tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18667312.post115976202618140504..comments2023-10-19T06:06:41.812-06:00Comments on lonestone revolution: Who Can Afford Life?Ché Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12911352668702266493noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18667312.post-1160161285712784462006-10-06T13:01:00.000-06:002006-10-06T13:01:00.000-06:00Social Darwinism is something I have been struggli...Social Darwinism is something I have been struggling with for quite a while. Isn't our ability to reason an evolutionary adaptation that allows us to better survive(compete)? The ability to reason is largely responsible for allowing us to leave the trees and survive. <BR/>I think we need to seperate the ability to reason from our reasoning. I don't think they are one and the same. Just because we have the ability to reason doesn't mean that we should act a certain way does it? Our ability to reason was evolved simply to allow us to better compete against one another.<BR/> On the other hand, as we have evolved maybe our reasoning (conscience) has evolved as well to make us think about the ramifications of subscribing to an entirely Social Darwinistic perspective. So then can we say that those who care only about themselves are less evolved? I like the sound of that - Republicans need to evolve. As a sidebar, with our given population crisis, our reasoning should suggest that we adopt a prairie dog (altruistic) model if any of us want our kids to be around in a few hundred years.John in Montanahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15407968263224605019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18667312.post-1159852345914641172006-10-02T23:12:00.000-06:002006-10-02T23:12:00.000-06:00I agree aprilloper, the owner class will continue ...I agree aprilloper, the owner class will continue to commodify our existence until we stand up and say ENOUGH! Patenting the genome is the perfect example of capital enclosing the commons, colonizing the public sphere under a system of laws designed for that exact purpose.But laws are simply a "policing " problem.They can be changed or dismantled in an instant.<BR/><BR/>The more difficult task,it seems to me, is the emancipation of peoples consciousness because people have adopted as their new religion the very strategies that enslave them. For example, embracing a savage social Darwinism that allows them to think oppressing others and being oppressed are rational! Believing it is a world of "all against all" they isolate themselves into easily exploited islands of paranoid aloneness.It is our duty to show them the power of organizing.troutskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16020298501632120830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18667312.post-1159844840424847392006-10-02T21:07:00.000-06:002006-10-02T21:07:00.000-06:00Your comment about "pro-life till birth" seems par...Your comment about "pro-life till birth" seems particularity accurate. I have also often thought that health care through private insurance is also a prime example of profiting from others misfortune and suffering.<BR/><BR/>When I have pondered the issue of corporations patenting the human genomes I keep wondering at what point will we have to pay royalties to Monsanto or some other corporation in order to reproduce ourselves. (How would the pro-life crowd respond to such a situation, I wonder?) This seems to be one area that not even the Sci-Fi writers wish to explore too deeply, corporate-capitalism at it's full manifestation.<BR/><BR/>I once asked my economics professor if DNA was a natural resource or a commodity, her comment was that it was a natural resource until it was patented by a company then it became a commodity. I argued that it was in a class not covered by the normal designations of economics but was in fact more akin to gravity, it exists but not patentable or saleable.<BR/><BR/>The example being: if a company pattens the genome that makes stripes on tigers, then the company could charge zoos and tiger breeders royalties for all tigers born with stripes, and is a tiger without stripes in fact still a tiger? But how is the company going to collect royalties from wild tigers that have cubs in the jungle, if there are any wild tigers left?<BR/><BR/>Does the company in fact own the tiger or just the stripes, and how would tiger stripes be valued and traded as a commodity? What is the substitute commodity for tiger stripes, that can be used when the supply of tiger stripes becomes limited and cost rise? Are leopard spots on a tiger a reasonable substitution?<BR/><BR/>I have never gotten an answer to these questions. I know this tangent about tiger stripes is bordering on the insane compared to Che Bob's well reasoned post but I do have a point. <BR/><BR/>Whether it be tiger stripes or corn with fish genes, DNA is what makes something into what it is. Therefore when it is rearranged and tampered with, GMO corn is no longer corn but something else entirely, it may look like corn and taste like corn, but it really isn't corn and it isn't living either because it's ability to reproduce has been striped away by Monsanto and others.<BR/><BR/>Life and the ability to create life belong to life, and not one small group of technologically advanced primates that has the tools to mess with life. The same can be said about self-determination, when enough of us get tired of the canned, packaged and bar coded “bread” and get tired of watching the corporate sponsored “circuses” on TV, the revolution will begin, but people won't be taking to the streets in their cars, we will be walking like our revolutionary ancestors. Because nothing scares the powerful more than the streets full of unhappy people.Kristin Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08626089462072181298noreply@blogger.com