The human mental image situates the self at the center of all things. Material comfort, self pleasure and personal safety are among western man's highest goals, sharply contrasted with the ancient world when we sought a purpose, "honor" "high king" "tribal glory", higher than our narrow selves. The results of this pursuit, simultaneously dysgenic and dystopic, are undeniable: massive urban sprawl, irreparable environmental devastation and insidious despotic police states. Furthermore, since even the God of the previous millenium, is no longer at our center and has become beneath ourselves, we have ceased the creation of works of temporal transcendent (eternal ideas and realms) high art, instead favoring immediate slick utility in our disposable designs.

All of society's institutions are thoroughly corrupted. Influences: post-Enlightenment humanist neoliberalism, selfish, materialist Judaism and the two bastard offshoot religions that presume to sell everyone insurance policies against death, a devil's deal of allegiance to cognitive unreality in exchange for promises of infinite self-serving comfort. As the populations of the West expand along with an exponentially increasing complexity in our technology, the foreign anthropocentric philosophy we have adopted for two millenia grows alongside, like a cancerous tissue, replacing healthy ideal-organs with cell structures that are useless and taxing to the society-body. This is unsustainable in the long run.

Corrupt, Inc. is a civilization watchdog built on the premise that when humans form a mental image of the world that does not correspond to reality, they become corrupt and destroy themselves. Our goal is to look for this cognitive dissonance and to point it out with research, intelligence reports, pranks and political activism. We believe in a better human future by embracing reality and not silly bureaucratic, academic or emotional abstractions. Our goal is to point human civilization away from these irrelevancies and get us back on track toward dealing with our actual problems, which receive 68.6% less media coverage than transient or tangential issues.

Corrupt (http://www.corrupt.org/goal/)

Maybe I am missin something, but what does 'Corrupt Inc" consider a "real problem?" Consider I didn't read the entire paper on the site.

We believe in a better human future by embracing reality and not silly bureaucratic, academic or emotional abstractions.

I understand bureaucratic and emotional abstractions, but what about academic? Trying to explain something that is currently unexplainable (social issues anyway... not physics)?

Woo-woo site Absane, replace "god" with "transcendence" and ignore what you want to, to make your point, viz:

We conquered nature with the internal combustion engine, the assembly line, interchangeable parts, and now digital electronics.
What? No dugout canoe, farming, flint tools, lighted sticks?
They promise (a possiblity) of "immortality in the skies", (and if we don't get it then the aliens will). Ho hum...

Modern social issues tend to base themselves in fulfillment of self-centered, narrow humanist views. Academia, diseased with neoliberalsm, is in error because it presumes material fulfillment is the solution to all social ills. Academia indulges itself wholly, alongside business, in arguing loudly for equal individual material hedonism and remains silent on outside-self social concerns that result from this activity. For example, 90% of our natural water sources are contaminated by toxic chemicals or microorganisms, but academia puts this aside in favor of the very humanism activity that continues to pollute this essential resource. Academia, like our mass media, argues on personalized emotional or sensational rather than on logical grounds. It is not logical to give people a thin layer of fulfillment in the form of disposable material goods at the cost of essential resources required for survival. Our individual liberties are turning into a living death.

The human mental image situates the self at the center of all things. Material comfort, self pleasure and personal safety are among western man's highest goals, sharply contrasted with the ancient world when we sought a purpose, "honor" "high king" "tribal glory", higher than our narrow selves. The results of this pursuit, simultaneously dysgenic and dystopic, are undeniable: massive urban sprawl, irreparable environmental devastation and insidious despotic police states. Furthermore, since even the God of the previous millenium, is no longer at our center and has become beneath ourselves, we have ceased the creation of works of temporal transcendent (eternal ideas and realms) high art, instead favoring immediate slick utility in our disposable designs.

All of society's institutions are thoroughly corrupted. Influences: post-Enlightenment humanist neoliberalism, selfish, materialist Judaism and the two bastard offshoot religions that presume to sell everyone insurance policies against death, a devil's deal of allegiance to cognitive unreality in exchange for promises of infinite self-serving comfort. As the populations of the West expand along with an exponentially increasing complexity in our technology, the foreign anthropocentric philosophy we have adopted for two millenia grows alongside, like a cancerous tissue, replacing healthy ideal-organs with cell structures that are useless and taxing to the society-body. This is unsustainable in the long run.



Corrupt (http://www.corrupt.org/goal/)Corruption insinuates the existence of purity which is mired by a defect.

Corruption is what the system calls that which interrupts or disharmonizes its flow.

Corruption is produced by the body, any unity, because it is inherently flawed.

Corruption insinuates the existence of purity which is mired by a defect.

Corruption is what the system calls that which interrupts or disharmonizes its flow.

Corruption is produced by the body, any unity, because it is inherently flawed.

Bullshit.

Bullshit.Good point........

