Furthering Our Intellectual Development

  On 5/29/2012 at 3:50 PM, AAAAh said:

Grw a mustache like maxims or blimps

ur mustache will act as an indicator of your intellectual strength. as your brain developes so will ur facefuzz.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tok=APTHCO1wjocSE5vxzkTzwA&cp=6&gs_id=2&xhr=t&q=nietzsche&rlz=1C1LENN_enUS446US446&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1366&bih=653&ion=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&authuser=0&ei=JFrST6TvKqb10gGA-aSFAw

He is a highly mustachioed man

  On 5/29/2012 at 5:32 AM, Joseph said:

after half reading this thread i have come to the conclusion that everyone on watmm is a first year college student with plans to major in philosophy

Seriously, lol.

Learn to SCUBA dive or make large scale welded sculptures or go to Uganda or study topology or ant physiology or something else before (or while) you scale that particular ivory tower right up your own colon. Please. For the love of the ubermensch.

Also you must grow a mustache, yes.

Seriously, study philosophy all you want, just don't be a cloistered little philosophy major with an inflated sense of self worth and no real experience of the real world EXPERIENTIAL AGONY

Basically you must first become a sex worker in Thailand before you can ever truly learn what it means to be human

TRUST ME I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE

Or just study ant physiology

What the fuck was I talking about, again?

edit: mustaches. grow one.

i don't understand the backlash against philosophy being "up its own ass"

the guy made a thread called "Furthering Our Intellectual Development". FFS, we aren't telling the guy to lock himself up in a library for the rest of his life, just making suggestions to start. Yes, travel the world (assuming you can afford it). Yes, go on crazy life adventures. That should be fucking obvious. The OP asked for things that might help spur on intellectual development. I'm only telling him about works that made a huge impression on me when I was looking for the same thing.

Did you ever consider that people talk about philosophy and books they have been reading on WATMM because no one is willing to grant them an audience anywhere else? How is wanting to have passionate discussion about something that interests you "up its own ass"?

Did that really strike you as a serious post? Did it really strike you as directed at you?

Really?

You're acting like a cloistered philosophy major here, Smetty! You probably haven't even held another man's heart in your hand, yet.

Philosophy isn't up it's own ass. Philosophy doesn't have an ass.

  On 6/9/2012 at 12:01 AM, baph said:

Did that really strike you as a serious post? Did it really strike you as directed at you?

 

Really?

 

You're acting like a cloistered philosophy major here, Smetty! You probably haven't even held another man's heart in your hand, yet.

Maybe not yours alone, but I think yours was the fourth or fifth in a line that continued off a premise of "reading books is fucking dumb, real experience is at the top of Mount Everest or winning an NBA championship or soldering wires, don't waste all your time reading books"

LOL, maybe it just reminds me of my grandfather.

I was talking about philosophy to a few people on this thread, so yeah I figured it was partially directed at me.

It's funny that I act like a cloistered phil major, because I have no degree in philosophy whatsoever. It's just something that started to interest me seven years ago. I like to read other people's ideas and like to think I am participating in something far larger than myself by trying to unlock these little puzzles in each book.

Problem is, I can't talk to anyone at work about it, because its faggot reading bullshit. I can't talk to my other workmates about it, because "I'm supposed to be reading a certain specialized subject 24/7." I can't talk to my family about it (see first job), can't talk to my friends about it (aren't interested). So when I see some people throw up some abstract arguments I get a little eager to talk about it. Doesn't mean I'm right; half the time I talk on here is to look back and see what I was thinking, what needed changing, what to augment, what I might have had "right", etc. etc.

Sorry for the heart on the sleeve rant here, but yeah, it does irk me a bit. Although I think you were just joshin around in the ol' good-WATMM nature, so apologies if I sounded overly crass.

I've had a beer now, I'm calming down! Promise!

I never said reading books was dumb. I do know people who have read exclusively philosphy books, and they are wretched, emotionally malformed things. Likewise people who read only about electrical engineering, topology, titties, etc. And people who willfully do not read/learn are obviously the worst. I would encourage anyone to read anything that interests them, but I'd also encourage a guy looking to apparently "start" his education to take a very interdisciplinary approach, especially at the outset of his studies. And that includes the experiential stuff.

THAT'S IT, THE REST WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY

The first few pages of this thread were all "zomg Nietzsche is Pietzsche" and it just needs a little balance.

LOL, fair enough.

