Moebius

Your statement is kind of confusing. The Olympics isn't about picking who the better overall athlete is (unless you're in the decathlon), but who is the best at a specific event. Athlete A is obviously better at the event that he won the gold medal in, regardless of whether or not he is the better overall athlete. For instance even if Michael Phelps is the best swimmer in the Olympics overall, it doesn't change the fact that Kosuke Kitajima is the best breast-stroke swimmer.

Is that proven or just based on speculations?

China's infrastructure -at least along the coast- probably are ahead of us. After all the government doesn't need to consult anyone if they wanted to lay a twelve lane highway right through your town. They just do it. Furthermore their infrastructure are attractive to corporations who are picking potential sites to build factories on. So as far as I can tell Obama is right on both counts. Just going by the information you provided, I don't see how you came to your conclusion on what Obama is saying.. You are right though -- those stadiums are ugly.

Well I guess the question is: what other options do you have? Live off your mom for the next decade until the economy turns better? If that is not an option, then I guess you'll have to become independent one way or another. If it is an option, I suppose then you have to ask yourself if that is a lifestyle that corresponds with your values. We all have obstacles in life. Asperger's, sure. So is having ADHD, having a low IQ, having a low EQ, being ugly, being obese, being black, being gay, so on and so forth. All of those things might work against you as far as career advancement goes. What can you do but to try and get over it? Obviously you were capable enough to get a computer science degree. That already puts you ahead of 70% or so other Americans. Don't worry about the things that you can't control. Just do what you can.

Seems like your only concern is traveling time. As far as traffic goes, Hong Kong's is actually well organized and relatively smooth. There are traffic jams during rush hour, but then that is true for all major cities. If you are talking about the speed with which resources can transfer -financial instruments, land, commodities- I'd say Hong Kong is pretty much as efficient as you are going to get. Hong Kong itself does not have many factories for production. It is a city that exists almost solely to wheel and deal -- its main (and more or less only) industries are finance, real estate, and sea port. Supply and demand from across the world congregate on this small island to trade. Smaller cities are worse in that sense due to the sheer numbers game. Lower population and fewer connections mean that much more resources need to be spent matching supply to demand, transaction costs that usually mean a great deal to low end consumers or small businesses. That is why for as long as mankind has civilization, resources has shifted toward places where populations congregate.

I'm not sure what you mean by "purposes", but Hong Kong is pretty damn efficient as far as packing as many people as you can in a city. Last time I was there I was struck by how tightly packed the people lived -- huge blocks of apartment complexes stretching as far as the eye can see. The speed with which they build skyscrapers is pretty insane also. Older buildings and strips are continually demolished and a huge building erected on top of it. You blink, and like sand patterns on a desert dune the entire cityscape is completely changed. Must be nice to be that one small state-enforced financial nozzle where all the international hot money pass through into and out of China. Honestly though it's one of those places that I would hate to live in without either a penthouse apartment or a big house at least 20-30 minutes away from downtown. I cannot stand waking up and being unable to see the sun because you are surrounded by high-rises in all directions.

How exactly does the Chinese government use the Olympic games to "solidify its hegemony over its own people"? Anyway it's true that China is a still a pretty crappy place in terms of freedom. But it is also a fact that it has made quantum leaps in the last decade and a half. Personally I think a transition into a more capitalistic society will inevitably bring more and more freedom and wealth into Chinese society. It is a slow process given the country's size and enormous population, but I have faith in the Chinese people.

I thought what the movie was saying was that Batman/vigilantism is only a temporary solution in an emergency situation, at a time when the normal structures of law enforcement have failed. Batman echoed this sentiment with his preference for a city where justice is dispensed by Harvey "the White Knight" Dent, rather than a city that relied on Batman. Of course the movie is also set early during Batman's career, so the public opinion is understandably divided. I don't think Alfred destroyed the letter "for the greater good". He did it for Bruce's good. All it really shows is that Bruce's mental well-being is higher on Alfred's value hierarchy compared to transmitting Rachel's letter posthumously -- especially since it is no longer relevant to her because she's dead. The people were lied to about Harvey to preserve hope and trust in the justice system, which is obviously one of Bruce's highest values. Effectiveness or alternative solutions aside, upholding your highest ideals trumps the act of lying. Harvey wanted Gordon to have a taste of what it is like to lose a loved one. That is why he went after the kid. I thought the movie made this pretty clear. Anyway the character of Two-Face is about polar extremes, so obviously he needs to pendulate between completely rational and completely insane.

The only Olympic events watchable for me are gymnastics, track & fields, and Men's Basketball. Women's Beach Volleyball too, depending on how hot the players are =P Too bad every time I turn on TV here (I live in Taiwan) all I see is stuff like Women's Handball or Badminton.

But if the psychics did find the girl, what would that mean? My grandfather was a cop. I know that his department sometimes go to psychics when looking for missing bodies. I don't know what the rate of success is, but on at least two occasions the psychics lead their team to extremely secluded and remote locations and dug up bodies -one of them over a decade old- supposedly without knowing any details on the case. Not saying we should start believing in psychics without proof. Just that weird things happen that I have a hard time finding explanations for.

