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Thread: Comparing Colonial Cultures

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    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    That's a good point about the Anglicans, modwiz. In the US the real protestants were mostly landing in the North and you can see that these are exactly the same states where industrialization first developed here, and a lot of other progressive things. Of course how much those two things are related can be debated but the split from both Rome and the Anglicans (the Quakers and Puritans were persecuted in England too) seems to become most significant when all of these people started taking the words of Jesus deadly serious instead of just listening to a bunch of Latin gibberish and paying their tithes. That's not that the strict Protestants were the greatest bunch in the world but I am convinced that they were absolutely genuine in their faith, at least the ones who fled to America for it.
    Yes, I guess those who do not put some money into the plate have lost their value to any established church. Useless eaters to them. Also, I think the Protestants needed to adopt a good work ethic because it was an insurance against not belonging to a large church and whatever social support it provided.
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    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    Can you define for me exactly what you mean here by his "spice"? If you mean taking Native American land by force and killing lots of people (what he was probably most famous for, his military conquests), the British colonists did that too. The British colonists (followed by the US government) actually seem to have been less concerned about converting and integrating natives in the end, preferring just to push them farther and farther west and/or kill them. That's why there is less native blood in the populations of former British colonies today than you see in countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, etc.
    Of course. I agree with your assessment of British activities.

    Spice => The Popes blessing is given with somewhat an open specification. The specific implementation used by the Blessed has aspects of that "spice". If you imagine the Church being interested in conversion of a population and eradication of matriarchal systems. The dosage of torture, killing and enslavement is left to the up to the colonalizer/conquistador. I don't know whether other strategies where seriously considered, if I where the church, I would want a summary of the plan before moving forward.

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    Can you try to define more exactly what you mean by corrupted cultural values? Also I'm not trying to excuse anything in a moral sense, I'm just giving you examples of some of the many differences in the paths that colonizers and their colonies took that have led to the situation today, and this all happened in stages over the course of a few hundred years.
    I meant "corrupted cultural values" as a blanket type class of values that work for the destruction of social order. Tax loopholes for example. Cortez model economic being another.
    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    I think it would help a lot if we define these terms like "fail" or "corrupt" in something measurable rather than just abstract ideas. Maybe we could use the Human Development Index, in which case Argentina and Chile have very high ratings and are not at all failures, despite Chile at least having geographical handicaps.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

    Also interesting to note on here is that of the top 10 countries by this ranking, 9 of them have Protestant backgrounds and only one (Ireland) is Catholic. But Nigeria is not ranked very well at all.
    I think a colony that failed may fail in at least two ways, 1) failure to meet objectives set during planing, 2) breakdown of social order. I don't think it plausible to think the British would invest in the Nigerian Colony without plans at least equivalent to their other ventures.
    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    I don't think you can separate religion from culture in the colonial era when the church was the center of every community, both Protestant and Catholic. "Culture" is an abstract idea that encompasses a lot of things. In the US we're often said to have a consumer culture. You can't have that without a strong capitalist economy, so economy and international trade also affect culture. If you don't have a strong economy then you're going to have a lot of poor people and that usually leads to slums, unrest and violence, which just can't be helped if the economy isn't being organized in some way.

    I guess we could split this off into a "Contrasting Colonial Powers" thread or something if you want.
    I agree.

    Hence the position that Spanish and Portuguese cultural values having a bad influence in the social order of their colonies is a perfectly acceptable thesis. Regardless of religious affiliations, but more so, especially with religious affiliations.

    Regarding the last sentence, I don't think the strength of an economy is so closely correlated with social order or unrest. Consider India, a poor nation.

    I don't think the Quaker community, who are isolationists of a sort, worry about economics in terms of consumption privileges as something that threatens their social order.

    Then consider Saudi Arabia, a rich nation: slums? maybe not so many, but certainly unrest and violence.

    Israel, another very rich and very powerful nation with lots of consumption potential, certainly violence and unrest.

    China?

    Nations that fit your profile, the scandinavian nations, perhaps Canada, Argentina? I don't think wealth is as important a factor of social order as cultural values are.

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    Quote Originally posted by lcam88 View Post
    I meant "corrupted cultural values" as a blanket type class of values that work for the destruction of social order. Tax loopholes for example. Cortez model economic being another.
    I get that it's a "blanket" term but I don't know what all you are imagining under that blanket, which is why more specific examples are necessary. Tax loopholes are more specific but I'm not sure how important that would have been in the early colonial period, as far as steering all of the Iberian colonies towards your idea of failure, or that tax loopholes must necessarily be inherent to Iberian colonies and not the British colonies. Maybe there is research data on that but I don't know anything about it. Do you?

    I think a colony that failed may fail in at least two ways, 1) failure to meet objectives set during planing,
    I don't think this is a good way to define whether or not a country is a failure because, for one thing, we have no way of knowing what the real goals of the colonizers were, and for another, their goals may have been so out of alignment with what everyday people consider success that it becomes a meaningless way to judge a country for anyone besides the colonizers themselves. It would become a meaningless way of judging, for example, for the people who actually live there.

    For example, let's say hypothetically that the main goal of the Spanish colonizers in Argentina (acting on behalf of the church) was to eradicate any traces of anomalous past civilizations from the Americas, which they undoubtedly knew about. They failed in that goal, because we have various forms of evidence of a race of giants in Patagonia and this and that and the other. However, Argentina has a higher human development index rating than most other nations on Earth today, and in that respect can be considered a relatively prosperous country to live in. Nonetheless by your definition above it would still be a "failure" because the main goal of the colonizers was not met (again using a hypothetical goal, because we may never know all of the Spanish monarchy's real intentions at that time). So I don't think this way of defining the problem is really helping to distinguish differences between British and Iberian colonies.

    2) breakdown of social order.
    This has to be defined too but it definitely isn't a problem inherent to all Iberian colonies. Also in the history of an given country there are bound to be periods of upheaval and periods of relative prosperity, no matter what country you are talking about. The US and Britain have both had civil wars, which are definitely an acute form of a breakdown of social order. So unless we have a more specific definition of this as well, every country can be considered a failure.

