boxer

Yeap exactly what I said a culture built on theft robbery that is what corruption is. I'm glad we can agree.

Another strawman. Learn how to read and argue.

Isn't Mugabe a result of democracy? How can you say it's not indicative of the culture when the majority of the people voted him in?

Look up South Africa and Farmers. Look up Zimbabwe and Farmers. I don't watch Fox news too much propaganda. The developed world didn't go from horse and buggy to a BMW. Why would the undeveloped world do that?

If you say something that is wrong, or has severe moral implications-I'll call you on it. If you say something that is a good question-I'll say so to. For example, I don't know who your friend was-but he's an idiot. Yes you can have both time and money. You can not have unlimited time and unlimited money-but that's the nature of the physical world. As to working hard, I never said productivity = working hard. If I only have a shovel and want to dig a septic tank-it's going to take me all day to do it. I'll work really, really hard at it-but my productivity is limited to one hole. If I have a backhoe, I can dig my hole in 30 mins and then I can be lazy the rest of the day . . .or I can tell other people for 100 I'll dig you a hole too! I'll spend an entire day digging holes-just like the guy with a shovel-but I'll be much more productive at it. Productivity increases wealth not money. This is why the developed world has much more leisure time now than 200 years ago. We have developed tools that allow us to be more productive than our ancestors. We have a tractor instead of a mule and a spade. The question then becomes well how to you get to the point that you are producing the tools that allow you to be more productive. It comes from stored wealth-it comes from built up savings. I save my extra productivity and then I INVEST it to become more productive. I've done this in my life . . .many times. The reason why Western civilizations have advanced is b/c they allow people the ability to SAVE what they earn and then in the future to INVEST their stored wealth to become more productive. The MAJOR reason why undeveloped countries are undeveloped is b/c they do not have a good culture of saving and investing. They have a culture of robbery and theft-which is exactly what you propose in order to solve the problem.

Couple of flaws, we really have no clue about the functioning of either of those societies. It's completely possible that both of them were simply capitalistic enterprises where the hearts of men were cleansed from anger, envy, malice, hatred, laziness, etc. Simply because it states "they had all things in common" or "no inequality" does not state HOW they got to that point and it's foolhardy to think we can try to replicate it without the Lord directly intervening to make it happen. Even the United Order was a failure and didn't last for a long period of time every single time it was tried it lasted max 2-3 years. It's idiotic to think that we could even remotely begin to actually implement it however it should be implemented. Maybe, maybe when Christ comes-we'll see what He says. But until then, it's best to just put it in the realm of fantasy and "not gonna happen".

And yet one of the Great commandments is "Thou shalt not steal". If we never "earn" anything, then it's never really ours, who is to say that the house you bought, the car you drive is "yours". You didn't "earn" it. Maybe I believe God should give it to me not you. Maybe if I round up 10 of my best buddies, I can "convince" you to part ways with your car. Or better yet, maybe I can come with a mob of 100 people and convince you to part ways with what you didn't earn. Or better yet, I'll just convince 100 million people you didn't earn it and it should really be given to me b/c I think God wants to give it to me. ------------- The fundamental basis of society is rooted in the 10 commandments. Just b/c people have voted on it and given approval to some thug dressed up all nice to come and steal what I've produced doesn't make it any less of stealing than if you'd broken into my house and taken it. What happens in every single society which has gone down this road is that those who produce tolerate some amount of theft b/c it's not worth the risk involved in pushing back . . .but eventually when the theft gets bad enough those who produce do one of two things, they either quit producing, they fight back, or they join those who steal. Once you have a culture built on the theft of what other people produce-it devolves pretty horrifically.

