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Hi,

I ran across your site while replying to your a news group post today. Since you invite comments, here's mine on some of your pages. I won't bore you with replies to everything (if you're interested in my opinions, I'm sure you'll ask) but I do have a few I wanted to point out, even if you don't reply.

Whatever I've said needs a reply, feel free do edit and snip as necessary. I wouldn't expect a reply to everything.

Class, poverty and Greed

In regard to "Destroy The Underclass!" I have to disagree strongly with you and say you're missing one key point, although for the most part I agree.

The problem is not the poor, it is the conspiracy of greed around the world: the wealthy seek to become wealthier every year and demand an increase in their increase every year. "A 5% profit this year is intolerable because we made a 5% profit last year!" is the prevalent attitude in business today; there are huge rumblings amongst Yahoo! shareholders because growth is no longer over 100% per year. A conspiracy of greed is, problematically, one which has no leadership, merely a widespread "me, first" attitude which is held with no concern for others.

Be concerned less about the poor and more about the middle class. Communism has been called "the great 20th century experiment", but is only one of two: the middle class is the other. The economic disparity of today will eventually lead back to the way society was two hundred years ago: a small, wealthy executive, and the poor, uneducated, huddled masses. Couple the destruction of the education system with excessive greed and it's not a far-fetched accusation to make. More and more, only the wealthy can afford post-secondary education, and in some cases "user fees" in high schools keep kids out of classes.

Yes, education is not the cure-all for the problem; the real issue lies in an unwillingness to be self-sufficient. In the past, settlers in North America had no "social safety net", they lived and died by their own hands: if they didn't work the fields well and grow enough food, or tend the cows, or pile enough firewood, they died of cold or starvation. There isn't a sense of "do or perish" today, and for people with no drive of their own, they are not dying because somebody is giving them a handout. If they can do nothing and survive, they will do nothing.

The welfare system as it stands is a miserable failure; it is a racist, wasteful system that perpetuates poverty. In my own experience with it, when I was unemployed with no job prospects, I was cut off after less than six months on welfare and lucked into a lousy job. ("You're white, male, and educated - go find a job" was their attitude. I'm still working in this awful place nearly two years later, one similar to your own job description. There are still no better job prospects available.)

I met people then and in my current job who see the welfare system as a lifetime income. (I am not implying a large majority are like this.) One of the rules is that a single parent is not required to work until the youngest child is at least seven years old; I have met several women who plan and become pregnant every six years to take advantage of this. I have also seen the patronizing nature of the system: native people in Canada are looked down upon and are handed cheques almost without question using some of the most feeble excuses: "I still haven't sold my movie script" was the worst one. (I'm not kidding.)

The stupidest thing I see governments doing (in all the countries I've heard of with welfare systems) their rules on earned income. Deducting dollar for dollar on money earned while on welfare is no incentive to work: you put in your hours, pay taxes, have money deducted and come out worse off than before. If working means losing money, people won't work, so governments try another tack: work or we cut you off. Then the problem become the jobs that are made available to these people pay less than their welfare benefits; if they quit, they cannot get welfare again. It's truly vicious when money savingis in the government mindset; I heard unconfirmed reports of people starving into committing crimes or suicide in Ontario when the current government tightened the rules on welfare; the number of poor people didn't go down nor did jobs get filled as the government claimed would happen, but nobody's asking those questions.

The real solution is to put more money in their pockets. And it's simple: deduct one for every two dollars earned. If you earn $200, you lose $100 off your welfare - you have more money in your pocket, the government pays less welfare benefits, a job is filled, and paid taxes keep the system running. Everybody wins. So why do governments not do this? Every politician I speak to says "too much work/effort/paper", the media ignore it - it's almost as though people want the status quo.

(Don't worry, this was the biggest part of my message.)

Sexuality

On "There's Nowt as Queer as Folk", you're missing one key detail that all who talks about the gay/bi/lesbian/tg issue ignore: NOBODY knows if its choice or genetic. All scientific study on the matter has not proven _either_ conjecture to be true. The anti-gay forces ignore it because it means they could be wrong, and so it is for the pro-gay forces.

