and enforcement mechanisms that are the purview of a state. If there were no state, then what would stop me from reneging on a contract, hired guns? That's probably how it would go, and I would prefer the guns to be held by people were acting under a set of rules, rather than on their own.

Beyond that it ignores well documented cases of stateless customary law, recognizing variant but extremely well developed methods of arbitration and dispute resolution across all of human history in every part of the globe; from ancient Germany to modern Somali tribes. It also ignores the extensively documented cases of pre-Christian Ireland and Iceland (whose murder rate, at its worst, was better than modern America's) and systems such as the Law Merchant and the various rules and norms between the members of the Hanseatic league - all of this with not only no State, but no overarching government (and sometimes no formal government at all).

It's telling that all the examples seem to be from ancient times or... Somalia. I think the modern world is too complicated to exist without some form of state. If you plucked a hundred thousand people up and deposited them on an island, they would quickly form a state of their own. Anywhere you go, you will find mini-states, i.e. cities, townships, boroughs, counties and the like. This happens for a reason; entities like this are able to create the kinds of societies that people want to live in.

Really, it isn't the person who proposes that customary law can and does function who has to offer justification - since if this were not possible there would never be wealth available to expropriate for the State to set itself up to begin with -

Societies with clear rules, transparency, and enforcement mechanisms generate more wealth than societies that lack them. Any international investor will corroborate this.

[chris w]

Forcible monopolies in security and law don't work any better than forcible monopolies in shoes, and those that imagine these are 'necessary' have absolutely no theoretical or historical grounds to stand upon. The state is a colossus with feet of clay, supported not because it is required but because people have been selectively propagandized and terrorized into it.

Everyone who's in favor of "demonopolizing guns" should check out the state of affairs in the Mexican state of Sinaloa under the watchful eye of senor Chapo Guzman - a weak government being replaced by a strong drug cartel. I'm not so sure that a typical Mexican farmer has the means to just hop on a plane and start his life over somewhere else if he doesn't want to do what the gang tells him to do, and not like he can buy himself a pistol and fight with mafia, so it's undeniably better for him to be under a political body that's at least subject to international pressure and signed deals and, uhm, doesn't chop heads off for disobiedence. But I have a feeling that I will now hear the "But it's the government that is the biggest mafia in the world" routine.


Plus that Somalia thing - a traditional customary law may perhaps work the more well the more we are talking about simple barter economies with little numbers of affected actors, like - you cannot fake your cows into looking more healthy and robust than they are or that you have more of them than you really do. And if somebody does wrong to his customers, they simply won't buy from him again, the damage done affects only the bad provider, there aren't any serious colateral damages to the uninvolved.
The more you go in time and development, the more these things change, as the latest crisis was pretty much about couple of folks lying for years that their "cows" are healthy when they weren't, but they were able to have been doing that as long as the "cows" were on the move. I don't think the Xeer law system would be doing that good if Somalia were to house NASDAQ operations.

On Iceland the murder rate might have been low, because you needed to travel a lot to actually meet a lot of people you could have a quarel with, you cannot possibly compare this by any measure to a modern multiethnic society with large income disparities.
In today's Japan the murder rate is also low compared to US, but it has a bit to do with the formidable power Yakuza has, they simply aim to keep the streets clean from any little fishes. But I doubt the Japanese would prefer that Yakuza become a kind of a second "police" next to the tax funded one even if the latter not always performs to the best of its abilities. You don't have an influence on who's the boss of a mafia and they don't really undergo referenda too often, but you can do all that with a government and indirectly with its institutions like the law enforcement. But I sense another routine coming - "You thing you have a real say on who's in charge ? Keep dreaming !".

Edited by chris w, 12 October 2010 - 06:02 PM.

[ChromodynamicGirl]

Ok, this could work for some things, although the credit rating agencies failed spectacularly in the events leading up to the '08 meltdown.

The whole meltdown occured in the first place due to political regulations and huge, direct interferences like credit expansion under the Federal Reserve. This, again, was something that was not allowed to function.

