Quote:
Originally Posted by TSGracchus
What, you mean you pay the entire budget for the U.S. military out of your own taxes? Seriously?
|

Where did you get that idea? Were you planning on paying the entire Federal budget in my name from your (ooops!), I mean
our book's sales? You have great expectations for our little effort.
Quote:
|
Yes, I did, and yes, the entire planet did that.
|
Uh, nobody brought my brain to consciousness. That was entirely up to me. I'm not sure what you're hooked up to but... wait a tick! Are you one of those AI programs that's so advanced it's hard to tell whether or not you're a real person or not?
Quote:
|
No, I'm quite used to it. So are you.
|
Nope, I've never had anyone think for me. Certainly never had anyone move my muscles. I got knocked out once, but muscles weren't moving for anyone then. Strike that, my autonomic muscles were still working - but I'm pretty sure no one else was manipulating those.
I remember in high school when we hooked up a dead frog to a battery and made his legs jump. Is it kinda' like that? 'Cuz I always felt bad for the frog - being unable to do anything about his legs goin' all jumpy. Have the people who control you found a way to make you not all jumpy and at least a little more fluid, or is their control not yet that advanced? Who controls them?
Quote:
|
Perhaps that's what you intended, and what you thought you were doing, but I assure you, your employer knew that you were working for their benefit, and they shared the scraps with you because otherwise they couldn't get you to do it. And you were forced to do it because, if you hadn't, you wouldn't have been able to survive.
|
Nope, I intended to work for my own benefit, and that's what I got. That's what I still got. But let's look at your argument a little more closely:
So, my employer knew I was working for their benefit? This would imply a strong, strong, desire on their part to keep me. In fact, as long as they were still getting the benefit, they'd give anything to keep me there. Sadly, that wasn't the case in my first jobs. There were lots of other guys who could do what I was doing. And, not coincidentally, wanted to do it - displaying their own desire to work for their own benefit.
My employer "shared the scraps with [me] because otherwise they couldn't get [me] to do it," yet I was "forced to do it?" So, I had a choice, but I was forced to do it? Interesting. Didn't my employers know I had no choice? If they didn't, what sort of intelligence does it take to realize this? Is it intelligence only really, really, smart people have, or is this common knowledge? If they did, why would they even worry about sharing the scraps with me?
Quote:
|
Certainly not. The U.S. government (for example) cannot work me without limit, cannot kill me or physically injure me (not legally anyway), and it absolutely cannot sell me. Nor can anyone else. I am not a slave.
|
Why not?
Quote:
I'm going to snip the stuff about people who choose to eat raw food because it's silly. Some things just aren't worth humoring you over.
|
Wow, that's unfortunate, TS. You're humoring me? Honestly, you don't take losing very well, do you? I mean, this has happened in pretty much every debate we've engaged in. Either you ignore the things which seriously damage your argument, or simply go away when the debate gets tough. I was really hoping you were the one intelligent person on the opposite side of the spectrum who could support his arguments.
Quote:
|
Genetically, our species is much the same now as it was when our ancestors lived by foraging and hunting. Thus, in biological terms, we have not evolved.
|
Uhh, well, if we had changed genetically we'd be a different species. Regardless, the point is the species which are our ancestors evolved into us. We are the species which created civilization. We weren't thrust into it and had to adapt to it (though, if we were we could've because extreme adaptability is something we were evolved to). We created it. We wouldn't have been able to create it unless we had evolved with the ability to create it. Had we not been physically able to live in it, had our bodies not evolved to live in it, then civilization would've lived a very short life - if it even lived at all - which is highly unlikely. No species develops, or chooses, a living environment in which it cannot live.
We have evolved for civilization and the evidence is: here we are.
I've thought fairly long and hard about this and I think I'm pretty much done with you, TS. You have not lived up to my expectations and aren't worth any more of my time. It's simply takes too much of my time to debate an issue with you only to discover at the end that you've been working off of some personal definition of some word or concept which doesn't have any correlation to the actual definition, or to have you simply walk away just when we're getting to the primary flaws of your argument, or to have you imply I'm some idiot when you are caught in a blatant fallacy. Tactics like these are usually very easy to catch in a poster's writing, but you're just smart enough, well read enough, and articulate enough to disguise them.
So, I'm done. You've won this argument as well as the one on the definition of "fair". I won't be replying to anything of mine you quote.