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TheModernAmerican posted:It's been 20 years since then, what in the world are you (or he) talking about? Fukuyama has backed away from his ideas some in the years since, so while you can perhaps ridicule him for the initial idea, he is prepared to change his mind in the face of other evidence.
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Jan 20, 2015 16:00
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outlier posted:But at the same time, isn't it massively egotistical and self-centred to assume that the current epoch is basically it? It seems a very strange argument to me, assuming total and prescient wisdom on our parts, almost akin to fortune-telling. You can't think of any way things could develop or change so QED, it won't? Apart from an implicit assumption about the rate of production of new political ideas and the evolution of current ones. Marx's ideas gestated for half a century before giving rise to a socialist state, and our current governments are quite different to their forms of a century ago. Fukuyama gives a variety of reasons as to why he came to his conclusions throughout the book, though. The main point he makes is that developing modern states gradually create middle classes who tend to put pressures on the governments they have for greater political representation. Assuming this is correct then it can be said that all developing states have a natural tendency towards becoming liberal democracies. To be clear, I don't actually agree with Fukuyama's argument. I made that previous post to clarify the point Fukuyama made in the book. What I've said in the first few sentences here is obviously up for challenge as well, namely because the world's middle classes have backed all sorts of anti-liberal regimes which suggests the tendency Fukuyama identified is questionable. cloudchamber has a new favorite as of 21:14 on Jan 20, 2015 |
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Jan 20, 2015 19:38
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outlier posted:Fukuyama has backed away from his ideas some in the years since, so while you can perhaps ridicule him for the initial idea, he is prepared to change his mind in the face of other evidence. Ah, well at least he decided to have a single rational thought after writing a whole book's worth of irrational ones. Saying that we're in a new, permanent political system because no new ideas have appeared in thirty years is absolutely insane. Imagine someone in 1300 saying the same thing because there were no new political ideas in the past 500 years. Or an Assyrian saying their political system was the peak of human thought because nothing had changed in three thousand years. The concept is so easily dismissed it's laughable. There will be change in the future. cloudchamber posted:The main point he makes is that developing modern states gradually create middle classes who tend to put pressures on the governments they have for greater political representation. We are living in an era where the middle class, which has only really existed for 60 or so years, is being rapidly destroyed. Fukuyama was a historian basing his whole worldview on a period of about six months. It's childish. It's so stupid, I would expect a 15 year old to come up with the idea, not a respected political scientist.
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Jan 20, 2015 20:23
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serious norman posted:http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Austin_yogurt_shop_murders I've been thinking about posting this for a while, I find it more disturbing in a West Memphis 3 / Michael Morton way due to the miscarriage of justice. The two "men" who confessed were just teenage boys, and 2 more were implicated with them. They have since been released due to lack of evidence. One of the accused, Maurice Pierce, was later killed during a routine traffic stop because his previous experience led him to be highly paranoid of police: http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2010-12-31/pierce-shooting-still-about-four-murders/ Here's a good retrospective on the case itself and what we know now: http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2011-12-16/scene-of-the-crime/ I went to a party once where a guy claimed his old drug dealer bragged about committing the crime, but who knows if he was just trying to freak him out or seem tough? I told him he should go to the police, but I'm sure everyone who grew up here thinks they have a lead on that case. Regardless, police focusing on those boys and ignoring other leads has made the case basically unsolvable. The official line is still that the originally accused 4 teenagers committed the crime.
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Jan 20, 2015 21:39
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TheModernAmerican posted:We are living in an era where the middle class, which has only really existed for 60 or so years, is being rapidly destroyed. Fukuyama was a historian basing his whole worldview on a period of about six months. It's childish. It's so stupid, I would expect a 15 year old to come up with the idea, not a respected political scientist. Depending on how you wanna define it it's anywhere from 200-800 years, but I'm not arguing the rest of your points.