If there were no state, then what would stop me from reneging on a contract, hired guns?

In the first order, all the things that normally do, that people live in some sort of civil order and gain benefits from it, and if not prevented from doing so can be expelled or forcibly kept in line by the people around them. In the second order, the same thing that did in almost every stateless society that has ever existed from Iceland to Pre-Federal California, a well established system of torts and, in certain cases, the use of organized force.

I think the modern world is too complicated to exist without some form of state.

Quite the opposite. While it is possible, though not desirable, to manage a simple agricultural barter community via practices like force and slavery it is impossible for such an epistemically blind, motivationally self-absorbed and feedbackless entity to even comprehend the simplest corner of the market structure of civil society, much less manage it.

Societies with clear rules, transparency, and enforcement mechanisms generate more wealth than societies that lack them.

Which is exactly why we should abolish all states, which hinder these things to a degree which is almost comical if it weren't so tragic. I can easily tell you, despite never having been a member of the society, what the laws of a Germanic Thing system were in great approximation, enough so that I would be quite suprised I had broken any norm and even in that case it would probably be something piddly like we make our boundries along rivers and not hedges. On the other hand the greatest lawyer in the world can not possibly tell you when you have or have not broken the law, his job is simply to avoid the unlimited number of cases where you have broken the incoherent, endless and contradictory statuates that do exist (or, if he is the prosecuter, to simply find one of these and nail you on it).

[JLL]

Damn, that was well put. My kinda girl.

[ChromodynamicGirl]

Damn, that was well put. My kinda girl.

Be careful, I'm already arrogant enough as it is.

[taakinan]

The whole meltdown occured in the first place due to political regulations and huge, direct interferences like credit expansion under the Federal Reserve. This, again, was something that was not allowed to function.

The accepted review by most people, including economists, politicians, and everyone else, is that this happened due to lack of regulations, can you explain why you think the exact opposite?

In the first order, all the things that normally do, that people live in some sort of civil order and gain benefits from it, and if not prevented from doing so can be expelled or forcibly kept in line by the people around them. In the second order, the same thing that did in almost every stateless society that has ever existed from Iceland to Pre-Federal California, a well established system of torts and, in certain cases, the use of organized force.

That is not very reassuring. I have no idea about "pre-federal California" or Iceland, so I cannot judge these examples, but are you saying these alone prove anything about the security in a society of basic anarchy?

Which is exactly why we should abolish all states, which hinder these things to a degree which is almost comical if it weren't so tragic. I can easily tell you, despite never having been a member of the society, what the laws of a Germanic Thing system were in great approximation, enough so that I would be quite suprised I had broken any norm and even in that case it would probably be something piddly like we make our boundries along rivers and not hedges. On the other hand the greatest lawyer in the world can not possibly tell you when you have or have not broken the law, his job is simply to avoid the unlimited number of cases where you have broken the incoherent, endless and contradictory statuates that do exist (or, if he is the prosecuter, to simply find one of these and nail you on it).

I think when he said society with clear rules he meant the ones in the US and other countries which have a defined legal system upheld by a government. If you are saying an anarchy would have more clear rules and enforcement mechanisms, that is a bit of a head scratcher.

I get the idea from other people of your type (free market/anarchy solves all) that you think the simple adjustment mechanisms in small environments can be extrapolated to large nations. You seem to ignore the potential for abuses of free market and how such a society would necessarily evolve into one of social imbalance (e.g., the evolution of a small aristocracy with the majority of people being born into inescapable poverty, for one).

The idea of abolishing states is obviously really radical. It is a huge experiment that risks the security of all society and has the potential to set everyone back for *generations* if it fails. I really have no doubt that the quality of life in such a society, particularly in advancement of science and social equality, would look medieval compared to what an organized state can provide.