You bring up a good point. How does one indicate to the market they would like food, shelter, etc? They produce something that someone else wants! At the end of the day it's all a massively huge barter system. That all it is-money is just the grease that makes sure the gears don't get rusty and that they can turn properly. Fundamentally the problem isn't a problem of money-it's a problem of productivity. Fundamentally if one is a productive individual and produces things that other people want, someone is going to trade with you-period. There might be good times and worse times-but fundamentally as long as you can produce you'll have sufficient for your needs. The real fundamental question is two fold. How do you incentive people to produce that which other people want, to do it well and to continue doing it? The second is what do you do with unproductive people? I'm not making a value judgement on unproductive people-they may be unproductive b/c they are lazy, b/c they simply don't want to be more productive, b/c through some physical limitation-it could be health, it could be age, it could be ability. How do you help unproductive people become productive? How do you keep productive people producing? And for those who aren't productive, how do you ensure they form the least burden upon the rest of society? Fundamentally, many different society have come up with different solutions to this problem. Some society have killed off unproductive people-some societies have said we need to "equalize" the wealth-except that ends ups dis-incentivizing those who produce. When societies kill off unproductive people it incentivizes those who don't produce to work, when societies "equalizes" wealth it incentives those who produce to not produce. Both are horrifically bad outcomes. It's one of the reasons why slavery was so bad . . .sure you can force people at the point of a gun to work-but ultimately they won't produce as much as when you allow people the freedom to be rewarded when they produce more. And that is where up until the last 60+ years, Christianity came into play. It told people look you really should be charitable, you should give to those less fortunate b/c you want to give-b/c it can help them out. Voluntarily giving of that which you have produced to help someone else out avoids the plague of killing off those who are unproductive and the plague of forcing people to be productive against their will. And while it didn't make everyone "equal", it worked. And the bottom line (going back to someone who said inequality is a sin-that's like saying a cold is a sin-just stupid) is that the heart of man is rooted with all sorts of nastiness. Pride, envy, hate, greed, malice, etc. etc. etc. You will NEVER have equality as long as those feelings are a part of this world. Someone will always feel slighted, someone will always want more, someone will always try to get more. What you want is utopia and that's not going to happen-it's a fantasy a delusion.

Classic case of a strawman argument. Reread what I wrote.

Your idea of "love" has been tried many, many times over with the same result every single time; murder, death, millions of people dead all to enforce your view of morality. I'll give you another reason why it doesn't work-it's called the price problem. The only way any form of socialism works is with omniscient knowledge. Prices are critical to understand what things need to be produced when. Prices are the incentive that drive people to produce widget x rather than widget y. It's why price "gouging" is actually the best way to recover from any disaster. Take a hurricane disaster that hits and in one geographical area price gouging is allowed and the price per gallon skyrockets to 100/gal. If you live 5 hours away and your gas prices are still at $2, it signals to you 1) this disaster is REALLY bad and 2) there is a boat load of money to be made. You fill up at your 2 5-gal containers for $20 and can sell it for $1000-it takes you 10 hours to deliver the gas. Now what incentives you, incentives plenty of other people and all the sudden you're going to have a rush of people filling up their small tanks and rushing to fill the void-relatively quickly the price will drop and resources will be diverted to the afflicted area. And you could say, well people should just help out-yes they should, but no one REALLY knows how bad it really is, except through prices. Prices are the brain that signal . . .oh crap something is really off here, help!! through arbitrage. In addition, prices signal people to conserve their resources. Prices go up and people realize, hmm I shouldn't take that trip b/c it costs alot. Prices are the mechanism by which people signal their needs and their wants. How bad they need or want something is reflected in how much they will pay for it. If you've ever traveled the world, you'll notice that food prices vary across the world. In the US it might cost $15 for a good steak. In Columbia it might cost $2. Why is that? Because prices naturally self-regulate to the area they are in. When a people have a lot of "money" prices will rise to fit that environment, when people don't have a lot of money prices will drop to fit that environment. The reason why some places don't have as much "things" as other places has nothing to do with "money" it has to do with production and productivity. Wealth is generated by how much you can produce-the more goods you can produce the wealthy you become. This should be obvious; if all I have is a shovel-it's going to take me a long time to dig a hole; if I have a back-hoe I can dig a hole in seconds. The reasons why the Western world is so incredibly wealthy is that we have found a way to incentive production while minimizing non-production. And the way you incentivize production is by capitalism and instilling hard work values in people. When you go to other countries (especially south american countries), people will spend much of their day doing nothing except "hanging out". That's a perfectly valid use of their time. But if you "hang out" you can't be digging a hole, you can't be building a house. Just giving people money doesn't solve the problem of poverty on a society wide scale-b/c someone has to actually physically do the work. I give you $1000, it doesn't matter if you can't find anyone who is willing to cook you a steak for 1000. Someone may just decide, nah, I don't want to cook a meal for you. Why would they want to do that? Well maybe they value hanging out with a girlfriend or a child over cooking you a steak and 1000 isn't enough to convince them it's worth it. You seem to think money takes care of everything-but it doesn't; someone has to do the work. Someone to be willing to do what you want. Unless you plan on forcing people to do what you want. Which is exactly the road this path leads to. It leads to murdering people to steal from them and then murdering them again if they don't work how you want them to work. It is slavery. There are aspects about capitalism that is bad-but only insomuch as people's hearts are wicked. There is no amount of money you could shove in my face to kill another human being. 1 billion dollars it doesn't matter. I simply wouldn't do it-you couldn't incentivize me enough to do it. Yet I fully recognize that there are many immoral people who would kill for money. In order for any society to exists beyond much of a subsistence standard of living you MUST have the price mechanism and the only way a price mechanism can exist is with capitalism. And it's why in EVERY SINGLE instance of where this has been tried the black market occurs. It's why in Europe there is a black market for health care.