Until absolute scientific proof of sexual orientation by a reputable agency is shown (some disreputable right wing "scientists" have claimed proof), the "choice or genetics" argument is moot. All professional, properly executed studies have reached the same conclusion: no answer. (My opinion? It's both, about 2:1 - for every Anne Hecht and Martina Navratilova, there is one Camille Paglia.)

I think, though, your "Bisexuality is a myth" section agrees with my view on what is straight or gay. The Kinsey scale of 1 to 7 is rather ridiculous; it takes no account of individual feelings or desire, merely makes a simplistic generalization. I have my own theory on sexual orientation, although not being a professional scientist, it tends to be ignored.

The two axes of the scale show intensity of same and opposite sex attraction which is much more representative and accurate. Here are some examples: "A" is a (by my estimation) normal heterosexual - highly sexual, but not obsessive "B" would be someone obsessed with sex, perhaps including rapists, paedophiles, and nymphomania/satyriasis "C" would be a normal, completely homosexual person "D" would be someone with little sexual attraction; on the Kinsey scale, still a 1 or 7, but not interested in sex as much as some people "E" would be someone totally asexual (I hate to discuss Cliff Richard, but he's the best example) who might be totally heterosexual or totally homosexual, but has no interest in sex whatsoever - how do we account for this? "F" would be a bisexual person (without advertising, but in this case me) who has sexual interest in both ways - I might get a 2 (or is it 6?) on the Kinsey scale, but a fair amount of the time, I like celibacy; why do people not consider this possibility?

You yourself said most people have some attractions both ways from time to time; by my chart, they hit a 1 or 2 every now and then and I find that perfectly normal.

Population

On "The Big Problem", I think disagreements within the Catholic Church sum it up best: The Pope says the Earth can handle 13 billion in population. The Vatican science council, a group of hand-picked stoolies who supposedly obey the Pope, say the Earth cannot support more than 2.5 billion people. The Pope's own people say the Earth is more than twice overpopulated.

Language

On "The Language of Man", I agree somewhat that a common tongue is needed, but totally disagree about it being English.

Ours is the worst language on the face of the Earth. It is inconsistent, lacking in standard grammar, and confusing to every non-native speaking person I have ever met. Even a Finn I know thinks English is terrible, and Finnish verbs have 17 basic tenses and conjugations, while European languages have 6.

English's only redeeming feature is its adaptability, the fact that it can change and accept new words so readily. But ours is not the only one capable of this. French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese - all are adapting to technology and are widely spoken. There are at least five valid languages that could serve a lingua franca to the world. Why not use them all? After all, the more languages you speak, the more people you can talk to.

We should keep English for air traffic control around the world, it would be the safest decision, for all other general purposes, there's nothing that demands English be the only language, other than chauvinism towards one's own mother tongue.

On "Atheist Sects", I think there's a simpler way of stating your views than an elongated list. Why not just say:

"I reject as supernatural anything that cannot be quantified or verified as existing without independent proof."

So when speaking of "god/s/desses" they do not exist because they cannot be verified, and when speaking of black holes and the big bang, that they are only theories with a lot of evidence, not proof. (That's what it is, after all, though I believe it to be true.)

What you say at the end about other religions could also be reworded (semi-humourously, of course):

If you say "I have my answers!",

I say "I'm happy for you."

If you say "I have your answers!",

I say "F*** off."

(You can only use it if you attribute it to me. ^_^)

On "Restart The Calendar", why call 1950 the "the beginning of science"? Why not at the start of the computer age (1847 and Charles Babbage)? Why not Newton's birth? Archimedes? Or Marie Curie, since she's the first person responsible for the atomic age? Myself, I would call year 1 the year when Johann Gutenburg invented the printing press. Modern society began when the bound mass-produced book as we know it first appeared in 1450 CE.

The Japanese (prior to World War II) started a new calendar with the reign of each emperor, and so did the Egyptians with their pharaohs. Changing the calendar now makes as much sense as trying to change the automobile industry to electric cars overnight. Drastic change only happens when it's needed. The current calendar works, so people won't screw with it.

Personally, the only calendar change I'd like to see it that we get rid of the silly "30 days hath November" crap. Make January to May each 31 days in length, the other seven months 30 days. In leap years, the extra day would be December 31st. It would be a more consistent and purposeful lengths of month than we currently have.