    Hence the position that Spanish and Portuguese cultural values having a bad influence in the social order of their colonies is a perfectly acceptable thesis. Regardless of religious affiliations, but more so, especially with religious affiliations.
    I still don't know what specific cultural values you think are a "bad influence." You said you are a programmer, so you know that the code you program has to be precise and clear in every respect or else you will begin to have problems. There is no room for fuzzy thinking. You have to know the precise function of every command and how it fits into the bigger picture. History is my major and we do not treat it any differently in that respect. If a historical interpretation is to be of any real use then it also has to be very clearly defined and ideally supported by measurable evidence. Otherwise all you will do is engage in what might be termed mental masturbation, because people can argue two sides of an issue indefinitely if they have no basis in which to judge what they are talking about in concrete, objective terms.

    So if you have a historical problem you want to address, you also have to define things as clearly as possible and start looking for primary source evidence, whether that be colonial records from which statistics can be drawn and compared between regions, or laws passed by colonial legislators, or in some cases archaeological or linguistic evidence, or whatever the case may be. In this case if you really wanted to do proper research on this, you could pour years into it because of how broad and generalizing your statements are. Which is why I said at the beginning of our discussion that the differences between the colonies run by the different European powers has been a heavily-studied and complicated field that tons of research has already gone into. I understand you think it can be boiled down to a simple answer but what I'm telling you is that the experts who actually study this stuff in detail, on both sides of the equator, don't necessarily think it is so simple, and even if they do think it boils down to a simple difference, they're likely to pin it on a completely different cause than a "corrupt" Iberian culture. Part of the problem there is defining what "corrupt" means, which sounds to be moralizing, and you can't measure something like the "goodness" or "badness" of something. You can measure trade value, population sizes, and with anecdotes you can even measure more subjective things, but still you want to be as specific and objective as possible in the terms you're using. Otherwise your ideas aren't going to be communicated clearly. We have to find a way to formulate the question in a way that can be measured or proven/falsified by the available evidence and then see what the evidence actually shows. That is the only way to get at a meaningful discussion that's more than just a casual exchange of vague opinions. The exactness historians strive for is not so different than the preciseness of data you want as a programmer. The only difference is that clear definitions and precise arguments (or commands) are a lot easier to come by when you're programming than they are in interpreting history.

    Regarding the last sentence, I don't think the strength of an economy is so closely correlated with social order or unrest.
    Of course it is. It's very simple: if people can't afford to eat, then they are either going to starve to death or start going to extreme measures to procure food. When people are running drug cartels or committing robberies or prostituting themselves in slums, where there is little to no legal means for work, do you think it's just because these people were born with certain genes or because it's just part of a culture that randomly spawned there or something? At the end of the day they have to afford to put food in their mouths one way or another. If they're living in a slum and have no reasonable chance of gainful employment, they are neither going to be given all of their meals for free, nor are they going to willingly starve to death.

    This is such a basic principle of social stability that it was reliably used to spread the French Revolution outside of Paris and all over the French countryside. There is a prominent conspiracy theory that the Duc d'Orléans intentionally bought up a massive amount of grain and stored it all on the island of Jersey just to cause shortages in France and run grain prices way up, artificially creating a famine in France that led to the Great Fear of 1789 and the almost overnight destruction of the feudal system in France forever. Whether or not the duke was responsible, all of the rest is factual: grain prices skyrocketed and people panicked that they would starve to death, and then mobs descended on the castles of their feudal lords. All of that just because people were forced into a situation where they either had to overthrow their authorities (feudal lords in this case) or starve to death. It wasn't a tough decision for them. The outcome could have been fairly predictable, which is also why it may very well have been planned to happen like that, and also a classic example of why a relatively stable economy is necessary for stable societies.

    Consider India, a poor nation.
    What am I supposed to consider about India exactly? You are going to tell me that they don't have slums and massive social problems?

    I don't think the Quaker community, who are isolationists of a sort, worry about economics in terms of consumption privileges as something that threatens their social order.

    Then consider Saudi Arabia, a rich nation: slums? maybe not so many, but certainly unrest and violence.

    Israel, another very rich and very powerful nation with lots of consumption potential, certainly violence and unrest.

    China?

    Nations that fit your profile, the scandinavian nations, perhaps Canada, Argentina? I don't think wealth is as important a factor of social order as cultural values are.
    My point was not that a strong economy equates to social stability. My point is the exact opposite: that it is a complex interplay of factors, not some extremely simple 1 to 1 ratio like "if this condition then the country will automatically be like that," and that also applies to a country's culture. "Culture" can't even be measured like the price of grain anyway, which makes it even more difficult to make a case for it being the direct cause of anything.
    Last edited by bsbray, 9th July 2016 at 05:36.

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    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    Iberian colonies
    I had never heard of Iberian colonies. Do you mean the settlement of the peninsula as done by the greeks during say 200BC (wiki), or expansions made by the residents of the peninsula to North and South America during the 1500's?

    Regarding my blanket statement "corrupt cultural values", you can imagine a continuum of all possible values humanly possible, unbounded, let's call it the continuum of human values. You can define a point somewhere along the line to define a neutral. Perhaps a neutral cultural value is something rather arbitrary, for example, men and women use sandals when it it hot, shoes or boots when it is cold. Perhaps a positive cultural value, something slightly to one side of neutral could be, we shake hands with people we meet. Human touch considered a good thing emotionally and psychologically.

    Tax loopholes are about inequity, about privilege that certain members of society enjoy that may not be available to everyone... Thinking in this way, the meaning of corrupt is quite simple. It goes on the other side of neutral in the continuum of human values.

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    So if you have a historical problem you want to address, you also have to define things as clearly as possible and start looking for primary source evidence, whether that be colonial records from which statistics can be drawn and compared between regions, or laws passed by colonial legislators, or in some cases archaeological or linguistic evidence, or whatever the case may be. In this case if you really wanted to do proper research on this, you could pour years into it because of how broad and generalizing your statements are. Which is why I said at the beginning of our discussion that the differences between the colonies run by the different European powers has been a heavily-studied and complicated field that tons of research has already gone into. I understand you think it can be boiled down to a simple answer but what I'm telling you is that the experts who actually study this stuff in detail, on both sides of the equator, don't necessarily think it is so simple, and even if they do think it boils down to a simple difference, they're likely to pin it on a completely different cause than a "corrupt" Iberian culture.
    Points taken.

    Overall, complexity introduced into an analysis generally only serves one purpose, that is to break things down into more elementary components which then are evaluated. The complexity comes from the fact that elementary components have special relationships with each other that should be taken into account. Keeping things simple, as you evidently have identified in the thesis I present, is perhaps exactly the right issue to contemplate. I say that clearly supposing that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

    Consider this thesis: introducing complexity in cultural and social values for the purpose of identifying corrupt elements is also a way to subvert critical attention from aspects that are considered valuable. I'll share three cases where complexity in analysing a motive was forgone for the benefit of action, and three where complexity is introduced for motive for maintenance of the status quo.