For example, 90% of our natural water sources are contaminated by toxic chemicals or microorganisms
Microorganisms are EVERYWHERE.

Oh yeah, and to get rid of corruption we had better make everyone one gender.

THE WORLD IS CORUPT.... we must be willing to fix it... that means personal sacrafice......

our ability to overcome this coruption, will directly relate to this level of personal desire to do so.

-MT

THE WORLD IS CORUPT.... we must be willing to fix it... that means personal sacrafice......

our ability to overcome this coruption, will directly relate to this level of personal desire to do so.

-MT This gives me the shudders! 'Fixing' the corruption of the World is always the rhetoric leading up to the worst atrocities we humans get up to. Alarm bells should ring whenever anyone proposes excising the "cancerous tissue" of society. The ends soon come to justify the means i.e. torture, executions, imprisonment without trial etc. It is the justification for the Inquisition, Witch burnings, Heresy trials, Ethnic cleansing, Soviet purges, Guantanamo bay etc. etc. etc. They were all intended to remove a perceived corruption/evil.

Revolutions based on hatred always go full circle. Caveat emptor. :(

This gives me the shudders! 'Fixing' the corruption of the World is always the rhetoric leading up to the worst atrocities we humans get up to. Alarm bells should ring whenever anyone proposes excising the "cancerous tissue" of society. The ends soon come to justify the means i.e. torture, executions, imprisonment without trial etc. It is the justification for the Inquisition, Witch burnings, Heresy trials, Ethnic cleansing, Soviet purges, Guantanamo bay etc. etc. etc. They were all intended to remove a perceived corruption/evil.

Revolutions based on hatred always go full circle. Caveat emptor. :(

Exactly.

humanist crowds and pity = inevitable corruption = human destruction

We don't need lots more human beings and we don't need lots more self-pleasuring human beings.

We need better human beings and we need rid of the self-pleasuring, outwardly destructive human beings.

Solution: Eliminate the morons and normals with less than 144 IQ and get us down to a few million people inhabiting our world.

we need [to get] rid of the self-pleasuring ... human beings.
What have you got against masturbation? Is Happeh back?
Solution: Eliminate the morons and normals with less than 144 IQ and get us down to a few million people inhabiting our world.
Oh, a genocide against the intellectually challenged. That will help.
*sarcasm detector undergoes total existence failure*

Solution: Eliminate the morons and normals with less than 144 IQ and get us down to a few million people inhabiting our world.

Who will run our garbage? Be our waiter? Clean the sewers clogged with poo-poo? Run the cash register at your local gas station?

The dark blue line is the average IQ of the world. I've also plotted the population growth of the five most populous countries, India, China, the U.S., Indonesia, and Nigeria; the average IQ of each of these countries is in parenthesis. (Nigeria is currently ninth, with Brazil (87), Pakistan (81), Russia (96), and Bangladesh (81) intervening, but by 2050 it will be fifth.) As you can see, in a 100 year period the world's average IQ will have dropped from 92 to 86, a change of 6%. That is pretty darn significant. And all because of differential population growth.

I extrapolated the population growth of each country another 50 years to the year 2100 (lightly shaded region of graph). At that time the world's average IQ will have dropped below 84. Within this time period of 150 years, extremely short by any evolutionary standard, an incredibly significant change in this key metric will have occurred. And there is no sign of the trend bottoming out, because the growth rate of countries with lower IQs exceeds the growth rate of countries with higher IQs. The most populous country today is China, which has a high IQ (100), but its growth is actually projected to be negative because of their "one child" policy. After about 2030 India will be the most populous country, and it has relatively low IQ (81). At current growth rates by 2100 Nigeria will be the third most populous country, and it has a low IQ (67).

http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000953.html

Reality check. What do you think our top industry leaders have planned for over six billion people on this planet, who over the course of the next century will comprise about 90% of all people, each of whom are pretty darn close to borderline retarded? Wonderful opportunity is not on the way for these people; their educatability is, by birth extremely limited. This is an enourmous consumer population ripe for exploitation, a population incapable of self-determination and indeed freedom against a ruthless consumer industry. I don't want to see such enslavement of so many people continue into another century and the rampant global environmental destruction must also come to an end before this activity ends a worthwhile world for us. We have one logical, humane and implementable solution available: discourage the breeding of obsolete people who are only now grown for neoliberal capitalist exploitation.

Who will run our garbage? Be our waiter? Clean the sewers clogged with poo-poo? Run the cash register at your local gas station?

Electromechanical labor automation and sophisticated software exists in industry right now. A few hours of heavy labor on one's own does a bright person's body good as well.

The exploitation of worthless people must end by denying the exploiters a vast pool of such people to exploit.

You do realize that if we only allowed people with a certain IQ, say 145 to live there would still be a class structure? There would be the smart, the average, and the "stupid." It is all relative. And the stupid would be the ones with an IQ of 145. What would their function in society be and how would it differ from the "smart?"

humanist crowds and pity = inevitable corruption = human destruction

We don't need lots more human beings and we don't need lots more self-pleasuring human beings.