But I mean, "experiential" learning doesn't need any recommendations or directions. He is a participant simply by existing. If people can dwell on the effects, colors, sounds, sensory descriptions of a single season or a fucking flower for most of their life, I don't really know what could be recommended that would be considered properly experimental experience.

Cept maybe killing someone? I wouldn't recommend that.

I definitely wasn't arguing for only experiential learning, either.

It's just funny when, you know, an 18 year old kid living off his parent's dime in college and who never worked a day in his life hears about Sartre saying hell is other people and is like, 'oh yeah, I can fucking relate.' Unless he got the shit kicked out of him all his life. Which he probably did. BAD EXAMPLE

  On 6/9/2012 at 12:26 AM, baph said:

I definitely wasn't arguing for only experiential learning, either.

 

It's just funny when, you know, an 18 year old kid living off his parent's dime in college and who never worked a day in his life hears about Sartre saying hell is other people and is like, 'oh yeah, I can fucking relate.' Unless he got the shit kicked out of him all his life. Which he probably did. BAD EXAMPLE

Quote I like to (attempt to) live by:

Be Kind, Everyone You Meet is Fighting a Hard Battle

-Plato (Actually I'm not sure if anyone knows who first said it)

  On 6/8/2012 at 9:02 PM, chenGOD said:

  On 6/8/2012 at 2:23 AM, delet... said:

Yeah, i hate to admit it. But the guy is amazing. Well except for the area that he actually had a job in. In one video he blames the housing crisis on home owners and doesn't bother including the fraudulent practises of the banks and their surrogates. Which is typical of his class. Everything is a fault of those plebs and their big TVs, it's so easy to convince themselves of that.

 

gleh.

 

But other than that, yeah the fact that he actually seems to have some grasp of a lot of the things that he is teaching, amazes me.

 

Incredible - people leverage themselves to the fucking hilt and go into insane amounts of debt, and somehow it's the banks' fault?

 

Now, don't get me wrong, the banks are not blameless, they way the resold the complex packaged debt as being low risk is reprehensible, but people making 40k a year thinking they can have huge houses, 3 cars etc are fucking idiots.

There is the myth mate, and you've bought into it too.

Cheap credit meant that the property market was filled with speculators trying to make a profit by holding a property and then flipping it after a couple of years. This massively pushed the price up of real estate. You would have normal houses. which had become priced beyond the means of the average consumer due to this speculation on the land value (a house generally depreciates over time in value) . This all happened so quickly that the culture didn't have time to adjust.

This easy extra income for the banks on what was same basic asset, a plot of land. Continued to grow and grow, accelerating until they hit a brick wall and they ran out of credit worthy consumers, or priced them out of the market. So they altered or bent or broke the rules to keep the scheme going. Bringing in millions of hard working simple joe six packs, who are told, "don't worry you can afford the mortgage on this place, you'll only be paying this low interest rate". What these borrowers didn't realise of course was that this was the teaser rate and in three years it was going to blow up in their face.

When this happened to these outliers, it crashed the value of property. Which bankrupted speculators and property developers which caused the banks to start calling in all these loans which would have been on a solid footing for the home owners if their homes had only held their value. (Sure some people had taken out second mortgages that relied on property price increases, but i don't want to get hung up on individual details).

---

The idea that there was some mass consumption other than people just making purchases to get by is a con to push the blame on those that work for a living in the economy.

Sure plebs shouldn't be carrying any debt, like having multiple credit cards. But think about that example, they're getting paid fuck all and have car payments and food bills and then their kid is taken ill and work knocks them back to four days a week, etc. etc. They just look for a lifeline and from there things add up. Liar loans were just another lifeline. They didn't look too deeply into it. No one was telling them it was all an house of cards and that they'll lose everything.

This is why we have government planners, and laws to help stop this shit from happening to the greater multitudo. But you see, all this machinery of state had been dismantled in the US, by the criminal arse mutherfucking banker scum.

One action far outweighs the other in import to explain whose to blame for this mess.

---

;-]

love dleetr.

  On 6/9/2012 at 12:29 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 6/9/2012 at 12:26 AM, baph said:

I definitely wasn't arguing for only experiential learning, either.

