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Mapping

 
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Combining an acute accent and a grave, or turning a circumflex upside down, yields the diacritic known variously as a caron, a wedge, or a hacek. It is familiar to linguists and Slavists in such letters as š and ž. Taking these names in reverse order, the last, properly h�ček, is the Czech for ‘little hook’. ‘Wedge’ is self-explanatory, referring to its shape. The term ‘caron’, however, is wrapped in mystery. Incredibly, it seems to appear in no current dictionary of English, not even the OED. Yet it is the term used without discussion for this diacritic in as authoritative and influential a source as The Unicode Standard (1991, 2000).
Orthographic diacritics and multilingual computing by J.C. Wells

 
Mapraputa Is
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An Explanation of Airport Identifier Codes:
http://www.skygod.com/asstd/abc.html
 
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Is there some profound link between the two posts, or none is intended?
 
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None is intended.

Predictably, the writer is most impressed by Nicholas Christenfeld's 1991 finding that "humanities professors say you know and uh 4.85 times per minute, social scientists 3.84 and natural science professors 1.39 times", and that "drinking alcohol reduces ums."
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000300.html


But it may be Nicholas Christenfeld, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, and other researchers who have come up with the most appealing findings. He counted uhs among professors giving lectures and found that the humanities professors say you know and uh 4.85 times per minute, social scientists 3.84 and natural science professors 1.39 times, which, he said, suggests that humanists have more expressive options from which to choose.
And for those trying to minimize their verbal tics, Mr. Christenfeld also found that drinking alcohol reduces ums.
Just Like, Er, Words, Not, Um, Throwaways
[link]


[ January 18, 2004: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]
[overlong link fixed by Jim]
[ January 19, 2004: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]
 
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Map and HS Thomas - separated at birth?
 
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Oppressors!
I am exercising my right of speech here!

A curious peculiarity of the Chukchi language is its different pronunciation by men and women. The women's language lacks the r-sound, they pronounce ts instead. The men's pronunciation of the r is regarded as unsuitable for women.
http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/chukchis.shtml


 
John Smith
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Are you drunk, Map? I'd say that instead of posting garbage, tell us what the problem was that put you in such a reckless state. I am sure we could offer something of value.
[ January 18, 2004: Message edited by: Eugene Kononov ]
 
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I should say that I don't mean any insult to Map or HST. It's just that both sometimes have a similar style of posting assorted links and quotes without explaining to others what the point, goal, or context is. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing; it just leaves us wondering what is going on.
[ January 18, 2004: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]
 
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Eugene: Are you drunk, Map?
No, Eugene, sober like a fool. Come to think about it, what other language (besides Russian) provides us with such pearls of wisdom as "sober like a fool"?
I'd say that instead of posting garbage, tell us what the problem was that put you in such a reckless state. I am sure we could offer something of value.
Just testing how rude people can get.
 
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I think Map is suffering from a mild depression. To cheer you up, Map, I can offer one revelation that occured to me the other day. It has to do with the nature of the depression itself.
One day I was at a company summer picnic, -- one of those corporate excercises when you are supposed to socialize and participate in the "team building" activities (pulling rope or something of that nonsense). So a collegue of mine came to me with the clear intention of being complient with the corporate goals, and she said "Guess what, I bought a new car, it's green. What color is your car, Eugene?" At that moment, I felt very sick to my stomack, -- her question caused some serious spasm in my brain that propagated all the way down to my guts. This was a manifestation of a depression of a very small degree.
The depression, according to my revelation, is simply the learnt indifference to things that do not seem to matter. The color of a car is an example of such a thing. But there is a continuum here. As soon as you realize that the color is just a frequency of light, you will also see that your work is just a means to sustain the living, and that sex is some obscure method of reproduction, and reproduction is just a mechanism to ensure that some 300 years from now, someone will fly to galaxy X456. Now, this leads to a clinical depression, -- you lose sleep (or sleep all day long), you lose your sex drive, and you lose interest in anything (because nothing seems to matter in the grand schema of things).
But that's not all. The depression comes when you had the power to learn, but no power to digest and handle what you've learnt. It's a tricky balance, -- to be able to be shocked but not to fall the victim of it. Which brings me to the valuable piece of advice that I am about to give to you and all the cowboys and cowgirls who are reading this. It took me 36 years to realize it, and now I am passing this knowledge to you. The recipe against the depression is to realize that the concept of things that do not seem to matter is fascinating. Although the color of your car is just a property of the paint reflecting a light of a certain frequency, it's nothing less than amazing that this nothing can travel faster than that light, and that it is a wave and a particle at the same time. Although your work is simply a means to sustain the living, it can be turned into a beauty of perfection or art, modeling the work of God himself. Although sex is some obscure method of reproduction, it is possible to arouse your brain to the extend of having a mental orgasm and ejaculate a great thought that will change the world.
Hope this helps. Your loving bro.
 