We need better human beings and we need rid of the self-pleasuring, outwardly destructive human beings.

Solution: Eliminate the morons and normals with less than 144 IQ and get us down to a few million people inhabiting our world.Good idea….let’s begin with you.

humanist crowds and pity = inevitable corruption = human destruction. We don't need lots more human beings and we don't need lots more self-pleasuring human beings. We need better human beings and we need rid of the self-pleasuring, outwardly destructive human beings. Solution: Eliminate the morons and normals with less than 144 IQ and get us down to a few million people inhabiting our world.That must be your own IQ, how convenient. You just made the cut. Mine isn't that high but I'm still Mensa material--and have refused to join because I have not found that highly intelligent people are any more noble than the savages you take the rest of the species to be.

Materialistic--they just have different tastes in materials, BMWs instead of SUVs. Uncompassionate--why I hear there's a high-IQ dude right here on SciForums who looks down on people who are only in the 99th percentile and doesn't want them to propagate. Humanistic--not that I find that to correlate with nastiness, but religion and spirituality don't have much of a foothold among the intellectually elite. Destructive--who discovered the nuclear reaction and the rocket, and then happily developed them into weapons?

I think you're confusing intelligence with emotional maturity. There's not much of a correlation. Well maybe in Mensa, where it's a negative one.

Why do you value human life (read : any human life) so highly, Fraggle?

I'm just going with the program here. He does, so I'm sticking with his paradigm.

I do regard civilization as precious. And since so far, on the only inhabited planet we've found, we're the only species intelligent enough to create it, I therefore attach a lot of importance to the survival of the species. I can't find a reason to assign more importance to any one human life than to any other, with the obvious but statistically trivial exceptions of point-triple-oh-one-percenters like child abusers and terrorists, so yes, I guess that means that I value any human life since we're all equally important members of the species.

We may not all be creative and make unique and memorable contributions, but we all contribute to the community in our own ways. Perhaps more importantly, whenever we find a way to devalue certain classes of human lives because we're convinced that they don't contribute anything positive to the community, we're invariably hated by our posterity for being so stupidly and arrogantly wrong.

Which makes me less than entirely comfortable about my position on rapists. But not about terrorists, some of whom I believe have the goal of destroying civilization because they see it as an affront to their version of a supreme being and that makes them as bad as giant asteroids.

The human mental image situates the self at the center of all things. Material comfort, self pleasure and personal safety are among western man's highest goals, sharply contrasted with the ancient world when we sought a purpose, "honor" "high king" "tribal glory", higher than our narrow selves.Pure bullshit.

Humans have always been greedy and self-serving. The past you describe is myth, an idealization of peoples and heroes who would be unrecognizable in light of their latter-day descriptions if they existed at all.

Solution: Eliminate the morons and normals with less than 144 IQ and get us down to a few million people inhabiting our world.And you reveal yourself for the aristocrat that you are. You solution is self-serving and hubristic. Even in your imaginings you demonstrate the ruthless brutality of the worst dictator.

I don't want to see such enslavement of so many people continue into another century and the rampant global environmental destruction must also come to an end before this activity ends a worthwhile world for us. We have one logical, humane and implementable solution available: discourage the breeding of obsolete people who are only now grown for neoliberal capitalist exploitation.As opposed to what? The raw physical enslavement and exploitation of the past, or the psuedo-intellectual, dogmatic, thought-control you would impose for the future.

Face it, you're no different than what you claim to despise. There's no higher motive in you, no ethical resolve, you simply wish to rule. It is your very impotence that fuels your violent rage and hostility. It is your inability to comprehend and thus control your position and effect change in society that drives your desire to topple it.

Simply put, you are an adolescent. Hopefully, you will some day grow up. Unfortunately, not many do.

~Raithere

I'm just going with the program here. He does, so I'm sticking with his paradigm.

I do regard civilization as precious.

Let me know when you discover one.

What is antihumanism?

http://antihumanism.com/

Around the year 2000, 90% of the world's wealth (natural resources and investable capital) was controlled by less than 10% of the human population.

In the year 2100, the average human being will have an IQ which approximates that of Koko the gorilla.

In 2100, our 9 billion mediocre everyman Kokos will never become other than worker-consumer units, like disposable, interchangeable parts in a machine. Our fellow Koko citizens did not used to be organized as interchangeable (same rights, same rules, same freedoms), disposable parts (worker layoffs, outsourcing, downsizing).

For thousands of years, before the modern age, they naturally organized themselves as free but localized tribes, with the most capable and fit as leaders who personally knew each member. This organization resembles a healthy body, with people as organs who are connected with and essential to the body, each serving a needed function.

