WTF are the politicians doing ?

[contagion]

How did this devolve into a discussion about religion?  ... This reminds me of my last Civ5 game and how ideology/faith points had no impact on my happiness, gold, resource, or productivity levels.  

Because government and religion are synonymous with collective dependence, psychological control, and thus enabling corruption by those are handed the power by these collectivized paradigms.

Summarizing my prior post upthread, the Bible and the government are both centralized paradigms, where the collective depends on each other. We need decentralized paradigms where the individual is empowered.

Gold is not a decentralized paradigm.

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[sickhouse]

There is no win in this for the politicians, hence they are doing nothing.

[contagion]

There is no win in this for the politicians, hence they are doing nothing.

What are you talking about? Politicians are always winning. Go look at their bank account statements.

[cakebet]

That'll teach me not to skim posts! Silly reply with lighthearted intention aside, I acknowledge your astute observations. Problematically many people cannot perform basic functions without consulting someone else. 

How did this devolve into a discussion about religion?  ... This reminds me of my last Civ5 game and how ideology/faith points had no impact on my happiness, gold, resource, or productivity levels.  

Because government and religion are synonymous with collective dependence, psychological control, and thus enabling corruption by those are handed the power by these collectivized paradigms.

Summarizing my prior post upthread, the Bible and the government are both centralized paradigms, where the collective depends on each other. We need decentralized paradigms where the individual is empowered.

Gold is not a decentralized paradigm.

[smoothie]

[Chef Ramsay]

And, the average person will just go along to get along and that's how we got where we are today. Very few would consider using violence to make right what should be right. Furthermore, the govt-media complex does a great job at turning off the boob americans to anyone else that is trying to do anything to help the situation. Not to mention, this alleged power is meaningless considering the amount of military hardware in local police's hands and all the hollow points that homeland security has when you compare all that to the small amount of actual militia types that would have the mindset to engage such a large occupying force. These politicians stacked up their legions to protect them from us in the end.

[contagion]

Not to mention, this alleged power is meaningless considering the amount of military hardware in local police's hands and all the hollow points that homeland security has when you compare all that to the small amount of actual militia types that would have the mindset to engage such a large occupying force. These politicians stacked up their legions to protect them from us in the end.

Please enlighten me, where is the instruction manual for shooting a paradigm shift?

[Morbid]

things like that happen when your attention needs to be diverted..
- 'hey look over there!'

 we are being kept constantly distracted since invention of msm.

[Chef Ramsay]

Not to mention, this alleged power is meaningless considering the amount of military hardware in local police's hands and all the hollow points that homeland security has when you compare all that to the small amount of actual militia types that would have the mindset to engage such a large occupying force. These politicians stacked up their legions to protect them from us in the end.

Please enlighten me, where is the instruction manual for shooting a paradigm shift?

The picture and caption depicted that the guy that is selling people BS is imperil simply if the people realized they had more so-called power than they thought they did. That power could either be an organic grassroots campaign to unseat this politician and multiplied on a larger scale to affect the country/state/locality as a whole or the aggression route which I was hypothesizing about. There's so many low info voters and news viewers or lack thereof that this power of information utilization to exert change can easily be steered in one pre-determined direction or another. Hence, the recent election of republicans to leadership roles in the Congress yet the first thing the establishment overlords do from the right is ram through a god awful $trillion+ bill that funds pretty much everything they were elected to dismantle. So many people believed they were doing the right thing by voting republican and while overall it was a good thing, the den of leadership is still ran and defended by the establishment republicans. Meaning, even the good conservatives and libertarians that were elected are pretty much on the sidelines especially when the establishment of both parties collude with each other against the minority in each. Not saying we aren't trending toward more anti-establishment folks getting elected but the corporate machine that funds the establishment politicians who are the protectors of the banking, media and MIC syndicate, have shown how tough it is to overpower them. They swept every US Senate primary this last election despite deep and committed grassroots fights in many states. So, this is one large example that a paradigm shift of sorts was in play but the low info republicans were fooled and the corporate candidates won the day. I injected neither anarchism nor socialism here but merely was thinking out loud about the sand that the average person has and how corralled they can truly be despite thinking or proffering that they aren't. I wish it could be true and perhaps Bitcoin will help that happen.