 

It's just funny when, you know, an 18 year old kid living off his parent's dime in college and who never worked a day in his life hears about Sartre saying hell is other people and is like, 'oh yeah, I can fucking relate.' Unless he got the shit kicked out of him all his life. Which he probably did. BAD EXAMPLE

 

Quote I like to (attempt to) live by:

 

Be Kind, Everyone You Meet is Fighting a Hard Battle

 

-Plato (Actually I'm not sure if anyone knows who first said it)

truth regardless of attribution

On the housing market/economy, everything and anyone involved was to blame. Most of all the regulating institutions/politics. Although I'm getting a feeling we've been in this discussion before.

So, nevermind.

*starts doing a philosophy major...and burps*

  On 6/9/2012 at 12:35 AM, delet... said:

  On 6/8/2012 at 9:02 PM, chenGOD said:

  On 6/8/2012 at 2:23 AM, delet... said:

Yeah, i hate to admit it. But the guy is amazing. Well except for the area that he actually had a job in. In one video he blames the housing crisis on home owners and doesn't bother including the fraudulent practises of the banks and their surrogates. Which is typical of his class. Everything is a fault of those plebs and their big TVs, it's so easy to convince themselves of that.

 

gleh.

 

But other than that, yeah the fact that he actually seems to have some grasp of a lot of the things that he is teaching, amazes me.

 

Incredible - people leverage themselves to the fucking hilt and go into insane amounts of debt, and somehow it's the banks' fault?

 

Now, don't get me wrong, the banks are not blameless, they way the resold the complex packaged debt as being low risk is reprehensible, but people making 40k a year thinking they can have huge houses, 3 cars etc are fucking idiots.

 

There is the myth mate, and you've bought into it too.

 

Cheap credit meant that the property market was filled with speculators trying to make a profit by holding a property and then flipping it after a couple of years. This massively pushed the price up of real estate. You would have normal houses. which had become priced beyond the means of the average consumer due to this speculation on the land value (a house generally depreciates over time in value) . This all happened so quickly that the culture didn't have time to adjust.

 

This easy extra income for the banks on what was same basic asset, a plot of land. Continued to grow and grow, accelerating until they hit a brick wall and they ran out of credit worthy consumers, or priced them out of the market. So they altered or bent or broke the rules to keep the scheme going. Bringing in millions of hard working simple joe six packs, who are told, "don't worry you can afford the mortgage on this place, you'll only be paying this low interest rate". What these borrowers didn't realise of course was that this was the teaser rate and in three years it was going to blow up in their face.

 

When this happened to these outliers, it crashed the value of property. Which bankrupted speculators and property developers which caused the banks to start calling in all these loans which would have been on a solid footing for the home owners if their homes had only held their value. (Sure some people had taken out second mortgages that relied on property price increases, but i don't want to get hung up on individual details).

 

---

 

The idea that there was some mass consumption other than people just making purchases to get by is a con to push the blame on those that work for a living in the economy.

 

Sure plebs shouldn't be carrying any debt, like having multiple credit cards. But think about that example, they're getting paid fuck all and have car payments and food bills and then their kid is taken ill and work knocks them back to four days a week, etc. etc. They just look for a lifeline and from there things add up. Liar loans were just another lifeline. They didn't look too deeply into it. No one was telling them it was all an house of cards and that they'll lose everything.

 

This is why we have government planners, and laws to help stop this shit from happening to the greater multitudo. But you see, all this machinery of state had been dismantled in the US, by the criminal arse mutherfucking banker scum.

 

One action far outweighs the other in import to explain whose to blame for this mess.

 

---

 

;-]

 

love dleetr.

  On 6/9/2012 at 12:35 AM, delet... said:

  On 6/8/2012 at 9:02 PM, chenGOD said:

  On 6/8/2012 at 2:23 AM, delet... said:

Yeah, i hate to admit it. But the guy is amazing. Well except for the area that he actually had a job in. In one video he blames the housing crisis on home owners and doesn't bother including the fraudulent practises of the banks and their surrogates. Which is typical of his class. Everything is a fault of those plebs and their big TVs, it's so easy to convince themselves of that.

 

gleh.

 

But other than that, yeah the fact that he actually seems to have some grasp of a lot of the things that he is teaching, amazes me.

 

Incredible - people leverage themselves to the fucking hilt and go into insane amounts of debt, and somehow it's the banks' fault?

 

Now, don't get me wrong, the banks are not blameless, they way the resold the complex packaged debt as being low risk is reprehensible, but people making 40k a year thinking they can have huge houses, 3 cars etc are fucking idiots.

 

There is the myth mate, and you've bought into it too.