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I think Map is suffering from a mild depression
Mmm... I dunno. But why "suffer"? It's like in an anecdote:
Doctor: Do you suffer from erotic dreams?
Patient: Why "suffer", doctor?
The depression, according to my revelation, is simply the learnt indifference to things that do not seem to matter.
This seems close to my current understanding too:

We can say that if paranoia means hypersemiotization of reality: each element of reality is full of sense, - then depression means the opposite - desemiotization of reality: practically all elements of reality lose meaning. In this sense depression can be understood as a temporary death, and its end as a return to life, followed by laugh, or as a resurrection.
Vadim Rudnev. An introduction into depression analysis (bad translation is mine).


In such interpretation depression is a part of "death-rebirth" cycle and a necessarily element of our spiritual development.
As for the quotes above, they do not mean anything besides what they mean. Don't you sometimes want to let the life to go through you, unfiltered and uncomprehended, to simply let yourself to be amused by the flow?
 
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Don't you sometimes want to let the life to go through you, unfiltered and uncomprehended, to simply let yourself to be amused by the flow?
Very good, Map. The therapy is over.
 
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Sorry to but in on your psychotherapy session, but....
...I thought it might be nice to rescue this thread by focusing it back on a previous post about Chukchi language. Thus, I propose that we change the topic to the peculiarities of various languages....
1) I saw a documentary recently about a people in Tibet who make their living from gathering salt. They have a special language that they speak during this process. They called it the Salt Language. It too is reserved for men. In fact only for those men who belong to their class of "Salt Men."
2) Hawaiian nobility had their own language which was spoken so that the commoners couldn't understand what they were talking about.
Any others?

Alan
 
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On the gripping hand, finding out that nothing you do or don't makes the least difference in the grand scheme of things can also mean you don't care about the consequences of your actions any longer and just do what makes you feel good at the time never mind the consequences (as they don't matter anyway).
 
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So Eugene, you think you should be allowed to take any position of your choice and this shouldn't bother anybody, yet when I was peacefully talking to myself in this thread, you found it necessarily to resort to insults? You have an interesting concept of "tolerance", rather one-sided, my friend.
 
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You are looking for a black cat in a dark room, Map, and the cat is not there. I could as well say that your intitial two posts were an insult to the integrity of MD and the demonstration of contempt to this establishment, and that statement would be as meaningful as your accusation that I insulted you. The founding fathers never said that when someone was publicly speaking to herself, no one should comment. All they said was that the government shall not interfere.
I took the path with a heart, and that's all that matters. Everything else is vanity.
 
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It is familiar to linguists and Slavists in such letters as � and �. Taking these names in reverse order, the last, properly h�ček, is the Czech for �little hook�.
I like the idea that the word "h�ček" actually has a "h�ček" in it. It is as if the word "ellipsis" was spelled "ellip...sis".
 
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On the gripping hand,
Is this a German saying?
 
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EK: The depression, according to my revelation, is simply the learnt indifference to things that do not seem to matter. The color of a car is an example of such a thing. But there is a continuum here. As soon as you realize that the color is just a frequency of light, you will also see that your work is just a means to sustain the living, and that sex is some obscure method of reproduction, and reproduction is just a mechanism to ensure that some 300 years from now, someone will fly to galaxy X456. Now, this leads to a clinical depression, -- you lose sleep (or sleep all day long), you lose your sex drive, and you lose interest in anything (because nothing seems to matter in the grand schema of things).
=============================================================
Eugene, shouldn't you really have written this:
The depression, according to my revelation, is simply the learnt indifference to things that do not seem to matter to me. The color of a car is an example of such a thing. But there is a continuum here. As soon as I realize that the color is just a frequency of light, I will also see that my work is just a means to sustain my living, and that I think sex is some obscure method of reproduction, and reproduction is just a mechanism to ensure that some 300 years from now, someone will fly to galaxy X456. Now, this leads me to a clinical depression, -- I lose sleep (or sleep all day long), I lose my sex drive, and I lose interest in anything (because nothing seems to matter to me, in the grand schema of things).
Speak for yourself, man.
[ January 19, 2004: Message edited by: John Dunn ]
 
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JD: Speak for yourself, man.
Man, you made a lot of effort editing the pronouns in my post. But the meaning is still exactly the same. Speak with your own words, man.
 
