A gentlemen that Straw Prophet met on the Colbert forums has asked to engage in a debate here. I decided to bend our normal rules about this a little bit and started this thread for that purpose.

Well Aegis, fire away.

It will take a few hours to arrange all of the material I need. But if this is the thread for it, I will begin preparations.

I commend anyone willing to come in to the "wasp's nest" and engage in civil debate knowing they hold opposing ideas to most here. I look forward to seeing this and I hope everyone is able to expand their horizons and learn something.

mrlay wrote:
I commend anyone willing to come in to the "wasp's nest" and engage in civil debate knowing they hold opposing ideas to most here. I look forward to seeing this and I hope everyone is able to expand their horizons and learn something.

I agree, this can be a beneficial experience for everyone here. It takes a level of courage and willingness to try for someone opposed to TZM ideology to come here and debate with us

Excellent aegis and thank you for doing so

Good to see you here, Aegis!

I look forward to this (hopefully) constructive debate! I trust the mods will be on top of spammers/trollers.

These are a few of aegis's comments in the Colbert forums.

Statement - "There is tremendous environmental degradation due to the high cost of better methods of waste disposal."
Aegis's reply - "so?"

"The Earth is being plundered for profit."
Aegis's reply - "so?"

"The benefits of technology are only distributed to those with sufficient purchasing power."
Aegis's reply -"bullshit, the standard of living of even the poorest person today is leaps and bounds above what it was 50 years ago."

"Most important, when the corporation's bottom line is profit, decisions in all areas are made not for the benefit of people and the environment, but primarily for the acquisition of wealth, property, and power."
Aegis's reply - "you have yet to demonstrate that this is a bad thing."



"that is fucking retarded. Read that post again. Now hit yourself in the face with a brick, because I can't reach you over the internet."
"no one goes without food in the United States, or Europe for that matter. No one."



Maybe this gives you an understanding of this individuals generally disposition. Personally when I talk with people and get these type of emotional knee jerk responses, I tend to walk away.

TZMRevolution wrote:
These are a few of aegis's comments in the Colbert forums.

Statement - "There is tremendous environmental degradation due to the high cost of better methods of waste disposal."
Aegis's reply - "so?"

"The Earth is being plundered for profit."
Aegis's reply - "so?"

"The benefits of technology are only distributed to those with sufficient purchasing power."
Aegis's reply -"bullshit, the standard of living of even the poorest person today is leaps and bounds above what it was 50 years ago."

"Most important, when the corporation's bottom line is profit, decisions in all areas are made not for the benefit of people and the environment, but primarily for the acquisition of wealth, property, and power."
Aegis's reply - "you have yet to demonstrate that this is a bad thing."



"that is fucking retarded. Read that post again. Now hit yourself in the face with a brick, because I can't reach you over the internet."
"no one goes without food in the United States, or Europe for that matter. No one."



Maybe this gives you an understanding of this individuals generally disposition. Personally when I talk with people and get these type of emotional knee jerk responses, I tend to walk away.

Yeah. Pretty much all of that will get him banned. If he cannot maintain himself to be intellectually honest and clean in his responses I will not waste my time with him.

TZMRevolution wrote:
These are a few of aegis's comments in the Colbert forums.

Statement - "There is tremendous environmental degradation due to the high cost of better methods of waste disposal."
Aegis's reply - "so?"

"The Earth is being plundered for profit."
Aegis's reply - "so?"

So? Does he live on the same planet we all do?

"The benefits of technology are only distributed to those with sufficient purchasing power."
Aegis's reply -"bullshit, the standard of living of even the poorest person today is leaps and bounds above what it was 50 years ago."

I can't wait to see his proof of this. Since it is obviously false.

"Most important, when the corporation's bottom line is profit, decisions in all areas are made not for the benefit of people and the environment, but primarily for the acquisition of wealth, property, and power."
Aegis's reply - "you have yet to demonstrate that this is a bad thing."

So pollution is not a bad thing? Corporate lobbyists owning our government is not a bad thing? That medical company knowingly dumping medicine infected with HIV into the markets in Europe is not a bad thing? This statement is ludicrous.

"that is fucking retarded. Read that post again. Now hit yourself in the face with a brick, because I can't reach you over the internet."

*raises eyebrow*

I will happily come to your house so you can "reach me". Sheesh, what a troll statement.

"no one goes without food in the United States, or Europe for that matter. No one."

I guess it would be great for him to show us his video camera system network that watches every single person in the United States and Europe to prove this absurd statement.

Maybe this gives you an understanding of this individuals generally disposition. Personally when I talk with people and get these type of emotional knee jerk responses, I tend to walk away.

Yeah, I hope for his sake he can do a lot better then that or not only is this going to be embarassing to him, it's not going to last long.

Is this meant to be a 1on1?

I might join in at some point otherwise.

I wish I could bring more to this discussion. Unfortunately, it's too fast-paced for me to contribute properly. Being preoccupied by offline issues, or merely going to sleep, means reading up on several pages of postings. Quite simply, I can't keep up.

There was an interesting comment aegis made on his economics thread, which I'd like to elaborate on. It went something like: "I have yet to see a single graph or formula presented by any of you..."
This characterizes what kind of 'proof' is considered to be acceptable and scientific. I'd just like to point out that statistics is not science. Having studied biology, I'm very aware of how positively the academic community responds to a bit of greek symbols. But it takes careful introspection to observe how these mathgasms are nothing more than 'self abuse'. Statistical formulas are absolutely unquestionable. However, it's the assumptions underlying their components that are in question.

Don't you find it a little arrogant to presume that the totality of human interactions, including culture, technological advancement, power abuse, corrupt behaviour, that this could all be summarized in 2D graphs? It seems almost autistic , the way that authoritarian minds think they can completely control society by using simplified formulas. It fails to take a myriad of complexities into account, and completely ignores conflicting evidence from real world situations. If this illusion of control were even partly true, there would be no oil wars, no misconduct in banks, and no industry bailouts.

I'm guessing, that even if there were such formulas in existence, that the most accurate ones would be closely guarded secrets. Nowadays, the brightest minds are wasted, concocting stock market algorithms and other trader tricks, which are completely irrelevant to our relationship with the natural world. You have no hope of learning such secrets in any mainstream economics class, I'm afraid.

The discussion is very interesting though, so I hope you guys can keep it up. Most of all, be honest to yourself.