Because I'm human. Because maybe I just don't feel like it. Because maybe I do agree Love God and Love each other are really important but I disagree with how you go about doing it. Maybe I believe to truly love each other means more than just taking from those who have and giving to those who don't. Does it really matter why I say no? No, it doesn't b/c again a the end of the day-you are a murderer. You'd murder me to enforce you view of morality. And your morality is really jacked up b/c you believe that stealing from someone and killing them to give to someone who doesn't have what you think they should have is morally just and right. You are no better than a common thug, a thief, a robber, a murderer. You see someone that has something you want-or something you think someone else should have and you'll murder for it and the consequences be #@@@ed. You'd murder me to steal my food, to steal my house regardless if I have kids, regardless of my circumstance. All you see is money, power. Your version of "love" is nothing more than love of money, love of stealing, love of murder. Your version isn't Christlike love (it's a heart filled with wicked desires, wicked thoughts and at the end of the day rather than being a disciple of Christ you are a disciple of the Devil. Do you not hear yourself? You tell me you are going to break into my house, steal my goods and then shoot me if I refuse to comply. You tell me your act of robbery and murder is going to be because you "love others", and then you ask me "Why would you say no?".

Lol . . of course. That's where these types of things always lead to.

You are probably right that he was the instigator. It really just depends . . .if this was a 2-3-4th date-probably very true. If they have known each other for a while . . .Looking back on my life, there were definitely times where I did not maintain the proper standards with my wife prior to marriage-anything that would have required not taking the sacrament for more than a week or two-no. It was never really bad, but certainly worse than it should have been. I guess I make allowances for the scripture that says "better for them to marry then to burn" where it is clearly talking about the lusts of the flesh. If it involved things like fondling, no clothes, simulated sexual relations etc. then that is something that needs to be addressed with the Bishop post-haste, before anything about the relationship can be determined that has to be taken care of first and foremost. And while he probably instigated it-like you said it takes two to tango. I think it's more sexists to believe that a woman can not stand up to a male's improper advances. I do feel bad for kids these days. So much harder in this sense, simply b/c they are disadvantaged. At least half the youth in my ward come from broken homes. How can they possibly be expected to understand how to develop good relationships for marriage when it's not modeled at home-they have no clue how it works. Add on all the sex,sex,sex that is pushed on kids, all the TV shows, movies, a constant bombardment about sex. Then how many men (and women now!) who are involved in pornography-so easy to get into and then to just lest the base desires run wild. . . . It's just sad; I personally wouldn't worry about myself if I somehow inexplicable found myself on the market again through death-'cuz I've got the experience, wisdom, etc. to really understand and know. But these kids . . .without anyone modeling for them proper families-how are they going to know-just so sad.

And what if I say no. What if I say, no I refuse to allow my income to go to someone else? You'll send the tax man after me, and if I refuse the tax man you'll send the police after me and if I refuse the police then they will shoot and kill me. It's an iron first with a velvet glove around it. You claim it's "cuddly"-it's not cuddly-it's backed by murder. In the bottom of your heart-you are a murderer. If I refused, you'd kill me for it. Not Christlike at all.