[ChromodynamicGirl]

I recommend reading Lon L. Fuller ( http://www.libertari...an/legan022.pdf ) - and Anthony de Jasay's work on jurisprudence and liberties (such as Justice and Its Surroundings).
I find it quite curious that all the people who doubt the viability of stateless jurisprudence have almost entirely never read anything about customary law or even stateless societies which make up the vast bulk of human history (the modern centralized State dates to around the Treaty of Westphalia in majority). People just spout nonsense they heard in highschool civics without the slightest knowledge of the subjects of law or economics; which is funny since many law students and economists take customary law quite more seriously than the ignorant, reflexive statists on the 'net.

If it seems like I have a low opinion of most people's political savvy, it's because I do. Social signaling games and tropes; lies and nonsense. Creationists with a more popular myth.

Edited by ChromodynamicGirl, 13 October 2010 - 03:25 PM.

[ChromodynamicGirl]

The accepted review by most people, including economists, politicians, and everyone else, is that this happened due to lack of regulations, can you explain why you think the exact opposite?

Because they're lackeys of the state priesthood and a bunch of liars, or outright ignorant. If you want to learn economics in general and the specific issues of the new depression, I recommend checking out some real economics like mises.org. I am not going to reproduce reams of economic theory just because you won't read on your own. I am not concerned with convincing you if that's the case. Unlike most libertarian-leaning people, I have no prosthelytizing desire; other people aren't my problem.

Anyways, I don't argue with religious people. I have more entertaining ways to waste my time. Continue believing that some nonsense-mumbling thug is necessary for your salvation if you want. You deserve what you get.

Edited by ChromodynamicGirl, 13 October 2010 - 03:30 PM.

[chris w]

The accepted review by most people, including economists, politicians, and everyone else, is that this happened due to lack of regulations, can you explain why you think the exact opposite?

Because they're lackeys of the state priesthood and a bunch of liars, or outright ignorant. If you want to learn economics in general and the specific issues of the new depression, I recommend checking out some real economics like mises.org. I am not going to reproduce reams of economic theory just because you won't read on your own. I am not concerned with convincing you if that's the case. Unlike most libertarian-leaning people, I have no prosthelytizing desire; other people aren't my problem.

Anyways, I don't argue with religious people. I have more entertaining ways to waste my time. Continue believing that some nonsense-mumbling thug is necessary for your salvation if you want. You deserve what you get.

Ha, gotcha, ChromodynamicGirl, you're Alex Libman who died in an FBI shootout and incarnated into a female

( Check out his past posts if you want, his manichean rhetoric eats yours for breakfast )

[Elus]

Ha, gotcha, ChromodynamicGirl, you're Alex Libman who died in an FBI shootout and incarnated into a female

( Check out his past posts if you want, his manichean rhetoric eats yours for breakfast )

[ChromodynamicGirl]

( Check out his past posts if you want, his manichean rhetoric eats yours for breakfast )

I'm not Manichean, I don't even believe in morality. Government is just retarded nonsense that exploits atavistic herd behavior, just like religion and weird racialist bullshit. Anyone who thinks government 'works' is either a sadist, a wanna-be puppetmaster or doesn't know what they're talking about. If I was an awesome liar and totally uninterested in saying things that made sense, I'd become a bureaucrat, too. Long-distance legalized robbery is easy money.

[Elus]

( Check out his past posts if you want, his manichean rhetoric eats yours for breakfast )

I'm not Manichean, I don't even believe in morality. Government is just retarded nonsense that exploits atavistic herd behavior, just like religion and weird racialist bullshit. Anyone who thinks government 'works' is either a sadist, a wanna-be puppetmaster or doesn't know what they're talking about. If I was an awesome liar and totally uninterested in saying things that made sense, I'd become a bureaucrat, too. Long-distance legalized robbery is easy money.

And you're also delusional if you believe that any of the scientific advancements or achievements of mankind could have been achieved without the collaborative social contract that is promoted by government.

People form groups. ----> Government created from the woodwork. Pretty easy to see why government exists.

Edited by Elus, 13 October 2010 - 09:39 PM.