Anyway, the last time somebody tried a year zero it wasn't a rousing success, politically, morally or socially: the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, 1975.

On "Keep The Wonder, Lose The Faith", there's a quote from a Buddhist parable that comes to mind: "My miracle is that when I'm hungry I eat, and when I'm thirsty, I drink."

(I don't buy into Buddhism myself; the notion that "all life is suffering" is ridiculous. There's only suffering when there's no hope. Just look at the British during the Blitz or the Jews who showed defiance in the camps. You can be attacked, pained and killed, but you cannot suffer while you hold your head high.)

Finally, on "Willett's Wager", since you presume that aliens (if they exist) will have the human foibles of superstition and religion, remember other human foibles: arrogance and imperialism. As likely as not, aliens that came here would be looking to conquer, not learn. Just think on what European centered "civilization" has done in the last 400 years. Can you really tell me that we today wouldn't try to convert an alien species to our ways if we went to another planet?

Myself, I don't see it ever happening: even if light speed were possible, where's the nearest planet with life (ignoring Mars)? Humans have looked millions of light years into space and haven't found one. For aliens to get here they need:

1) A planet that existed at least a billion years (enough to develop intelligent life, I think) with a civilized society that hasn't annihilated itself (at least four times in 60 years we've nearly done it to ourselves).

2) Technology far beyond ours, including light-speed travel.

3) The ability to locate our planet: the galaxy is rotating, telescopes look into the past light, plus we haven't been around long enough for our earliest detectable radio transmissions (Marconi, 100 years ago) to get halfway to the nearest star.

4) A civilization that would encourage the trip - can you tell me you would give up your life, your friends, your current history to visit another world and return 1000 years later, and be an antique on your own planet? I doubt the aliens would be any different.

Anyway, who's to say aliens weren't here 4 billion years ago and said, "Shoot, there's nothing here, just amoebas"? The universe is old enough for that to have happened and for said aliens to have died out.

Hopefully you've not fallen asleep by this point. If you haven't and don't think I'm too boring, feel free to reply and edit whatever you want.

Sincerely,

Bob Dog

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The Underclass

I will have to have another go at that piece, so many people misunderstand my intention. The point about destroying the underclass is about ridding the world of damaged people who go on to damage our society. The poor and excluded are damaged people, the system has damaged them but they are spreading more damage. Consider the analogy of radioactivity, they have been damaged by the original cause (bad economic and social system) but they are now so polluted by this damage that they are now also a major problem in themselves.

The ideal solution is to turn back the clock and reverse the damage, but it will not happen. So alternatives must be found, I am suggesting that the left wakes up to the fact that the underclass are damaged. If you take the damaged people out of their damaged environment and put them in a new clean environment they will damage it. This was proved in the sixties with many social housing schemes. Something more radical needs to be done, although I am not sure exactly what. Probably some kind of concerted effort to change the system, change the economic system and simultaneously attack the culture of despair. The proletariat will never be a force for good, the point is that they need not be quite as dangerous to live with.

I agree with your analysis about the machinery of capitalism, the greed that drives the system. Something needs to be done about it. I saw myself how the systemic greed mangled a good company. I used to work for Betterware (a company that sells cleaning materials and household gadgets in a similar way to Avon, door to door) from 1990 to 1996, I was a regional manager. The company grew rapidly to the point at which it had reached saturation of the potential market, the British market was as exploited as much as it was reasonably possible to achieve. Further increases in sales could not be achieved above the single figure percentages increases possible by fine tuning the product range. However the company had floated on the stock market, gone plc. The market wanted more of the 50% growth in sales that they had seen in the previous years. Stock market pressures nearly destroyed the goose that was laying the golden eggs. The company at its height had a huge market share, excellent profits, state of the art warehousing, good management and no debts. It was doing great. Greed has caused massive problems in the last seven years since the company reached the high plateau.

Good is never good enough. The sales force and middle management team making the sales were perfectly happy to continue the proven system, serving loyal and satisfied customers, but the pressure was always on for more sales. I have had contact with many people within the company who tell me I got out at the right time. There is a problem with capitalism, the system as currently operating. The drive for growth is causing damage to lives and companies not just to the environment.