[contagion]

Chef Ramsey, a paradigm shift is where the incentives have changed, and the shift is unavoidable. It doesn't require any education of the actors, because they implicitly grasp their self interest as evident by the recent example of the green line below.

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/chart32-640x429.jpg

[Cameltoemcgee]

Chef Ramsey, a paradigm shift is where the incentives have changed, and the shift is unavoidable. It doesn't require any education of the actors, because they implicitly grasp their self interest as evident by the recent example of the green line below.

Self Interest is THE incentive, that hasn't changed. What has changed is the means by which people can best serve their self interest.

[contagion]

Chef Ramsey, a paradigm shift is where the incentives have changed, and the shift is unavoidable. It doesn't require any education of the actors, because they implicitly grasp their self interest as evident by the recent example of the green line below.

Self Interest is THE incentive, that hasn't changed. What has changed is the means by which people can best serve their self interest.

I entirely agree and I explained how collectives create distorted self interest that is globally destructive.

[BADecker]

God doesn't help.  He only murders.  

  explanation?

Millions of people have been killed in god's name throughout the course of history.  

Millions of people have been killed by acts of god also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_God

If I spent most of my days helping people but every once in a while I decided to set off explosives that killed thousands of people would you say I was a good person?

All people die. Some die as infants. Others live over 100.

If a person is a Jesus believer, he goes to Heaven where there is forgiveness and everlasting joy. If he is not a Jesus believer, he goes to Hell where there is everlasting punishment for the sins he committed while living here.

If God lets believers die young, they are in joy. If God lets unbelievers die young, they have fewer sins to be punished for in Hell = less everlasting punishment.

So, if God lets people die, it is for their benefit.

You dont honestly believe all that do you? No really.....you dont right? No really....seriously tho?

This is part of the equation. It isn't all. There are the reasons why God allows people to live. One of the big parts is so that they have time to convert to Christianity and be saved. Another is so that saved people may increase in goodness so that they have a more glorious resurrection. People who are saved are blessed with different positions of glory in Heaven, depending on their life on earth. God is the judge. We don't know all the things that go into His judgment.

The same is true for those that wind up in Hell. Depending on the general goodness (or badness) of their life, how many opportunities to be saved they turned down, and who knows what else, God will determine their level of punishment. The severity of punishment will not be the same for everyone. God is just.

[SLVR4ME]

@BADecker Im just curious what structured religion you associate yourself with?

[BADecker]

@BADecker Im just curious what structured religion you associate yourself with?

That's a good question. Tell you what. Bible.

Bible talks to each person slightly differently, but very similarly.

New Testament; Jesus says this that I have posted above, if you look. Not the same words, of course.

Words in a forum like seldom express the real meaning of what is trying to be said. Also, what is read is interpreted differently than what was originally meant.

[contagion]

This is part of the equation. It isn't all. There are the reasons why God allows people to live. One of the big parts is so that they have time to convert to Christianity and be saved.

Saved from what? From punishment for being the imperfect humans that God created in the first place? Reminds me of torturing doodle bugs by creating a world in a Coke bottle experiment where they were outnumbered by fire ants.

Surely God knows that good can't be discerned without evil, just as light can't be seen without dark as contrast.

But there is something deeper going on here. If any entity creates a system of entropy, then that entity can not control it ALL OF IT, precisely because if there is a top-down controller, then all the entropy is destroyed because it is all deterministic (dependent on external control).

Thus God isn't doing any individualized punishing, sorry. Impossible. Either we exist or we don't and the serendipity (entropy) exists or it doesn't. You can't have it both ways. If God is meddling, then the Universe ceases to exist and he is all alone again. A God could be observing and then do a reset and destroy or reduce the entropy of our Universe to start over. A God could exert partial control, and leave some of the entropy to be free. But by doing this continually over time, the God's preference for certain outcomes would destroy all the entropy just the same and the Universe would be just a mirror of God. So what was the point of such a game? The God is alone all again with an exact or subset copy of himself.

