Posts by giovanni tiso
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If they're not that into the gig, they shouldn't go. Otherwise people that actually, you know, like music, miss out.
Seriously, the woman texted three times at a concert. She could have had all sorts of reasons. She could have found it boring, or wanted to share with a loved one how much she was enjoying herself. She wasn't talking loudly or singing along at the top of her voice. Where the hell is the problem? Is it transfixed attention or nothing for you people? I've seen less pompous intolerance at the last Bartok retrospective I attended.
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And in the unlikely event we're ever sitting across a table from each other, I'll leave my gadgets at home and pay you the respect of my undivided attention.
Was this woman sitting across the table from Graham at this concert? Did she get on stage and start texting in plain view of the crowd? No? Then what's the problem? I think Rogan hit the nail on the head, quite frankly.
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Peggy Noonan is an insufferable bore, and so are you. Are we bothered, offended even, by people texting now? Is it the clamouring sound of the keys, the polluting effect on our peripheral vision? Are you afraid the woman might be misspelling "boorish"? Boo-hoo! I shall make sure I warn in adance the punters near me at concerts from now on that it's either raptured contemplation or nothing during the moving solos, thank you very much. And no humming, and keep the swaying to a minimum.
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I was twittering about the fact that I was about to write a comment on PAS - that's how caycos beat me. Drat.
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She was probably twittering.
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I drink alcohol to get drunk. The taste of the stuff is disgusting, as is usually the case with toxins. But at times, I enjoy being drunk.
It's straight ethanol for you, then, I must assume? Or pitchers of Pink Chardon? No? I didn't think so.
There is simply no to my mind way to separate the taste of alcoholic beverages from the sensations that accompany them. You might as well say that you have sex to be happy, but dislike the rubbing of bodies together - it makes zero sense. Except by way of comparison, between those who look for sex, any sex, and binge, and alcohol, any alcohol, and do the same, and boy is there a time for both of those pursuits in life, but then by and large people move on and start looking for good sex and a good drink, wouldn't you say?
And by the same token, there is a reason why Peter doesn't just go around licking honeyed green melons. Would I like Laphroaig if it wasn't alcoholic? It's a silly question, obviously, how could it taste the same without being alcoholic? The taste comes with that rather potent sensation - can't separate the two. Or we'd all be drinking non-alcoholic beer.
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I would also like to point out that I once chanced upon myself being described as an "extreme Marxist" in the forums of Trade Me.
An extreme Marxist is somebody who reads Gramsci while skydiving, presumably?
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Couple of points: firstly one of capitalism's great strength is it isn't a philosophy, or at least it didn't start as one.
Neither did collectivism. And besides, capitalism is so a philosophy these days. We'd better hope that the twenty years are going to be more Jopseph Stiglitz than Milton Friedman, wouldn't you say?
And they domention such groups. Start with - I think - Burke's 'little platoons' of social groups of the kind you mention. Also look at more latter day work by communutarian writers such as David Selbourne. Fukuyama has had arather a lot to say about this as well.
You're just ruining my lumping now. Umph.
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I like it here today.
Not to enter into a competition about the weather, but Wellington is similarly gorgeous today. Took the kids for a scooter ride and a swing, no water for us today. But life's good, even under the crushing yoke of capitalism.
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And how would this anarchist state (if that is not an oxymoron) get started?
Mikaere has suggested how, and it fits precisely with centruy-old ideas of anarchism developing within the shell of capitalism, as a consequence of exasperation, the weight of injustice, or a global crisis. At the moment it's hard to see it coming from Western societies - we're all too busy programming our iPods. But you never know, and there are plenty of other societies, some of them rather populous.
I agree with Chomsky's comments that large corporations are "unaccountable private tyrannies" that are "pathological" in their behaviour.
And he's a self-avowed anarcho-syndacalist, isn't he?
But weren't we going to smash the state anyway?
Did you learn everything you know about anarchism from a chocolate-wrapper? If you give me your address I'll send you some, er, pamphlets. In all seriousness.
Just possibly not nearly as well. Would the personal computer you're using be anywhere near as good if its technologies had not been forged in the contest of a market? Would we have even known that people wanted computers for their personal selves?
It just may be that what the world needs is social justice and fewer wars and a functioning climate ahead of Windows 7 and the latest Leopard OS. Just a thought. But even so, there are plenty of views of anarchism that are compatible with the aggressive pursuit of technological progress. Communications technologies in particular.
Don't the anarchists then have to form some sort of authority to stop authorities forming?
Presumably, or some mechanism of defence of the status quo - but it's hard to imagine a society that evolves into anarchism, and therefore the conditions in which such struggles might take place. In the real existing world, however, anarchists haven't all been pacifists of course. Many came from afar and died to defend Spain from fascism, for instance. And I'm no anarchist myself, but the closest thing I have to a personal hero is Gaetano Bresci, the killer of king Umberto I, and he was. Not all shirking violets, in other words.