Soup forgot his password

What do you mean you're not "saying what is or isnt republican or democratic values/politics?"And I didnt ask you "What similarities are there between Obama and Bush2" as George Bush is not representative of republicans. I asked you to "please explain the correlation between Obama and the republican party." I suggested that you compare Obama to republican and democratic presidents. You've so far made a hash of comparing him to one republican president. They both like football, does that make Obama a republican? His approval ratings were low across the board between democrats and republicans, so how are you claiming he was their darling? And how does this tie into your point? Sidenote: CIA reports indicate insufficient funding for intelligence gathering in the middle east during the cold war's "politically unpopular years" of Bush1's and Clinton's Canidacy. Clinton cut a lot of funding for the CIA, which lead to a number of gaps in intelligence that allowed for Bin Laden to completely slip the radar until after 9/11. Bush was more willing to listen to Langley for advice. Not suggesting he was a good or bad president, but those are the cold hard facts. And my question still remains: Does this support your claim, and if it does, how? You seem to be saying it doesn't. The bush tax cuts are completely different than the economic stimulus bill in 2008. Like COMPLETELY different in every way. They share absolutely no resemblance to one another and Obama has NOT supported any of Bush's tax cuts. Congress hasnt formally declared war since world war II. The war in Afghanistan and Iraq has gone on since the 70's. When a politician goes back on a promise, how's that make him a republican? How does an increase in the use of drones mean a president "favors" warfare? Was there no war before drones and now there is? Or how about just an increase in war? Was there even that? How do you even quantify a statement like this? You're trying to be clever in the way you twist things around but it doesn't change the fact that your point makes NO sense. You can't compare two totally different things. The bush tax cuts and the economic stimulus bill of 2008 are completely different things. Was there a point or a serious question somewhere in there? What do you mean "don't get ahead of yourself?" How long have you been on 12oz? If you've been here as long as I have you remember contributors like Dawood and Smart who were far more intelligent than me. They would probably make you angry for "smartening up" crossfire, except that they werent the exception to the rule, they were the rule, and everyone else had to get on their level before you could discuss things. If your goal here is to dumb down Crossfire, keep it up.

I was curious what Poli 109 was and the only college I found to teach it was at BrookDale community college in Lincroft New Jersey. So to answer your question, no. This is not poli 109. Healthcare Reform is the "lesser of two evils,". Fun reading for the day on logical fallacies "Excluded Middle: The excluded middle assumes that only one of two ridiculous extremes is possible, when in fact a much more moderate middle-of-the-road result is more likely and desirable. An example of an excluded middle would be an argument that either every possible creation story should be taught in schools, or none of them. These two possibilities sound frightening, and may persuade people to choose the lesser of two evils and allow religious creation stories to be taught alongside science. In fact, the much more reasonable excluded middle, which is to teach science in science classes and religion in religion classes, is not offered. The excluded middle is formally called reductio ad absurdum, reduction to the absurd. Bertrand Russell famously illustrated how an absurd premise can be fallaciously used to support an argument: Starling says: "Given that 1 = 0, prove that you are the Pope." Bombo replies: "Add 1 to both sides of the equation: then we have 2 = 1. The set containing just me and the Pope has 2 members. But 2 = 1, so it has only 1 member; therefore, I am the Pope." Just keep in mind that if your opponent is presuming extremes that are absurd, he is excluding the less absurd middle. Don't fall for it." I'll just go line-by-line for your suggested similarities between Obama and GWB: George Bush Jr. Was a moderate republican, not a republican and does not reflect the values of the republican party on the whole. How exactly is the patriot act republican? The groundwork of the patriot act was already laid by Bill Clinton's administration. Do you think he's a Republican too? The "Bush tax cuts" as the name suggests were made by George Bush Jr. not Obama. What's your point? "The wars that Obama wouldn't of voted for?" I don't know, you tell me. Then you tell me how you know. Then tell me what war was ever elected by votes. What wars has Obama started during his presidency? None. Then again Bush didnt start the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. All that bullshit goes back to the mid 1970's. Raegan, Bush1, Clinton, and Bush all subsequently had a role in it. Is your point that Obama supposedly condones Guantanamo or that politicians don't do everything they promise? And what parts of that are specifically Republican? What do unmanned drones have to do with republicans, democrats, or a correlation between Bush2 and Obama? It wasnt a corporate bailout. It was a government stimulus. It was a loan given to companies who didnt have the liquidity/access to funds they needed to get through the bursting of the housing bubble. The stimulus was aimed at places that would affect people's jobs, education, and infrastructure. It resulted in a calculable increase in GDP and overall wealth in this country. But again, what's that have to do with Bush, or the Republican Party? You think he's a republican because he "took a while" on the subject of gay marriage? What do you mean by "gun control" and, again, how does that tie into your statement that "Obama is basically a republican." "In the past four years not alot has changed," for you personally. Is this a logical argument? And again, how does this make Obama a republican?" How does "meet and greets with celebrities" quantify president Obama as a republican, or what I know you're trying to say, as a good president? Every president since the advent of the television hasn't just met with celebrities. They've BEEN celebrities. And the choices for canidates this year will ALSO be celebrities. You'll voting for who has he most stage presence on a fucking television, not the validity of their ideas. I'm guessing you don't even care about that as you've failed to understand the differences of even the democrat and republican ideologies, or why Obama chose not to close guantanamo, or how Bush tax cuts and The 2008 Economic Stimulus Bill differ in economic and political theory.