    You notice that abrahamic religion used no such strategy in scriptures used to degrade women into the role of servitude of men. Original sin being the example I'm choosing to support that with. There is no serious examination or curiosity about how the blame of mankind being exiled from heaven falls squarely on the female persuasion of our society. The is no added complications about whether Adam may have had a choice to make, or whether he may have inquired about the origins of the offering Eve made to him.

    You notice when American society needed to "defend" its values by preemptive strike on Iraq, the issue was dead simple: Either you are with America, or you are with the enemy. (That was the level of discussion my sister had with her roommate at GW just post 9-11.) Pundits that appear on the news, well I don't think they deviate from the party line. If they ever introduce complexity is is for political reasons that may be beneficial to their affiliates.

    I shared a video on "The truth is pouring out" thread where Ben Shapiro clearly makes a case saying that indeed the majority of muslims are radical. That all to move for action to be taken that he sees valuable to preservation of his conservative views. If you like I'll share it here.

    Notice how more elaborate examination is "whitewashed" to keep things as simple as possible, all in favor of delivering the necessary "signal" so that a decision is clear and easy to make? Indeed the only time complication of any kind enters frame is when the defacto option is non-action, non-acceptance or pro-confusion.

    Complexity in the interpretations of bill of rights is certainly something you notice. How many possible interpretations of the 1st amendment can there be. Either you are free or not. But it seems that in a society with ever more inclinations to micro-aggression, suddenly we need to tailor our speech so that the politically correct may find it pleasant. The simple fact that nobody can really decide, and nobody is willing to settle the issue has led to money literally being equated to speech, so as to benefit groups that have money to donate. While that idea is simple, the introduction of it in reference to the 1st amendment is yet another type of complexity thrown at self evident right our founders intended all americans to enjoy.

    The way that works, a law is passed that is obviously a violation of the constitution so then a layer of complexity is added to the interpretations of thereof to prevent the obvious action of overturning the non-constitutional law.

    Justice is a rather simple proposition, it is about having value or losses compensated when they are abridged by actions of others that are suffered. And yet, the justice system introduces the complexity of the legal procedure, of nuanced language and what some could argue to be hostile formalities so that we may take our losses as something settled as perhaps the emotional and material cost of using the system may be greater than the benefits. Yet again complexity introduced into a system so that justice takes on a new meaning more related with maintaining a status quo rather than about righting wrongs.

    Perhaps even an argument can be made that complexity is there to give value to the players in this arena, but certainly such an interpretation must be seen in a similar way to a common toll-booth you may find on a motor-way. Either way, the complexity serves a purpose, and that purpose isn't about spontaneous action as much as it is about spontaneous inaction.

    The Greek financial crisis and complexity of EU and IMF policies where about preventing the Greeks from acting in their own interests. How complexity in bureaucracy was used to remove unwanted democratic leaders, or to subvert the results of a democratic process.

    So to then suppose that we need accept complexity in the simple question of colonial values introduced by european colonizers as the proper way to evaluate colonies is only an appeal to prevent condemnation of a rather simple proposition. Those colonizers introduced values into their colonies that didn't create a foundation on which they could be social successes. Indeed if the level of social success is measured by wealth, clearly the British did the best job. If the level of success is measured by the smaller amount of litter found on the streets, certainly the British did a better jobs. If the level of success is measured by average life expectancy, the British did a better job.

    That all to say that to accept the notion that the effect of cultural values of Spanish and Portuguese (as well as Italian and French) on their colonies is "complicated" is only to say that we are unwilling to condemn those cultures of having introduced corrupt values in their colonies. Unwilling to condemn them of disrespecting neutrality in the continuum of human values in their efforts. An examination of why we feel this way being beyond the scope of the thesis.

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    Of course it is. It's very simple: if people can't afford to eat, then they are either going to starve to death or start going to extreme measures to procure food.
    An extreme measure, perhaps like going to the local public shelter? Ou wait those are created when social values of the community have a standard about what the poverty line should be. In the US we have a welfare system, in Australia it's the dole. Those public benefits prevent their citizenry from falling below what is considered an acceptable level of poverty required to maintain social order.

    Here in brazil social order by way of an acceptable level of poverty falls on volunteer organisations to handle.

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    When people are running drug cartels or committing robberies or prostituting themselves in slums, where there is little to no legal means for work, do you think it's just because these people were born with certain genes or because it's just part of a culture that randomly spawned there or something? At the end of the day they have to afford to put food in their mouths one way or another. If they're living in a slum and have no reasonable chance of gainful employment, they are neither going to be given all of their meals for free, nor are they going to willingly starve to death.
    I don't see how economic disposition is not a symptom of a disfunction in social values. I mentioned welfare and the dole above, they happened because social values government acted on address the issue of extreme economic disparity. Those are simple propositions indeed. Why would a society not implement them?

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    ...All of that just because people were forced into a situation where they either had to overthrow their authorities (feudal lords in this case) or starve to death. It wasn't a tough decision for them. The outcome could have been fairly predictable, which is also why it may very well have been planned to happen like that, and also a classic example of why a relatively stable economy is necessary for stable societies.
    I rest my case on this thesis. I prefer simple.
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    Iberia refers to Spain and Portugal. If memory serves me correctly.
    "To learn who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize" -- Voltaire

    "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."-- Eleanor Roosevelt

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    Quote Originally posted by lcam88 View Post
    I had never heard of Iberian colonies. Do you mean the settlement of the peninsula as done by the greeks during say 200BC (wiki), or expansions made by the residents of the peninsula to North and South America during the 1500's?
    Iberian is the short way of saying Spanish and Portuguese together, ie from the Iberian Peninsula.



