*who it is he is impersonating*

There is only one professor at Cambridge who teaches both history and philosophy, and I highly doubt you are he

well he is convienently not here anymore, so I guess I wont attack someone who cannot defend themselves. not that he intends to...

care to defend yourself from my ridiculous baseless accusations?

oop, he got off again.
ok, there is one of my opponents discredited, eleven to go.

just kidding, I enjoy most of you, even though you disagree with me

last 2 posts before the tangent

Sent from: Chrispminis Online (919 ) Sent: 07:03 PM
Yeah, terribly sorry for insulting you Sicarius. I was getting a little frustrated with your lack of adequate answers. I'm thankful that at least you're making some effort now to answer some questions.

Don't join the system to beat it, merely use it. It's horribly futile to fight the system head on, you have to subvert it. It's had hundreds of years of culture and history to solidify it's place. Even "sudden" revolutions have their humble beginnings. We're never beyong reform, shift is happening all around us. It's too gradual for our short lives, but it's very noticeable in the span of history. Democracy is democratic... it's just that, unfortunately for you, the majority of voters do not feel the same way you do, and prefer the status quo. But, you can take it upon yourself to try to convince them that their preference is illogical. You're adding sand to a bucket on a seesaw. It doesn't seem like you're doing anything... but then suddenly, the seesaw tips and everyone is in awe at how fast the revolution happened, but really, it was just a lot of little people putting sand in a bucket.

Theophilus, you are opening up an entirely new question, and I'm afraid I don't agree with you. While Darwinism and evolution are necessarily the cause to the effect known as humanity, that does not mean that our morality should necessarily stem from such brutal concepts. Social Darwinism and Eugenics have been refuted countless times by ethical atheists and evolutionary biologists. It is the mechanism by which we came to exist, but it is not our Ten Commandments.


Sent from: Sicarius Sent: 07:14 PM
Why would I become what I am against? well, I'm still going to be fighting the status quo, I'm going to change things from the inside, right? That's what they tell you, at least. Of course the system has "appropriate procedures" for people with grievances to go through to try to make things better; that's the safety valve to release pressure when people get too worked up. Do you think the powers that be would really let anyone use their own laws and methods to depose them? If this system provided opportunities for real change, people would have taken advantage of them a long time ago. Countless generations have set out convinced that they would succeed where other had failed. that's where lawyers and reporters come from, you know. They're the cynical corpses of idealistic young men and women who thought the system could be reformed.
We need to nourish our idealism and our willingness to take risks, not work out new ways to integrate our frustration and our desperation for change back into the society that engendered them. every day spent "using the system" is another day longer we'll have to wait until new networks and better ways of life replace the old ones.

Well, maybe you should stop thinking about your happy life. If you truly believe in what you are doing, and you truly want to enact any sort of movement towards anarcho-primitivism, you should go for it. Your post has a paranoid conspiracy feel to it. You don't have to go directly through the bureaucratic roots, but you can meet the common person halfway. You are trying to convince them, you have to reach them, and that means living the way they do, or at least respecting it somewhat. Revolutionaries all throughout history have worked like this. Gandhi was extremely respectful to local laws of the places he visited, and even when beaten severely by British officers, he refused to press charges. The ideals of the world have been shaped by a few highly idealistic minds, willing to put everything on the line for their ideas, not worrying about the possible futility of their actions, other than a genuine concern for the people they believed to be oppressed. Is there any reason that you don't believe you can be great?

Theophilus, you must be joking about your credentials... I would gladly take on Aristotle. He was a genius, but he was not infallible. If there is any beauty in our modern scientific method it's the power of peer review and the questioning and provoking of our greatest minds. Antithesis only works if it is an exact contradiction. Such as design versus not-design. But design and chance are not direct contradictions. It's funny that you mention an intergalactic rabbit, because for all we know, it could be. But obviously nobody believes that, but there are an infinite number of ridiculous possibilities, all as likely, all as worthy of our skepticism as the next.

Also, your idea of Darwinism is horribly flawed. Evolution is not a process of randomness... it's highly non-random. The mechanism itself is the non-random selection of random mutations in genetic material, though the concept of natural selection may be broadly applied to many things. It is not random, and certainly not the polar opposite to a creator.

well I help to publish zines and things like that, I dont usually walk up to people and tell them to be an anarcho primitivist, that would probably scare them. I'm an idealist but I'm not ghandi

ghandi's mind
99% concern for beliefs
1% concern for own happiness

mines not quite that extreme


he's not joking, he's lying there is a difference.
and if he feels the need to lie when I ask him what HE contributes, then it's probably nothing

I dont know much about anti-thesis, but I have read some aristotle, and some of it is very good. but sometimes it seems as though he doesnt know what the hell he is talking about, much like plato.