Welfare.

The answer has to be some form of negative income tax. Everybody needs a tax code, a figure that the tax authorities will allow them to earn before income tax is deducted at the normal rates. This is based on their circumstances. Welfare entitlements are also calculated on a somewhat similar basis. My suggestion is to combine the systems. Everybody has a unique code which is their minimum income guarantee. Earnings above that figure are taxed, below that figure are topped up by state payments. The tough part is to ensure that people declare all earnings and are taxed on them and to ensure that employers do not use the state safety net as an excuse not to pay decent wages.

My magic solution is openness. This really is radical! Publish everybody's tax details, no exceptions. Naturally that could only be done via the web. If everybody knows that their previous year's income figures are published a lot of things change. Salesmen can't pretend they earn as much as they used to pretend in job interviews. Politicians have to be clean and honest. Employers paying poverty wages and living in luxury will have some explaining to do.

Sexuality

The jury is certainly out. I think there is no simple explanation because it is a multifaceted phenomenon. There is attraction to one sex, the other or both. Then there is behaviour.

I suspect that many men have some tendency towards homosexual activity but they are distinct from the true homosexuals who are actively attracted to men in just the same way as heterosexual women are attracted to men.

My gay work colleague is a real mixed up guy, he has typically male patterns of spatial awareness and relatively poor word skills but in other ways he is a woman with a dick. He is attracted to men in the way that women are, but with a typically male pattern of obsession to it. He collects soft gay porn. He talks like Joan Rivers and has as a similar kind of high bad taste. I once asked him which he would prefer, a gay man or a straight man who loved only him, he would prefer the latter. His boyfriend seems like a perfectly normal heterosexual male apart from his attraction to a camp man instead of a woman. They are homosexuals, but they are like two different genders within homosexuality.

This sexuality thing is far too complicated to dismiss in one or two categories. When you start looking at women the waters get even muddier.

I suppose bisexuality is pretty much normal after all, at least rather common. But I stick by the rejection of latent homosexuality as an explanation of homophobia.

Big Problem

Why can the Catholics talk about overpopulation and optimum populations without seeing that birth control, effective birth control, must happen one day whatever the acceptable population level is?

The Language of Man

Yes English is inconsistent but it is the biggest language and the most open to new ideas. It is growing into a world-wide language anyway, to make Mexicans and Senegalese learn German would be absurd. English is becoming the world's second language. My suggestion is just to accept it and make it work. Don't fight the tide, surf it.

As to the idea of learning five languages, that would be torture, and it would never be possible to select the right five, people would be squabbling about it for ever. English is big, global, widespread and also, quite importantly, it's cool. Bomfunk MCs don't rap in Finnish.

Restart the calendar.

1950 was never a serious suggestion. 1859 is the one. Evolution by natural selection, the greatest discovery in our history, everything that was ever said about the place of man in the Universe before that date was rendered obsolete by that discovery. Could there ever be a better year zero? 1950 is simply the year assumed to be the present day when ages are calculated as 12,000 YBP, years before the present. It was just a nearby round date when the convention began. It was not the start of the scientific era!

Printing was a big step too, I grant you, but not as big as becoming aware of our true place in the Universe.

Aliens

I think your analysis is reasonably good. Conquest is certainly a potential problem. How dangerous the aliens might be could depend on their geography. Our geography has helped form our history. The lessons learned when European powers met alien civilizations in China, Japan and the Americas have coloured our history and culture. We know that alien contact is potentially catastrophic. If the aliens come from a single continent world they may not be aware of the problem in the same way, they may be naive enough to imagine that the fact that race A travels and finds race B means A is infinitely superior to B in all respects. We know that isn't the case. If we do meet aliens let's hope they come from a world of islands and archipelagos, that might make them tolerant and pluralist.

The one big difference I have with you is the assumption that aliens must need technology way in advance of ours in order to get here. They only need a spaceship. That is not fabulous technology. Apollo was a spaceship. It took men beyond the Earth and the only reason we have not gone further is lack of will to spend the money. The technology to send automated scouting ships to other planetary systems is only a generation away if we have the will to develop it. Imagine that we suddenly hear alien signals suggesting a Marconi level civilization nearby, could you not imagine an international effort to send a probe to gather information and consider the possibility of making contact? We couldn't just ignore it, we would know that if we can detect them, they could detect us, and our history tells us that in alien contact there is no such thing as home court advantage.