But you forget one of the most dominant factors in what shaped the world as we see it today: military strength. Britain didn't colonize other countries with reason and a respect for rights. They did it with guns. Using force to steal, pillage, or otherwise coercing native governments to sign grossly imbalanced treaties allowed them to amass far more resources, which in turn trickled down into their colonies in the form of infrastructures. This is how it worked prior to the industrial revolution in any of the large land-based empires you examine -- military strength begets resources, resources begets mass wealth, mass wealth begets reason, so on and so forth. If humans by nature is reasonable, then I see a -relatively- reason-based society as the natural state of any civilization when they have a dominant grip on resources for an extended period of time. On the other hand it is when resources are stripped (or perceived of as stripped) that a society clench itself up into an unreasoned, hostile, and conformist mode that seeks to topple the existing hierarchy. Rome wasn't sacked by an empire greater than itself -- it was sacked by barbarians. The then dominant British Empire did not lose its global-superpower status until after it was severely f*cked up by an angry Germany during World War II. Here I am not suggesting that history is circular -- empires rise, fall, and another rise in its place. Rather I think history travels in a helix, building upon each previous lessons. Today the most likely candidates for future barbarians go by names like Islam and China. One achieves the pre-requisite conformist state through religious fundamentalism, the other through an authoritarian government and fervent nationalism. Note however that in the case of China, that as resources (be it straight money, oil, or other raw material) begin to get pumped into its cultural veins, it is rapidly becoming a more open and reasonable society. If wealth isn't static but rather something that can be created, that may mean that the best way to ensure a reason-based global culture is by pumping resources into those on the bottom of the pecking order and teaching them to create wealth. Of course, nothing does this better than capitalism.

I'm a broker, and this has happened several times where I dreamed about how a stock is going to develop right down to the exact prices, and it hit the mark exactly or off by a tiny fraction. I even awed my co-workers by announcing my dream prior to the market opening. There are also some situations where I felt like I was in a dejavu but turned out I had dreamed it. Usually in mundane kind of situations though -- sitting with the same company in the same coffee job in the same seat drinking the same drink, that kind of stuff.

One strange thing about my dreams is that I have never, EVER, had a nightmare. Not a single one that I can remember after waking anyhow. As a kid I used to have recurring dreams about flying. Usually I am in some sort of open space and just running, then after building up some speed I started skipping higher and higher until I finally took off.

Same way with the Greeks however, with its myriad city-states each espousing different ideologies and cultures (some of which -like Sparta- are in complete disagreement with modern Western values). Certainly they were not a centralized bunch. Yet in retrospect they are identified in its totality as the Greek civilization. It is true that during the (Western) Imperialism Era China had an isolationist policy, which resulted in the situations you are referring to. However the Chinese was in direct trade and military contact with Southern Asia for a long time, despite the fact that they didn't actually militarily conquered it. Actually travel to those areas and you will see strong Chinese influences and many of Chinese descent who control a disproportionate amount of resources even TODAY, and whose families have been there for centuries. The Dutch on the other hand had bigger guns and cannons. And the relatively short amount of time they were there ended when the weaponry of the natives caught up. Hence why I say that it would be better to talk about a civilization in its totality rather than simply examining a slice of time.

I like that. Very insightful. Bruce Wayne identified that man as the "white knight". Not the artist. Dent was the artist's foil to Batman that illustrates how Bruce views himself (as the Dark Knight that exists outside the system, motivated by Starling's above quote). Bruce did not see himself as the permanent solution. To him the ideal dispenser of justice is personified by Harvey Dent, who works WITHIN the law to bring about true justice to Gotham. The fact that in the end Bruce tried to preserve Harvey's legacy despite his fall means that the idealism of a Gotham ruled by the law lives on as Bruce Wayne's ultimate goal. On the other hand pure evil as personified by the Joker survived only in the sense that he physically lived. However he was clearly defeated both physically by the Batman and philosophically by the boat passengers refraining from blowing each other up. The fact that Batman did not kill the Joker despite the Joker's plead for him to do so furthers that defeat.

Did he do that? If he did I must've missed it. Seemed like they just fell straight down. Yes... but the point is he fell from a high rise with the weight of two people. It's not like the car was made of jello or something.

Yeah but what I meant was he jumped out of the penthouse of a high rise and -absorbing the weight of two people- he crash landed on a car and was completely fine afterwards. But then later on he fell with Harvey Dent off of a twenty foot drop and blacked out.

It's true. But wasn't there one scene where Batman fell through a penthouse window with Rachael in his arms and ended up perfectly fine? That was kind of a WTF moment for me.