John Dunn
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But the meaning is still exactly the same.
No not really. Your post implies that we all will see it that way.
Example:
you state, "As soon as you realize that the color is just a frequency of light, you will also see that your work is just a means to sustain the living, and that sex is some obscure method of reproduction,"
Da** man, I don't care about the frequency of colors. Colors look different and I like some better than others. I like some better than others in particular situations. What the heck does that have to do with sex??
I happen to like my job. I enjoy the fact that my hobby provides me a living. Why this change for me if I learn more about the frequency of colors? If tomorrow red turned into blue and green morphed its way into yellow, pushing yellow into a new color, what would I care?? I'd still be into programming. :roll:

Now the re-write would be a declaration of your individual opinion.
------------

My post really wasn't an indictment either, hence the smiley face. Your entitled to your own opinion without judgement.
 
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Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
I think Map is suffering from a mild depression
Mmm... I dunno. But why "suffer"? It's like in an anecdote:
Doctor: Do you suffer from erotic dreams?
Patient: Why "suffer", doctor?


Why "suffer"? Indeed.
Read this jewel somewhere:
I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every moment of it.
 
Mapraputa Is
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... an insult to the integrity of MD
An insult to the integrity of "Meaningles Drivel"...
You know, Eugene, from now on you can save yourself some time by not expressing your opinion about my posts -- I am not interested in it. If you do not see the difference between making meaningless posts and being rude, then perhaps we should post in different threads -- this would be better for everybody.
 
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AL: ...I thought it might be nice to rescue this thread by focusing it back on a previous post about Chukchi language. Thus, I propose that we change the topic to the peculiarities of various languages....
Actually, the difference between "male" and "female" languages was even stronger in Japan.

During the entire Heian period… Chinese remained the language of scholars, priests, and officials, occupying a role analogous to that of Latin in the West. Despite the steady emancipation from foreign tutelage, Chinese characters retained their overwhelming prestige and were the exclusive medium for any serious form of writing among men.
Ivan Morris, The World of the Shining Prince
... Upper-class Heian women were actively discouraged from learning to read and write in Chinese, no doubt to ensure that they posed no threat to male political dominance (although, as Morris points out, not until a thousand years later, after the Pacific War, would the status of Japanese women improve beyond that of their Heian ancestors).
<...>
This prohibition conferred on Heian women an unintended advantage since it left them free to write in vernacular Japanese, employing an early variant of the hiragana script, called onnade (women’s writing).
For a period of about 100 years, the main genres of classical Japanese literature — nikki (diaries), kiko (travel accounts), zuihitsu (essays), and monogatari (tales or romances) — were pioneered by women writers who, using a supposedly inferior writing system, mastered the difficult process of forging (in Richard Bowring’s words) “a flexible written style out of a language that [had] only previously existed in a spoken form.”
http://weblog.delacour.net/archives/2002/05/heian_womens_writing.php


I saw a documentary recently about a people in Tibet who make their living from gathering salt. They have a special language that they speak during this process. They called it the Salt Language. It too is reserved for men. In fact only for those men who belong to their class of "Salt Men."
Interesting. In how many generations does this language exist? Does it only have a distinct vocabulary, or its own system of grammar also? I am asking, because adults do not create a new language as a such, they speak pidgin - a simplified version of some language. However, their children speak what is called creole -- they create a full-blown grammar based on only limited input from their parents! Chomsky concluded that humans have "a language instinct" hardwired in their brains from this fact. This theory looks suspicious to me, but what do I know
They could simply use their native language host grammar.
Hawaiian nobility had their own language which was spoken so that the commoners couldn't understand what they were talking about.
"Diglossia"? Was detected in Japan, Indonesia, Germany, and I wonder if Russian nobility speaking French in the first part of XIX century could be added to the mix.
 
Alan Labout
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Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
... an insult to the integrity of MD
An insult to the integrity of "Meaningles Drivel"...
You know, Eugene, from now on you can save yourself some time by not expressing your opinion about my posts -- I am not interested in it. If you do not see the difference between making meaningless posts and being rude, then perhaps we should post in different threads -- this would be better for everybody.


