Cloud Base 88: Nepotistic Parvenue (2/23/14)
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1:48:20 – Join Eddie for another episode of Cloud Base 88!
License for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Attribution: by Eddie Murray – more info at onsug.com
Released February 2014 on The Overnightscape Underground (onsug.com), an Internet talk radio channel focusing on a freeform monologue style, with diverse and fascinating hosts.
The idea that any two people, much less bunches of people grouped by what sexual apparatus they are equipped with, what nationality their parentage is, or any of these other categorizations, could ever be ‘equal’ in any meaningful way is part of why systems based on this nonsense will never work. rights are earned. with every right one has in society comes certain responsibilities and liabilities. Ive never met two people who i felt deserved to be treated as if they were ‘alike’.
i truly think we need to discard this concept as well as the term, ‘fairness’, as there is no objective way of determining whether anything is fair, and honestly, the universe and humans rarely, if ever even think about ‘fairness’ except when they feel someone is getting something that they arent.
our present culture will ‘raise’ anyone who manages by any means, fair or foul, to attain sufficient wealth to control people. whoopie.
Comment by pqribber — February 24, 2014 @ 9:00 am
Hmmm ok so how about a step further then, murder. Your point suggests we should not care if this us “fair” (wrong/ right) but maintain a Crowleyesque view of do what thou wilt or chaos theory because everything is just nuts, which it is of course. But does that then mean we should throw our human morals and ethics out the window? Or am I not understanding correctly?
Comment by Eddie — February 25, 2014 @ 12:26 am
From your own life experiences and struggles, you can somewhat understand what other people are going through. With empathy and compassion, you can imagine what it’s like to be that other person. And with no law, no coercion at all, you would just deeply want to be nice to that person because you care how they feel, even if they are a stranger.
All the other stuff just seems like “the powers that be” driving wedges between us to further maintain control.
Comment by Frank — February 25, 2014 @ 5:24 am
I’m not seeing where I am saying murder is ok. ‘fairness’ and right and wrong are very different. taking someone’s life without some valid reason is ‘wrong’. giving bob some of your ice cream and not letting mickey have some ‘isn’t fair’. unfairness, indeed, is subjective, as are humans, in general – in point of fact, the human mind is pretty much incapable of ‘objective’ reasoning and will always provide a subjective point-of-view.
is it fair that some have lots more than others and that they can break most laws, sometimes, indeed, even get away with murder? of course not. it it the way humans are, and have always been? of course. if someone is charismatic enough, we will let them roast our children for their dinner. history proves this, again and again. the ‘general public’ are a magpie-like lot and have been stirred to do crazy things since humans first grouped together.
Comment by pqribber — February 25, 2014 @ 7:08 am
There is no such thing as “the powers that be” There are billions of people, each with at least dozens of social belief and action systems, it is complex. The idea of “powers that be” plays into the same slot as magic or gods, it is a panacea for the ignorant.
Comment by chad bowers — February 25, 2014 @ 8:51 am
There are powerful people and groups – politicians, business leaders, religious leaders, think tanks, radio personalities, etc. that do have an influence on society. “Powers that be” do exist – by definition – it refers to the powers that actually exist – not the ones that don’t exist. The term does imply that we don’t know exactly the true nature of these people and groups – because we don’t. The powers could involve an “Illuminati” type of group, or not.
Or are you arguing that the types of powers that we generally agree exist, as listed above, actually don’t exert any influence? That Fox News, or the Catholic Church, or Wal-Mart, or The Heritage Society, or Barack Obama, or Apple… that they don’t really have any influence on the way people think and act? Because I think people are very gullible and very malleable and the powers that be take advantage of it all the time.
Comment by Frank — February 25, 2014 @ 7:07 pm
Taking away physical harm to others there are still emotional abuse, or tricking people to believe one thing and doing another. While sexes have nothing to do with it inherently. I use it as an example of where we would have the most to loose emotionally in a relationship. We see it all the time in movies. The girl is a stooge set up to woo a guy for information or whatever. I agree the fact that fairness doesn’t really pop up in nature has something to do with it. But society made rules based on these ideas of fairness even though they are loosely followed but it goes without saying then are ethics and morals ok to break if it’s emotional abuse and not physical? Of course it’s not ok, but I think your point is that it happens all the time so we should not be so blind to it. I also agree with this. However, what i was wondering is…what is it exactly that gives these individuals the natural empathy we have for one another, is it anger at the world because it seems unfair to them?
Comment by Eddie — February 25, 2014 @ 11:22 pm
EDIT: I mean over-ride their natural empathy. Greed, power, revenge.. Or competition dog eat dog world… Easy to categorise or even reform law on economic, business, and physical attributes of this but not so much so when it comes to matters of the heart or feigning trust worthyness for example.
Comment by Eddie — February 26, 2014 @ 4:10 am
Very few people are ‘cruel’ by nature. we have a chain of cruelties going back to even before ogg stole gook’s wife, by lying about him, back in cro-magnon days. as an example: children ‘tease’ one another in absolutely horrifying and cruel ways and we see children as closest to nature. this ‘teasing/taunting’ type of behavior appears to be in our basic grid. i have never seen a bully or child carefully trained to tease others. some appear to have this in their brain-stem nature. (proto-alphas?)
cruelty in most people is a response to other cruelty. no one wakes up one morning, and decides to treat others like crap, just for a lark.
it would also appear that if one wishes to be ‘successful’ in our culture, a good dollup of sociopathy is required. being able to ruthlessly step on/over others to be ‘top dog’ would require a lack of conscience, and if we look at our most succesful humans, indeed, there appears to be not only a lack of conscience, but a pride in this lack. so, to the average person, behaving this way is heading toward ‘winning’.
Comment by pqribber — February 26, 2014 @ 7:06 am
Eddie, Congrats on a very lively forum. Well DONE!!!
Frank, in response to your comment above. “Powers that Be” becomes meaningless when you don’t specify who or what you are talking about. For instance, if you and I were at a roller rink or worked at a roller rink” Powers that Be” when used in conversation between us bitching about our jobs, would likely mean the owner, or management of the roller rink.,, the problem with it becoming a meaningless statement begins when you apply it to the larger world. Words without meaning are of little use. When you talk about global “powers that be” I could look at the list you provided above and wonder if you meet all those, some of those, even if you meant the management of the roller rink. They could all be in “it” together.
Also your idea above mixes influence with shared intent. Any group of people, any person exerts influence, but that does not mean that they have some shared goal or intent.
Comment by chad bowers — February 27, 2014 @ 7:38 am
Thanks Chad, I think what your saying is that TPTB is an over generalisationized term when talking about business kabals in cahoots with one another, I suppose what Frank is getting at is that some of the big decisions go all the way to the top, while this is no new information the the corperatocracy we are awere of that lobbies the laws they want and the presidents they want to work for them, of course they won’t all agree but in the grand scheme of things there is some very large shots called that influence almost everyone’s lives…. To a point of manipulation. Otherwise I think it just ends in semantics like all good outs.. However forgetting about purely the linguistics if it. I think that okay not “everything” can be controlled but they do a darn hood job of it so far, of course always looking for more control. If you can listen to Chomsky without falling asleep he appears to put it much more intellectually then I. But he’s great for insomnia, no barbiturates or tranquilizers needed. Come to think of it I really wanna get one of those beds you have your priorities straight.
Comment by Eddie — February 27, 2014 @ 12:53 pm