That is an astute question... Because as we all know the best decisions humanity has ever made were prefaced by one guy saying, "You got a better idea?" Please explain the correlation between obama and the republican party or any other president elected to represent the right wing. Alternatively you can try explaining the differences between obana and previous democrat presidents.

God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens

There were a huge number of publications in 1776—Pamphlets, books, newspapers—The wealth of knowledge hasn't changed since then. The technology we use to communicate has, but has the telegraph lead to more knowledge? No. It only lead to an ideology of "speed" which has lead to us first marveling and now accepting an accelerated volley of useless fragmented information. Novelty news or "news of today" has replaced "news" entirely. Also, like I said before, thinking takes time. You can't speed up learning. "Speed" simply adds to confusion. First the telegraph, then the penny papers, then the radio, then the tv, and now the internet have only served to irreversibly change public discourse from what it was in the 17th century and early 18th century: Rational, logical, poignant, and focused on things that actually mattered to the daily lives of readers. Point being is that TED does not distribute MORE information than they had in 1776. People are creating robots now, so the fuck what? Does TED ever take the time to explain how this constant need for technology is healthy? Hell no, because TED isnt interested in a public discourse about why technology is good. It just assumes it's good, because if it didnt then people would question the value of TED and the internet and very possibly turn that shit off. People didnt buy Thomas Paine's pamphlet because the printed word was a new novelty and they had to have one. Common Sense didnt obtain such popularity because it was sitting alone on every bookshelf. Consumers weren't screaming for Barnes and Nobel to open so they could buy the newest edition of harry potter. Conspicuous consumption didn't exist. These were people who feared the possibility of a famine and purchased goods only when it was in their self-interest to do so. Common Sense was one of the most culturally significant books ever written. Its logic is sound. It's argument is inspirational. It compels the reader to do something about a problem you can see right outside your doorstep. Even today it's one of the best reads you can have. I've posted it in the book section because it's so good. But no, EVERYBODY was reading and writing. There was no shortage of writing on book shelves and at speakeasy's. I'm reluctantly running through a lot of ideas at high speed because this is the internet and the internet doesnt always allow for long discussions. My battery is also at 2%, which doesnt allow for long discussions either. Finally, the point i find the most interesting in your post: What practical reason is there for buying a fast car? There isn't one. Buying a race car—on a budget or otherwise—is an irrational decision. You want to buy a car that's fast for the emotion you get in owning it. Emotion undermines rational behavior, which by definition of terms would mean it's an "irrational" behavior. A rational consumer would take the bus, move closer to work, and realize that highways are the untenable constructs of a society gone mad and petition for a change in city planning/insist on a less volatile infrastructure. Edit: And as far as the rest of your example. You haven't deduced anything. All you've described is a man that stated he's been swayed by the power of emotion and then ends up not pursuing an impulse. That's the end of the scenario. It would've been irrational for him to buy a car simply because it's fast and he can afford it.

