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Why Nations Fail (Read 34118 times)
Lord Herbert
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #15 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 2:28pm
 
freediver wrote on Mar 15th, 2014 at 1:41pm:
If you insist on going off on long rants about how they got it wrong, based on a one-line comment from someone else, you will merely look like you don't know what you are talking about. You would probably like the book, and agree with it.


Over the last 10 years I've watched a number of 'historical' documentaries made by university historians on the subject of Britain and its history of the past 300 years.

In every case except one, these simpering 'black armband' guilt-ridden middle class pricks were telling us to hang our heads in shame.

No balance.

No recognition of the export of British inventions, and industry, and medical developments that have brought the Third World out of the Stone Age.

Not a mention. All bad news and self-flagellation.




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freediver
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #16 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 2:30pm
 
Quote:
In every case except one, these simpering 'black armband' guilt-ridden middle class pricks were telling us to hang our heads in shame.


Except they were not actually saying that were they? The shame you feel is an expression of your own humanity. You need not feel ashamed about that.

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No recognition of the export of British inventions, and industry, and medical developments that have brought the Third World out of the Stone Age.


LOL
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Sparky
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #17 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 2:35pm
 
We see similar behaviour right here, with people complaining in a thread on the general board about the risk of check-out chicks losing their job because of automated or self service check-outs (drones thread). Sparky gave another good example. By Freediver.

My workplace doesn't have people being phased out due to technology. It's too complicated . The people at the top cut the wages of the people at the bottom so they don't have to cop a pay cut. Just like QANTAS. We are owned by the same people as a matter of fact. It's because they under estimate their importance. It's the social gap again. Elitism.
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Lord Herbert
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #18 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 2:51pm
 
freediver wrote on Mar 15th, 2014 at 2:30pm:
Quote:
In every case except one, these simpering 'black armband' guilt-ridden middle class pricks were telling us to hang our heads in shame.


Except they were not actually saying that were they?


Are you serious?

It doesn't take a Mensa IQ to sit through a series of one hour documentaries about the British to soon realise the entire exercise is some poor neurotic academic's idea of doing penance with a birch-rod on his back.

I don't mind honest self-appraisal and critique of British history from these pathetic bastards ~ as long as they apply the same criteria of unbridled damnation to the other countries in the history books ~ which they never do.

It's like pissing on Christ as an art form, but not uttering a word of criticism of Islam even when your trains and buildings and street marathons are being bombed to smithereens.

It's the same mentality in operation.

freediver wrote on Mar 15th, 2014 at 2:30pm:
The shame you feel is an expression of your own humanity. You need not feel ashamed about that.


Who feels 'ashamed'? Me? About Britain's contribution to world progress and civilisation these 300 years?  Grin Are you drifting around in a tinny with a six-pack and a line over the side somewhere in Sydney harbour? Not feeling any more pain?  Grin

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freediver
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #19 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 3:12pm
 
Quote:
My workplace doesn't have people being phased out due to technology. It's too complicated . The people at the top cut the wages of the people at the bottom so they don't have to cop a pay cut. Just like QANTAS. We are owned by the same people as a matter of fact. It's because they under estimate their importance. It's the social gap again. Elitism.


Your workplace is still going through the process of privatisation. This is a good thing. If you don't like it, get another job. If all those other jobs pay too little, perhaps you were getting overpaid on the public teat.

Quote:
It doesn't take a Mensa IQ to sit through a series of one hour documentaries about the British to soon realise the entire exercise is some poor neurotic academic's idea of doing penance with a birch-rod on his back.


Either that, or they are trying to present history accurately. I don't see how romanticising it to the point of self deception actually helps anyone. Then again, I don't actually know what you are talking about. Perhaps you have a peculiar knack for self flagellation that you like to blame others for. Here's a tip, if you don't like historical documentaries because of how they make you feel, don't watch them. Or have a cry somewhere else.

Quote:
I don't mind honest self-appraisal and critique of British history from these pathetic bastards ~ as long as they apply the same criteria of unbridled damnation to the other countries in the history books ~ which they never do.


Which they cannot do, because it is not actually damnation. That is all you.

Quote:
Who feels 'ashamed'? Me?


Yes. You are having trouble working through your emotional response to discovering the ugly truth about history. This is your self help group. Keep telling us about your feelings about these historical documentaries, without actually revealing anything about their content. It's all about you, remember.

Fancy forgetting to bag Islam in a documentary about British history....
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #20 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 3:45pm
 
Your workplace is still going through the process of privatisation. This is a good thing. If you don't like it, get another job. If all those other jobs pay too little, perhaps you were getting overpaid on the public teat. By Freediver.

I do 2 jobs because they cut my first one from $900 to $570. Many people including family men had that done to them. No thought at all for the consequences of this pay cut on children etc. This is what is happening to the western world, corporate greed. It isn't complicated , just simple greed.  That will be our downfall.
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Lord Herbert
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #21 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 4:26pm
 
freediver wrote on Mar 15th, 2014 at 3:12pm:
Either that, or they are trying to present history accurately.