    Regarding my blanket statement "corrupt cultural values", you can imagine a continuum of all possible values humanly possible, unbounded, let's call it the continuum of human values. You can define a point somewhere along the line to define a neutral. Perhaps a neutral cultural value is something rather arbitrary, for example, men and women use sandals when it it hot, shoes or boots when it is cold. Perhaps a positive cultural value, something slightly to one side of neutral could be, we shake hands with people we meet. Human touch considered a good thing emotionally and psychologically.
    I think I am having a hard time trying to convey to you my problem with speaking in terms of "culture" so I'm just going to quote this:

    Culture is a notoriously difficult term to define. In 1952, the American anthropologists, Kroeber and Kluckhohn, critically reviewed concepts and definitions of culture, and compiled a list of 164 different definitions. Apte (1994: 2001), writing in the ten-volume Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, summarized the problem as follows: ‘Despite a century of efforts to define culture adequately, there was in the early 1990s no agreement among anthropologists regarding its nature.’
    https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/a...is_culture.pdf

    You can't make a lot of complicated theories based upon a concept that you can't even define in measurable terms.

    You are talking about a sliding scale but it doesn't mean anything if the two ends of the scale are anchored in thin air. I could make a sliding scale for how "boralaxious" something is too, but it wouldn't mean anything because I just totally made that word up and it has no well-defined meaning. If you don't have a measurable definition for the word "culture" then a sliding scale for that is equally meaningless, and so are any theories that depend on it.

    Tax loopholes are about inequity, about privilege that certain members of society enjoy that may not be available to everyone... Thinking in this way, the meaning of corrupt is quite simple. It goes on the other side of neutral in the continuum of human values.
    Tax loopholes fall into the areas of law and economy. These are areas that can be well-defined and measured.


    Consider this thesis: introducing complexity in cultural and social values for the purpose of identifying corrupt elements is also a way to subvert critical attention from aspects that are considered valuable.
    First of all I would argue that we aren't introducing complexity into the reality of the situation. The complexity is already there because the human interactions that make up a country's history are already complicated. All we are talking about is a more complex way of evaluating history, considering a range of variables, instead of some simplistic 1-to-1 model that only considers one variable (and an extremely vague one at that, "culture," which can't even be reliably defined) and then expects to explain everything with just that one variable. It's just not going to happen because history can't be condensed into a single variable like that, no matter which one variable you pick.

    I'll share three cases where complexity in analysing a motive was forgone for the benefit of action, and three where complexity is introduced for motive for maintenance of the status quo.
    I'm not interested in this because this is getting into a lot of philosophical banter about simplicity vs complexity that I don't think is beneficial for anything. I'm not saying that you should introduce more complexity into your view of things just for the sake of complexity itself, like all I want to do is make everything super complicated. All I'm saying that you can't explain the history of two continents with by a single variable that you (or anthropologists) can't even define to begin with. Even if you could define "culture" in a measurable way it would still be too simplistic. There is a quote attributed to Einstein that you should make things as simple as possible, but no simpler, ie not so simple that the model itself fails. Trying to reduce the history of North and South America to the single ill-defined variable of "culture" is not going to successfully predict anything.

    So to then suppose that we need accept complexity in the simple question of colonial values introduced by european colonizers as the proper way to evaluate colonies is only an appeal to prevent condemnation of a rather simple proposition. Those colonizers introduced values into their colonies that didn't create a foundation on which they could be social successes.
    Can you tell me why exactly you think Argentina and Chile are failures as countries? I hope that is not complicating your view of things too much.

    An extreme measure, perhaps like going to the local public shelter? Ou wait those are created when social values of the community have a standard about what the poverty line should be. In the US we have a welfare system, in Australia it's the dole. Those public benefits prevent their citizenry from falling below what is considered an acceptable level of poverty required to maintain social order.
    You are ignoring the obvious here, that economy plays a huge role in social stability. By telling me what solutions countries introduce to counteract this you are even admitting that it is important for stability in a back-handed way.

    I don't see how economic disposition is not a symptom of a disfunction in social values.
    Because you cannot say that the actions of a few powerful individuals at the head of any society are representative of that society's culture as a whole. In other words what the Duc d'Orléans allegedly did to spark the Great Fear of 1789 does not tell you any information at all about how French culture differs from any other culture, except that the French must have had a certain system of internal trade and economy.

    There is also the story of the Rothschild who crashed the stock market in London when he put on as if Napoleon had won Waterloo, before the news came in that Napoleon had been defeated. By then this Rothschild had taken advantage of the situation he had created and bought up an enormous amount of stock at very low prices. Again this information does not tell you anything at all about how British culture is different than anywhere else, except that in London they have a stock market. And that is not saying much.

    I rest my case on this thesis. I prefer simple.
    So basically your argument is that the simplest answer is always the most correct? I guess I can understand why a programmer would think this way, since as long as your program works the simplest method would be the best. But when it comes to trying to understand human behavior I'm afraid that the simplest explanation is not always the most correct and neither is a complex discussion always about trying to hide something. The "official story" whitewashes are usually much simpler than reality, to the point of being like a fairy tale for children, the 9/11 official story being one example. Btw you are misusing the word "thesis."


    I'll add here too that the reason your view bothers me is because I think you're selling yourself short and also selling every country south of the United States short. Blaming social, economic and other problems all on the "culture" that you inherited from the Iberians is not helping anyone take responsibility for the real problems that are affecting these countries. Having a successful economy is not something that depends on where your country got its culture from. I just don't believe that for a second. It sounds like you could be telling me next that everyone in Brazil is lazy and stupid because you got your culture from Portugal. It's just how the whole tone of your argument strikes me. As long as people have that attitude they will be hopeless, because that's a hopeless attitude to have and there is no room in it anywhere for a person to take responsibility for the situation and want to do something about it. It almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, or like you were born with a debilitating medical condition called "Portuguese culture." I just don't buy any of that.




    Just as a heads up so you don't lose the thread, I'm going to break this off into a separate thread called "Comparing Colonial Cultures" after your next response, lcamm. I think this is a good discussion to have but obviously it has nothing to do with Benghazi.
    Last edited by bsbray, 9th July 2016 at 21:49.

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    Culture would be a difficult subject for a science that does not use Nature as its guide and teacher. I will keep it simple at its most basic concept. Nuances and greater complexity can proceed from there. A strong foundation provides the best way to build upward.

    The human species can be considered as milk in this example. Now let us use cheese and yogurt as examples of a culture, because they are cultures. Milk is the analogous medium of the human species because it allows for some variation within that medium. Cheese is a very good analogy because of its many varieties. No cheese is better than another though there are preferences in taste among humans and choice plays a part. Free will is another way of saying it. How natural would it be for parmesan to insist that cheddar is wrong? If both culture were inoculated into the same milk, the one best adapted to that milk would likely dominate. Yes, Nature does have turf battles because it provides for the most suited to one of Her environments will be the one that finds its niche there and optimizes it. However, most cultures do develop within already established niches and it is their to exploit. If they can keep it. Humanity is supposed to represent a level of consciousness, because of its connection to Source, with a sentience above instinct.