While you think TED reaches a broader audience, this is not true. Books held a monopoly on public discourse in the 17th and 18th century and everyone simply read books. 1 in 3 Americans bought the first best seller in the first year of its publishing. Thats an audience TED only wishes it could attain. Also, the problem we have today where everything NEEDS to be entertaining didn't exist in the 17th and 18th century and therefor we didnt have this need to simplify the entirety of human knowledge into a 14 minute burlesque show and still call it "knowledge." Entertainment doesn't allow for serious disquisition. It doesnt allow for real analysis. It doesn't allow for rational thought. The written word however DOES allow for those things and is the reason why since the age of Plato and Aristotle we've relied on the printed word for all matters regarding serious discourse. And I think this might help: ir·ra·tion·al   [ih-rash-uh-nl] adjective 1. without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason. 2. without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment. 3. not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical: irrational arguments. 4. not endowed with the faculty of reason: irrational animals. Rational means conscious, objective, logical reasoning. Lets not confuse rationality with irrationality. If you want to argue that people are not capable of rationality, fine, but the word doesn't change definition.

Once again, McLovin, the point is somewhat lost on you. I'm not insulting you. I'm not saying you don’t have the capacity to understand. I'm just saying you don't understand. Things can’t be summarized into a sentence. There is no way to condense that essay into a single sentence. So yes, I do have to write an entire essay, just as Spambot has to write out an entire essay to refute it. That’s how communication works. Spambot, I'll concede to you that the DVR may have changed the way we watch TV, but the content being watched are still just TV shows. Every TV show still has to work on a broadcast network so the information is still the same. It would be interesting to see a TV series that’s, “Made for On Demand,” and if that significantly differs from broadcast television. And I’ll concede that the Internet may allow for more communication, more ideas, and more information than television, but is that information truly better? Even on TED they have TV-like limitations for each lecture. Each presenter has about 14 minutes to speak and show images in hopes of persuading everyone that their idea is important, but ask yourself, what are they using to persuade you with? Are you receiving complete information in those 14 minutes? I would argue no, of course not. At most a TED presenter can cite an excerpt from their whole work alongside a video clip from a whole film, but there is still no way for a presenter to condense years of information into a 14-minute lecture. In fact 14 minutes is hardly a lecture at all. I think TED itself might concede this point as they prefer the term, “TED talks.” In the end all that has been accomplished is a waste of 14 minutes that could’ve been spent reading the book, which you would have to do anyway. TED is not for learning. It’s entertainment. It’s designed for the “casual learner,” someone who can’t be bothered to pick up a book, but if they learn something while watching a TV show, then it’s fine. My point is this: Thinking takes time. There is no way to "condense" information into a 14-minute YouTube video or a 30-minute TV show. The television and the Internet present an ideology of "speed," but you're not getting MORE information faster, you're just getting fragmented information thrown at you. The television has changed the very definition of "information" to "bits of data." What does that even mean, "bits of data,” And does it really have the same connotation as “information?” I apologize if I missed your underlying point in your 3rd paragraph but I’ll try responding to it. Yes, today’s college graduates have a higher level of reading and writing than today’s high school graduates. Yes, it does seem as though we have more college graduates today than we did in previous times. If we assume a college education is at least as good as it used to be, we can assume that America is more well read than it has ever been. This just isn’t true. Students who've grown up in an age of television have a harder time getting through schools. Teachers compete with other teachers to make education "fun" and "entertaining" while sacrificing core cirriculums. The undergraduate program across the country has been gutted academically and replaced with job training. The “Liberal arts” are a failing major and widely considered by today’s culture as “a waste of time.” Business management is becoming the most popular degree in the undergrad and graduate programs. Universities like UC Berkeley are cutting classes, reducing the size of the student body, raising tuition fees and spending those fees not on academics, but on campus amenities and sports equipment. Its not that we’re more educated, we’re just becoming lax on what we refer to as a college degree, while turning our academic institutions into trade schools of business management and managers of sports teams. You also point out that Karl Marx makes a remark that the lower class is incapable of understanding abstract thought. That’s one man’s opinion on a working class in another country. America in