I don't agree much with societies, but form what I read on the first site, it's garbage. What is the socially- accepted theory that it gawks on and on about? What qualifies it as a socially-accepted theory? Why does corrupt inc insist on all of the things that we accept will make us ideal persons? How do they know that we accept these things? Every society has judged it's members by what role they play, even animals. Human beings are naturally very elitist. I will agree that materialism corrupts modern man, but we should not be rewarded for "higher behavior" anyway. Reward leads to luxury, which leads to materialism, then you're back where you started for the next generation. Also wtf is our inner world? Is it our locality? I stopped reading when I got to philosophy, because I've been up all night. The anti-humanism site is mroe agreeable, but I'm not sure about that IQ nonsense, maybe in America, but not worldwide.

Consider I didn't read the entire paper on the site.

That's probably a big handicap.

humanist crowds and pity = inevitable corruption = human destruction.

We don't need lots more human beings and we don't need lots more self-pleasuring human beings. We need better human beings and we need rid of the self-pleasuring, outwardly destructive human beings.

Solution: Eliminate the morons and normals with less than 144 IQ and get us down to a few million people inhabiting our world.

Dear ___Mr 0'Netics___,

We regret to inform you that due to the recent rationalisation of the criteria for measuring intelligence, your measured IQ no longer conforms to the standard required under State Law.

The intellect protection squad will call round shortly to ecologically recycle you and the members of your family similarly effected by this change.

You may wish to volunteer for our live neurological vivisection programme in order to contribute to the optimisation of the cognitive functioning of future generations. Our analysis of your IQ level indicates that this would provide you with an appropriate rationalised purpose for your existence.

Goodbye. :D

If we're eliminating morons with less than 144 IQ, shouldn't we get rid of the unhealthily fat(who don't attampt to do anything about it) people too?

Posted by Nanonetics
We have ceased the creation of works of temporal transcendent (eternal ideas and realms) high art, instead favoring immediate slick utility in our disposable designs. What do you consider art should be focused on then?

If we're eliminating morons with less than 144 IQ, shouldn't we get rid of the unhealthily fat(who don't attampt to do anything about it) people too?

Yeah, and people who smell, and ugly people, and people who talk loudly on their mobiles on the train, and people who eat popcorn during movies, and people who drive 4x4s and all politicians and traffic wardens and.... quite a few other named people I can't stand. Result = Utopia!!

Hello... anyone there still?

Fraggle Rocker:

"I do regard civilization as precious. And since so far, on the only inhabited planet we've found, we're the only species intelligent enough to create it, I therefore attach a lot of importance to the survival of the species. I can't find a reason to assign more importance to any one human life than to any other, with the obvious but statistically trivial exceptions of point-triple-oh-one-percenters like child abusers and terrorists, so yes, I guess that means that I value any human life since we're all equally important members of the species."

You are willing to say that, say, a Julius Caesar is as important as some random vagrant bum?

"We may not all be creative and make unique and memorable contributions, but we all contribute to the community in our own ways. Perhaps more importantly, whenever we find a way to devalue certain classes of human lives because we're convinced that they don't contribute anything positive to the community, we're invariably hated by our posterity for being so stupidly and arrogantly wrong."

Or are our progeny wrong? The future does not have an ontological necessity of being "more right" than the past.

Nanonetics:

"Around the year 2000, 90% of the world's wealth (natural resources and investable capital) was controlled by less than 10% of the human population."

Is this really any different than the situation in feudal times, for instance? Where one lord owned an entire village - including its population - and we could probably memorized a list of all those who could have said to have had any wealth at the time?

"In the year 2100, the average human being will have an IQ which approximates that of Koko the gorilla."

What source do you have to back up this statement? In that certain races with crippled mental attributes are out breeding the more intelligent ones? Or that human ignorance will continue to increase?

Oniw17:

"The anti-humanism site is mroe agreeable, but I'm not sure about that IQ nonsense, maybe in America, but not worldwide. "

Actually, Americans are exceedingly smart individuals. America and Japan lead the world in college graduates of all sorts.

That's funny you should mention college graduates...I've posted it before on the forum: I happen to know a person(who is living with me at the moment) who has a bachlor's degree and can't even read. Also a lot of American college grads are from other countries. You don't believe that television is making Americans more ignorant? America has a lot of esteemed colleges. Look at all of the crime in America as a result of ignorance(hate crimes, ect). Play any(primarily American) MMORPG, and and you'll discover that 99.9% of the players are idiots on real life matters. Go to a public school in America, then tell me that the American IQ level will not drop dramatically in the next generation.

That's funny you should mention college graduates...I've posted it before on the forum: I happen to know a person(who is living with me at the moment) who has a bachlor's degree and can't even read. Also a lot of American college grads are from other countries. You don't believe that television is making Americans more ignorant? America has a lot of esteemed colleges. Look at all of the crime in America as a result of ignorance(hate crimes, ect). Play any(primarily American) MMORPG, and and you'll discover that 99.9% of the players are idiots on real life matters. Go to a public school in America, then tell me that the American IQ level will not drop dramatically in the next generation.

