Re: pro- foreign key propaganda?

"Brian Selzer" <brian_at_selzer-software.com> wrote in message news:o0VZj.393$Ri.189_at_flpi146.ffdc.sbc.com...
>
> "goanna" <spamtrap_at_crayne.org> wrote in message
> news:4837b692$1_at_news.unimelb.edu.au...
> > In <4837296d$0$4034$9a566e8b_at_news.aliant.net> Bob Badour
> > <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca> writes:
> >
> >>>>>>I think it only seems that way before one knows what metrics to use.
> >>>>>>Once one understands what to measure, everything becomes much more
> >>>>>>mechanical.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Well, how do you tell a good metric from a bad one?
> >>>>
> >>>>A good metric, like ROA, reflects the goal.
> >>>
> >>> And how do you tell a good goal from a bad goal?
> >
> >>In the private sector, that's easy. A good goal is one that maximizes
> >>shareholder value.
> >
> > And here we have in a nutshell the now almost universally accepted core
> > of free market capitalism, US style: the one dimensional optimisation
> > of profit for the investor (which of course is just code for optimising
> > the profits of the parasite classes who steal from the real investors).
> >
> > No multidimensional tradeoff needed, no consideration of the personal,
> > family, community, social, national, or environmental impact of ones
> > business practices required. Need third world wage slaves? No problem.
> > Leaving behind a toxic legacy for future generations? Fine, just make
> > sure to effectively insulate the corporation from direct responsibility
> > for the problem. Selling a product that harms people or panders to
> > their lowest instincts? Just ensure plausible deniability of knowledge
> > of the ill effects, and enlist the spin doctors to create a shiny
> > corporate image that can hide the moral squalor within. Breaking the
> > law? Just make sure the cost of being caught is less than the profit.
> > Need to corrupt and sexualise little children to grow market share?
> > Go right ahead, the government won't stand in your way, or if they try
> > just buy enough of them off to forestall any intervention.
> >
>
> Well, thanks to liberals, the First Amendment, which was originally
intended
> to protect political speech, has been perverted--I'm sorry,
interpreted--so
> that it prevents the government from standing in the way. You made your
own
> bed, now sleep in it.
>
> > The worship of profit at any cost now so completely dominates modern
> > US thinking that it is seen as a given, a natural state of affairs,
> > to be accepted quite uncritically, perhaps even unconsciously. Even
> > US churches now encourage personal aspiration to be selfishly rich,
> > to have more, to consume endlessly without regard to the real cost.
> > Europe and the rest of the western world is not far behind, as toxic
> > US "greed is good/god" culture sweeps all before it.
> >
>
> That's because it /is/ a natural state of affairs. Why else would there
> have been written millenia ago, "Thou shalt not covet...."
>
> Of course, thanks to the ACLU, that word is reaching fewer and fewer
people.
>
> > Capitalism may have soundly defeated communism, but that doesn't make
> > it the best possible system that could exist. It is quite literally
> > destroying the planet on which we live. As the billions in China
> > and India climb aboard the bandwagon, we accelerate towards a crisis
> > of suffering and conflict from which some more enlightened system may
> > eventually emerge. But how can we expect enlightened thinking from
> > a world population that is either mindlessly supportive of the modern
> > interpreters of ancient superstitions, or has been taught from near
> > birth that it's good to behave as selfishly and greedily as possible?
> >
>
> The problem is that they haven't been taught not to covet. Again, you've
> made your own bed, now sleep in it.
>
> > We cannot return to the ancient gods, nor continue to prosper under
> > the new gods of unlimited corporate greed and rampant consumerism.
> > Democracy is an experiment that, like communism, has clearly proved
> > incapable of keeping the scum of society from taking control and
> > steering us down a road to nowhere. How many voters set aside their
> > personal interests and vote in the interests of the greater good?
> > The fierce pace and awesome complexity of the modern world renders us
> > too stupid, prejudiced, narrow, distracted, spineless or unthinking
> > to be able to identify where our collective interest really lies.
> >
>
> Here's the flaw in your thinking: there is no greater good--except God.
> Marginalize God (if that is even possible), and the world starts to
> degenerate into chaos.

Agreed. And it's an important point. However, it can be called mysticism.

Goanna's response is mysticism of a different sort.

>
> > What we need is a new noble warrior class dedicated to selflessness,
> > sworn to live a simple, meaningful and effective life serving not
> > bosses or nations but the entire world, acting locally and directly
> > to destroy those who would prey upon us and it. Self-regulation of
> > the human swarm, emerging not from mass individual selfishness, but
> > from the courage, watchfulness, humanism and sacrifice of a few.
> >
>
> And I suppose that you would elect yourself to be in that class?
>

Yuk, Yuk.
>
Received on Sat May 24 2008 - 16:32:18 CEST