[Brafarality]

Extremely well put. Me and my better half jumped up and down for an hour after Obama was elected.
As for specifics, compared to a true radical, Obama is still very much mainstream, but he has to be: he is gently porting us around icebergs and creating improvements and is doing the best he can while captaining an enormous vessel that will not respond to anything too unusual, but, with enough seemingly conventional changes over time, will become an even more powerful craft.
He is using the language of convention to help write a new language.
I like him more than any other politician, ever. I even have a man-crush on him!
He is just beyond efficacious and way cool as well.
He fills me with patriotism. I have always been patriotic, though never ever ever in the redneck flag-waving style. More in the enlightenment mode, a la Jefferson, Locke, Rousseau and other enlightened minds and how they were visionaries when vision was scary, and started a revolution, polluting the tyrannical airwaves.

[I am not sure why I write in such an IQ-lite way. It actually disturbs me sometimes cause I guide my hands very little and let them type what they want, and it always comes out TOO naive and simplistic, not that either is totally bad on every occasion, but sometimes scholarship and rich expository prose is more suitable, which I am very capable of and utilize all the time when in 'research paper mode', but, most of the time I guess my mind is lazy and I am in 'lite mode'. oh well. let it stand]

Cheers allz.

[chris w]

I'm not Manichean, I don't even believe in morality.

Fair enough, so on what grounds do you judge anything at all ? If it's only about "how will it affect me ?", that's not really a philosophy, is it? That's just called "being twenty - something", not anything that could be an objective source of rules for human society. By "manichean" I meant black and white mode of thinking, which is exactly characteristic of a religious view of reality.

Government is just retarded nonsense that exploits atavistic herd behavior, just like religion and weird racialist bullshit. Anyone who thinks government 'works' is either a sadist, a wanna-be puppetmaster or doesn't know what they're talking about. If I was an awesome liar and totally uninterested in saying things that made sense, I'd become a bureaucrat, too.

Which government ? The North Korean one or the Canadian one ? You really think that those free roaming Somalians would be worse off given an opportunity to undergo a proffesional training of their choosing and with a safety net to fall back on, instead of having the "opportunity" to fish for sharks and become pirates under the rule of violent, competing militias where there's plenty of room for all sorts of brute, atavistic behaviour and might makes right ? I don't say "government works", just like I don't say "hammers work", it sometimes does, sometimes doesn't, there are ways to ensure the former takes place.

I gave you an example of what happens in the year 2010 ( as opposite to 1000 years ago ) when the state violence monopoly in Mexico got weak enough for "the other guys" to jump in. Tell me, how is that better for the Sinaloans than the previous situation ? What is the libertarian proposition here ? Buy them all guns ?

Long-distance legalized robbery is easy money.

Indeed, Big Corp has learned that lesson very fast

Edited by chris w, 13 October 2010 - 11:15 PM.

[ChromodynamicGirl]

People form groups. ----> Government created from the woodwork.

Nonsense. Rotary clubs and community watch groups are not government.
This is banal. I'm done here.

[JLL]

And you're also delusional if you believe that any of the scientific advancements or achievements of mankind could have been achieved without the collaborative social contract that is promoted by government.

People form groups. ----> Government created from the woodwork. Pretty easy to see why government exists.

That's right, it was the bureaucrat who gave us fire and the wheel.

[medicineman]

The accepted review by most people, including economists, politicians, and everyone else, is that this happened due to lack of regulations, can you explain why you think the exact opposite?

Because they're lackeys of the state priesthood and a bunch of liars, or outright ignorant. If you want to learn economics in general and the specific issues of the new depression, I recommend checking out some real economics like mises.org. I am not going to reproduce reams of economic theory just because you won't read on your own. I am not concerned with convincing you if that's the case. Unlike most libertarian-leaning people, I have no prosthelytizing desire; other people aren't my problem.

Anyways, I don't argue with religious people. I have more entertaining ways to waste my time. Continue believing that some nonsense-mumbling thug is necessary for your salvation if you want. You deserve what you get.

Real economics like Mises.org? lol.

A lackey is someone who would say the following:

"Economic theories can never be verified or falsified by reference to facts. All that we can and must verify is the presence of our assumptions in the particular case" Google who said that and you will know.

Your imaginary reams of economic theory wouldn't make it past The Reptoids Research Center.

