Danneskjöld
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Posts posted by Danneskjöld
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There is the option of leaving and looking for a freer home, it can be costly though.
Unfortunately, I think the US is no longer the choice for those seeking freedom.
For lack of ability to leave... I agree with the opinion that you should obey the law while exposing it, publicly criticizing it and fighting it. The military service seems the lesser of evils amongst your options. It is honorable, you may meet like minded people and learn new and useful skills, as opposed to just being a slave straight out, or being branded a criminal through jail time which could hurt you the rest of your life (most notably if you ever seek to live in another, freer country).
Hm, I have been thinking for a while about leaving the country... but for doing that, I would have to know a place, that actually is a better choice in total than Switzerland. I do not.
Well, in favor of the Civil Service I do have to mention that I did learn useful skills, and we did build some cool stuff (as a road through a steep forrest to a farmer or a nice wooden bridge over a creek). Not everything is bad about it, actually, I did have some good time there too. I am pissed that the laws are fundamentally wrong and nobody seems to care enough to change them.
Publicly criticizing it... I will have to think about that.
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Seems to me that to serve in the military in Switzerland would be far more rational than to serve a government you may never have supported, go to jail or to pay a fine. My reasoning is this.
Switzerland is a democratic "free" western nation and you do enjoy those freedoms (constrained as they are).
Unlike all the other western nations there is no chance that it will wage an unjust war for monetary gain, national prestige, or confused "humanitarian" reasons. Granted that there are on occasion reasons to fight ones enemies and even to conduct a preemptive strike but for Switzerland right now I don't see any real pressing issues like that.
Military defence is a proper function of government, serving in the public service as a tax collector or cleaning the street (a job that should be done by a private company) aren't.
*I know that conscription is wrong. As long as your choices today are public slavery, imprisonment or to serve in the military (an honourable profession) for a specific period, learn something in the process and yet never have the possibility of being forced to do anything but defend your home, the ones you love and your country... I don't see the military service as the greatest of those particular evils.
Yes, you have to fight to change the law, but breaking the law is not usually the best or most effective way to go about this.
That's my opinion. Take it or leave it.
As far as I see, I do fully agree.
Unfortunately, I was not thinking this way when I was 19. At this age, the state decides which kind of service you will do.
At that time, I was thinking that military (especially in Switzerland) is superfluous, and a waste of time and money. So I decided (by claiming a health problem makes me unfit for military service) to do civil service instead. Now at the age of 26 it is impossible to change my mind and join the army.
So I have the opposite options slavery (surrender) or jail (rebellion). The best I could get is the middle-road, the Standby-Soldier. Not serve, but pay. I will talk to them next week and try...
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I am completely pissed of the Swiss system (once again)...
These beacuse of following reasons:
1) I am obliged to serve the state in a Civil Service for 8 days a year until I am 40 years old, because I am not serving in the military.
2) The state pays me currently a salary of 7$, while my normal salary would be 25$.
3) I do have to pay an additional monetary fine for not serving the military, even though I serve in the alternative compulsion "Civil Service".
I was so pissed this afternoon when I got my "slave-salary", that I was reading some laws concerning how to get out of this compulsion.
I have 2 options:
a) Degradation to Standby Soldier
I would not have to serve anymore except in case of an extreme emergency, but still be obliged to pay the fine (which would be higher as I would not get a Civil-Server-Discount anymore).
But to get a degradation to Standby Soldier, I will have to ask my commanders. As they will decline in the first place, I would have to beg and hope for their good will. As we are not a lot of Civil Server in the part of Switzerland I am talking about, my chances are pretty low.
So I would have to threaten to be there, but not to use neither my mind nor my hands to work for them. That would eventually lead to option
. Jail and fineI can choose to go to jail for 30-45 days and to pay an additional fine up to 1000$. I still would have to pay the further fines every year, but I am definitely out of the Military/Civil Service organisation for good.
WTF? "BE A SLAVE OR GO TO JAIL, it is your own free decision"
So I started to read some parts of the federal constitution and I found this:
(free translation only!)
a) men and women are to be dealt as equals
men are obliged to serve either in military or civil service, for women it is voluntary. Paying fines for not serving in the military is due to men only.WTF???? On such obvious contradictions in the constitution are our laws based....
And as I start to realize, I am discovering only the tip of the iceberg.
WTF.............
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I just got to level 5 yesterday so I can start fighting now. I look at some of the battlefields and was confused about how they work. The profiles on both sides were rotating like slot machines? How exactly does this work? If I join a fight does my profile enter into that rotation? If so how many times do I go around? Can I get out when I want to or am I stuck there for a certain amount of time.