the 17th and 18th centuries were very literate across every class. Like I said, the pamphlet which started the American Revolution was written by the working-classman Thomas Paine. That pamphlet became america’s first best seller—120,000 copies in the first three months, 500,000 in the first year. Compare that to the population of that time, 2.5 million people. The only thing TODAY that comes close to those numbers is the superbowl. And if you read it, it’s not a Dr. Seuss book. If you don’t have what people today would call a “college-level reading comprehension” you can’t understand the text. Anyone with a thumb can turn on the Superbowl. In the 17th century we also had 3,000 lyceum lecure halls in the 15 original States. These lectures were were open to everyone of all background. You can think of them as the original TED talks, except they were free to all and weren’t invitation-only to the world’s elite. And think of the arts. Opera houses used to have penny seats for the lower classes. Now the lower classes don’t even care about opera. We were a thinking nation. Now we’re a watching nation. Now lets not stipulate a definition for rationality when lexical definition works just fine. 1. Behavior guided more by conscious reasoning than by experience, and not adversely affected by emotions. 2. Thinking process that employs logical, objective, and systematic methods in reaching a conclusion or solving a problem. 3. Person who is not mentally imbalanced or under the sway of overpowering emotions, can draw logical inferences, and is capable of normal mental process of weighing pros and cons of an action, choice, or decision. Opposite of insane. See also Reasonable. Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/rational.html#ixzz1zPs8mrg6 Reason has to do with a logical emotional detachment from the situation. Rationality is not "subjective" self interest. Self-interest is inherently objective. I also completely refute your definition of capitalism. “Capitalism, like science and liberal democracy, was an outgrowth of the Enlightenment. Its principal theorists, even its most prosperous practitioners, believed capitalism to be based on the idea that both buyer and seller are sufficiently mature, well informed and reasonable to engage in transactions of mutual self-interest. If greed was taken to be the fuel of the capitalist engine, then surely rationality was the driver. The theory states, in part, that competition in the marketplace requires that the buyer not only knows what is good for him but also what is good. If the seller produces nothing of value, as determined by a rational marketplace, then he loses out. It is the assumption of rationality among buyers that spurs competitors to become winners, and winners to keep on winning. Where it is assumed that a buyer is unable to make rational decisions, laws are passed to invalidate transactions, as, for example, those which prohibit children from making contracts. In America, there even exists in law a requirement that sellers must tell the truth about their products, for if the buyer has no protection from false claims, rational decision-making is seriously impaired.” (“Amusing Ourselves to Death,” Ch. 7 Read more: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B_KUmJa3qEXmSlM3dXZwQ1NvdDQ/edit ) Actually, the next paragraph after that ties back into my original point so I’ll post that too, “Of course, the practice of capitalism has its contradictions. Cartels and monopolies, for example, undermine the theory. But television commercials make hash of it. To take the simplest example: To be rationally considered, any claim--commercial or otherwise--must be made in language. More precisely, it must take the form of a proposition, for that is the universe of discourse from which such words as "true" and "false" come. If that universe of discourse is discarded, then the application of empirical tests, logical analysis or any of the other instruments of reason are impotent. the move away from the use of propositions in commercial advertising began at the end of the nineteenth century. But it was not until the 1950's that the television commercial made linguistic discourse obsolete as the basis for product decisions. By substituting images for claims, the pictorial commercial made emotional appeal, not tests of truth, the basis of consumer decisions. the distance between rationality and advertising is now so wide that it is difficult to remember that there once existed a connection between them. Today, on television commercials, propositions are as scarce as unattractive people. The truth or falsity of an advertiser's claim is simply not an issue. “ And to summarize what I said before about Libertarians; It's not that I oppose their ideology. Just as Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny, "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

Yeah. seen it many, many times. But see how you dont have the capacity to discuss with me what I'm talking about? All you can do is hyperlink a movie. You're lucky that I've seen the movie or have access to the movie otherwise you wouldn't be able to communicate at all. If I asked you to explain what you meant to someone who hasn't seen the movie you probably wouldn't be able to. You better hope nothing happens to movies or internet because if something did you'd lose your ability to speak. And what's with the Ron Paul propaganda poster? Shit looks like a counter strike advertisement.