I'm going to give you different advice than anyone else. First off, if you really want some good advice on this-ignore everyone here-go find the most trusted woman you can who has been married for a long time and has a family and ask her. 2nd. There are definitely some things you need to consider. I believe there absolutely is substance to your fears but it depends on what you want in life. My guess is that you are at the youngest 22. Some things for you to consider that unfortunately are not told to young women these days b/c it's "sexist"-yeah whatever. Women in general need to have their crap together much earlier than men-simple biology. If you want to have kids you simply cannot wait forever-your body's ability to produce healthy children dramatically drops by the time you hit 35. If you desire a large family then you can't wait. Babies take 9 months and in general you'll wait a year between birth to getting pregnant-that's roughly 2 years between kids. If you want to have 5 kids with low-risk pregnancies (i.e. no abnormalities, deaths, etc.), you MUST be married by the time you are 25 . ..otherwise you simply will not be able to have that many kids in low-risk pregnancies. Time is just against you. Let's also factor in that in order to find someone, get to know them, make the decision to get married, etc. get married . . .is probably on the order of 6 months to a year-best case scenario. Every boyfriend you have that you don't get married to is probably going to take anywhere from 3-6 months of your life on average. So if you want lots of kids, you need to be married by about 25, you generally need to have found the guy by 24 then. Which means if a boyfriend lasts for 3-6 months then if you went one right after another you might have 4-8 boyfriends. Of course you don't go one right after another it takes time to find a boyfriend. So between now and 25 you may have 3 serious boyfriends. Another thing, the simple fact is that your market value decreases every year you don't get married. In general, a woman's peak attractive age is around 22 maybe up to 25. You can claim "SEXISTS!". don't care-it's reality. It's called hypergamy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy "Studies of heterosexual mate selection in dozens of countries around the world have found men and women report prioritizing different traits when it comes to choosing a mate, with men tending to prefer women who are young and attractive and women tending to prefer men who are rich, well-educated, ambitious, and attractive." Which consequently means, you've got to have your crap together!! If this dude ain't the guy, or you don't think he is the guy, or you can't see him being the guy-then for you our future self, drop him, move on and find that guy. Trust me-unless the guy is a total loser-he'll be fine. Men have much more time to find a wife and have kids-biology is not against them. I don't know you, I don't know your qualities and neither does anyone else on this board-so to ask advice from strangers about something so incredibly deep as this and expecting a decent answer is actually pretty ludicrous. As for your boyfriend . . .no his market value increases over the next several years while your market value decreases-so I'm less concerned about him than about you. The fact that he doesn't realize this either means he's a loser, he's playing on your heart strings, or he really loves you and is actually concerned he won't find another woman like you. Another thing to think about is that once you graduate college how exactly are you going to meet and date guys? Are you going to live at home-where you'll have a lot of free time? Or are you going to work-in which case good luck with going on dates. After working a tail busting job during the week, it's really hard to find the energy to do anything "fun" on a Friday night. How are you going to meet guys? Internet dating? Ward activites? at work?? The reason why you have this fear is b/c yes there are some very real concerns at play in your future. You don't know all the concerns (either that or they are too overwhelming), you don't know how to articulate them and b/c you don't know how to articulate or know all the concerns you don't know how to mitigate them (i.e. plan for them and around them) and consequently it all bubbles up into one gigantic "I'm afraid I'll NEVER GET MARRIED!!!". I'd venture to say it's really not "I'm afraid I'll never get married", but "I'm afraid I won't marry the "right" guy". Look, as long as you withhold sexual relations to marriage-you will ALWAYS be able to find a guy who says . . .sure I'll marry you. It's not a question of never getting married, it's a question of marrying the right guy for you. And on that question . . .good luck. I'll say you want to marry a strong man, a provider, a leader, someone who is confident in himself and in his abilities, a spiritual man. A man who is willing and wants to play the role of a husband. And consequently, you need to be willing and want to play the role of a wife. Is this guy the guy for you?? Who knows . . .except God. I don't believe the story that you have no emotional attachment to him. You don't get physical with a person of the opposite sex unless you have some emotional attachment to them-that goes for men and women. And if it truly is that you have 0 emotional attachment and it is only physical, then you need to repent of your wicked ways and turn to God. What it means is that your heart is filled with lust and you will never be able to find the "right" spouse with a heart filled with lust.