If you didn't watch these several series of 'British History' then you're at a slight disadvantage in this conversation.

freediver wrote on Mar 15th, 2014 at 3:12pm:
I don't see how romanticising it to the point of self deception actually helps anyone.


Off with the pixies again. Who said anything about a romanticised version of history being the only way to make it palatable for a British audience?

I've been saying that a biased version that paints the British as having been evil monsters without any virtue is about as false a representation of history as one can get. 

freediver wrote on Mar 15th, 2014 at 3:12pm:
Then again, I don't actually know what you are talking about.


As I suspected. A lazy afternoon floating around the harbour with a bottle Jack Daniel's and a laptop on the Esky.

freediver wrote on Mar 15th, 2014 at 3:12pm:
Here's a tip, if you don't like historical documentaries because of how they make you feel, don't watch them.


You borrowed that from gandalf, didn't you? ~ only he was telling you not to concern yourself with Islam so much because of the way it was making you feel.

freediver wrote on Mar 15th, 2014 at 3:12pm:
Or have a cry somewhere else.


In the Islam threads? Now who's 'being emotional'?i

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #22 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 7:34pm
 
Quote:
I do 2 jobs because they cut my first one from $900 to $570.


So you were getting overpaid to the tune of $330 per week? But it's someone else's fault now it has ended?

Quote:
Many people including family men had that done to them. No thought at all for the consequences of this pay cut on children etc. This is what is happening to the western world, corporate greed. It isn't complicated , just simple greed.  That will be our downfall.


Except it isn't, and hasn't been, despite people parroting the exact same nonsense for centuries. Our downfall will be if people ever start taking arguments like your seriously.

Quote:
If you didn't watch these several series of 'British History' then you're at a slight disadvantage in this conversation.


That's OK. I can still tell that you are full of it.

Quote:
I've been saying that a biased version that paints the British as having been evil monsters without any virtue is about as false a representation of history as one can get. 


Except of course for the bits where they were vile creatures without any virtue. That's what history is, one vile deed after another. Not sure why you think Britain should get the spineless apologist treatment.
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #23 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 7:52pm
 
Except it isn't, and hasn't been, despite people parroting the exact same nonsense for centuries. Our downfall will be if people ever start taking arguments like your seriously. By Freediver.

Hey mate, they won't take me seriously. They'll make up their own minds. You need to catch up on your history. I'm into the fall of South Vietnam at the moment. That same thing has happened plenty of times. When a society starts doing the most for the least you get the same thing happening. I'd laugh if you lost your job and ended up on the dole.
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #24 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 7:57pm
 
freediver wrote on Mar 15th, 2014 at 7:34pm:
That's OK. I can still tell that you are full of it.


Don't drop that crystal ball on your toes, will you?

If this is the way you've been conducting your conversations with gandalf, then he has my sympathy. Behaving like a boorish smartalec every time you feel you're being disagreed with, seems to be your fall-back position.

We've spoken about your petulance before, haven't we?

freediver wrote on Mar 15th, 2014 at 7:34pm:
That's what history is, one vile deed after another.


That's a simplistic, ignorant, and downright stupid thing to say ~ as any school child will tell you.


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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #25 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 8:03pm
 
I thought Freediver was above taking the argument in an insulting way. I was wrong. He's just a bore like a bunch of them on here. Big men on the internet but lacking balls in society.
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #26 - Mar 15th, 2014 at 8:10pm
 
Quote:
When a society starts doing the most for the least you get the same thing happening. I'd laugh if you lost your job and ended up on the dole.


Sorry I thought we were talking about bringing overpaid public servants back down to earth. Anyone would think you are talking about dictatorship. Who's to say you were not one of the "parasitic elite" taking money, by force of government, from people who were less well off than you?

Quote:
That's a simplistic, ignorant, and downright stupid thing to say ~ as any school child will tell you.


By now a school child would have said what they actually thought was wrong with the documentary. You can't because the things you insist are wrong are all in your head. I can tell this without even seeing the documentary you are complaining about.
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #27 - Mar 16th, 2014 at 12:18am
 
CHILDREN - let us discuss the Grappler Principle of Reducing Cost of Living alongside Cost of Labour.. then we can start talking about whether or not our nation is failing...

When the cost of living outstrips the cost of labour and yet the cost of labour is cited as the 'cause' for the demise of the country - are we not already looking at a massively dividing schism between two components of our society/nation?

We hear constantly how a few - fewer and fewer each year - are actually carrying the tax burden in many ways from various approaches; some saying the poor are a burden, others saying the rich and the companies are the burden - how then to retain viable services and all the other components of a non-failed nation when it seems that nobody is going to be paying for those services etc if we continue down the same path we are on now?

THAT, Grasshoppers, seems to me to be the nub of the matter.  Undecided
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“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #28 - Mar 16th, 2014 at 2:07am
 
Do nations really fail? Which nations have failed?
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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #29 - Mar 16th, 2014 at 6:38am
 
freediver wrote on Mar 15th, 2014 at 8:10pm:
You can't because the things you insist are wrong are all in your head. I can tell this without even seeing the documentary you are complaining about.


...
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