Changing the font because once you get to a certain word count Arial's a bitch on the eyes I'm not against libertarianism, per se. I'm not on some perceived opposing team. Libertarianism is the wrong argument. Who cares about governments and corporations if the people have forgotten what "self-interest" means? How can we vote, buy, do anything politically or economically if we don't even value rational thought? How is a 50 inch tv a good idea? I mean In general, the idea of a 50 inch flatsceen LCD tv with wifi and bluray and 3D glasses, what part of specifically THIS idea seems like it's a worth-while investment? I personally think Keynes and Hayek both would be facepalming it right now at the state of consumerism in America. You used the word "epistemological," Which is exactly what I want to talk about. How does Hayek determine what's the truth? How does Keynes determine it? Do either of their epistemologies function in a society of television epistemology? Think about the differences in the way we tell what truth is on TV compared to the printed word. When someone lies in a book you can easily nail them for it, because that's inherently what you do when you read. The medium of the book INSISTS on the reader critically analyzing the text. If there's something you don't understand in a book you CAN'T move ahead in the book. Now think about the epistemology of Television. If you don't belive we live in a television-language-based-society, not a text-based one, look no further than what we believe is an acceptable literacy rate. We willingly accept mexican children into our educational system who cannot read or write English. Whether that's the right or wrong thing to do is not the point. The point is that this is a sign that we do NOT rely on books to teach children. We rely on images and other multimedia. We rely on television. Television, like books, insists on a certain set of cultural values. Because television is broken down into tiny blocks, there is no time to think about what we just watched. There is also no way to depict thinking on television, so discussing abstract concepts like "capitalism" and "political theory" doesnt work. Episodes must be self-contained, so there cannot be a prerequisite to watching any show. This means that there cannot be educational shows that require any prior understanding of the material. The information on shows is therefore elementary at best and usually useless to people's lives, which is why shows like trivial pursuit have been so popular, because that's all that anyone can do with a mind-full of television. News stations on TV also have a hard time being taken seriously. The fact that they compete against television blocks that are showing entertainment material means news too has to be entertaining. I can go on listing examples, but for sake of time I'll jump to my point: A culture that focuses on television more than books does not value seriousness. It values entertainment. It cannot take anything seriously. It only values absurdity. It does not value rationality. It only values show business. That is the ideology of television. The epistemology of television is based on superficial aspects, usually a presenter's character. Compare that to the epistemology of Hayek or Keynes. For anyone else reading this, think about this: Would abraham lincoln, a morbidly disfigured bipolar giant with a screechy voice be elected for president? Of course not. He was elected at a time when people cared about the content of his writing. Today we care more about what president we have more in common with. Now look at our educational system. Teachers are trying to compete with entertainment and are forced to sacrifice academic lesson plans just to keep their student's attention. Since when does EVERYTHING have to be entertainment? Think about commercials too. The last time an advertisement focused on the key points of a product was the early 1900's. A great documentary on this is "The Century of Self." We dont sell products by the merit of the product. We sell products by what we percieve is a problem with the consumer. In other words we've gone from product research to "market" research. This has gone on so long that nobody remembers a time before this and has grown to accept the absurdity in advertising. Now think about the society we live in. People still smoke. We have entire cities built around the car. We somehow think computers are cheaper than books. We've reached a point where almost everything on the shelf in every store has little real practical value. It's hard then for a visual-image-based society like this one to return to a time when we discussed abstract concepts like capitalism. Capitalism is a metaphor, that like many metaphors, were created and exist solely in the printed word. If we were to lose the printed word completely we'd lose capitalism completely, because only a mind focused on reading can comprehend it. You cannot explain capitalism in pictures or oral tradition without it losing most of its meaning. Just like you cannot show thinking on television. By "belief" I mean it's an economic theory, an abstract concept that can only be perceived and understood in the mind. We are a culture who's lost most of our use for Books, and therefore we lost most of Books' metaphors. We are not a society of readers writing dissertations on and studying the meaning of other abstract concepts like "freedom" and "self-interest."