    What we are now calling Survivor culture, practiced a live and let live philosophy overall. It sought to upgrade the cultures it encountered in a benevolent way. It appears they were kind enough to share their genomes as well. The parasitic culture is predatory and has little culture other than war-making and cunning psychological tools that lower spiritual defenses.

    I will leave my short opinion of culture at this point.
    "To learn who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize" -- Voltaire

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    I have an idea about culture much like the one you shared modwiz.

    Bacteria culture very accurately models human culture in a number of ways.

    1. About 10% of the culture is "positive" in that they enter into mutually beneficial symbiotic relationships with their host. 10% are "negative" in that they tend to degrade the energetics of their hosts, and the other 80% are benign in that they will go with the trend set by whichever 10% (positive or negative) happen to dominating. That establishes an bacterial equilibrium, perhaps similar to cultural equilibrium, where some outside force needs to overcome a resistance or inertial threshold of some type to reverse the trend. The number 10% is approximate...

    2. A bacteria culture multiplies until it occupies the whole region of bacterial space available. But the entire culture tends to be quite homogenous.

    3. Foreign bacteria culture introduced either is killed off, or an adaptation happens where it introduces changes into host bacteria culture as it is assimilated.

    I think of human culture as a set of characteristics, using the milk produce analogy modwiz introduced, those characteristics result in cheese of certain flavor characteristics... The "flavor" of human society is similarly dependent on the set of characteristics that define the specific culture. Flavors would the the exhibited results like the willingness to openly accept differences, the tolerances exhibited for divergences in social norm (law), how women are viewed/treated, resource allocation disparities, level of education...

    If colonisers/conquistadors arrived with enough force to overcome the natives' resistance or inertial thresholds, they would have been in a position to redefine the social equilibrium (culture). That is why, modwiz, I think it is important to understand what muslims represent in context of European culture today. That is can be reasonably understood that the majority of muslims are radicals, it can be understood that they represent a force to be reckoned with in terms of them being something capable of overcoming resistance/inertial thresholds of the native culture.

    Make no mistake about point number 3 I mention above; I would rather see them dead, than a whole Europe degraded into a mass of people who subjugate themselves to a mass who imposes their bigotry on others as some divine mandate. Europe is better than the Middle-East. No need to encourage a change there.

    bsbray, there is no sliding scale. Neutrality is simple a point where almost any culture finds themselves indifferent with. I'll try for that point again: Water is good to drink. Absolutely simple proposition.

    If there where a sliding scale, it is because the specific choice of value is not actually neutral.

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    I had never heard of Iberian colonies. Do you mean the settlement of the peninsula as done by the greeks during say 200BC (wiki), or expansions made by the residents of the peninsula to North and South America during the 1500's?
    Iberian is the short way of saying Spanish and Portuguese together, ie from the Iberian Peninsula.
    Yes.

    When you say Iberian colonies, do you mean the ones formed in the peninsula 200BC by the Greeks, or do you mean Spain and portuguese colonies in North and South America in the 1500's and 1600's?

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    First of all I would argue that we aren't introducing complexity into the reality of the situation. The complexity is already there because the human interactions that make up a country's history are already complicated. All we are talking about is a more complex way of evaluating history, considering a range of variables, instead of some simplistic 1-to-1 model that only considers one variable (and an extremely vague one at that, "culture," which can't even be reliably defined) and then expects to explain everything with just that one variable. It's just not going to happen because history can't be condensed into a single variable like that, no matter which one variable you pick.
    Ok. Consider that a variable is nothing more than a degree of freedom. Because society is composed of individual "agents" or people interacting with one another, by nature it is complex.

    What I understand you to be saying is that you need more degrees of freedom to meaningfully examine the complexity in this case.

    Let's define complexity:

    Quote Originally posted by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity
    Complexity describes the behaviour of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, meaning there is no reasonable higher instruction to define the various possible interactions.[1]
    By saying you need another variable, are you saying you there are higher instructions do define various interactions? Can you mention one that is more important than culture? Bear in mind, money is an aspect of culture. That people can be greedy as a collective means they are attracted mostly to money. But it can be any other fixation (food, women, pyramid structures) that society then values.

    Also bear in mind, cultural norms tend to be simplistic rules the collective follow... Views that effect their perspective... Or interpretations they are programmed with in genetics, family values, or values introduced to them by their company.

    Quote Originally posted by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity
    Complexity is generally used to characterize something with many parts where those parts interact with each other in multiple ways, culminating in a higher order of emergence greater than the sum of its parts. There is no absolute definition of what complexity means; the only consensus among researchers is that there is no agreement about the specific definition of complexity. However, a characterization of what is complex is possible.[2] The study of these complex linkages at various scales is the main goal of complex systems theory.
    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    I'm not interested in this because this is getting into a lot of philosophical banter about simplicity vs complexity that I don't think is beneficial for anything.
    I was trying to stay reasonably focused on the thesis I presented. Simplicity and Complexity in examination of social matters are useful. Regardless, I'll accept your position on this. I'll obviously be flaunting this to you again if your position boils down into something like "it is to complex to know for certain or decide upon".

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    I'm not saying that you should introduce more complexity into your view of things just for the sake of complexity itself, like all I want to do is make everything super complicated. All I'm saying that you can't explain the history of two continents with by a single variable that you (or anthropologists) can't even define to begin with.
    Or that we can properly agree upon. I purposefully left the definition loose so that your introductions to the definition need not be a point of contention. I think appealing to rigidness of definitions or arbitrary criteria would make the discussion more about how to define those criteria than about the issue at hand. That is perfect grounds for someone to appeal to authority; if only Einstein (my god of intelligence) had postulated... Let's agree not to go there?

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    Even if you could define "culture" in a measurable way it would still be too simplistic. There is a quote attributed to Einstein that you should make things as simple as possible, but no simpler, ie not so simple that the model itself fails. Trying to reduce the history of North and South America to the single ill-defined variable of "culture" is not going to successfully predict anything.
    I'm happy for you to introduce aspects of culture worth contemplation. You mentioned the Catholic Church, religion is a happy topic that bodes well with culture.