Apollo was a spaceship

That's enough for now. You obviously didn't take much notice of my suggestion, on my e-mail page, to keep the first message brief. Anyway, it is good to receive a message that doesn't say I am right or wrong about everything.

Martin

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Hello again,

Real life is such a pain, isn't it? I would have replied sooner otherwise.

The Underclass I will have to have another go at that piece, so many people misunderstand my intention. The point about destroying the underclass is about ridding the world of damaged people who go on to damage our society. The poor and excluded are damaged people, the system has damaged them but they are spreading more damage. Consider the analogy of radioactivity, they have been damaged by the original cause (bad economic and social system) but they are now so polluted by this damage that they are now also a major problem in themselves.

I prefer the phrase "from cradle to grave" on this. These people are overgrown infants who have come to depend on the system, and when the parent suddenly cuts off, they won't be able to deal with it. As with nursing, they must be weaned off the system or bottle and be taught to walk on their own.

Change never happened in China during its dynasties, despite their many useful inventions (the compass, block printing, gunpowder, etc.) because there was no incentive to advance in life. Under Ming, you could not improve your lot through hard work, so no one made use of these things. Today, however, the reverse is the case: people can do nothing and get by. What's needed is incentive: "In two years, we cut off your welfare permanently" or something similar. *Force* people to change; as long as the safety net exists, people will fall willingly and just lie in it. Seeing the scissors coming to cut the strings will motivate you.

This was proved in the sixties with many social housing schemes. Something more radical needs to be done, although I am not sure exactly what.

Side note: nice to see somebody willing to say "I don't know" instead of saying something stupid just so he doesn't sound ignorant.

Welfare.

In Canada there is a personal deductible amount on income tax ($6,274 last year) which means if you earn less than that, you don't pay any income tax. So why not up that limit to $9,000 per person instead of what it currently is? It would reduce government tax revenue by $463 per person, but put another $2,700 back into the economy - more jobs, more spending, more taxes in the future. And it would certainly be another incentive for the poor to work. (I'm taking a tax preparing course, so I'm really gung ho for tax related discussions.)

Just one question: [regarding openness in taxation] wouldn't you be embarrassed to have people know what you made and where you worked if you're trying to maintain a social illusion of being wealthier than you are? This could be personally devastating to some people.

Sexuality

I have never understood many men's fascination with seeing two women going at it. "Either they're disgusted or they want to watch," a character said once on NBC's "Law & Order". I find western pornography ugly and boring. I want to see passion, not penetration.

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Life? Don't talk to me about life.

The problem of the poor who are dependant on the state is a big one. I have no real solutions to offer. All I can say is that various forms of it occur in different times and places. Bertie Wooster, a refugee and the welfare mother. All part of the same phenomenon. When the capacity to take charity is as big as the capacity to give it dependency is created and a culture of dependency is created. It is made worse by the professional charity worker, the person who spends all their time on administering charity, they legitimize the system even more.

Some form of tough love is probably the best option. We cannot let people starve but on the other hand we cannot let people lapse into the role of charity recipient and become comfortable with it. Perhaps the answer lies in some form of workhouse system, an ultimate safety net that offered a subsistence living but one that was so marginally above the level of human decency that nobody would want to fall into it. It is not a prospect that fills me with joy but it might be the only solution. Tell those people who are avoiding work that we, the state, will offer them every assistance to find work but, ultimately if they fail to take any they will be re-housed in single sex, single room accommodation and made to work for their food and warmth, their children put up for permanent adoption far away. If such a safety net system was introduced I think the stigma on us, who allow it, would be so great that we would do our best to keep the workhouses empty.

Tax.

The first thing I have to say is that all my political ideas are based around the idea of the single state, the world as one. In the world of nation states things get more complicated.

