Sony UK distribution centre burned to the ground

[Atgets_Apprentice]

It's just that the class attribution should not come with birthright, better tie it up to the real merits of a person.

What you mean is a meritocracy. It is a shame that the UK is currently being run by the birthright brigade.

I am "amused" by Camerons' claim that society is broken. I'd like to know who he thinks broke it, and before he starts pointing the finger at the previous, New Labour administrations, maybe he should look back a bit further, say, to 1979, when class division was brought about by an ideology his party had supposedly moved away from to more "Caring Conservatives". Unfortunately, it wouldn't matter which party was in power today, as they have all become slightly different shades of grey.

[agorabasta]

What you mean is a meritocracy.

I beg to differ.

I don't buy power by merit.
I'm all for freedom by merit, including the freedom to stay away from any kind of social powers.

And I think that the current 'meritocracies' of the US sort are flawed even deeper than Britain is at the moment.

There simply must be some new start in social organisation. But it must not be a revolutionary one, on the contrary - it must a return to some 'natural traditionalism', something that comes natural with the inherent understanding of the 'good people' of a given society.

[David Kilpatrick]

It's interesting that none of the commentators on the English riots issue has raised the question of rites of passage - key life markers for the transition from child to adult, for example, and similar markers for acceptance into social strata or peer groups.

These antisocial kids often have no access to any formal rite of passage (no exam, no employment) which turns them into adults. But the gangs, of course, offer a rite of passage - becoming a gang member. This is one of the forgotten aspects of National Service (which does not have to be military, it can also be taskforce oriented - anything from coastguards to mountain rescue to paramedic training, to municipal gardening or road safety).

The old-syle British National Service provided all classes with one rite of passage which marked anyone who had 'done their national service' out from those who had not.

Another aspect not commented on is simple summer delusional hysteria. Mob-thinking is easy enough, in summer it's known to be more common (higher temperatures have this effect), and it is possible for a trigger to enter what is almost an alternate reality - a dissociation from normal experience and society - to happen. I've seen this plenty of times, 'Lords of Misrule' and Saturnalia in mind. I was not there when English society allowed a week of madness in summer, but this once happened in many European countries 500 years ago and more.

There are still folk-events which celebrate the idea of the Lord of Misrule, the slaves in charge of the masters, the law suspended. We should not be too surprised to rediscover something once controlled by an older understanding of human nature.

And I'm not even a real journalist or particularly knowledgable. I'm just surprised that so few underlying aspects have been discussed.

David

[agorabasta]

David, I think it's not yet the time for a sober in-depth analysis; it's still the period of a heavy hangover.

Still I think there's a lot of sense in what you are saying on the 'rites of passage'.

But there's one grave caveat - it works only with basically social persons. And that ability to social adaptation is something that children must grasp a concept of very early in their life.
Just one little example - the capability of empathy must be developed till about the age of three years; then it still might be beaten into a 5-year old, then after the age of 7 a child can only be forcefully taught to simulate empathy. So a child is not readily born as a person, the real person may only be raised in a child. And now there are crowds of human beings who never get raised into being true persons.

[bfitzgerald]

I'm very sorry, Barry, but a reincarnation of a true 'class system' is the only way that can save our civilisation, saving means not going through a total decay with subsequent 'renaissance' in a few centuries.
It's just that the class attribution should not come with birthright, better tie it up to the real merits of a person.

The basics are very simple - the most antisocial types must be hammered into the very lowest quite despised 'class' having no 'rights' that could interfere with the normal life of the 'normal' social people.

And also, it's the 'bad guys' class that must be policed the most; quite unlike the present situation with the 'bad guys' enjoying the 'life at large' at the expense of the persecuted over-taxed middleclass.

I think we're reading off a different page on this one.
I'm not of the view that anarchy is the way forward nor violent protests (I've no problems with peaceful protests)

Civilisation doesn't work it never has nor will it in the future..call that a downer if you want but we watch thousands of species of animals and insects in the world and their behaviour and their unique mini society..yet are unable to even begin to comprehend what we humans are up to. It's beyond doubt human nature is destructive (don't really need to point out the oh so many examples in history), exploitative and ultimately based on mostly selfish personal needs at the expense of others. There are times we can be compassionate and even kind but they are far outweighed by the negative traits. Democracy is really just a nice idea and word for something that is in a practical sense not very effective but certainly better than the other alternative.

My take on all this is to try to ignore any political goings on because it's simply a stage act and little more.

I know this is all a bit heavy and a bit down but it's difficult to reach any other conclusion

[Greg Beetham]