Does it DEFINE "inequality"? Where does it actually define what it means? You are simply using your definition of inequality and overlaying it on top of the scripture. What did it actually look like? I guess b/c their was no inequality they all wore the exact same brand of Nike shoes? They all wore the exact same color of shirt? If they didn't, then it is clearly "inequal". Or maybe, they all had shoes-some had blue shoes and some red shoes. Maybe they all had houses, some with a plot of land, some with no plot of land. What exactly does it mean to be "inequal". If you go by a meta-metric, right now in the US we are all pretty dang equal. Most people have access to running water, clothes, toilets, etc. If one is going by basic needs we are all pretty much "equal". This is what happens when people don't actually THINK about what the scripture says or what it means and just assume. Christ said and the poor will always be with you? Imagine that . .the Word's of Christ . .. oh I guess you don't believe Him . . .hmm funny.

Where does Christ say "inequality" is sin? In fact doesn't He say "and the poor will always be with you but me ye shall not have with you"? Or am I just reading the Bible of Boxer? And we have 0 understanding of what the City of Enoch was really like . . . oh except that it is no longer on this earth . . .my point exactly. We don't have any idea what the millenium will actually like so speculating on it is pointless at best and at worst pollutes our heads with false ideas.

It's not wealthy b/c I work hard-it's wealthy b/c I individually provide something that is of greater benefit than others. Teachers don't get paid much b/c a) it doesn't take a whole lot of skill/intellect to be a teacher and b) individually a single teacher does not provide a significant amount of benefit. If you combined all the teachers and combined ALL their salaries you'd find yes, they are paid quite handsomely by society overall, but one single teacher does not have that much affect on society. One single Elon Musk affects society FAAAR greater than one single teacher and consequently he is rewarded handsomely.

Totally false. Inequality is part of the human condition and mortal experience. Nothing you do or I do or any thing millions of people ever do with rectify this-at least not in this lifetime. Maybe in the millennia-i doubt it. The reason being is that each of us has difference wants and desires. The only way for us to be equal is basically to be exact carbon copies of each other with totally unlimited resources. Some people want a BMW some people want a Ford. Some people want a 4000 sqft house, some people want 2000 sqft. What does "equal" even really mean? What we each get the same amount of "money"? Money doesn't do anything, it's how you use it. Some people are smarter, some people are harder working, some people don't have as many gifts for speaking as others. It's such a flawed paradigm it can't even possibly begin to work. You're telling me that the guy who works 100 hours a week that does twice the work of someone who works 50 hours a week-that it's a sin for him not to "equalize" his earning. That what he really should do is give up 25 of his hours to the person who works 50 hours just so they can be "equal". That simply isn't going to work. We aren't built that way. What will eventually happen is the guy who works 100 hours will get beaten down and will say, it's just not worth it so I'll only work 75 hours, and then 50 hours. And no everyone is worse off. It simply can not work. Christ describes this exactly in the parable of the talents. It really is a parable of life. Charity is great, sure the guy who works 100 hours, sees the guy who works 50 really needs a new jacket, or help with medical expenses, he voluntarily gives so the guy can make it through. Charity however is not ensuring things are "equal".

"liquidate". Exactly. There is a good movie about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference. They never once used the phrase "kill", "murder", etc. It was all put into terms like "liquidate".