 

Cheap credit meant that the property market was filled with speculators trying to make a profit by holding a property and then flipping it after a couple of years. This massively pushed the price up of real estate. You would have normal houses. which had become priced beyond the means of the average consumer due to this speculation on the land value (a house generally depreciates over time in value) . This all happened so quickly that the culture didn't have time to adjust.

 

This easy extra income for the banks on what was same basic asset, a plot of land. Continued to grow and grow, accelerating until they hit a brick wall and they ran out of credit worthy consumers, or priced them out of the market. So they altered or bent or broke the rules to keep the scheme going. Bringing in millions of hard working simple joe six packs, who are told, "don't worry you can afford the mortgage on this place, you'll only be paying this low interest rate". What these borrowers didn't realise of course was that this was the teaser rate and in three years it was going to blow up in their face.

 

When this happened to these outliers, it crashed the value of property. Which bankrupted speculators and property developers which caused the banks to start calling in all these loans which would have been on a solid footing for the home owners if their homes had only held their value. (Sure some people had taken out second mortgages that relied on property price increases, but i don't want to get hung up on individual details).

 

---

 

The idea that there was some mass consumption other than people just making purchases to get by is a con to push the blame on those that work for a living in the economy.

 

Sure plebs shouldn't be carrying any debt, like having multiple credit cards. But think about that example, they're getting paid fuck all and have car payments and food bills and then their kid is taken ill and work knocks them back to four days a week, etc. etc. They just look for a lifeline and from there things add up. Liar loans were just another lifeline. They didn't look too deeply into it. No one was telling them it was all an house of cards and that they'll lose everything.

 

This is why we have government planners, and laws to help stop this shit from happening to the greater multitudo. But you see, all this machinery of state had been dismantled in the US, by the criminal arse mutherfucking banker scum.

 

One action far outweighs the other in import to explain whose to blame for this mess.

 

---

 

;-]

 

love dleetr.

Yes I know how a housing bubble works, Vancouver is in the midst of one.

Just so I'm clear, you're saying there should be no personal responsibility?

  On 6/9/2012 at 1:08 AM, chenGOD said:

Yes I know how a housing bubble works, Vancouver is in the midst of one.

Just so I'm clear, you're saying there should be no personal responsibility?

So you're not going to take back the "big screen tVs" rubbish?

heh. le sie.

I'm going for a walk.

what big screen TVs rubbish? If I'm making fuck all, then some banker tells me I can up my credit rating, or that the value of my house is only going to continue to appreciate despite the fact that I haven't done any improvements on the house and it would be a great idea to take out a second mortgage, and I don't do any research into the possible consequence, then I deserve everything I get.

It is not hard to find out the information required to make these decisions, which can have large consequences on an individual's life.

Note: I did not say the banks are totally blameless, not am I apportioning more blame to the people who did increase their credit limits or take out second mortgages. I'm saying that there needs to be some personal responsibility here. The banks need to take responsibility for houses which have been foreclosed on (someone linked to the Oakland city council's measure requiring this in order to reduce the impact of blight on neighborhoods), and as I said, the people who took those risky assets and packaged them with safer assets and sold them to investment funds should be found criminally culpable for the damages they caused to the economy, but I absolutely refuse to absolve those individuals who succumbed to greed and lived well beyond their means.

When Visa sent me a letter last month saying I could up my credit limit, despite me not working full time (or even really part time), you know what I did? I tore the fucking letter up because I know I can't afford it.

Bravo, blaming the little people. It shows how great you are.

  On 6/9/2012 at 2:44 AM, Kanakori said:

Bravo, blaming the little people. It shows how great you are.

Bravo, lacking reading comprehension. It shows how much there is left to your education.

there's enough blame to go around. everyone shares it.

You want me to speak in portuguese, french, mandarin?? I'd like to see you interpret everything to perfection... Tell me where did I get you wrong? You clrearly take the side of the bankers here. You assume most people affected understood the economic conjuncture when in reality they were just attracted by the fees. It's the banks and the governement's fault. The banks loaned repacked home mortages to under-qualified buyers who subsequently defaulted on their payments and they had the obligation to know were that shit led to.

Do it in Putonghua, do it in Putonghua

OP sorry for getting off topic.

Some more reading: "The Abacus and the Sword" by Peter Duus is an interesting examination of the Japanese expansion into Korea at the turn of the 20th century. "ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age" by Andre Gunder Frank is a really really good examination of Asia's economic history before the era of Western colonization.