    As simple as possible but not too simple... I don't think trying to predict failure is necessary anymore. Brazil has had 500 years for Portuguese values to have a chance to be successful. My only question is when they will throw in the rag. I'm more interested now in knowing why it was a failure. I'm interested in examining culture because it is the single biggest variable that can effect the outcome of the "host", whether it dies, or whether the symbiosis results in prosperity for both.

    I don't think you mean to use complex and elaborate definitions to avoid admission that Brazil (for example) is a failure. So I'm not going to invoke the Simplicity vs Complexity philosophical position yet.

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    Can you tell me why exactly you think Argentina and Chile are failures as countries? I hope that is not complicating your view of things too much.
    No I can't. It would complicate my view

    I haven't ever lived there so I really don't have much reference to say. Politics in Argentina is about conservation of political powers within the establishment. Chile deviated from that norm once and so CIA, during one of Kissingers deals, had to intervene using their assets... :/

    I do know that in Chile property tax rates increases as the size of the home increase. So as to create an incentive for people to have smaller residences. If that is some failed measure designed to tax wealthy individuals more than the average perhaps it can be said that society there discriminates against wealth.

    Obviously you have touched on the weak area of my position. I'm sure that is evident.

    Perhaps the two criteria I suggested for determining success or failure of a colony need be expanded? Suggestions?

    I would have made more of a point about how politics in Argentina are about conservation of powers within the establishment, except that is exactly what the Democrats are doing in the US. If that where a point to use suggesting that Argentina fails in comparison to the US, the argument would be flawed. I can only say that perhaps that norm has been much more established in Argentina.

    I really only make mention of Brazil because it is evident to me that the tradition of politics here, a legacy of the portuguese cultural values introduced is so full of corruption an analogy is made by the saying "if you pull a feather, you find a whole chicken comes with it" (Se puxa uma pena, achamos uma galinha inteira saindo). That is where I found my thesis that Portuguese values where more about being socially corrupt that of social order. There are other remnants of it here and there.

    These are the distillations of plausible answers to the questions people often ask: Why is brazil still a third world country with all of its national resources and all the resourcefulness of the people?

    I think referencing CIA operations that have obviously happened to shape politics, even if they are still happening, is a flawed thread of rational because fundamentally, much like economics, the weaknesses inherent in cultural values held since colonisation obviously make the CIA's job much easier. The fact that CIA can spread there wings here is a symptom of the real problem.

    As to how valid such rational fits spanish colonies... That is an area I've hopefully included, but have much less certainty about. The spanish went to Mexico, Argentina and the other regions for different reasons, they where after gold. I can't help but find their cultural values to be at least equally corrupt on that continuum of human values scale I elaborated earlier.

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    You are ignoring the obvious here, that economy plays a huge role in social stability. By telling me what solutions countries introduce to counteract this you are even admitting that it is important for stability in a back-handed way.
    I am ignoring it only because if cultural values gave any importance to a minimum standard of povery they would put up a welfare or dole system, something the US and Australia have done. So the role economics plays in social stability is actually cultural values of a society effecting social stability. I'm saying that economics is a symptom and not the cause.

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray
    I rest my case on this thesis. I prefer simple.
    So basically your argument is that the simplest answer is always the most correct?
    The context of the narrow thesis I was concluding: Introducing complexity in cultural and social values for the purpose of identifying corrupt elements is also a way to subvert critical attention from aspects that are considered valuable.

    Yes. And I'll suggest a test where my conclusion is incorrect: Does adding complexity introduce a meaningful way to advance understanding and solving of an impasse? My view is that more often then not, it doesn't.
    Last edited by lcam88, 10th July 2016 at 02:02.

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    Quote Originally posted by lcam88 View Post
    I have an idea about culture much like the one you shared modwiz.
    Except the most important part of sentient contact with Source, which is Wisdom/Love. Also, until you have listened to Sufi Muslims, who represent the mind and heart of Islam, you are dealing with ignorant representations. It is not by accident that Wahhabism and its adherents are the form of Islam. and an apostate one at that, shown to us by media and others with a bias. You will need to find a more suitable medium for your pseudo-intellectual invective against the culture of Islam to grow, than here at ToT. We embrace love and acceptance as a whole.

    The yeast you seem to wish to insert here will not rise and proliferate.

    You seem like a bright and decent person. You are either misinformed or have an animus towards muslims based on the misinformation. At least I would hope that is the reason.
    Last edited by modwiz, 10th July 2016 at 07:03.
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    This will probably mean little to most of you, but, we have on this Earth 15 separate Tectonic plates, this is not by chance, nor were the people on each plate, there for any random reason.

    This Planet was here to provide a Sacred Pathway for each of us to follow. Each of the Tectonic plates imbues with it certain means of living with provide us overall with a balanced and harmonious , consciously alive person at the end of the journey. What we had originally were different attitudes and means of living quite different from other culture. For example, The Native American, The Latin American, the Australian Aboriginal, the Japanese, The Chinese, the Russian, The Islamic, The Hebrew, within each of these comes an specific way of life that they live by. I did once have writings up on each Tectonic plate, that explain each of these differences. They all teach a specific that is not necessarily found in the same way on any other plate. It seemed as I wrote them down, there was a specific Soul Path to follow as we re-incarnated on our journey. some for example revere the land itself and regard themselves as guardians of the land, others revere Mother Earth and her part in our life, others are meant to be guardians of the animals and protect them, some teach a discipline to follow that might seem strange or even worse to others but each religious practice, that includes a discipline is something required before you can go on to an even more strict regime, on another plate.

    If we do not learn what each plate teaches us, we have lost the plot, and that is what has been happening over the past three hundred years, because of the Dominions of people who believed in their right to go anywhere they felt like it, take guns and canons in and overwhelm with force simply by planting a flag and saying, this is now ours. They took different values to people who already had a set of values that were there for them to learn Truth by.

    It is now a bit late to turn the clock back, but it is not too late to learn that each Place was meant to be different from others, and that each has something to learn from the others. This whole thing of deciding that we are right and you are wrong is against our whole Planetary learning experience. Has a great deal been learnt by shoving your way of life onto another people, and telling them they are Primitive and thus can be walked all over. Go into your memories and you may discover as I have that I have lived before on any Tectonic plate many times over, each one contributed to my growth and understanding, and who knows how many of my anscestors still live on in those places. We need to learn the reason for each Tectonic Plate and learn the lessons, they teach before we allow this intolerance of other's way of life to continue. Travel has helped, but we have been for too long allowing others to go and take charge of another land, simply because they can, and decide their set of ideals is better or more than someone else. The kik a*se approach is beyond a joke, it foments nothing both societies backwards steps.