Come on, you two... Kiss and make up! For the sake of SU...!
 
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Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
... Upper-class Heian women were actively discouraged from learning to read and write in Chinese, no doubt to ensure that they posed no threat to male political dominance


Why did/does woman choose to be dominated by male ??
Was/is it domination or clear seperation of work between these two genders ?? [you kill lion I will cook for you]
 
Mapraputa Is
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Al: Come on, you two... Kiss and make up! For the sake of SU...!
Unlikely. Maybe it looks like a petty quarrel, but in fact, it helped me to achieve an important insight.

An amusing accident happened lately. Somebody posted to remind us that all people are brothers and we should love each other. It didn’t take our local intelligentsia too long to gang up on the guy and articulate that his post wasn’t stylistically perfect and thus was, in fact, offensive. The most offended part of the intellectual elite decided that insults is the best way to remedy the sufferings. I had to remove the whole thread out of fear that nice people of MD would promise the guy to sexually abuse his mother, or something like that…
This warmed up my curiosity: so what exactly is considered offensive by this community? Unfortunately, my intuition didn’t fail me, and a couple of harmless posts, made without any apparent reason, worked just fine. The integrity of MD was threatened and begged for protection and was protected. But I was lucky twice, today my colleague in sociological research run another test—you would think that the integrity of MD was endangered again? In fact, I thought so, and apparent lack of enthusiasm in pointing out stylistic imperfectness caused a deep cognitive dissonance in me, almost unbearable. When the world around you doesn’t make any sense, what are you supposed to do?
I do not remember who said it, but it goes like this: “when a writer beautifies things, we call him a realist, when he paints them as they are, we call him a satirist.” This can be understood in a broader sense, as two attitudes toward life. My mistake was that I tried to associate myself with the first group, mostly because, as I thought, the second alternative lacks one important ingredient—compassion. It is often cruel and sometimes feels like it is written by a Martian.
It seems that you cannot really choose. If you feel like a Martian among compassionate and reasonable people, then you’ll find a better company is absurdity and sarcasm.
P.S. This post was run through typography noblelizer and is printed on 100% recycled electrons.
[ January 21, 2004: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]
 
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MI: I do not remember who said it, but it goes like this: �when a writer beautifies things, we call him a realist, when he paints them as they are, we call him a satirist.� This can be understood in a broader sense, as two attitudes toward life. My mistake was that I tried to associate myself with the first group, mostly because, as I thought, the second alternative lacks one important ingredient�compassion. It is often cruel and sometimes feels like it is written by a Martian.
...the second alternative lacks compassion...
I respectfully disagree. It doesn't lack compassion if its done correctly.
sat�ire ( P ) Pronunciation Key (str)
n.
1.A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
2The branch of literature constituting such works. See Synonyms at caricature.
Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.
--------------
Satire can be quite compassionate and rather insipiring at times.
Here is an example:
A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift This is a proposal to sell off Irish children, as food for the Rich. (During the famine!!)
Sometimes satire is the only way to reach people. It is a double edged sword though, because its subtleties may not always be picked up. (They say, "Satire is wasted on the stupid.")
 
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What did you expect me to do, Map? Point out to Paul Stevens that no one laughs when he posts jokes? He's got a conservative sense of humor, and he can't be helped. But you can be helped, and I gave you a spiritual guidance, but you took it as an intellectual guidance, and that is the reason that you feel offended. What do you do when the world around you doesn't make sense? You have the right answer, -- let life go through you unfiltered and uncomprehended. But did you really do it?
 
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Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
An amusing accident happened lately. Somebody posted to remind us that all people are brothers and we should love each other. It didn't take our local intelligentsia too long to gang up on the guy and articulate that his post wasn't stylistically perfect and thus was, in fact, offensive.


I went back and read the post in question again. Map, I do see your point. I understand how you could interpret his post that way. In fact, I think I would almost feel comfortable interpreting it that way myself, because I too would rather see the good in people than the bad.
But you should go back and read it again as well. Yes, one way to interpret it is as a call for all people, everywhere, to live together in peace. It's couched in economic terms which makes it a little weird, but yes, I see it.
Another way to interpret it is simply as a desire for the bubble of global capitalism to expand to include the poster. He talks about sending call-center jobs to the Middle East. He talks about being able to own a company that outsources labor. I heard him using MLK's words to say "I want a Walmart in my back yard!" And I thought that was pretty lame, which is why I complained. It's cheap, first of all, and it's naive, second of all.
Better to wish for no Walmarts at all, then Walmarts everywhere. Somehow I don't think MLK would want Walmarts everywhere.
[ January 21, 2004: Message edited by: Ernest Friedman-Hill ]
 