My image of the USA is of a nation of the brightest minds and also the dumbest. It's colleges turn out intellectual world authorities, and also (it seems) illiterates. It also has more billionaires per square mile than anywhere and also more street-bums. It sets records for being the fittest nation and also the fattest. Americans are incredibly generous people, and yet their politics is based on greed. The US constitution expresses the highest ideals, and yet it retains the death penalty. It gave birth to Matin Luther King, and also the KKK. You can choose from 100 TV channels, but they all have 3 commercial breaks every 15 minutes.

America is a land of the very best and the worst. So, if we follow their lead (as we seem to) perhaps our IQs will split into 2 normal distribution curves:
"highly-brilliant" :cool: and "much-much-dumberer" :confused: .

Oniw17:

"I happen to know a person(who is living with me at the moment) who has a bachlor's degree and can't even read."

Litterally or figuratively? And what did he study? What was his gradepoint average? Where did he study?

"Also a lot of American college grads are from other countries. "

I would not say "a lot". I would say "a portion". It does not seem that American colleges are jam-packed with foreigners.

"You don't believe that television is making Americans more ignorant?"

No, actually. Television's expansion is a plus for Americans and the world as a whole. Television - and other things, such as the internet and previously, radio - expands the horizons of tens of millions of people each day, by providing up-to-the-date news alongside other quality programming of various types, both entertainment and education. Moreover, the desire for entertainment concerning sex and violence is nothing new, and that is what TV simply provides in abundance.

"America has a lot of esteemed colleges. "

More than any other country in the world, yes.

"Look at all of the crime in America as a result of ignorance(hate crimes, ect). "

Hate crimes are not necessarily ignorant. It is no more ignorant to kill a man because he is white or because he is gay than it is to kill a man over points of honour or various other rationalizations of killing people offered throughout hsitory. Moreover, such crime generally comes from real social issues facing Americans today, as well as the fundementally cosmopolitan nature of America in certain areas. Minorities are what cause AMerica most of her crimes and the strains that large populations of peoples of different races and ethnicities being near to one another are intense in many areas.

"Play any(primarily American) MMORPG, and and you'll discover that 99.9% of the players are idiots on real life matters."

I've played various games of various types before, and yes, many people are ignorant of certain issues. However, people taking their leisure time in playing an RPG styled game that requires intense dedication and focus to the game at the time of playing, and which generally occupies one's time with a lot of things at once, which seems to be the case from what I know from them, is also not the best place to search for people who aren't ignorant or have the time to demonstrate their non-ignorance.

Moreover, ignorance is pronouncd in the populations of other countries as well.

"Go to a public school in America, then tell me that the American IQ level will not drop dramatically in the next generation."

Public education is certainly poor in America, but it does not seem the rest of the world truly has such a great grasp on it either.

Diogenes' Dog:

"Americans are incredibly generous people, and yet their politics is based on greed."

In that Americans are capitalists?

"The US constitution expresses the highest ideals, and yet it retains the death penalty."

What is so wrong about the death penalty?

"You can choose from 100 TV channels, but they all have 3 commercial breaks every 15 minutes."

TV Channels are businesses. What is wrong about making money?

"America is a land of the very best and the worst. So, if we follow their lead (as we seem to) perhaps our IQs will split into 2 normal distribution curves:
"highly-brilliant" and "much-much-dumberer"

Looking over history, perhaps that is how we always have been? The common populace has never reached the heights of the greats of their era.

Diogenes' Dog:
"Americans are incredibly generous people, and yet their politics is based on greed."

In that Americans are capitalists? Oh dear, now I will have to defend my own bigoted opinions! :o

The US is the best example of "Adam Smith" type economic liberalism with the encouragement of rampant consumerism fed by intrusive advertising, encouragement of increased consumption, idealisation of wealth, low social care for the unsuccessful, refusal to place limits e.g. on CO2 emissions, and hawkish foreign policies to defend our rate of consumption of oil. Western Capitalism, of which the US is the leading power, is based on ever more excessive consumption of limited resources, with little regard for the consequences, or any serious setting of limits. That is the politics of greed.

This is counterbalanced by the fact that individual americans I have met both in the UK and US, are to a person, overwhelmingly generous!

"The US constitution expresses the highest ideals, and yet it retains the death penalty."

What is so wrong about the death penalty? The Constitution is an unequalled encapsulation of the value and rights of all individuals. Yet States with the death penalty exterminate these same citizens, often brutally (e.g. with the electric chair) showing a disrespect for the value of human life. The death penalty has been shown not to lower crime rates, is motivated by revenge, is barbaric in practice and is irreversible if a conviction proves to have been unsafe.

"You can choose from 100 TV channels, but they all have 3 commercial breaks every 15 minutes."

TV Channels are businesses. What is wrong about making money? Continuous adverts continuously interrupt. Quality is sacrificed for profit!