Even if our soul was moved outside this Universe upon death, then it could not have any communication channel to this Universe, otherwise the entropy of this Universe would collapse. So what is the point if we have no connection to the being we were here in this Universe?

Sorry top-down systems don't sustain (and God must be eternal right?). They are temporary or partial Coasian barriers, lest existence doesn't exist.

My blog essays "The Universe" and "Information Is Alive!" provide more background.

P.S. we have a conscience because evil is a high risk activity, because it turns many forces against you. The best are technological advances which make it impossible to do evil, e.g. the decentralized block chain makes it impossible to direct debasement to corruption, the end-to-end principle puts the smarts at the edge of the network, so the intermediaries have no control, etc..

[BADecker]

This is part of the equation. It isn't all. There are the reasons why God allows people to live. One of the big parts is so that they have time to convert to Christianity and be saved.

Saved from what? From punishment for being the imperfect humans that God created in the first place? Reminds me of torturing doodle bugs by creating a world in a Coke bottle experiment where they were outnumbered by fire ants.

Surely God knows that good can't be discerned without evil, just as light can't be seen without dark as contrast.

But there is something deeper going on here. If any entity creates a system of entropy, then that entity can not control it ALL OF IT, precisely because if there is a top-down controller, then all the entropy is destroyed because it is all deterministic (dependent on external control).

Thus God isn't doing any individualized punishing, sorry. Impossible. Either we exist or we don't and the serendipity (entropy) exists or it doesn't. You can't have it both ways. If God is meddling, then the Universe ceases to exist and he is all alone again. A God could be observing and then do a reset and destroy or reduce the entropy of our Universe to start over. A God could exert partial control, and leave some of the entropy to be free. But by doing this continually over time, the God's preference for certain outcomes would destroy all the entropy just the same and the Universe would just a mirror of God. So what was the point of such a game? The God is alone all again with an exact copy of himself.

Even if our soul was moved outside this Universe upon death, then it could not have any communication channel to this Universe, otherwise the entropy of this Universe would collapse. So what is the point if we have no connection to the being we were here in this Universe?

Sorry top-down systems don't sustain (and God must be eternal right?). They are temporary or partial Coasian barriers, lest existence doesn't exist.

My blog essays "The Universe" and "Information Is Alive!" provide more background.

The answer to this isn't something that can easily be said in a handful of words. But "saved" is saved from our own self-destruction.

Possibly the top, major purpose that God made people for is to glorify Him. God made people with enough of Himself in them so that they could recognize His greatness, and praise and honor Him for that greatness... thanking Him for creating them.

One rule; one law; one order; don't eat the one fruit. Eat all the rest. Don't eat that one. Honor God by obeying that one rule. After all, honoring God, and thereby glorifying Him, is what man was created for.

People couldn't leave well enough alone back then, and they haven't ever since.

The result is entropy. There was no entropy before that. Man brought the entropy.

The universe is ONE. It all hangs together as one unit. The disobedience of man created the entropy that covers the whole universe.

God had a choice back there in the Beginning. Lose the glorification; lose humankind; or don't lose. God chose not to lose. He did it by promising a Savior, Who came in the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Now, God won't lose. The people who follow Him and believe in Him will be saved for everlasting life. There is glory for God in this, because these people will forever praise Him EXTRA because He didn't have to save them, yet did save them... from their own self-destruction.

The people who don't follow God, and proceed onward to their self-destruction, can only praise and glorify God, because they were given the chance, and used their own choice to reject Him. God was fair beyond beyond. He is glorified by those who are destroyed because they used their own choice which God gave them, and so they glorify Him.

What does it mean to be destroyed? What is this destruction that we need saving from?

God can exist outside of time and eternity. We cannot do so without Him. Our spirits are connected to eternity in such a way that their destruction, their dissolution (if it that's the route we take), will take forever. Will it be pleasant, our personal dissolution forever? Absolutely not! The forge fires of Hell, whereby God gets His power back from all those who do not turn from their own self-destruction, are something that will go on throughout eternity, because that is what the soul of man is... something eternal.

