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Xenonight2

That's most likely right. For greed to be inherent in virtually all Human beings, it must serve some evolutionary purpose.

For civilization and the individual living in civilization, greed is mostly a bad thing. For the survival of the species in general, short of nuking for selfish reasons, yes, it's good for us. Competition is healthy for natural selection. I don't mean that like Social Darwinism, just general natural selection.

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Marineking

Humanity is ruled by ideas. Not instinct, or nature, or original sin, but ideas. What we think of as "instinct" is really just thousands of years of cultural brainwashing. In the end, it's the ideas that those instincts are made of that rule us, and in an intelligent society, the right ideas will always have a chance. You just have to find them.

Now, for my two (Or three...) cents on politics.

I believe that the only government that can work is a small one, like the kind of government the U.S. was supposed to have, but then Lincoln came in and blew it apart. A government should be in charge of protecting it's citizens against internal violence (Running a just police force; dealing with criminals and enforcing a just system of law; etc) and external violence (Defense against foreign invasion, but never starting invasion of it's own). Everything else should be left to the people who are living in their own societies, and ultimately people should be left alone as long as they are not hurting anyone else (This is a very simplistic way of stating it, I know, but I doubt anyone wants to read four paragraphs of me running on).

In short, the ultimate free society, where a man is free to live as he wants as long as he is not harming the way of life of other men.

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shadowsworn

@ Marineking

That's interesting. My concern with that sort of idea is that a small government would have little control over, and would probably end up being controlled by, big business, which is only interested in the bottom line, and not about human rights or protecting the environment.

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Marineking

Thats the beauty of small governments, that they don't have too much power. They are representatives, and protectors. If a big business wanted to bribe his way to power, he would first have to bribe the county officials, and then the state officials, and then the national officials. And by even doing this, he would be breaking a serious law and be arrested when he's caught, as he would have to be since it is only probable to bribe an entire country of officials in conspiracy fiction.

In a big-government system, such as the current U.S. one, you don't have to bribe an entire chain of officials to get what you want, you simply need to get the right people in your pocket and then your done. When you think about it, a large federal government with absolute power would be easier to control then a smaller one, which would by it's nature be less susceptible to corruption because no one person has too much power. No, it's not perfect, and I'm sure it's riddled with loop-holes, but I am not a student of political science, nor is any system of government ever perfect. This is simply the basic premise of what I think the perfect government could be.

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Deimos

dude, the war on terror is a war being fought for land and resources.

and what about all the ethnic cleansing in serbia and bosnia.... and what about the palestinians and isrealis kicking the shit out of each other.

when has there ever been peace?


@ marineking: some philosophers have said that government exists and was created solely because of the idea of property

once one man walled off a bit of land and called it his and institution was needed to protect and back up that claim: government.

Now i agree with you that the govts job is to protect its citizens.... but dont forget; although the job of the police is to protect the community its NO.1 job is to protect the state in times of civil unrest. the same copper who helps old ladies cross the street would quite happily bash the head in of some protestor.

also, govt shouldnt have much control of anything? what about transport and healthcare? in the UK one of the biggest mistakes was handing over british rail to private contractors. once that happened all they cared about was profit so everything went to hell. state owned facilities backed by state funding and public support can be alot better than some multi-national with a monopoly. The NHS in britain is one of the fairest healthcare systems in the world, but unfortunately the government is leaving it to rot. government funding can really help these kinds of institutions where if they were owned by private companies it would become another money free-for-all.

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Xenonight2

YouTube Video

Think about it.

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