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    Quote Originally posted by modwiz View Post
    Except the most important part of sentient contact with Source, which is Wisdom/Love.
    So you are saying all human cultures have sentient contact with Wisdom/Love, an aspect of culture I've overlooked. How true!

    Quote Originally posted by modwiz View Post
    Also, until you have listened to Sufi Muslims, who represent the mind and heart of Islam, you are dealing with ignorant representations.
    Even the National Socialists of Germany pre WWII had idealisms that appeal to the heart and mind. But... Nobody stops to consider they somehow weren't or aren't villains because somewhere they have warm and fuzzy centers.

    Quote Originally posted by modwiz View Post
    It is not by accident that Wahhabism and its adherents are the form of Islam. and an apostate one at that, shown to us by media and others with a bias. You will need to find a more suitable medium for your pseudo-intellectual invective against the culture of Islam to grow, than here at ToT. We embrace love and acceptance as a whole.
    I'm happy to know you will make up your own mind.

    Quote Originally posted by modwiz View Post
    The yeast you seem to wish to insert here will not rise and proliferate.

    You seem like a bright and decent person. You are either misinformed or have an animus towards muslims based on the misinformation. At least I would hope that is the reason.
    That's fine. I'm surprised that I'm having to visit the following rational. Here we go again.

    I've only ever had a single muslim friend. Quite a nice person actually and very faithful. I felt about him the same way I felt about other Christian friends. And if you examined Christian backed violence in history, I don't think they have any claim to superiority over their muslim brethrin.

    And just to say one last thing about this topic of good muslims or decent followers of any other faith just to lay it to rest!

    It is not the fact that they are muslims that you may find they are decent human beings. Rather, simply, they are decent human beings. Their decency comes from their humanity, not their faith. Conversely, the radical ideas are from the faith, not their humanity.

    That is the same as Christians in their churches who engaging in charitable work. There are charitable people doing the work who just happen to be christians. It is not their christianity that requires of them to be charitable, even while it may seem to encourage samaritan type values. If that indeed where the case, non-religious people would never be found in charity, a absurd proposition which simply isn't the case.

    Indeed the opposite is true, when good people are required to do evil, it is religion that is used to compels them to act maliciously. Evil men will be evil, but religion is required to make a good man do evil things. That is something I picked up from the late Christopher Hitchens. RIP.

    Brode over that yeast to see if it doesn't rise or proliferate.

    Perhaps those are universal cultural values arising from that moment of sentient contact with wisdom/love. It is about being human. Not necessarily a person of faith.

    Inevitably though, time is required to recover from malicious values introduced into culture. The worse the values introduced the longer recover takes, and consequently the longer a specific 'colony' requires before it manages to blossom and also the more vulnerable they may be during their recovery. If you think of sentient contact with wisdom/love as the volition a plant has to grow, laying asphalt on a road prevents plants from growing where they previously flourished. But leave the road unmaintained and within less than a century, plants will find a way to emerge through cracks that form on the paved surface. Eventually the asphalt is no more.

    That is pseudo-intellectualism talking there. I found your comment to quite enlightening modwiz, I would suggest you dispense with that wry sense of presumed superiority you sprinkled into your posting, but I rather like the way you express yourself. I prefer to task myself with selectively accepting what you write.
    Last edited by lcam88, 10th July 2016 at 05:16.

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    Quote Originally posted by lcam88 View Post
    So you are saying all human cultures have sentient contact with Wisdom/Love, an aspect of culture I've overlooked. How true!



    Even the National Socialists of Germany pre WWII had idealisms that appeal to the heart and mind. But... Nobody stops to consider they somehow weren't or aren't villains because somewhere they have warm and fuzzy centers.


    I'm happy to know you will make up your own mind.



    That's fine. I'm surprised that I'm having to visit the following rational. Here we go again.

    I've only ever had a single muslim friend. Quite a nice person actually and very faithful. I felt about him the same way I felt about other Christian friends. And if you examined Christian backed violence in history, I don't think they have any claim to superiority over their muslim brethrin.

    And just to say one last thing about this topic of good muslims or decent followers of any other faith just to lay it to rest!

    It is not the fact that they are muslims that you may find they are decent human beings. Rather, simply, they are decent human beings. Their decency comes from their humanity, not their faith. Conversely, the radical ideas are from the faith, not their humanity.

    That is the same as Christians in their churches who engaging in charitable work. There are charitable people doing the work who just happen to be christians. It is not their christianity that requires of them to be charitable, even while it may seem to encourage samaritan type values. If that indeed where the case, non-religious people would never be found in charity, a absurd proposition which simply isn't the case.

    Indeed the opposite is true, when good people are required to do evil, it is religion that is used to compels them to act maliciously. Evil men will be evil, but religion is required to make a good man do evil things. That is something I picked up from the late Christopher Hitchens. RIP.

    Brode over that yeast to see if it doesn't rise or proliferate.

    Perhaps those are universal cultural values arising from that moment of sentient contact with wisdom/love. It is about being human. Not necessarily a person of faith.

    Inevitably though, time is required to recover from malicious values introduced into culture. The worse the values introduced the longer recover takes, and consequently the longer a specific 'colony' requires before it manages to blossom and also the more vulnerable they may be during their recovery. If you think of sentient contact with wisdom/love as the volition of a plant has to grow, laying asphalt on a road prevents plants from growing where they previously flourished. But leave the road unmaintained and within less than a century, plants will find a way to emerge through cracks that form on the paved surface.

    That is pseudo-intellectualism talking there. I found your comment to quite enlightening modwiz, I would suggest you dispense with that wry sense of presumed superiority you sprinkled into your posting, but I rather like the way you express yourself. I prefer to task myself with selectively accepting what you write.
    Thank you for the reply. My preference is to leave the thread, at least for now. I am familiar with debating styles and am not a debater because sophistry has an element of being disingenuous to prevail, and the decency of a topic can be left on the floor.

    I will continue to read the thread and perhaps enjoin with others should the urge arise. Apologies for the pseudo intellectual part. Your intellect is not a false one. I will not edit it out of the original post, that way the apology has context.
    "To learn who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize" -- Voltaire

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    I wish to continue the line of thought which bothe Modwiz and I have tried to contribute. that is, as far as I see it a Spritual context to all that we do, we is part and parcel of all our lives as much as historical effects upon our own disintegration as people.