"America is a land of the very best and the worst. So, if we follow their lead (as we seem to) perhaps our IQs will split into 2 normal distribution curves: "highly-brilliant" and "much-much-dumberer"

Looking over history, perhaps that is how we always have been? The common populace has never reached the heights of the greats of their era. You may be right!

Diogenes' Dog:

"The US is the best example of "Adam Smith" type economic liberalism with the encouragement of rampant consumerism fed by intrusive advertising, encouragement of increased consumption, idealisation of wealth, low social care for the unsuccessful, refusal to place limits e.g. on CO2 emissions, and hawkish foreign policies to defend our rate of consumption of oil. Western Capitalism, of which the US is the leading power, is based on ever more excessive consumption of limited resources, with little regard for the consequences, or any serious setting of limits. That is the politics of greed."

And you claim this is negative, I presume?

"This is counterbalanced by the fact that individual americans I have met both in the UK and US, are to a person, overwhelmingly generous!"

Capitalism simply does not entail personal miserhood. Only a few capitalists are truly Scrougesque characters.

"The Constitution is an unequalled encapsulation of the value and rights of all individuals. Yet States with the death penalty exterminate these same citizens, often brutally (e.g. with the electric chair) showing a disrespect for the value of human life. The death penalty has been shown not to lower crime rates, is motivated by revenge, is barbaric in practice and is irreversible if a conviction proves to have been unsafe."

What form of justice is not based on revenge?

What is barbaric about destroying that which has commited a great crime? Do we keep that which would destroy us otherwise?

Is irreversibility a problem if the evidence was enough to be beyond reasonable doubt in a competant judicial system?

What brutality is there to be found in killing a man almost painlessly through an electric charge that ceases after only a few seconds of suffering? What if a more instant death were instead used? A gunshot to the back of the head, for instance, takes all of half a second to achieve death. What lethal injections? They are given under anaesthia, even, and the poisons are not themselves painful.

The value of human life is non-existent outside the merits of that individual. This individual has committed crimes which have, in their horror, been considered to deserve death. The value of their life, then, is to be attained only in death.

Moreover, why is it that the murder rate -has- gone down since the reinstitution of the death penalty if it doesn't inspire the fear of it in criminals? That criminals fight tooth and nail NOT to be executed? That people do not view it as a good alternative compared to life in prison? And if we want this to be more pronounced, hwo about making the death penalty far more instant than it is now? People often linger on death row for twenty years before death. How about a few months? Maybe a year at most? That would be more direct. How about public? How about painfully? All this would deter even more than the all ready effective death penalty. Not to mention the cost of keeping prisoners alive and the futility of doing so.

"Continuous adverts continuously interrupt. Quality is sacrificed for profit!"

Then pay for the channels which offer their services at a premium so they do not have to interrupt the material presented with excessive commercials. IFC, Sundance, HBO, Cinemax, Showtime...

I think we may have veered slightly off the subject of curruption but shit happens.
A corruption as far as I understand it is an evolutionary reaction to changing environmental factors. All this worrying about currupt humanity, it was ever thus, is disingenious. I suspect evolution (or 'nature' if you prefer) will deal with these corruptions as it always has. The corrupt will be forced to adapt to new conditions by changing their ways or die. This in itself will bring about more 'curruption' and will have nothing whatsoever to do with high IQs or low morals.

"The US is the best example of "Adam Smith" type economic liberalism with the encouragement of rampant consumerism fed by intrusive advertising, encouragement of increased consumption, idealisation of wealth, low social care for the unsuccessful, refusal to place limits e.g. on CO2 emissions, and hawkish foreign policies to defend our rate of consumption of oil. Western Capitalism, of which the US is the leading power, is based on ever more excessive consumption of limited resources, with little regard for the consequences, or any serious setting of limits. That is the politics of greed."

And you claim this is negative, I presume? Do you think unchecked consumerism is good, or sustainable, or mindful of future generations PJ? Our children's grandchildren will have a lot of cleaning up to do! Aside from the ecological arguments, there's also our health - have you seen the movie 'Supersize me'?

What form of justice is not based on revenge? Reasons for just punishment might include deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restoration...

Revenge is the least constructive form of justice, achieving nothing except the grim satisfaction of 'getting even'. Often this leads to further crime. All the others are means to prevent future crime, and/or compensate for the effects of the crime. Is this not a more intelligent form of justice than revenge?

Is irreversibility a problem if the evidence was enough to be beyond reasonable doubt in a competant judicial system? If miscarriages of justice never occurred - OK. However, they do!

The value of human life is non-existent outside the merits of that individual. This individual has committed crimes which have, in their horror, been considered to deserve death. The value of their life, then, is to be attained only in death. On this we will have to differ. Life is the most valuable thing an individual has. The State should embody our highest values, not stoop to imitate the criminal. While a prisoner is alive, there is a chance of regret, remorse and repentance. They may lead a worthwhile life. All life experience is of value. All life is valuable.