Oops i could've done a bit of proofreading on that. By "capitalism" i meant to type "Keynesian economics" but I'm sure you could've guessed that from NUMEROUS discussions we've had within Crossfire regarding the many differences between Keynesian and Austrian economics and why it is that we use Keynes' more "optimistic" view of economics than Hayek's "pessimistic" one. I've argued with you before on the difference between Keynesian economics and Austrian economics, and I've made pretty clear that I think Peter Schiff and his cohorts of Austrian economists are fucking blowhards who like to pretend they're the only ones who saw the housing bubble forming before it burst. A lot of people did. Schiff does that kind of performance often, saying something obvious, pretending he's a genius for saying it, praising Austrian economics for letting him see it— It's ridiculous. Now I'm going a step further and suggesting that the debate about which one is better, Austrian or Keynesian, is absolutely the wrong debate to have. Keynesian economics vs Austrian economics, big government vs small government, Libertarians vs the rest of America— all of that doesn't even matter. Capitalism is a belief that only works if the consumer is rational, devoted to logic, emotionally detached from purchases, and understands what, "Self-interest" means. Nobody does anymore. Nobody. Look at the way we talk, the way we buy, the way we vote, the way we discuss things on the internet. We're a culture solely devoted to an entertainment-industrial-complex. There isn't a company anymore that doesn't rely on absurd entertainment-based commercials for their sales. We've come to accept absurdity as part of our culture. We think of car companies, newspapers , political parties, every company/group in the world as an entertainment brand and we buy into the brands that entertain us. It's the difference between George Orwell and Aldus Huxley. It's pretty clear Huxley vision for the future was right, not Orwell. We're not going to kill ourselves with too much authority. We're going to kill ourselves with by turning everything into a burlesque show. I can talk about this more when I'm not exhausted from it being 4:42 in the morning, or I can point you to my sources... IE the books I've posted in the Crossfire Book Thread. Or maybe we can do both. Also post your books and stuff in that thread. I know you have a couple.

Congrats on making what everyone else makes!

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains You Are Not A Gadget: A manifesto Hamlet's Blackberry: A Practical philosophy for building a good life in the digital age Alone Together: Wy we expect more from technology On Photography by Susan Sontag "Susan Sontag's groundbreaking critique of photography asks forceful questions about the moral and aesthetic issues surrounding this art form. Photographs are everywhere. They have the power to shock, idealize or seduce, they create a sense of nostalgia and act as a memorial, and they can be used as evidence against us or to identify us. In six incisive essays, Sontag examines the ways in which we use these omnipresent images to manufacture a sense of reality and authority in our lives."

America's First best seller from 1776. Written by a lower classmen who worked at a harbor it not only proved that the literacy rate at one point in america was fucking astonishing and the exchange and strength of ideas was at one point classless, it also proved that at one point america was capable of serious disquisition and, when needed, rational enough to agree when actions needed to be taken. There has never been a more widely-read (by % of population) piece of litterature in american history and today is only rivaled by the superbowl. In many ways, this is a more important document than the constitution and in recent days has been all-but forgotten. Thomas Paine - Common Sense http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/congress_and_the_public/primary_resources/Thomas%20Paine%20Common%20Sense.pdf

Post your books, pamphlets, etc.. Just finished "Amusing Ourselves to Death." By neil postman Pretty much required reading for every american. It focuses on how the values of society have shifted from pamphlets and novels to newspapers and television. "Higher Education?" By Andrew Hacker Discusses how our university system in this country is academically bankrupt and has turned into a $442 billion business. Also discusses what this means for Americans.

I like that video mclovin. Reminds me how secular the states/colonies were at the time when the constitution was written. America didnt think of itself as one culture, one neighborhood. The people of each state were supposed to have their own culture and govern themselves however they wanted. It was also before we had the industrial revolution and before we started thinking of the benefits that come with economies of scale. If everyone bought healthcare from the same source, everyone's rates would be much, much cheaper.

THis right here deserves it's own thread.