    I found when I was writing about the Tectonic Plates that, this African plate epitomises what we are trying to say. I have left quite a lot out, but I think it still flows together. I am not intellectualising this, it was to me a profound statement in the first place to myself, from a very great African man who is now unknown in history.



    The colours of this tectonic energy are the earthy colours and the environmental colours, for they, like the Australian Aborigines were shown a path of being, so close to nature, that all their spiritual understanding came from this. They too, were in harmony with the very nature of the earthiness of this planet, yet their main focus has to be the animals that are the true spirit of Africa. The colours most in focus are the Red Brown Of The Earth In The Grassy Plains, The Green Of The Acacia Leaves, The Green Of The Trees In The Lost Ancient Forests, Orange Like The Flaming Sun, Blue, Blue-Purple, Indigo.

    The main focus of this tectonic energy live in harmony with all that is “The One”, The Earth, Seas, Water, Sky, Animals And Plants. It is easy to see how with the advent of the lack of consideration for the land and its ability to provide, that mankind rapes and pillages the only real resources available to him. Certainly, intelligence enables a certain kind of development of its own, yet this is of little use to people who have taken so much from the soil, that it is not possible to subsist from the land and famine, drought, pestilence and disease are the result.

    This continent was once a very beautiful forest land which was fully capable of supporting all the huge animals of the land. Over time, the animals developed a large appetite because there was such a variety and abundance of food. Man cut down the forest, leaving the animals no way but to cut down and destroy the very food source from which they live. Cutting down trees for use is not the problem, it is the lack of consideration of “The Now” and the future that is the downfall of mankind. It is a simple process of development of the land and animal resources that was all that was necessary of these people to learn in order to maintain their link to that Sanctity of Creation and thus their own inherent spirituality.

    Many people from the so called developed countries are now able to see this to be the most important link to their own existence, yet seldom do others realise the sheer immensity of what they are doing to their own existence. Consider, that if you are carefully maintaining the land and all about you, so that you are aware of the nature of all that it means to you, then it, correspondingly means, that you are maintaining all that you are and all that you will ever be within yourself. If you are capable of cutting out all that is available to feed and sustain your very being, then you are capable of doing the same thing in your life. If you incarnate into an area that is devoid of all that is beautiful and sustainable, consider how you really are as a being within your self.

    There are so many instances where an analogy exists for the world to see, just from how the people of Africa have mismanaged their land and resources from the trees to the animals, for they are the keepers of this lesson to all others on Earth. The people of Europe may consider just how they pollute the very air they breathe and the water which is the bringer of all life to them. Start thinking in terms of how symbolically they and all the Western world are unable to take in the very ‘Breath of Life’, without the pollution of all that is vile and unclean to their very being. Maybe they are so filled with that pollution in their thoughts that more pollution is all they can feel themselves to be.

    Is it possible for you to see just how much this land of Africa has been ravaged almost beyond repair? If so, then start thinking about your own land and how you and your countrymen feel about their own inner being, is it beautiful or is it so damaged that a massive regeneration process is in order?

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  27. #29
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    Quote Originally posted by modwiz View Post
    Culture would be a difficult subject for a science that does not use Nature as its guide and teacher. I will keep it simple at its most basic concept. Nuances and greater complexity can proceed from there. A strong foundation provides the best way to build upward.

    The human species can be considered as milk in this example. Now let us use cheese and yogurt as examples of a culture, because they are cultures. Milk is the analogous medium of the human species because it allows for some variation within that medium. Cheese is a very good analogy because of its many varieties. No cheese is better than another though there are preferences in taste among humans and choice plays a part. Free will is another way of saying it. How natural would it be for parmesan to insist that cheddar is wrong? If both culture were inoculated into the same milk, the one best adapted to that milk would likely dominate. Yes, Nature does have turf battles because it provides for the most suited to one of Her environments will be the one that finds its niche there and optimizes it. However, most cultures do develop within already established niches and it is their to exploit. If they can keep it. Humanity is supposed to represent a level of consciousness, because of its connection to Source, with a sentience above instinct.

    What we are now calling Survivor culture, practiced a live and let live philosophy overall. It sought to upgrade the cultures it encountered in a benevolent way. It appears they were kind enough to share their genomes as well. The parasitic culture is predatory and has little culture other than war-making and cunning psychological tools that lower spiritual defenses.

    I will leave my short opinion of culture at this point.
    What a wonderful analogy you've made here modwiz. At this instance "we are on the same page."

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    Quote Originally posted by modwiz View Post
    Thank you for the reply. My preference is to leave the thread, at least for now. I am familiar with debating styles and am not a debater because sophistry has an element of being disingenuous to prevail, and the decency of a topic can be left on the floor.

    I will continue to read the thread and perhaps enjoin with others should the urge arise. Apologies for the pseudo intellectual part. Your intellect is not a false one. I will not edit it out of the original post, that way the apology has context.
    Thank _you, modwiz. Please pardon me if I overcooked it; I get a sense that you take pride in your clearly valued participation here and on TOT in general. I hate religion as a topic of conversation, nothing really good comes of it. Perhaps rather the same in the way it effects peoples lives. :/

    I am not an intellectual. I mostly pick up bits and pieces and do with cobbling them together, (maybe that is what academia does in its entirety <shrug/>) so I take absolutely no offense to being called out on it. I rather dislike being labeled, as I think is true for all of us.

    Debating styles only since you mentioned it: There are 40 theorems authored by Arthur Schopenhauer that go into to details so how to debate even while having a weak argument. The result of their employment is that very learned individuals who hold quite strong positions, righteous positions end with the appearance non-meritous of the reality they try to share. Sensibility comes down to the debaters acting with generosity the everyones positions...

    Even the most reasonable chap I know here, bsbray, has taken to confront aspects of my ramblings/musings. If it makes any difference here at this point. I think his positions as he has shared them are more reasonable than mine; I feel that if the discussion where to continue, it would boil down to how subjective the views I share really are even if there may be some underlying reason to it all.

    So with that matter in mind, I think I should be less confrontational in my participation here. If anyone has suggestions please feel free to let me know.

    Considering aspects of Colonial Culture, a question I've raised before, is it important to consider some other aspect besides culture?

    Shall we select specific colonies we are interested in comparing? Say, colonies that grew into modern day nations?

    Shall we select at least one that doesn't exist any more?
    Last edited by lcam88, 11th July 2016 at 11:30.

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