Also, the comments on this post are confusing me about the health situation. Many are complaining that the battle depletes your health and reduces your ability to earn, but other comments say a battle is the best way to get health because of the free hospital use. So is fighting good or bad for your overall health?
Sorry about bombarding you guys with questions, I tried looking them up on the wiki but they did not address my questions.
one fight a day is definitely good. you loose 10 wellnesspoints, but can once a day get 30 back at the hospital. whether it's good to participate in more than one or how exatly it works I cannot tell yet...
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You cannot yet join a party, I just tried:
Quote:
"You have only 15 Experience Points. To access this feature you need at least 40 Experience points (experience level 7). Unlock Features"
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Hehe, I am checking out the forum a little and find a lot of stupid stuff.... no need to answer that one....
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If you check out the news (http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/is-war...ty--929133/1/20) of today, you will find this:
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Hello again my dear readers,
My question for you today is : IS WAR NECESSARY?
I think we all know the answer. This game is based on war module. The economy is based on wars. Baby-booms are made during war times. The greatest amounts of gold are spent in Epic battles.
The servers were upgraded to sustain great wars. And still many of us keep wondering themselves: Why, we can't step aside once, not in RL or ERep and fighting each other like some stupid kids?
Why? Good question! Because we can't!
Because we all like to win! And to win there is always need for an opponent who to lose. This is the way our race flourished. This is the way we are raising our children. To fight and to be better or high placed than others. In every moment of our lives we are over one person and under another. And most of us want to go higher. These are the facts, in real or virtual life, everything is the same.
eRepublik gave us what we all want. Another global arena where we can race together.
So, my dear friends, indeed war is a MUST! We can now rest and stop denying that and think how we can win it!
Thank you all for reading!
Crocky
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Can anyone answer that? I am not so far yet to talk politics.... Some baseless and/or undigested slogans as "The economy is based on creating goods, not on wars" are coming to my mind, but I could not justify my position and would not know how exactly to address his further thoughts.......
mfg Dk
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Hehe, I'm registered as well. Let's see, if it's fun to play.
Name: Danneskjoeld
Location: Norway, Svalbard
Some advices for the beginning? Worked and trained today, I guess there is not really more to do for the time being?
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Actually, I have not read ITOE yet, but as "investigating" in this subject, I have ordered it yesterday.
It came a week ago, but I have not had time so far to read it.
I realized, that I really do have problems with the definitions and have to do some more of defining the words (especially english being a foreign language).[...]
Anyway, in the next days I will concentrate on the initial thoughts of this post, as there still is a lot to clarify.
Have not had time for that specifically either.
What I think you are trying to talk about is context.A is A in a certain context.
If something influences A and causes it to change, the context has just changed, so its no longer the Same A is was before, it's B. Then B is B. If nothing influences A (either itself, or some outside influence) it is still A.
The point of the statement "A is A" is to show an example of the law of identity. That something is what it is. It can't be itself and something else at the same time. An object can't be all red, and all blue at the same time. Context is an important part of the law of identity because we don't live in a static environment. Reality changes, based on its nature. When you say "The sky is blue" you are saying it is blue in a certain CONTEXT. The sky is black at night, or red/orange/yellow at sunset/sunrise. The context has changed during these different times of the day, thus changing one of the properties of the sky (appearance).
Try not to drop context, it is a terrible error and can cause most misconceptions/errors in any concepts.
Edit...
Reading your post again I noticed that you seem to be misunderstanding how to properly form a concept and I'd like to address it.
You speak of these minuscule changes in the form of your A as the atoms inside it move. Lets say your A is a table. Do these small changes in the atoms of this table, no longer make it a table? Do they make it something else? When forming any concept, you need to identify the fundamental properties of an object that make it that concept. A table has legs to hold it up, and has a flat surface. Does the small movement of these atoms make the legs disappear or the surface change? No, they don't, and not until sufficient change has been made to the table to change one of its FUNDAMENTAL properties does it no longer become a table, or even your table. If you burn your table and it is consumed in flames it becomes nothing but ashes and is no longer a table. That again leads to me previous paragraph. The context has changed (i.e. burning) and your A is no longer an A anymore. Again, the statement A is A still remains true, in the original context (unburned table).
I do understand all of this and I agree (as far as I see by scanning this post roughly) fully with it.