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An amusing accident happened lately. Somebody posted to remind us that all people are brothers and we should love each other. It didn�t take our local intelligentsia too long to gang up on the guy and articulate that his post wasn�t stylistically perfect and thus was, in fact, offensive.
I didn't see the responses that led to the deletion of the thread, but if it was that nasty MLK parody, then I was the first person to post that I found the post offensive. I wasn't offended because of style, but because the poster co-opted some of the noblest words ever written. The poster took words that really did talk about brotherhood and peace and hope, and dragged them into the muck of money and greed and commercialism.
I thought it cheapened Dr. King's message, and it offended me.
Not so much that I would attack the poster, but enough that I found it necessary to register my disapproval.
Joe
 
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Originally posted by Ernest Friedman-Hill:
Better to wish for no Walmarts at all, then Walmarts everywhere.

Really? This reminds me of the scientists who don't want to interfere with the lives of native peoples in the Amazon. "Let's not pollute them with our western culture." Except that they have incredible child mortality rates and short life spans. As soon as they see that they can get the benefits of western civilization they want it! It reminds me of the "prime directive" in Star Trek. We have to let them kill each other because we can't interfere. Ummm, why not? Don't you think the dying people would prefer to be saved? Don't you think the poor would prefer a decent job and a nearby Wal-Mart?
 
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Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
Don't you think the poor would prefer a decent job and a nearby Wal-Mart?


Walmart exists by exploiting the working poor.
It offers an incredible range of incredibly cheap goods using two tactics: first, by purchasing in such huge volumes that they can get steep discounts from suppliers. This leads to a situation in which the suppliers are dependent on Walmart as a customer, and can't say no to the often ridiculously low prices Walmart will pay for wholesale goods, since no other customer will be able to purchase the same quantities.
Second, they keep costs very low because they use suppliers that offer primarily goods made for slave wages in undeveloped countries.
When Walmart comes to town that selection and those prices drive local businesses out. The owners and employees of those local businesses are now jobless. Their only choice is often to go to work for Walmart, which pays its employees wages that put them well below the poverty line.
So let's recap. Before Walmart: a town with local businesses, with fairly paid employees, that pays fair prices for goods. After Walmart: the same employees living in poverty, buying goods made by children in Malaysia for pennies a day, with profits going to a faceless corporation.
How is this good?
 
Thomas Paul
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Originally posted by Ernest Friedman-Hill:
So let's recap. Before Walmart: a town with local businesses, with fairly paid employees, that pays fair prices for goods. After Walmart: the same employees living in poverty, buying goods made by children in Malaysia for pennies a day, with profits going to a faceless corporation.

We were talking about building Wal-marts in places that are poverty stricken today. That was the idea of the excercise. "My country is poor. We have nothing. We want a Wal-mart." Personaly, I would rather have a Nordstrom but that is probably reaching a little too high for a first cut at getting out of poverty.
 
John Smith
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EFH: So let's recap. Before Walmart: a town with local businesses, with fairly paid employees, that pays fair prices for goods. After Walmart: the same employees living in poverty, buying goods made by children in Malaysia for pennies a day, with profits going to a faceless corporation.
You left a few other dimensions from your analysis, Ernest. Before Walmart: N number of people paid $X per year for their consumer goods. After Walmart: N number of people paid $0.5*X per year for essentially the same goods, because Wallmart charges half the price. So, while the small business owners and their employees lose, a number of people are better off. The question then becomes, what the net result of this weighted average, and it's pretty clear that we are better off with Wallmart after some threshold is crossed.
 
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Originally posted by John Dunn:
On the gripping hand,
Is this a German saying?


The Gripping Hand is a novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It is a sequel to their landmark work The Mote in God's Eye. The alien characters in the book had 3 arms, one of which was big, strong and used to grip things.
Jamin
[ January 21, 2004: Message edited by: Jamin Williams ]
 
Ernest Friedman-Hill
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Originally posted by Eugene Kononov:
So, while the small business owners and their employees lose, a number of people are better off.


