The Boris Blog of Bacon

I can just agree.

Make love not war. Errr, no i want war, but less hate, egoism, idiotism, seriousness and more forgiveness and RESPECT to each other would help a lot.

As Delta1212 said in his first blog, it's not the game, it's the people. The game can still be fun, if we actually play the game itself, and not waste time on "egoism" and "excessive hate." I agree that a little bit of egoism, and a little bit of... well, let's say discomfort between alliances can be healthy, but that ultimately, it is an individual responsibility to reign in those "evils."

For my part, I must confess that I suffer at least a little from the egoism. However, it is difficult for me to outright hate anything

Thanks for writing another blog, Boris. I've been wondering when you'd show up on the cn blogs again.

I hate (though not excessively) to be predictable, but: I disagree. And to avoid breaking the impressive run of predictability I will pick a disagreement with Ferrous: "it's not the game, it's the people."

Now, let me preface the following by saying that I do not seek to inverse this entirely; a structure is nothing without those people within it, and those people often have what we may call a 'genetic' predisposition. However...

As I noted in the debate on my latest blog entry, the structure plays a significant role in shaping said people. It is difficult to explain what I mean by this in the abstract, so forgive me if I further advance my predictability by linking to a previous work, The Outward Spiral.

I link to this because it puts into my perspective into a concrete example. While it is always incredibly tempting to look only at those involved in something and blame some aspect of their psychology or "culture", this is an incredibly superficial view. It misses the point that these cultures and psychologies don't appeal out of nowhere, they form out of the material conditions immediately around them -- they are the intermediaries of deeper concerns. Thus in the linked example we can explain the increasing reluctance to go to war not by looking at a unprovoked cultural or psychological change, but by looking at the root conditions and how/why they shaped these things.

To move onto the subject of egoism then, I would actually suggest that it has decreased over time, as it has slowly become a liability rather than a benefit (this is largely (though not only) explained by the 'deconcentration of strength' outlined in The Outwards Spiral). We no longer have a Chris Kaos or a Priodigal Chieftain, because the political situation would no longer put up with them -- the downfall of Electron Sponge (even with the almost unquestioning protection of the global hyper-power for years) proves this amply.

Thus we can see the way in which the structure has overridden 'the people' and shaped both the individuals who can come to power and the way they act once they do. [Although admittedly the attempts by organisations such as Vox to live outside the structure have strengthened egoism to a degree.]

Likewise we are unlikely to ever see pure, unadultarated hatred on the level that was unleashed by the initiation of the Great Patriotic War (the first time the Order ever put itself on Radio Silence, the first time the mods ever had to launch a full-scale 'crackdown', and the first time the forums ever had to be closed completely) because the conditions simply don't exist for it any more.

These attempts to articulate my materialist perspective aren't, of course, to say that I disagree with the assertion that there is 'too much egoism' (particularly among those who haven't earned it) and 'too much excessive hate'. They may have decreased over time, but there is still too much of it, and in cases where excessive hate overflows (see: Yaridovich, etc) I still consider it the duty of the community to physically remove it. But there being too much of it is really just a personal preference for scientific rationality over irrational emotionality.

So I don't consider it to be a major problem in terms of the way the world works, nor do I consider it to be (in the final analysis) a major contributor to progress. Both were much more significant historically, and both are always going to naturally exist (if not always in reality, then in presentation) as a by-product of the great game of politics.

In concluding I can't help but feel I didn't properly address the immediate subject, and perhaps even wandered in the opposite direction while trying to find it again, but I hope that my interjection has provided some food for thought -- or if not, then at least some chewing gum -- that can be related back into your own conceptualisations.

This comment brought to you by Directionless Rambling Inc.

*sighs*

Vladimir, do you think we'll ever be able to agree on something?

Where would be the fun in that.

Where would be the fun in that.

Pigs would fly and hell would freeze over. Now tell me that you wouldn't look forward to flying pork?

I certainly wouldn't. Such a drastic change in our material reality would require a complete re-evaluation of my theories! What do pigs in flight mean for the pursuit of freedom?

I certainly wouldn't. Such a drastic change in our material reality would require a complete re-evaluation of my theories! What do pigs in flight mean for the pursuit of freedom?

I don't know, but I smell a wall of text coming on.