>Ok, but I was specifically looking for them to offer reasons why I was
>wrong. My original statement stated something to the effect of "I go back
>and forth on this issue" and somebody called me on it.
and, let me take the opp to publicly apologize to you, as i did offlist yesterday. i was taking liberties with you b/c i "know" you. you mocked yourself on this list once about not being able to get a date. i thought it might work as a heuristic device, but first i did take liberties by joking around, putting you in the place of a third worlder being told they got left behind and it's not the first world's fault, implying that it might just be the third world country's fault.
the problem is that you are looking at both situations as from a zero sum perspective --without considering the possibility that the situation isn't "natural". so i gave you an example based, i thought, on your own experience, that you might get--because i consider you an intelligent man, know you to have an advanced degree and undergrad degree in psych, and have seen evidence of you being self-reflective and thoughtful elsewhere.
at any rate, i don't think you can't get a date b/c it's your fault. i was hoping to illustrate, that people don't get as much sex as they might like because there are all sorts of social barriers to that: lack of places to meet someone they'd like to have sex with, for example. hegemonic standards of masculinity and femininity, moral codes. (the first reasons, moronic, etc.., were *jokes* as i explained off list. but they in fact *are* the knee jerk assumptions we make about people who aren't coupled or coupling.)
>So I started to
>argue it. If I feel I am shown that I'm wrong, I will freely admit it. I
>think you've seen me do that a few times on dc-stuff. I was basicaly giving
>an open invitation to anyone to show me why they believe they are right and
>to convert me to their way of thinking.
>
>Also, to the list members they may have seen this all before, to me it's
>new. Maybe I should find a "Leftists Business Observers Newbiews" list.
well, look at it this way. i've complained many times on this list about what you just got bummed about. as has rob. i consider doug a long time cyber colleague and he put my boyfriend through the ringer. doug didn't ratchet down his flame thrower just for me or out of respect for me. he singed reese's butt several times but good. and i'd expect no less from the man. we flame people around here. how did you miss that?
carrol, he calls everyone an asshole, including me. :) it's a ritual around here. we've had this discussion a couple of times since you've been on list--about how some people get treated.
yes, you were treated dismissively and i, too, was disappointed that no one wanted to jump in and have a discussion about social darwinism v. darwinism. i like reading them b/c i learn more about stuff i don't know about.
you know that at dc stuff people call each other names all the time. lboers call each other names pretty regularly and dismiss each other. carrol just jumped all over doug's ass for doing to him what doug did to you: caricature your position and mock it. you have never necessarily received unique treatment.
we are assholes.
so are the folks at dc-stuff.
so are the folks at pulp-culture, the list i run with jordan, ken, kirsten.
i've haven't been subscribed to a list yet where people didn't get the crap flamed out of them. flamage is a necessary part of social life to some extent.
you are suggesting, as have i in the past, that you are dissappointed be/c of what you think lefties ostensibly stand for: caring about other people or some such rigamarole right?
and yet, that's not accurate. and there's a great deal of debate as to how to deal with the unenlightened...
also, what's going on is a little bit of difficulty in understanding how you don't know that your position on the survival of the fittest, where you take an individualist view of darwinism, isn't at all what darwin wrote about. it's not hard to find that info out there. type it in at google. you'll find a slew of information about how the arguments you made were flat out wrong.
why should people here educate you on this point? why is it our job?
i'm having severe cognitive dissonance. it depresses me. i was in tears at one point. i know you to have an advanced degree, to have majored in psychology, so i don't get it.
you could have argued for your position w/o invoking a darwinist line. (add to the list of people who defended you, btw, one mr. justin schwartz who is, himself, a very excellent scholar of libertarian thought!)
analogy: what happens to people who go to dc and ask, "how do i hack my cable?" what happened to ice, rather mildly, when she asked how to partition linux? what happend when she asked a homework question?
they got flamed for their lack of knowledge and lack of initiative in figuring it out for themselves when the info they need is readily available elsewhere.
it's the same thing really. except you are also up against some incredulity that you don't know some of the stuff you appeared to not know. (e.g., comparative knowledge of other societies... that the individualist ethos you espouse is rather new on the human scene... etc)
>Not Unfit, and I would agree with that. They just happened to be in a
>location that isn't resourcefull. My point was, when they arn't part of a
>structure where they are a symbiont (and this may be for a group down to an
>individual) why are they worth saving?
here's a few reasons:
1. because we have the resources to do so when it's a natural disaster 2. the sd position: because it's not good for the people on top of the scrotum pole to leave so many people in want, need, etc. 3. because it is not their fault and often *our* fault. 4. because if we give to them, then they owe us and we can lord it over them (see emerson on giving... :) thought cat would like that) 5. because we have a political world view, derived from liberalism, that suggests that people shouldn't be denied life, lib, and pursuit of happiness because of the "accident of their birth". they shouldn't be judged by the fact that they grew up in a loser country and even if the mistakes made were those of their parents, if we have a way to help then we shouldn't deny the innocent.
blah blah blah.
happy now? :)