The suggestion that Capitalism is part of human nature is the height of stupidity
...and ahistorical. No-one on the left would deny that capitalism isn't an advance on feudalism. Part of the discussion therefore is whether you can, as someone did, characterise Afghanistan as feudal. If it is then the kind of constructive engagement that D says is being discussed could be seen as positive (though in what circles I'd love to know - I've not heard anything like that from any gov.t/mainstream media sources). However, you could also argue that the triumph of global capitalism has ended feudalism, and the 'backwaters' are merely, and horrifically, that - ie neglected, squalid remains drained by larger powers and corporations.
The article Otto just posted contains little of substance, an example here:
In some weird Orwellian boomerang, the degradation of language required to advance the left's agenda has rendered its proponents utterly desiccated. The President gets teary in the Oval Office, the Queen chokes up at St. Paul's, David Letterman and Dan Rather sob on CBS, New Yorkers weep openly for their slain fireman, but the dead-eyed zombies of the peace movement who claim to love everyone parade through the streets unmoved, a breed apart.
Just so many cocoanuts, then?
Thanx D for the media over-view. I can see how The New Repblic can't be neatly summarised or pidgeonholed.
From Steelgate,
These right wing Americans seem to have spread to every website forum recently.
I think Otto proves that ALICE has been won and his creators should be given the gold medal. In addition, the prevalence of differing identities, the ability to appear to respond to other posters on a range of sites suggests an extension of web-crawler software.
Perhaps a nu-Alice competition. Instead of 10 humans testing 10 computer-generated AI machines, they're using the boards. However annoyed, posters are assuming Otto's a human.
Embedded within my little theory, is the belief that it is no accident that AI developers have chosen a red-neck conservative viewpoint - it is monolithic (none of those self-doubting of liberals, none of the complexity of the left, none of the uniqueness of mavericks like PCS or pk), it 'argues' by assertion, it only has to pay lip-service to the idea of debate, it's a simplistic, emotionalist, but cliche-ridden point of view that would therefore be much easier to program. Otto even sounds like the kind of acronym a bunch of CalTech geeks would come up with, along with a simplistic troll-like sense of humour.
The only problem I have with my own theory is that no computer could come out with the line:
"I am the diversity"
unless it was bent on world domination. Er...
The serious point, is that there is some real debate going on around and inspite of the war-mongers. Why don't we just concentrate on that?
- now on our media