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Jan 21, 2015 07:33
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In early 19th century Scotland, the only corpses that could be used to fill the rising need for anatomical study were those condemned to death and dissection. Unfortunately for the medical community, capital punishment was falling out of favour and supply could no longer meet demand. This led to the rise of body snatchers, or "resurrectionists" - who would steal the recently diseased from the grave and sell them on to medical schools. Some of these resurrectionists didn't have that much patience. The communities resorted to guarding the graveyards at night from watchtowers, and renting out cages called mortsafes that surrounded and protected the bodies until decay rendered them non-viable for study. One of the most elaborate methods of protecting from these thieves was the Udny Mort House - essentially a round building with a rotating magazine of bodies. Each corpse was loaded and removed at a rate where once the the body had made the full circle, it had rotted enough to be taken and buried safely in the ground. spleen merchant has a new favorite as of 10:30 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 10:28
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spleen merchant posted:In early 19th century Scotland, the only corpses that could be used to fill the rising need for anatomical study were those condemned to death and dissection. Unfortunately for the medical community, capital punishment was falling out of favour and supply could no longer meet demand. This led to the rise of body snatchers, or "resurrectionists" - who would steal the recently diseased from the grave and sell them on to medical schools. Some of these resurrectionists didn't have that much patience. And then some of the Resurrectionists didn't even wait for people to be buried to dig them back up.
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Jan 21, 2015 11:25
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Hijo Del Helmsley posted:And then some of the Resurrectionists didn't even wait for people to be buried to dig them back up. Even spookier, some posters don't read the post they're quoting before replying with the same wikipedia links.
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Jan 21, 2015 12:38
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Olewithmilk posted:Even spookier, some posters don't read the post they're quoting before replying with the same wikipedia links. yikes! guess I won't be sleeping tonight
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Jan 21, 2015 14:50
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Jack Gladney posted:Yeah, this was maybe plausible prior to the election of George Bush Jr. in the United States. Plus we're going to run out of zinc and probably aluminum in the next 30 years in addition to dying for somebody's water profits. Really, life on earth is just going to get more and more interesting. We are definitely not running out of aluminum.
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Jan 21, 2015 19:32
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Kenning posted:We are definitely not running out of aluminum. Aluminum is one of the top 5 most abundant elements in the earth's crust, but we mostly get it from bauxite which could conceivably become short. I don't know if that's the case though. If we're talking about apocalyptic wars over resources in the next few decades aluminum isn't one of the things that comes to my mind.
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Jan 21, 2015 19:42
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Yeah, isn't that 100% recyclable?
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Jan 21, 2015 19:43
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Aluminium is pretty easy to recycle yes, but then so are most (all?) metals. Doesn't matter how easy it is if you just throw it in a landfill site though.
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Jan 21, 2015 20:01
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Landfill mining is a thing. It'll become more economically viable I suppose.
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Jan 21, 2015 20:31
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You mean helium - which is in limited supply and cannot be generated artificially. http://www.decodedscience.com/helium-shortage-situation-update-one-year-later/42314
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Jan 21, 2015 20:42
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So realistically what happens when we run out of helium? No more balloons/parade floats springs to mind but would the actual consequences be worse than that?
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Jan 21, 2015 22:37
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Astrofig posted:So realistically what happens when we run out of helium? No more balloons/parade floats springs to mind but would the actual consequences be worse than that? We mine the poo poo out of the moon for that sweet, sweet helium that we'd be using for fusion reactors, among other things.
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Jan 21, 2015 22:43
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citybeatnik posted:We mine the poo poo out of the moon for that sweet, sweet helium that we'd be using for fusion reactors, among other things. They're already doing this I watched a documentary film about it on Netflix, it's called aliens on the moon if you want to check.
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Jan 21, 2015 22:45
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stickyfngrdboy posted:They're already doing this I watched a documentary film about it on Netflix, it's called aliens on the moon if you want to check. God dammit, Aliens aren't real. You probably meant Iron Sky.
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Jan 21, 2015 22:48
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I'm already worried about the ancient aliens, don't tell me there are space aliens now too.
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Jan 21, 2015 22:49
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Astrofig posted:So realistically what happens when we run out of helium? No more balloons/parade floats springs to mind but would the actual consequences be worse than that? You could read the loving article right above your post. It has a ton of medical and technological applications.
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Jan 21, 2015 22:52
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http://abc7chicago.com/news/new-leads-lead-nowhere-in-1982-tylenol-poisonings-/483704/ Saw this on the news last night and it made me think of this thread. Any new news to report whoever brought this before (can't remember who it was)?
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Jan 21, 2015 22:58
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DandyLion posted:God dammit, Aliens aren't real. See I thought that as well but it turns out there's loads of evidence that the moon is populated. We've been lied to for decades. http://i.imgur.com/SVjFkdJm.png See?