Actually I agree with your assessment. Toohey had a PERFECT understanding of the nature of "good" --an understanding that he reached through sheer intellectual prowess--, whereas Roark simply internalized it from the get-go and both Dominique and Wynand with only a partial understanding of it (pre-Roark) . This implies that Toohey knew exactly what it would take for him to have a truly happy life, and has all the tools to achieve this happiness, yet inexplicably decided to reject it. He made an explicit and completely irrational choice at some point to reject good --and therefore his own happiness in life-- despite the fact that he has been consistently rational, hyper-intelligent, perceptive, and goal-oriented in every other aspect of his life. The only possible explanation would be, as you said, that Toohey is an anomaly. He is somehow wired differently as a spiritual sadomasochist that chooses evil just because, and also happens to be a convenient literary anti-Christ that serves as a foil to Roark's physical-embodiment-of-Objectivist-virtues-Superman.

Eh? A single civilization of people under a centralized power doesn't constitute a political entity? That's new to me. Hard to read because of your spelling... but that is sort of just a slice out of 5000 years. No doubt China were isolationists at some points during that time period, but expansionists also at other times. The Tang dynasty for instance.

Well that "new generation" would be my generation. So that is probably why our opinions differed. The United States had an unassailable moral position during World War II, so you are right that there aren't any negative effects. Yes, when making the decision to drop an atomic weapon, the future opinion of the country you are planning to bomb is irrelevant. Although I do not think that it was the total war itself that convinced Japan that their way of life was a failure. I honestly don't think you can convince anyone of anything purely through the application of force. What convinced that Japanese was the fact that their rebuilt economy under the groundworks laid out by the United States soon became the second largest economy in the world, and they made the quantum leap from a group of angry island folks into a major international power. Come to think of it, that is probably a much better way to "win" -- not with the complete annihilation of your enemy, but by converting them to your way of life and proving that it is indeed superior. This doesn't necessarily have to begin with force, as we can see from the slow transformation of China into a more open society (obviously they still have a long way to go). Which is indeed why I hope the situation with Iraq works out -- they could be the idealogical springboard needed for the importation of Western values.

Your own "evidence" is anecdotal. "I have a Japanese friend, and he doesn't seem anti-American" or "people were friendly to me when I was there". The Japanese attitude toward the United States (and by extension, the West in general) is a complex one, with America symbolically representing many different things. I live in Asia (Taiwan) currently, and because I trade stocks for a living currently I keep a close watch on the news --opinions, political rhetorics, economics--, particularly around Asia and Japan. I also read a large amount of books written by Japanese authors. I have a half dozen Japanese friends as well. So I think I can pretty objectively state that many folks in Japan do in fact consider Americans as ambitious imperialists that use both its military and economic arms to extract resources and influences through immoral means (their version of morality usually is not the same as the Objectivist version); although at the same time many of them also embrace the values that America represents, particularly freedom, wealth, and innovation. I agree. If you decide to fight, fight to win. Then why is it immoral? I'd like to hear your reasoning. And why do you think that it is moral for Commodore Perry to use force to coerce a country to trade with the United States? What difference does it make that it is authoritarian? Would it be okay if we did the same thing to any authoritarian countries today? History is absolutely irrelevant when it comes to making moral decisions. Only principles are relevant. What other countries with military strength did in the past should have NO EFFECT what so ever over the United State's actions. So any time you see a bigger and stronger man, do you think to yourself, "boy I am grateful that guy is dedicated to obeying the law and not fucking me up right now"? Personally I am not grateful when someone is behaving morally, because that is what he ought to be in the first place. However it IS unfortunate that many people do not necessarily behave the same way. I do not think that people in general resent the United States when we are unequivocally "good". No one resented us for fighting the Nazis and the Japanese during World War II, when we defended Kuwait from Iraqi invasion, or when we bombed Afghanistan. It is only when our moral positions are dubious or unclear that tend to result in resentment -- for instance Vietnam or the current Iraqi war.

It is a mis-leading fact. The uranium was NOT weapons-grade, and was known by the UN and IAEA in accordance to international law.

First of all, to be clear, there is DEFINITELY a large amount of anti-American sentiment in Japan. Same goes for South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines, in varying degrees. Mostly the reasoning revolves around the United States having some sort of devious imperialistic plan for subjugating the greater Asia. Not unlike how many Americans blaming the Chinese and Indians for losing jobs, and view all Middle Easterners (or more precisely all brown-looking folks) with suspicions. Secondly, I know what you are trying to say about total war vs just war. But total war is hardly the only proper and reasonable level of force, or else we'd just start nuking everyone. Regardless of justifications, what we have done in Iraq for instance --toppling the dictatorship and setting up a democracy-- isn't necessarily a worse option than nuking the entire country's population. Of course maybe you DO think that it is proper to use WMDs in threat-type situations, but there is already another thread on that topic. Finally, the reason everyone hates us for being the "benevolent peace keeper" is because they think that we "keeping peace" selectively and only when it suits our imperialistic interests, not because we don't fuck up our enemies enough. It is illustrating an example of force being used improperly and immorally. That said, I have my questions about why a dictatorship would not be allowed property rights. So are you saying that it would be moral for the United States to, say, walk straight into China and start fencing off the entirely country, claiming it as our own because they are a dictatorship? How is what other governments in the past have done relevant? Something is either moral or it isn't. What has the past got to do with anything? Is the rest of the world supposed to be grateful for America's dedication to freedom? No. America does it because it is within its best interest to do so.