I had to think about this for a while to realize what you're saying. The other townsfolk, the ones who work somewhere that was not put out of business by Walmart, who are now getting inexpensive goods via the exploitation of slave labor elsewhere in the world, are now better off, right?
But the whole town's economy is smaller. Those people are making less money, so all the businesses in town, even if they survive, are taking in less. Imagine that this town includes a shoe factory, which can't compete with Malaysian slave labor shoes, and so is closed as well. Everybody suffers because money is being siphoned from this town and sent elsewhere. A small amount of it to the third world, but the lion's share to the owners of Walmart (which is a privately held company, I believe.) The only possible way this town can compete is to set up its own slave labor camps.
The net result of a Walmart being added to the economy of a town is to shrink the economy of that town. Everyone who lives there is worse off than before.
And make no bones about it: inexpensive implies inferior. People in this country seem to have forgotten what quality and value even are, it's been so long since quality goods were widely available. We've traded logo-worship for any appreciation of craftsmanship, and slavish obedience to advertising for any semblance of rational and critical thinking. The greatest agricultural nation in the world, and yet an embarrassingly small fraction of Americans ever eat fresh produce -- preferring Walmart's shelves full of artificially-flavored, relentlessly advertised Strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups to real strawberries.
This is what I have a hard time understanding. I love my country. I love the people. I love the land. I love the ideals. I am not ashamed to want full employment, prosperity, and an excellent defense.
Given that they are trampling on the people (via trickle-down economics,) on the land (by disastrous environmental policies,) and on the ideals (via the Patriot Act and the treatment of corporations) how can the Republican Party think of itself as America's Party, while their critics are, by definition, un-American?
[ January 21, 2004: Message edited by: Ernest Friedman-Hill ]
 
John Smith
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EFH: The net result of a Walmart being added to the economy of a town is to shrink the economy of that town. Everyone who lives there is worse off than before.
I am still not convinced. Consider a decent-sized town whose population consists mostly of students, programmers, medical specialists, travel agents, electrical engineers, accountants, car dealers, clercs, construction workers, teachers, scientists, state/city workers, etc. When Walmart comes to town and offers cheap merchandize, all of the people listed above will benefit from it, because the town's economy is service-oriented. Sure, there will be some manufacturing jobs lost, but the vast majority of population of this town will suddenly get richer, because the purchasing power of their dollar will jump, yet their job security and incomes will not be affected.
Now, if you reverse the situation and place Walmart in the middle of the non-service oriented economy, the opposite will happen, -- most local business will not be able to compete and the majority of people will be worse off.
This is what I mean by the threshold, -- as you vary the town size and the nature of its economy, Wallmart's impact would be either positive or negative.
 
Mapraputa Is
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EK: you took it as an intellectual guidance, and that is the reason that you feel offended
Eugene, I am offended because of your incurable arrogance. You allow yourself to insult our fellow posters without any good reason, then you feel free to insult me, then you offer your "psychotherapy" which I did not ask for, now, when it failed, you call it "a spiritual guidance"... Do you think I need "a spiritual guidance" from somebody who acts as a jerk? You do not find *this* offensive?
"but you took it as an intellectual guidance, and that is the reason that you feel offended" - thanks for the explanations, certainly you know me better than I know myself :roll: If you cannot drop your arrogant tone, then spare me your "spiritual guidances", or whatever else you might decide to call them. I do not appreciate it. Hope I made it clear this time.
 
Mapraputa Is
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Joe: I wasn't offended because of style, but because the poster co-opted some of the noblest words ever written.
That's what I called "style". There is an intent, and there is a form this intent was put into, and I called the latter "style", to diminish its importance. If we talked about a text written by a professional and gifted writer (preferably of American upbringing), then your harshness would be justified, but hey, we are only programmers (except for a few deviant individuals among us ). "the noblest words ever written" - are you now going to print them, put in a golden frame and scare away everybody who aimed to touch them with a gun? (judging by the last phrase I am not a good writer ) My understanding is that "some of the noblest words ever written" were co-opted because the poster found somebody 1) like-minded and 2) of more authority, so he used them to make his point stronger. You do not believe the goal was to consciously cheapen Dr. King's message? If not, then what is wrong with using Mr. King's words for a good goal? Perhaps a little more generosity and tolerance wouldn't hurt.
The poster took words that really did talk about brotherhood and peace and hope, and dragged them into the muck of money and greed and commercialism.
Well, unfortunately "brotherhood and peace and hope" can rarely be found in its pure form, separated from money and commercialism. I personally interpreted "commercialism" part more like a field where "brotherhood and peace" could and should thrive, or maybe rather be cultivated.
 
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