Your sexual attraction to pre-Federal California or Medieval Iceland is as convincing as the Marxist obsession with the Paris commune or the Spanish revolution. You claim that governments are only a recent phenomena, precisely as old as the treaty of Westphalia. Based on this, you denounce the state labelling it as a modern abberation? Relatively speaking, the state is as old as the concept of private property. I can make the same claim if I was in the mood to make claims.

".......As for one of the basic underpinnings of violence in more complex societies, Barnes (1970) found that "reports in the ethnographic literature of territorial struggles" between gatherer-hunters are "extremely rare." !Kung boundaries are vague and undefended (Lee 1979); Pandaram territories overlap, and individuals go where they please (Morris 1982); Hazda move freely from region to region (Woodburn 1968); boundaries and trespass have little or no meaning to the Mbuti (Turnbull 1966); and Australian Aborigines reject territorial or social demarcations (Gumpert 1981, Hamilton 1982). An ethic of generosity and hospitality takes the place of exclusivity (Steward 1968, Hiatt 1968). Gatherer-hunter peoples have developed "no conception of private property," in the estimation of Kitwood (1984). As noted above in reference to sharing, and with Sansom's (1980) characterization of Aborigines as "people without property," foragers do not share civilization's obsession with externals.

"Mine and thine, the seeds of all mischief, have no place with them," wrote Pietro (1511) of the native North Americans encountered on the second voyage of Columbus. The Bushmen have "no sense of possession," according to Post (1958), and Lee (1972) saw them making "no sharp dichotomy between the resources of the natural environment and the social wealth." There is a line between nature and culture, again, and the non-civilized choose the former.

There are many gatherer-hunters who could carry all that they make use of in one hand, who die with pretty much what they had as they came into the world. Once humans shared everything; with agriculture, ownership becomes paramount and a species presumes to own the world. A deformation the imagination could scarcely equal.

Sahlins (1972) spoke of this eloquently: "The world's most primitive people have few possessions, but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all, it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilization........."





And Alex was much more interesting I must say. All libertarians pale when compared to him. Much respect

Edited by medicineman, 14 October 2010 - 03:01 PM.

[chris w]

And you're also delusional if you believe that any of the scientific advancements or achievements of mankind could have been achieved without the collaborative social contract that is promoted by government.

People form groups. ----> Government created from the woodwork. Pretty easy to see why government exists.

That's right, it was the bureaucrat who gave us fire and the wheel.

Well, the first monkey man to approach fire was probably an individual with a deficiency of survival instinct, I bet he got eaten by something few days later, so instead of any particular social devices we should just give some credit to fortunate morons for pushing our kind farther at the dawn of time.
All the very first discoveries would have been made the same even if cavemen were filling tax forms for the cave boss all day, they reside more in the "lucky shot" category granted by evolution in the brain/manual capacities, not some pre Randian instincts of personal assiduity.

Ancient monuments weren't built by free traders either. If not for the existence of ruling classess and clergy in absence of universal education, who would have the time to devote to mathematics and stuff ?

( Not an argument for despotism, just to argue it's not been all that clear cut in history as "no freedom = no progress" )

Edited by chris w, 14 October 2010 - 04:24 PM.

[JLL]

Most ancient monuments were built by the blood of slaves, so fuck monuments.

But if you disagree, feel free to become my slave and start building a shrine in my honor. I have a few bricks laying around, that should get you started.

[rwac]

Ancient monuments weren't built by free entrepreneurs either last time I checked, quite the opposite even.

Well, monuments generally are not very useful. They're created to glorify someone or something, generally a priest or a king. Civilizations tend to be judged by their monuments, because they last a long time, not because they were useful at all in any way.

Edited by rwac, 14 October 2010 - 04:19 PM.

[chris w]

Most ancient monuments were built by the blood of slaves, so fuck monuments.

But if you disagree, feel free to become my slave and start building a shrine in my honor. I have a few bricks laying around, that should get you started.

But you're not the son of Ra, are you ? If no, forget it.