Your whole premise is totally and irredeemably flawed making any conversation pointless. You equate power with rich, you equate power with white, you equate power to male, you equate power to christian. You equate no power to non-whites, no power to women, no power to those who have no religion or other religions. In other words you have a completely delusional and flawed conception that the world is soley based upon Power and that groups that you like don't have power and groups you do like have no power. Either you have an extremely myopic view of the world or are simply pushing a propaganda native-based in a Marxists philosophical view of the world. The Christian, Western world unlike most of the world doesn't base it's hierarchical structures on power, but on competence. While power is absolutely a part of any structure (we are stupid human beings!), the Christian world has done the best to figure out how to create structures based on competence not power. Like women don't have power-pfftt. Tell that to a married man. Most of consumer based decisions are based upon women purchasing products. Like non-white tribal groups don't have power in South American-pfftt. Tell that to the person who gets kicked out of their tribe or is ostracized. The problem is in the way you view the world-it's all about POWER. And this thought process brings about the biggest hypocrites. If what you say is true (i.e. that is the straight, white, male) who holds ALL THE POWER! And that the only thing this world is about is really about power. What do you think you'd really do when you actually have the POWER? Do you think you'd be so incredibly virtuous? No, you'd be the worst, most tyrannical masters. When you view the world through this viewpoint, once you obtain that which you think others are keeping from you, you would use it in the EXACT SAME MANNER as which you think it is being used against you. And b/c you view the world that way, you would create something, far, far, darker than currently exists. Unfortunately, that is the way we are headed. I truly mean this-if this viewpoint is representative of a significant portion of the population-really, really, really dark days are ahead. The likes of which you can't even possibly fathom. Those who go down this route, NEVER think they are in the wrong-they will murder, oppress, kill, destroy all for "the good". About every 100 years or so this insanity rears its head and a few societies do something stupid like this. The US has been fortunate we have never had a French Revolution, or a Night of the Long Knives, or a Red October (the Civil War was mild compared to those horrific events). I guess it's getting close to being our turn . . .(sigh).

Good riddance to bad rubbish. I've heard one of the reasons the split did not occur quicker is b/c the Church and BSA had a lot of financial entanglements and it would take a while to actually sort it out . . .mainly for things out west-whether that is true-who knows.

Average IQ depends on the subset of the population you are looking at. It really is one of the mind-boggling things that smart people say that really belies their actual intelligence. They under-estimate the actual brain-power it requires to do something. They say things like the above. Maybe it's a psychological self-deprecating humble-brag or something. They don't really want to say they are smart or think most people are like them so they say the above. And like I've said before, when your social group is smart people (which most engineers social group is), you have no clue as to who the not smart people are. And you yourself admit "you can't really succeed without being at least average" . . no duh! College used to be a filter, a smart-people filter, smart people (generally speaking) went to college and got a degree. People who weren't so smart, just graduated high school. Then insteading of looking at the fact that intelligence is a huuuuge driver of success, we said . . .well since people who go to college to really well, let's send everyone to college! So then the standards got lowered for getting to college b/c going to college determines success. Well now you have a bunch of smart and not so smart people getting college degrees, what's the filter? GPA, or an advanced degree! You say it doesn't take brain power to be an engineer . . .bull. An engineer is fundamentally someone who builds, creates, designs, INNOVATES. You can not consistently innovate over long stretches of period of time without brain power. Yes you could teach the low intelligence person what a for loop is . . .big deal. Now teach them about inheritence, polymorphism, NTP, server racks, URL get/sets, WSF, etc. etc. etc. etc. It takes a lot of brain power to actually engineer-to hold all that information in your head, to know what it means, to utilize it. Brain power isn't about memorization . . .it's about solving problems. And not just know those things, but know how they INTERACT, know that when you do x now y might happen in the future. That takes brain power. It is honestly stunning that we are even having this type of conversation when it is so bloody obvious . . .unless you've never had to step outside your own bubble and actually deal with regular joes, then you get think to yourself . . .well it really doesn't take that much brain power---pure hubris. It's very much like physical strength. You can make someone stronger by strength training-but there is just simply a limit to the strength each person has that once reached no matter much you train, it won't increase. Same with brain power-you can make people smarter given them certain tools, but once they reach their limit, nothing you do will increase their ability.

Actually, I got the statistics on intelligence from Jordan Peterson. More male geniuses than female geniuses-FACT. More male dunces than female dunces-FACT. How am I being "sexist"? More insults. You can't argue without hurling an insult. I'm just curious why it is that you are personalizing my comments. You are taking my comments about facts and making them apply to you-which I have not done. (sidenote: this is actually a typical male/female thing . . .which is why the only female I actually like "arguing" with is my wife, b/c she understand me and I understand her . . .after years of this exact same crap). And with that, I am bowing out. I'm realizing the futility of having meaningful arguments with the opposite sex on the internet . . . the whole male/female thing-yeah it's real. Good luck-you win.

There you go with an insult again. What does "dropping out" have to do with anything? I never said woman engineers were less intelligent than male engineers . . .sigh. pointless.