I read an interesting book once, quite a few years ago now, called, ‘Journey of Souls’ http://www.spiritualregression.org/page ... y-of-soulsI see that the author has since published another couple of books that I haven’t read. I would recommend that everyone read it even though it’s way out in left field. What anyone takes out of it is entirely up to oneself, I think anyone who has strong religious beliefs may struggle with it as it conflicts with most man made religions that I know of, although I’m not an expert on all the various religious beliefs either.
Basically it outlines the ‘soul system’ discovered apparently through deep hypnosis, and relates quite a number of case histories, people who were troubled with various psychological and or spiritual problems and sought help (or had been referred), from this therapist (Michael Newton) after exhausting most other avenues.
What he discovered was that these people had somehow got part of previous lives mixed up with the present one even though (as he also ‘discovered’) the ‘soul system’ is supposed to prevent this from happening; that previous lives and those experiences/memories are disconnected once the soul is transferred into a new body (baby).
He also covers the place where souls go after the death of the body and what that place is like, all apparently discovered from deep hypnosis of various patients, some were better able to relay this information than others.
One of the things I half remember from this book was that souls gradually ‘graduate’ or ‘advance’ as they progress through many lifetimes, that is, most do eventually, some don’t. (There was one soul that could remember previous lives going right back to the beginning of human existence). Once souls have advanced sufficiently they no longer need to come to earth as the earth experience will not be able to offer any further advancement; although, some advanced souls still come if only to offer special assistance in the development of those souls who are struggling. This can be fraught with peril for advanced souls as well as there is a danger that they could be damaged themselves by the earth experience and actually regress. Also some souls need extensive rejuvenation and nurturing after a bad real life experience.
I seem to recall that there was something about the physical side of things and how it affects the soul and how much of the soul can actually inhabit a given human specimen depending on the way things are wired or damaged/defective (birth defects, drug abuse by mother etc. genetic inheritance) but that’s a little vague in my memory now.
But in any case the book postulates that everyone has to have a soul, if there is none available a new soul has to be borne; And THAT is a big part of the problem now-days, not that creating a brand new soul is a major problem apparently, it’s the sheer amount of new souls that have had to be brought into existence in recent earth history too accommodate the number of humans that are alive all at the same time now. New souls have no previous life experience and are inclined to indulge in brash, aggressive and foolish behaviour. Supposedly souls also have a juvenile/adolescent/mature learning curve, just like the short lived human body does; only stretched out over many human life spans.
So I guess it probably doesn’t matter if human ‘civilization’ works or not from whatever angle one evaluates it from; all that really matters is that souls progress in the right direction despite all the roadblocks and static from less advanced souls….I’m obviously not very advanced myself as I’m not at all tolerant of people who have no respect for others…hmmm maybe I should think about becoming not tolerant of not being tolerant….
Greg

[bfitzgerald]

Greg I could sum things up fairly quickly all we have to do is look around a bit.
Look at the people who do and have held power and what an interesting bunch they are you could write a book on them and with quite a few skeletons to put on display!

What I find pretty appalling is we can accept elderly poverty and people living on the streets, yet amazingly the money is found rapidly to send planes out to Italy to bomb targets in Libya yet we can't even look after our own people. The running costs of that are massive not to mention the ongoing military expenditure in Afghanistan..strangely we have no problems funding these activities when we could invest the money in far more constructive projects at home. Look how much money the USA wastes on it's massively over inflated military budget too..nuclear weapons that will likely never be used the list of wasteful cash spending is pretty big

There seems to be plenty of cash flying around it's a shame it can't be spent in more useful/constructive ways.

[bakubo]

Look how much money the USA wastes on it's massively over inflated military budget too..nuclear weapons that will likely never be used the list of wasteful cash spending is pretty big

The whole world agrees with you! Let's use them nukes!!! Until they are used it is just wasted money. I say shoot off one a day until they are used up so we get something for all that money we spent.

[Dusty]

Hard to call them wasted. We only used 2, and the threat of using another kept the Soviets at bay until Communism collapsed there.

If it wasn't for our massive military budget, and the fact that the USSR tried to keep up, several of our forum members probably wouldn't be able to be with us, nor afford DSLRs.

Dusty

[bossel]

Yeah, lets bomb a country from time to time to use our tax money and allow us to buy DSLRs

[agorabasta]

Here's a conjecture: it's a pretty hard fact that the US citizens don't earn the monies they spend, hence follows the taxes they pay come of borrowed money, hence follows the weapons to use abroad are paid with the real funds borrowed abroad by the government and distributed at home by the means of the virtual economy that then get partially recollected through taxes and other duties.
So how do you think, how long that is going to stay allowed to happen? And more importantly - what the use your government has of the citizens who only spend whatever that government distributes through such a virtual economy?

[David Kilpatrick]

Can't agree with the last post. It may apply to some parts of the UK, but the USA despite all appearances to the contrary remains a very productive and functional country. I'm always surprised when travelling through the States just how much is 'real' and not virtual - how much manual labour there is, how many companies are rooted in fairly robust simply engineering, how much food is grown and processed, how much freight is shifted by means we seem to have forgotten (rail, water).

I am always surprised by the amount of manufactured photographic gear which emerges from the USA and is not subcontracted to Chinese factories, especially in the lighting and professional market.

David

[agorabasta]

David, the real industrial part of the US economy is only 11% of the GDP. The real economy of the US is much smaller than the real sector of the Brazilian economy, leave alone the countries like Germany/France.
And a comparison to the UK economy only seems to favour the US; in fact, the UK govt has to feed only the 'ratboys' part of the society, while in the US they have to partially compensate for over 90% of the population.

[Greg Beetham]

I think it’s the glue that supports the whole thing that is starting to come unstuck, i.e. middle America and the equivalents in the UK, Australia etc. they might have been bled dry once too often, you have to admit that it’s the worker bees, the 8 to 5ers, the battlers, who support the excesses at either end of the scale, the growing army of non contributing cretins at one end (who are largely the way they are because of lifestyle choices and stupidity) and the excesses at the other.
America might be functioning again now the Federal Government has finally gotten its shiny new credit card with an extended limit, but what happens when it’s time to cough up? The interest bill on the principal outstanding now is larger than tax income, every couple of minutes the US Government racks up another million dollars of debt. Have a look at this: http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Greg

[bfitzgerald]

I'm not an accountant but from my vague grip on numbers it looks to me as if the USA is bankrupt