I think income tax is the fairest tax of all, when drafted right it should ensure that all pay in proportion to their ability to pay. But in a single closed loop economy tax at the point of purchase is just as effective. There would be no need to do both taxes. I suggest the income tax is probably the better one because it also allows the collection of data on incomes. At present a lot of people do try to hide the true level of their income but I cannot see why this should be allowed to remain the case. I have never had a problem with it. I have earned less than the people around me and more than the people around me, I understand it from both ways around but I see no difficulty either way. At the moment some people try to make out that they earn more than they do in reality and some try to do the opposite. The interests of society at large are in honesty and reducing income inequalities. Honesty and openness will lead to a society that is working towards equality and income differentials that can be justified on the basis of fairness and social utility.

If people are trying to maintain an illusion of wealth and this policy shatters it then great, I am all for it. The right to lie is not on my list of basic human rights.

Sex.

My sex life is good in reality and extreme in fantasy. In real life I am comfortable with my sex life. I have been 100% faithful to wife in deed since I met her. In thoughts, well, that's my own business.

Languages.

Learning a second or third language is good, but you rapidly get into diminishing returns. In Wales it has been found that bilingual children learn a little better and can be better motivated. I am all in favour of language classes for children, starting probably at 7 or 8, a compulsory second language and an optional third language. I know my daughter wants to learn French, and she is ready for it, but she will have to wait until age 11, which is a shame.

The idea of learning five languages is too much, unless there is a radical shake up of the school system and an increase in the number of hours or days taught each year. Even if that did happen I don't think a fourth language could ever be justified except for the students who have wonderful language ability and nothing else.

I do not see extinction of languages as being such a bad thing. Extinction is a natural part of evolution. 99% of all species are extinct but you could still spend a lifetime reciting the Latin names of all the extant species.

Gutenberg. He was just this guy. Printing was important, but not the printer. Send Terminator back and sort him out and you would change the world, but you would not find us all living without printing. Anyway, ask yourself who rates him as important and what line of business are they in...print media, QED.

Journalists rate Gutenberg. Actors rate Shakespeare. Physicists rate Newton. Christians rate Jesus. I rate Darwin, none of his ideas were totally novel but he pulled it all together and made a true synthesis. His understanding was phenomenal, he was the greatest scientist ever, he made the single most important discovery any sentient being or race can make. Any great discovery in science or technology is bound to be invented eventually, when discoveries are made out of their time they die. There is a fascinating book I read once about the earliest known inventions or uses of various things, I can't remember the title but it was a mind-blowing book because it showed so many apparently modern ideas go way back into history e.g. communism came before the Roman empire. And Babbage's computer, brilliant invention, wrong century.

Space travel.

The important thing to remember is that once you are in Earth orbit you are half way to wherever you want to go. To launch a high speed probe out of the solar system will take some ingenuity but a staged approach using chemical rockets, slingshot effect of planetary gravity, ion drive and finally photon drive could accelerate a probe to a high speed. If we really wanted to do it we would have done it already. It only takes focus. As for fuel it need not come from anywhere as inconveniently massive as Earth, the Moon, Mars and various minor planets of the asteroid belt could provide sufficient material. I expect that some kind of electrical launch system could be developed, a linear induction motor supergun perhaps?

Anyway, the main point is that when and if they arrive it is not by any means certain that they will be significantly in advance of ourselves. They could be, like the Portuguese who turned up in Japan, simply better at navigation and transport technology but not by any stretch of the imagination more civilized.

As for home court advantage the opposite applies, it is better to be the colonizer than the colonized, at least you can always retreat if there is a problem. (You do know I'm English, don't you? I have thought about using "I'm English, Sorry." as a signature for e-mail.)

I see your point about Vietnam to a degree, being at home was an advantage in a way but there was also a distinct asymmetry about that war, the US could only win by winning, the Vietnamese only had to not lose. North Vietnam could never beat the US, they could never march down Pennsylvania Avenue in triumph. All they had to do was keep fighting. There was another asymmetry too, like the rabbit and the fox, the life-dinner principle, the North Vietnamese were fighting for their lives, the US was fighting for its dinner. A similar asymmetry was at work in the Battle of Britain, Hitler had to destroy the RAF, all the RAF had to do was not be destroyed. The British could not afford to lose, the Germans could not afford to win. Once you stop winning a war starting to lose becomes easier.

That's enough for now,

Martin

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