Moreover, why is it that the murder rate -has- gone down since the reinstitution of the death penalty if it doesn't inspire the fear of it in criminals?

Murder rates over the past 10 years have decreased significantly more in 'non-death-penalty states' than 'death-penalty states', so the causative factor cannot be the increased numbers of executions taking place! I quote from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=168)

In the past ten years, the number of executions in the U.S. has increased while the murder rate has declined. Some commentators have maintained that the murder rate has dropped because of the increase in executions. However, during this decade the murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty.

As executions rose, states without the death penalty fared much better than states with the death penalty in reducing their murder rates. The gap between the murder rate in death penalty states and the non-death penalty states grew larger. In 1990, the murder rates in these two groups were 4% apart. By 2000, the murder rate in the death penalty states was 35% higher than the rate in states without the death penalty. In 2001, the gap between non-death penalty states and states with the death penalty again grew, reaching 37%. For 2002, the number stands at 36%.
Did you read that? In 12 years, non-executing states went from 4% less murders to having 36% less murders than executing states! I rest my case...

Diogenes' Dog:

"Do you think unchecked consumerism is good, or sustainable, or mindful of future generations PJ? Our children's grandchildren will have a lot of cleaning up to do! Aside from the ecological arguments, there's also our health - have you seen the movie 'Supersize me'?"

Consumerism is the same force that solves these problems, by virtue of harnessing the profit motive inherent in the capitalistic system, which can be said to be self-regulatory in this sense. For instance, because people no longer wish to suffer the ill effects of bad eating, most fast food restaurants are now offering healthy alternatives to many of their more junky foods. Were people not making this a monetary issue, no impetus would be given to the fast food companies to change. Also, enviromental problems have themselves presented us with a pro-profit opportunity to deal with them.

And as for "Supersize Me", if someone does not wish to eat McDonalds, none force them to do so. It is a matter of choice, plain and simple. Capitalism is focused on that freedom of choice. No one can make one buy a thing.

"Reasons for just punishment might include deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restoration... "

Yet why do we have such notions at all? Because we wish compensation for past crimes and safety from further ones to absolve of us the need to demand compensation.

"Revenge is the least constructive form of justice, achieving nothing except the grim satisfaction of 'getting even'. Often this leads to further crime. All the others are means to prevent future crime, and/or compensate for the effects of the crime. Is this not a more intelligent form of justice than revenge?"

Not at all, actually. For there is no reason to seek justice but to return to equality or, perhaps, even superiority, over one's enemies. For in so doing we right the chief reason for why people have a problem with crime commited against them, and abstractly, against anything: For it diminishes the station of the individual and those around him so targetted. Moreover, that it might introduce a cyclic nature to the conflict is unfortunate, but can be mitigated through the formalization of the process to be condusive to social harmony, which is needed in any society, as opposed to the natural state of war amongst men. This formalization would have been, in prior epochs, by means of regulated dueling, of limitations on blood feuds, et cetera, and in the present day, comprises the court system, which we have agreed to be the proxies of our revenge in the public sphere. In so doing, we find means of returning, as much as possible, to our unmolested state.

"If miscarriages of justice never occurred - OK. However, they do!"

Human error is a possibility, but not a reasonable one to conclude in the vast majority of cases. Indeed, there is a time when we must say "there are limits to our capacity to be free from error, but the facts point to guilt and we must act". Indeed, DNA testing is very good for this, as is other, older methods.

"On this we will have to differ. Life is the most valuable thing an individual has. The State should embody our highest values, not stoop to imitate the criminal. While a prisoner is alive, there is a chance of regret, remorse and repentance. They may lead a worthwhile life. All life experience is of value. All life is valuable."

All life is valuable at the start, perhaps, but value shifts. Whereas I shall agree that innocent life has some degree of inherent value, that it oughtn't be destroyed for no reason, it seems necessary that we extinguish that life which would commit evil, specifically when the threat is present in the moment. Is it worthy of blame to strike down the man who would murder oneself? And can "regret, remose, and repentance" offer to us anything, when it is better to simply be done with him, for so rare are these things? And indeed, if he is truly remorseful, should not he wish death for his crimes, and thus be given it? Perhaps an honourable way would be to allow the convicted to, if he so chooses, kill himself, rather than be executed. In ages past, this option was afforded to men of high standing who had fallen from their exalted positions, in order to respect their former greatness, and give them a means whereby they can return, in part, to it.

"Did you read that? In 12 years, non-executing states went from 4% less murders to having 36% less murders than executing states! I rest my case... "

It stands to reason that a state that had reintroduced the death penalty had done so in order to combat the increasingly out of control problem with crimes formerly punished by death. That is to say, execution in those states has been instituted to stop an otherwise even more marked rise in murder, whereas the other states have not had an increase in crime during the decade. Consider, for instance, that New York, California, and Texas all have the death penalty, and all have more murders commited in their states than many others, on the foundation that they are both exceedingly large, and ontop of that, are filled with the crime-prolific groups of our society, namely, blacks and hispanics, with an even greater problem in California and Texas of burder incursions by Mexican illegals, which bring with them immense amounts of criminal activity. Similarly, both states have large urban communities, which wedded to the minorities present there in relative poverty compared to whites, produces conditions condusive to them acting criminally.