Nobody's arguing with you because you have no argument—Just some opinion, and you're too illiterate to know the difference. You sound like my 15 year old brother. Both of you suck at insults. And I repeat, in the age of television everything is absurd nonsense and only entertainment is worth anybody's time. I'm not here to entertain absurd rambling anti-intellectuals. We get it. You're illiterate. You hate reading. You for some reason want crossfire to be entertaining like sesame street because that's what you understand. You're limited to understanding visual images. You hate when things go over your head. Also you dont get that I'm not only addressing you. This isnt iChat or a private message. I don't need to know if you're reading or not reading something. In fact i already knew that what I was saying was going over your head Why do you think I care how much time you spend on the internet? What do you expect me to do with that information? Is this supposed to be interesting or thought provoking? Was this meant to change my mind about what I said earlier? Did you even think before you posted this? Was I supposed to be entertained or amused?

That was aimed at cunt. Also you guys should be prepared to go back and read my edits because i do that often. Since you responded, the point I'm trying to make is not that you shouldn't watch tv or youtube. The point I'm trying to make is that people take a stab at political and economic discourse without even knowing what they're doing. Think about what Cunt said, "If you discuss ecoomics too much, you must be a virgin." Which is basically saying we should all become entertainers in order to get laid, and that women have no use for people who actually know things. They only have use for celebrities. TV is fine as a source of entertainment, but when it's used to discuss serious issues like economics or politics then the written word is the only way to go. And that these discussions have more to do with your daily lives than teleivision or newspapers. Newspapers became the precursor to television when they just started printing telegraph feeds from far-off places. Pages and pages of useless information. It would be like twitter selling people's posts to readers. It's also not surprising that newspapers print twitter events, as it's the natural progression of telegraphy.

Are we? Television created a shift in American culture away from serious discussion and into an era where we tolerated absurdity and useless incoherent information. Its an era where we required teachers to be entertainers. That culture is still widely in control of most popular media on the internet today. You sir are a product of this culture. Low reading comprehension, low analytical skill, little use for intelligence or intellectualism, unable to comprehend or discuss abstract concepts like politics, economics, truth, reason, etc. These concepts are metaphors which only exist in a typographic-based society and cannot exist in a culture which requires images to communicate. It's reasonable to assume that if the television was invented 250 years ago, the american revolution would have never happened because nobody would've given a fuck about a man shot in boston or a pamphlet urging Americans to free themselves from the brits. This is also why I refute any debate made by libertarians. The problem with capitalism is not capitalism. Capitalism as praised by Adam Smith or condemned by Karl Marx are irrelevant. Marketing is more of an art than a science, as proven by any profitable company's advertising budget. We want to be entertained. We dont care about practicality. We buy cars from the brands that entertain us, not the ones who sell the best cars. When keynes invented capitalism he was thinking of the farmer who needed a tractor to increase his business but didnt have the money to do so, but if given a loan he'd be able to pay it back. He wasnt thinking of the low-salary gardener who wanted to take a mortgage out for a 50 in flat screen television which didnt improve his business whatsoever.

Right, because in the age of television everything is absurd nonsense and only entertainment is worth anybody's time.

I do too. He didnt provide a critical analysis or his own synopsis of the text proving he himself has any understanding at all of economics but at least he provided something for which he wishes he could base his argument upon. That at least is an improvement to this thread polluted by you two idiots barking on about absolute nonsense. Also, if you graduated from college and still think the 14 year-old's absurd response of, "clearly you're a virgin," in what's supposed to be a logic debate about economics and politics, then you should ask your college for a refund.

Cilone, shut the fuck up. Spambot, give me a couple days to read that. Im in the middle of writing a 20,000 word dissertation on the book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death." Should be done this weekend.

All political theories assume the reader has the ability to understand abstract concepts and comprehend the symbols and metaphors for which the political theory is based upon. Considering you lack the capacity to comprehend what anyone writes, your opinion is therefor retarded.

Where did I say that we have never argued? You should turn off the TV and work on your reading comprehension.

Just finished reading this twice, Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman. If you're looking for a book that argues against everything you do, this is it.