This entire thread is a demonstration of the confusion that results from moving back and forth from metaphysics to epistemology without a clear idea of the subject matter and boundaries of either.A concept omits useless detail such as the location of the electrons of a chair. A concept is an abstraction from its referents, whether those referents are here or everywhere, exist now or in the future, are observed or unobserved. "A is A" won't tell you what "A" is or how "A" acts and changes. "A is A" merely affirms that there is something that exists, acts and changes in a non-contradictory way. To identify that "A" as a chair, then the slightly different "A" 3 seconds later as a chair also is an act of applied epistemology not a metaphysical assertion.
I do know that I am right in what I wrote in the initial post, but I start to see your points. It is the application of the word "Identity" which seems to be used in a very narrow way (actually, I guess its more the broadest way possible, and only this way).
But you are right, I do not have a clear idea of the subject, that is why I started to write my thoughts down and check them. This process will be going on in the next few years...
[edited for clarification]
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Sure. And he's going to deposit some of his withdawls in the same manner. He's not going to sit on the money (try to determine what even 1% annual interest is on a billion dolalrs per month).
Yeah. But I also could imagine that Swiss banks will check cash transfers thouroughly made by known connections of Gaddafi. And refuse them and/or freeze further accounts. As over 4 trillion dollars is deposited in Switzerland, they will give a shit on Gaddafis money and will try to hit him this way.
Given the overall impression of the West as spineless, particualrly in Europe, Gaddafi might well execute one hostage to see fi the Swiss follow through.Probably. His recent ceremony, where he celebrated the 40th anniversary of the revolution and his dictatorship, is said to have been bigger and more expensive than the opening celebration of the olympic games in Bejing. And there they celebratet the recently freed Lockerbie assassin Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi as a hero, and performed an act showing executions through hanging.
I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, these days when dealing with Arabs or Muslims the tendency in the West is to apologize to them for pummeling their fists with our collective face.The most shocking thing is, not only when dealing with Arabs or Muslims. The tendency is to apologize to everyone for everything...
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Yes. The hostages were taken by force, in retaliation for the propper actions of the Swiss government (arresting someone for assault is a protection of individual rights). It would also be advisable for Swiss nationals not to visit Lybia for the time being.
However, it's not necessarily the right course of action. I'm sure Switzerland can bring to bear pressure of a non-military nature on Lybia's governemnt (I'd be surprised if Gadaffi and at least dozens of his cronies don't have some money in Swiss banks) to free the hostages. On no account should Switzerland make any concessions at all.
Another thing the Swiss could do is seize two random Lybian antionals and threaten to do unto them what Mad Dog Gadaffi does tot he Swiss hostages. This wouldn't be fair for the Lybians involved, but it would be justified as a "humane" display of force.
Well, I definitely do not think that it is the right course, even though it might be justifiable.
About the money: 16.07.2009 was to be read in our newspapers, that Gaddafi withdraw 5.8 billion dollars from swiss bank accounts, which is 89% of Libyans money in Switzerland. Well, I guess that is officially true, but there might well be hidden money through stooges of stooges of the Gaddafi-Clan in our banks.
Hehe, actually it would definitely be not fair to the Libyens, but would be fun to observe Gaddafis reaction to that.
Well, about the conscessions, I am not sure actually what was going on with our "presidents" visit down there. There was to be read some days ago, that in the contract is something written like "from now on no Libyans are going to be molested in Switzerland anymore"... but no word of the hostages...
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The swiss party "Lega dei Ticinesi" makes propaganda for war against Libya.
Rough overview of the occurings:
A year ago, the son of Libyas president Gaddafi was arrested in Geneva/Switzerland for mistreatment of employees of the nobel hotel. He was released shortly after, in the meantime Gaddafi imprisoned two Swiss businessmen in Libya.
The businessmen are still held in Libya, even though the Swiss president Merz went to visit Gaddafi two weeks ago and got the (it seems only implicit, and not factual written) promise, they would be released before september. But now they will have to face court for a visa delict soon and are not allowed to leave the Libya.
Sidenotes: Since Gaddafi's son's imprisonment (which was correct according to Swiss law) Gaddafi has cut the relationship to switzerland to a minimum except for threatening. He said that he would approve of an atomic bomb on Switzerland. Last month, he brought to the UNO the request, that in their next session (being held in New York shortly) they would be debating the extinction of Switzerland, of distributing its land to the neighbouring countries Germany, France and Italy.
So now the "Lega dei Ticinesi" demands a military intervention to rescue the hostages out of Libya.
Would that be justifiable?