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Jan 21, 2015 22:59
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stickyfngrdboy posted:See I thought that as well but it turns out there's loads of evidence that the moon is populated. We've been lied to for decades. Well poo poo, I stand corrected.
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Jan 21, 2015 23:08
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mr. mephistopheles posted:You could read the loving article right above your post. It has a ton of medical and technological applications. We could always try using hydrogen instead. Plenty of that about 
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Jan 22, 2015 00:50
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I don't like to get partisan on random poo poo, but the republicans had passed a bill forcing all Helium stocks to be dumped on the market for way below what it is really worth.
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Jan 22, 2015 01:03
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Why? That doesn't seem like their usual MO.
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Jan 22, 2015 03:42
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Jack Gladney posted:Why? That doesn't seem like their usual MO. sMALL GOVERNMENT
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Jan 22, 2015 03:46
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Jack Gladney posted:Why? That doesn't seem like their usual MO. For content, how about spider goats? I'm watching that documentary right now and they've got kids in a community centre transplanting jellyfish genes into bacteria as a science project. It's clearly only a matter of time before we all die of glow-in-the-dark smallpox. 
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Jan 22, 2015 04:46
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It's about time somebody lays the groundwork for silksteel sentinels. How else are we going to get the xenoempathy dome before Yang?
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Jan 22, 2015 15:21
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Jack Gladney posted:It's about time somebody lays the groundwork for silksteel sentinels. How else are we going to get the xenoempathy dome before Yang? Here's the show, if anyone else wants to watch it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01b45zh/horizon-20112012-7-playing-god
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Jan 22, 2015 15:54
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Phobophilia posted:I don't like to get partisan on random poo poo, but the republicans had passed a bill forcing all Helium stocks to be dumped on the market for way below what it is really worth. It'll rise back up eventually.
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Jan 22, 2015 16:26
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:It'll rise back up eventually. 
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Jan 22, 2015 17:18
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atomicthumbs posted:sMALL GOVERNMENT Hmm, doing more research recently, my "gently caress the republicans" attitude was probably simplistic. At least they've recently bumped up the price of the stuff. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/fundamental-analysis/12/helium.asp
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Jan 22, 2015 21:25
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I can't stop reading Texas Monthly. A Kiss Before Dying quote:Betty Williams was a fast girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Mack Herring was a handsome football player with all the right friends. When he broke up with her during her senior year at Odessa High School, her world fell apart. But she asked him for one last favor: to kill her.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:03
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RC and Moon Pie posted:I can't stop reading Texas Monthly. Maybe it's because I believe everyone should have the right to die if they want to but I didn't like how the article tried to insinuate that the boyfriend was to blame, that she was just being dramatic. Like, at some point before maybe she was just being a drama queen but after you pick out the gun, its kind of on you.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:49
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JibbaJabberwocky posted:Maybe it's because I believe everyone should have the right to die if they want to but I didn't like how the article tried to insinuate that the boyfriend was to blame, that she was just being dramatic. Like, at some point before maybe she was just being a drama queen but after you pick out the gun, its kind of on you. He didn't have to pull the trigger.
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Jan 23, 2015 08:07
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E: nevermind, misread a post!
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Jan 23, 2015 08:46
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JibbaJabberwocky posted:Maybe it's because I believe everyone should have the right to die if they want to but I didn't like how the article tried to insinuate that the boyfriend was to blame, that she was just being dramatic. Like, at some point before maybe she was just being a drama queen but after you pick out the gun, its kind of on you. While I do agree that everyone has the right to die when they wish to do so, a belief I have had for a while now and which will be what finally ends me when I feel life has given me all it has to give me, I do believe that in the case of physical capability, the only one that can carry it out is yourself. In the case of physical inability, it must be carried out by a doctor where legal. Only when you absolutely cannot and a doctor cannot perform the killing, do I think it is ethically sound for someone to carry it out.
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Jan 23, 2015 12:14
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RC and Moon Pie posted:I can't stop reading Texas Monthly. This was a great read and a pro-click. It raises an interesting (in my mind, at least) theological question, to wit: If you believe that suicide is a sin- is arranging your own death to go down the way it did in this case a loophole? She didn't pull the trigger, so you can't technically say she killed herself. I'm not religious and also believe that everyone should have the right to choose when they die, but I'm wondering how someone of faith would see this one. Is she burning in Hell? Or playing harp on a cloud in Heaven?
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Jan 23, 2015 15:24
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