I enjoy taoist writing the most, and they make the most sense to me

Actually, Aristotle was pretty confident, unlike Plato. He believed he knew what he was talking about... Plato believed that nobody had no idea what they were talking about and that it was wholly arrogant to claim to know. Funny, because despite Aristotle's genius, much of history past the Renaissance and into the Enlightenment was spent proving most of his naturalistic theories incorrect. Obviously, Aristotle was arguably still the best mind of the Antiquity.

I haven't read much taoist, what would you recommend?

I wasnt referring to his confidence.

anything by lao tzu

actually I just read a book called tales of the tao. it's a little red book, I really enjoyed it, so thats what I recommend.


may I ask your job?

Lao Tzu's a tricky guy. What do you think of his debated existence?

I am a student. =)
I have a part-time job as a banquet waiter, though I have no intention of staying one... I've recently been admitted to McGill University in Montreal, and that's likely where I'll go. I can't wait. =)
I occasionally volunteer, not usually for things like bathing the elderly or at soup kitchens, but mostly for helping set up certain charitable, competitive (Taekwondo) or arts-related (plays, shows, and things) events.

I'm not sure I know to what you are referring

can you jog my memory?

Well, historians and whatnot are debating on whether or not Lao Tzu ever really existed. Whether he was one person, or many, perhaps generations of Lao Tzu's. Etc.

Careful, that the stuff you read isn't a modern translation of Lao Tzu, tainted with modernizations and the lens of the Occident. It might make sense to you because it's written with you in mind, and might not be as Taoist as you think. That's the problem with ancient and foreign texts... sigh...

oh, lol. I thought you were talking about something completely different.
I have no idea if he existed, and I dont think i can figure it out better than hundreds of years historians and scholars


yeah nothings exact. alot of it is really close though. I like alot of their ideas

btw I'm talking about basic taoism, not one of the offshoots that became religious in nature

"saying I should join the system to beat the system is like me suggesting to you to join the Ku Klux Klan to end racism"
Actually... that is exactly how the klan was dismantled. It still exists, of course, but it has about 1/100 of the size it once did, and it is partly due to Stetson Kennedy and his infiltration tactics. He infiltrated the klan and used his inside info to make them the bad-guys of a superman radio show. Total humiliation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stetson_Kennedy

"I do believe morality exists, but it is relative"
The more I'm reading here the more I'm wondering: Do none of you guys believe in absolute truths?

On an unrelated note, @Chrispminis: you said you are going to a Canadian college and you're interested in martial arts. Do you follow Georges StPierre?

I do not think absolute truths exist
there is no reality, only perception

okay so then my perception is that everyone is free and anarchy is the principle by which every human lives. hah - i've done what you've dreamed of your whole life and it took me 5 seconds :P

thats kindof how it works actually

You bore me, Sicarius.

I really hope you don't depend on Sicarius for entertainment, mapleleaf.

dude you are fucking pathetic.

if I bore you dont read my postings!

are you really so lifeless that you do that which you do not enjoy?

you are not a man, you are a gear

Can't we just bury the hatchet?

can we bury the hatchet?

thats not really up to me. I never say anything bad about you unless it is directly in response to something you've said that is both hurtful and pointless. I would love to 'bury the hatchet' but you apparently dont want to.
wtf are you even doing?
there are people on here who ridicule me non-stop, call me and my ideas stupid, et cetera et cetera. But they at least have a reason
they say, you are stupid and here is why... then proceed into what is usually a well written intelligently composed post.
that I have no problem with. I am here for debate, so by all means tell me I'm wrong, but tell me why. how can I learn and improve from baseless insults?
say whatever you want, but say it constructively! I can say alot of things about you, but I tend not to because it doesnt further the debate at all.
you have already, and continue to, prove yourself very childish and petty. I may be 19, and you may be 45, but I am the more mature.
the only thing you could do to further lower yourself is claim to be a philosophy professor from Cambridge

El Perro Artero, I am interested in martial arts and am Canadian, but I'm not too keen on mixed martial arts. I don't watch it that much. It's entertaining, but I think it's deviated from it's original design to simulate the most robust fighting style. Unfortunately, the classic MMA fighting style probably wouldn't work too well in the streets where you might be outnumbered, and there are many obstacles and weapons, and rolling around on the floor might be a bad choice... say if there are broken beer bottles or something. Georges St. Pierre? I can't really say I support him or anything. I know who he is, but only from advertisements. I'm not intensely patriotic...

Sicarius, I much prefer the Kantian view of reality. I'll elaborate when I get more time.

What if I claim that mapleleaf is a philosophy professor at Cambridge? Would that lower him sufficiently?

Back to my suggestion, and the KKK. I think you really ought to turn all this energy with which you debate into a campaign. Wait six years and run for the House. Until then work a job and amass enough capital to mount a successful campaign. Sure, you might have a miserable life in the process, having to work and whatnot, but you would be taking a great stride for posterity to live as you do, but legitimately. I think there is more to democracy than you believe.