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What you have to use in the special sciences is knowledge not available at all times to everyone. The method of defining the observations of these 'special' contexts is the same.It is the provence of Philosophy to set out said method.
edit: As to your comment about 'blank out' see earlier comments on hierarchy.
Need definitely to get a better understandig of metaphysics as a concept. But it is getting late, that has to wait.
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In other words the 'categories' of Metaphysics/ontology must ONLY consist of ubiquitously available content. No 'special' observations should be required or else your in the 'category' of the special sciences.
That sounds like you have to use some kind of knowledge to create categories of metaphysics, but blank out other knowledge.
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Ok, my turn to ask ????????????????
We were talking about one or two lines, your b1 and b11, where the hell did 30 pages come from?
No, we are not merely talking about this two lines, we are talking about this structure:
a) primary existentsa1) living entities
a11) human beings
a12) non-human beings
a2) non-living entities
a22) metaphysically given entities
a23) non-metaphysically given entities
non-primary existentsb1) entities in a “extended sense”
b11) lower-level entities
b12) higher-level entities
b2) non-entity existents
b21) metaphysically given non-entities
b22) non-metaphysically given non-entities
According to your statement, each category has to be defined directly in this structure. You have 14 complete and exact defintitions to give, so that there can be no doubt, that you can "sort" every existent in it. That means 14 long paragraphs.
Within the field of metaphysics, judging how atoms and galaxies fit within an ontology, there is no difference in principle between atoms and galaxies. They are both entities in the extended sense, are both metaphysically given, and there is nothing more to be said which is relevant or even permissible.So do not consider this as "metaphysics" or "ontology". I do not and never have myself. Give it any name you wish, "The Categories of Existents" for example.
[edit: disable emoticons]
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I don't know how they do things in your first language, but in English if you are creating a structured list which is intended to be a taxonomy then it should be complete and self-contained. Definitions and other information in prefatory text must appear in its place in the list as well. Splitting the information up into two different formats is just poor presentation.
Actually, I don't know it neither in English nor in German, most probably they will tell you the same. Honestly, so far I don't give a damn. So why should it be self-contained in its presentation?
How do you want to create a neat presentation of a complex structure, if you have to give every definition of the structures categories within the structure itself? It would be a poor presentation, if I had to show you in 30 pages what I did in 14 lines. How would you possibly figere out the created structure?
That is exactly what concepts are here for. So are the concepts I am using in the structure. They are defined, so I try to use them accordingly. As I said before, on the metaphysical and non-metaphysical part I need some further thoughts. But that does not change the rest of the structure.
So do not take it out of context.
The structure is intended to categorize ALL existents. Atoms and galaxies are existents. Therefore each of them must belong by definition to a category. And by definition atoms are different from galaxies. How would you describe the essence of the difference?
The point of this portion of the thread is to dispute your assertion of the metaphysical significance of the structure of matter. Everything known about matter belongs to the special science of physics. Even mentioning atoms plunges you deep into an advanced scientific context of knowledge. Atoms are metaphysical, but the knowledge of atoms is part of physics. META-physics omits all physics knowledge.As shown above, atoms must be part of the structure. They must be, because we know they are existents. Of course we know it due to empirical investigations, i.e. physics. That is why they are non-primary existents.
As you see, so far we agree (unless you think atoms are primary existents). And whether metaphysics in general omits all physics knowledge or not is for the proposed structure irrelevant.
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Sure, I simply meant not exactly parallel to the discussions topic.
Thanks. I do agree then. :-)
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Edit: So the metaphysical hierarchy is there anyway, why not introduce it in the categorical system?The structure or complexity you refer to here is physical not metaphysical. Scientific statements do not belong in an ontology or the whole thing is a stolen concept.Perhaps it is a language problem. Atoms are undeniably a metaphysically given fact. All facts not man-made are metaphysically given, this doesn't make them all the subject matter of metaphysics.
Metaphysics is a noun, metaphysical is an adjective. The definition of the adjective metaphysical you gave above is not at all equivalent to the definition of the noun metaphysics. To be specific, in the distinction between the metaphysical and the man-made what is important is the origin or cause of a certain fact. No man caused matter to be arranged in atoms, that arises inevitably from the nature of reality and is therefore metaphysical in its cause, while remaining a fact requiring a scientific knowledge of physics to prove.
edit: grammar
I do not see where your heading to or what your point is. Atoms are metaphysical. I try to differentiate them from the integrated concepts of existents. I do not try to prove anything regarding to physics, i.e. regarding to HOW these metaphysical entities behave or are.