Posted by Nanonetics Material comfort, self pleasure and personal safety are among western man's highest goals, sharply contrasted with the ancient world when we sought a purpose, "honor" "high king" "tribal glory", higher than our narrow selves. I have to write, nanonetics, that 'tribal glory' should (in my opinion) be considered the wrong phrase: any glory that is to be found within the realm you write of must surely be met without pride, but with secrecy; despite the presence of a common purpose, any 'tribal glory' will undoubtedly result in continued revolutions. One may conclude here that there is an (unholy) search for monotheism, as opposed to 'material comfort', 'self pleasure', and personal safety.

Maybe I am missin something, but what does 'Corrupt Inc" consider a "real problem?"

Yeah, you're really missing something. Did you notice our society is collapsing from within?

"Rot at the core spreads outwards."
-Darwi Odrade

"Things fall apart, the center cannot hold."
-Yeats

"Doom, doom, kerboom!"
-Maynard G. Krebs

"Don't worry about it."
-Chong

(A hint. Society has been collapsing from within since Catalhoyuk's day.)

http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000953.html

Reality check. What do you think our top industry leaders have planned for over six billion people on this planet, who over the course of the next century will comprise about 90% of all people, each of whom are pretty darn close to borderline retarded? Wonderful opportunity is not on the way for these people; their educatability is, by birth extremely limited. This is an enourmous consumer population ripe for exploitation, a population incapable of self-determination and indeed freedom against a ruthless consumer industry.

Where is that sucking sound and rancid corrupt stink coming from?

Lieutenant Colonel Gregory C. Kane, United States Army War College
The United States is unarguably the pre-eminent nation in the world. Our economic
strength provides for a high quality of life for most of our citizens, large sums of capital for public and private investment, and the ability to field a highly capable and technically advanced military force. At the same time, the United States has become the largest debtor nation; currently some $7 trillion, has under-funded future governmental obligations, and has worldwide security commitments that stretch our military to the breaking point. In order to meet our future security requirements and sustain our pre-eminent military position, the United States must pursue a
foreign policy that ensures continued economic growth - without which, the government will be forced to reduce our commitments, cede resolution of issues to regional powers, or significantly reduce domestic governmental spending, currently politically unpalatable. And to secure growth, the United States needs to maintain access to natural resources and markets for American products. The largest underdeveloped market remaining in the world is the continent of Africa. We are not alone however, in that competition for Africa. China, a growing economic and diplomatic force in the world, has been aggressively pursuing economic goals on the continent and parlaying those economic ties into diplomatic clout. The competition for Africa has strategic implications for whichever country fails to establish or sustain access to that market.
(Feb 2006)
Another frank document from the U.S. Army War College. This one doesn't seem to have been noticed by any other media yet. Cheers to Scot for alerting us. -AF

http://www.energybulletin.net/19971.html

(A hint. Society has been collapsing from within since Catalhoyuk's day.)

A hint: eventually that collapse becomes manifest.

Wow. Two-thirds down and I was totally like "YEAH". Then read the rest and I thought "these people must be insane".

Sure, I agree totally that the "leaderless" society succumbs into an escape from reality. No one is enforcing order, so people have to do it themselves. They don't want to, so they just pretend reality is not there. When no one is giving answers they can't escape by saying "God Wills It!" or whatever. Society becomes corrupt when the people don't know what to do.

But to solve this by strong leadership just shows how much these people hate their own methods; they refuse to think about it any more than necessary. Intrestingly, they also DENY selfisness, which is where they go wrong. On these assumptions they reach these CRAZY courses of action.

Strong leaders give a good, solid and guiding way to escape realism. In the Empire people are given something PRODUCTIVE to do and they can pretend they're perfect and good. Hence it seems Empires are more productive and more healthy. But in fact, they suffer from the same corruption, and eventually the corruption of escapism reaches the center (The Emperor) and the Empire declines until it falls under the heel of barbarians (who establish either a more realistic order) or revolutionaries (who induce chaotic democracies). Democracies, however, just put as right back where we are. Going back MAY not be the answer! (the next step is the birth of the emperor, like Alexander or Cesar who change democracies into Enlightenend Kingdoms, which eventually begin to decline. Also, new monotheistic way of explaining all the new things!)

From selfish point of view, why spend tons and tons of time into "improving the world", and make tons and tons of enemies? Gather ye around as many people as possible, then make them as useful as possible. Kill people? What a waste of precious resources. From this point of view, selfishness becomes a virtue. Nice tought, but not nice enough.