You want it? You get it! But it is your choice, even your opportunity. This is the way it is. Take your pick.

[SLVR4ME]

@BADecker Im just curious what structured religion you associate yourself with?

That's a good question. Tell you what. Bible.

Bible talks to each person slightly differently, but very similarly.

New Testament; Jesus says this that I have posted above, if you look. Not the same words, of course.

Words in a forum like seldom express the real meaning of what is trying to be said. Also, what is read is interpreted differently than what was originally meant.

So you believe in the "New Testament" but not the "Old Testament"?
In reference to your underlined statement: Are you implying that the "bible" is open to each individual readers interpretation?

If so, I will give you a softball to start....

What is your personal interpretation of Exodus 21- specifically the part about owning people as slaves and having the right to beat slaves as long as the beatings dont cause death.
Under what interpretation should a sane person accept these type of acts come from an all loving creator of the universe?

Im really not trying to derail the thread, but this could get pretty interesting...

[BADecker]

@BADecker Im just curious what structured religion you associate yourself with?

That's a good question. Tell you what. Bible.

Bible talks to each person slightly differently, but very similarly.

New Testament; Jesus says this that I have posted above, if you look. Not the same words, of course.

Words in a forum like seldom express the real meaning of what is trying to be said. Also, what is read is interpreted differently than what was originally meant.

So you believe in the "New Testament" but not the "Old Testament"?
In reference to your underlined statement: Are you implying that the "bible" is open to each individual readers interpretation?

If so, I will give you a softball to start....

What is your personal interpretation of Exodus 21- specifically the part about owning people as slaves and having the right to beat slaves as long as the beatings dont cause death.
Under what interpretation should a sane person accept these type of acts come from an all loving creator of the universe?

Im really not trying to derail the thread, but this could get pretty interesting...

Interesting like your avatar. I am not interested in bandying words for nothing. Didn't I say "Bible?" Is Bible only N.T.? Wanna play, huh?

Many of the words used in older translations are not accurate with today's language. What is often interpreted "slave" in the older English, would be interpreted "servant" or "indentured servant."

How does a person get into the position of servant or slave? You might have a day job - servant. You might have taken on debt to pay for a car - slave. If you were kidnapped and sold into slavery... there are words in Exodus and elsewhere in the O.T. that forbid the stealing of a person.

[contagion]

One rule; one law; one order; don't eat the one fruit. Eat all the rest. Don't eat that one. Honor God by obeying that one rule. After all, honoring God, and thereby glorifying Him, is what man was created for.

People couldn't leave well enough alone back then, and they haven't ever since.

The result is entropy. There was no entropy before that. Man brought the entropy.

Exactly. One boring nirvana with no diversity and very lonely.

Either God can't meddle or he will end up all alone again.

Sorry there is no mathematical way around this.

The answer to this isn't something that can easily be said in a handful of words. But "saved" is saved from our own self-destruction.

If we do evil, we increase our risk greatly of being destroyed within this life.

But the real issue here is the assertion of an after life and the claim that a God can punish us for eternity with fire, brimstone, repetitive disembowelment, and gnashing of teeth for eternity.

I do not see mathematically that assertion can be true. If there is any meaningful feedback loop between our Universe and the after life, then the entropy of our Universe collapses to the perfect will of God, meaning a copy of him and the loss of diversity.

On several levels, it appears to be story crafted from existential fear of darkness of night (can't grow crops without the sun) that morphed into a mechanism for mass mind control via propagation of fear of an after life that can't be falsified and doesn't make any sense from an entropic analysis.

I too fell into this psychological trap of believing Christianity because of my idealism and desire to belief in an order that protects good from evil. But my understanding has become refined and more astute (I believe although I am willing to entertain counter logic that is worthy).

The rebuttal is of course that to prove your faith it can't be certain, otherwise there would be no value to be faithful. I break down that logic in terms of the definition of love and mutual respect.