It seems, that you are talking about something being primary or not.
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How so? In your structured list the meaning of entities in a “extended sense” has not yet been given so b11 duplicates nothing.
???????????????
Read the very first post. And all following posts that led me to the proposed structure. DO NOT TAKE SOMETHING OUT OF CONTEXT.
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Since you have such a solid handle on assumptions, I'll just let you finish off our discussion.
Was it or was it not the kind of your next argument you wanted to use?
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So this really boils down to whether or not something is coming between Man and his perception, right? If I put something between me (and my perceptive faculties) and the thing I'm trying to perceive, then I'm not perceiving it directly?
If you think of saying that there are humans which do need glasses to perceive things clearly, skip it. They do perceive directly something, i.e. the primary entity.
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Ergo my comment on obliqueness. However it still touches on the perception part of our discussion.
Hm, the translations of oblique by the online-dictionary I use (http://dict.leo.org) does not make sense when I translate your sentence into german. Can you give another word (or explain) what oblique in your statement means?
[edit: and yes, this touches on the perception part of our discussion, i.e. it must be considered when discussing (categorizing) qualities, which are situated somewhere in the non-entity category.]
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Entities beyond the range of unassisted perception and collective nouns (winds, fluids, flocks, armies)
So instead of
b1) entities in a “extended sense”
b11) lower-level entities
b12) higher-level entities
you would put it this way:
b1) entities in a “extended sense”
b11) entities beyond the range of unassisted perception
b12) collective nouns (winds, fluids, flocks, armies)
To object this distinction:
b1) entities in a “extended sense” is by definition the same as b11) entities beyond the range of unassisted perception. A thing cannot be a sub-category of itself.
So there you have only one sub-category b12) collective nouns (winds, fluids, flocks, armies). Only one sub-category is a contradiction in itself, as there is only one category.
Leaving this aside, my question would then be a differentiation of your b11) entities beyond the range of unassisted perception (which is by definition the same question as posed before).
This is not the definition and your understanding of the context of 'pertains to reality' is far too broad and vague. Photosynthesis pertains to reality, the economics of medicine pertain to reality, neither is metaphysical nor is the atomic theory of matter.And see Metaphysics in the Lexicon.
I am talking of pertaining to reality in respect to entities (as we are discussion the differentiation of entities). Neither photosynthesis nor the economics of medicine are entities. So that (if?) they are not metaphysical does not imply, that atoms are not metaphysical.
I will have to check definitions, before getting to a definit answer. But so far I do not see why atoms are not a metaphysically given fact.
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The topic is more oblique to the discussion than I remembered...
QUOTE
Now you can see why Objectivism rejects the primary secondary quality distinction.It is not true that extension is really out there intrinsically and color and the rest are really just subjective effects on us. All of the qualities we perceive are facts of independent reality as perceived by human consciousness.There is no grounds whatever to divide the properties we perceive up into the extension connected ones versus the color sounds textures exetera. There is no warrant for proclaiming two kinds of sensory properties.Those which belong to the object versus those which are created by consciousness.The actual facts are, there are objects in independent reality which have various attributes in themselves.Human being have the faculty of consciousness and perceive those objects by certain means, and thus in certain forms.Forms inexorably dictated and determined by the nature of the objects in themselves.Part of which includes the nature of mans sensory apparatus.Now the only valid distinction you can make is between the primary causes in reality the "energy puffs" in my construct, and the derivative manifestations of those puffs.All of their expressions, effects, results.You can distinguish between cause and effect in this way. But that is not the distinction between primary and secondary qualities as the traditional philosophers make it.......if the phrase primary quality means, quality intrinsic in reality, in other words quality which is a real fact as against a subjective product of consciousness, then as we have seen all the qualities we perceive are facts, all are real all are primary.
[emphasis added]
Our discussion is about a primary/secondary entity distincion, not a primary/secondary quality distinction. So this quote does not say whether or not a primary/secondary entity distincion is useful/correct/compatible with Objectivists Philosophy.
Switzerland sucks
in Political Philosophy
Posted
Thx.
But to clarify, I do know who "them" is. I have been knowing these two guys for years now. In my canton live only 36'000 people, and I serve every year with the same 50 guys. And the two commanders who will decide have been there ever since I had to join. So I do know them. I can imagine how they react in the first place. Honestly, I just really cannot imagine how they will react, when I refuse to work and think, i.e. when I leave them the decision whether to put me on standby or into jail....