worst invention ever?

[Lockeownzj00]

Becuase while it may seem a little funny, the fact is that anarchy does not mean '0' organization, and it is in fact a political idea. Therefore, a 'political' party that supports anarchy would not nessecerily be in direct violation of anarchist princeples. They have groups with members and everything.

Buy thinking it ironic and non-sensical, you show little understanding of what anarchy is.

..That said, it is kind of silly.

All this, plus the fact that anarchists would probably not try to win over through a construct of the current system.

Anyway.

Locke: I would put forward that calling 'language' an invention is similar to calling 'happiness' an invention. Anything as deep-wired into the human brain as language comprehension and usage is cannot be called an invention unless you call 'walking' an invention.

Linguists would disagree. Language is a meme which naturally develops. Happiness is an emotion.

[Mondt]

Originally Posted by Dasanudas

Quoted for truth, but on this note, without lying there would be no fiction. Do you really want a world without...oh, I don't know...8BT?

That would be a very, very far extension of lying, as it isn't even meant to give false information. Sure, it's saying something that hasn't really happened, but it... well... this is really, really hard to explain. I think you get it though.

Worst invention. There's two versions of this for me.

The opinionated one. And the serious one.

I don't think I'll say the opinionated one for fear of getting horribly off-topic and starting a flame war.

Serious one probably being fast food. McDonalds specifically.

[Transcend]

Locke, language is not merely a meme. It is deeply hardwired into the brain. Say, Mickey Mouse is a meme. Humans will devote neurons to Mickey Mouse. But there are not Mickeycenters in the brain. There are not structures dedicated entirely to Mickey Mouse, whereas the brain does have language structures. English is a memetic construct. German is a memetic construct. The human ability to use language is genetic. Individual languages may be memes, but language is not.

[Dasanudas]

I invented emotions you know. King Steve was all like, "I can't tell how people are reacting to me being elected." And I was all, "Idea!"

But seriously, it seems we are coming to the part I love best about discussions - defining the words! What do we consider an invention? Does an invention have to be a consciously strived for device or idea, or can something that slowly develops through many people be an invention?

For instance, internet language like the word w00t (excuse me while I slap myself for calling that a word) or perhaps a better example is "teh". I doubt anyone consciously sat down and decided to change the spelling of the word "the" into "teh" and then use it many many times like it was a correct spelling just to get it to catch on. Instead, many internet users commonly mistyped the word, and it just became part of internet jargon. So is this an actual invention?

Take in contrast styles and fashion. Here, though it is also gradual and it is also slowly adopted by other people, a style or fashion is someone sitting down and thinking it up.

Thus with language, I know of only two that people sat down and created whether slowly or quickly: Korean (and only the literary aspect of it) and Esperanto. Esperanto being a laughable example for just about anything. The rest were a gradual change in usage over time. Can this be considered an invention?

Edit: Lying than can be taken in various levels of rigidity. I qould agree with you, Skeleton, that simply saying something that isn't true is not meant when Fifth said lying was the worst invention, but it can be taken as lying in the strictest sense of the word - whether referring to misinformation of simply telling a story. In a more loose sense of the word, no story-telling is not lying because the purpose behind it is different. So with that in mind, perhaps a better way to put it is not that lying is the worst invention, but the desire to delude another person.

[ZERO.]

I think the worst invention ever was something that I made, it was a security system I made from a homemade electronic device that sent a electric shock to anything that touched it and could only be shut of by remote control.

The problem is that if the current was sent through the doorknob for to long it heated up, it messed up one of my door knobs by melting it to a metal slag. I have since then made some improvements to the design but still the prototype was a piece of shit.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Transcend

Holocaust? Now there's a bit of a leap. Millions of Chinese died under Mao Zedong, but the vast majority of them were as a result of the disastrous agricultural program Great Leap Forward and the ensuing famine. Never have the Chinese engaged in mass intentional genocide. Actually, Tibet excluded (and that's a very complex issue), the CCP was far, far more tolerant of minorites than the KMT was. I'm not going to say China has a stellar history or that its recent history hasn't been punctuated by appaling abuses of power. But at the same time you need to look at the bigger picture. Could the Kuomintang--a vicious organization known for wholesale slaughter of political dissidents--have governed a fractous, rebellious China any better? Would China today be better off if it were a pseudo-feudal military dictatorship?

True to a small extent, Transcend, but we're debating on different wavelengths, here.

Approximately 49 million Chinese citizens died during the disasterous agricultural revolution and 'Great Leap Forward' Mao Zedong institutionalized. It's worth noting that Mao, like most dictators -- whether of the leftist or rightest sort -- executed thousands upon thousands of intellectuals and other private elites who he deemed opposed him.

Now, your argument basically stems down to, "Well, sure. But the nationalist Kuomintang party was arguably just as bad, if not worse. Thus, communism was a good thing for China."

Ehh. That's a dangerous game to play, because we really have no idea exactly what would have happened if the nationalists in China stayed in power. Yes, they could have continued their militaristic feudalism.

BUT, just as the United States managed to drastically alter the once-fascist states of Germany and Japan, it's entirely possible that if the U.S.-friendly Kuomintang stayed in power, the U.S. could have greatly influenced the development of a capitalist, democratic state. Heck, democracy and capitalism was supposed to be impossible in West Germany and Japan but it's worked very well to improve the lives and livelihoods of peoples in both nations. (Well, Japan arguably isn't democratic, but it's *about* as democratic as an east-Asian society influenced by east-Asian cultural values is likely to get.)

What would have happened had the communist revolution in China failed? Well, nobody really knows. 100 million people could have died. Only a few thousand people could have died. Peace, stability, and a tranquil transfer to a democratic state emulating American economic and dual-party political systems could have feasibly developed. After all, there was nothing America salivated more at -- even as far back as the 1890s -- than the possibility of influencing the billion people of China into buying their products.

Would the establishment of capitalism and American influence as early as the late 1940s have necessarily been a good thing for China? We can never really say, because we can't jump to a parallel universe and find out for ourselves. I suspect, given the examples of Japan and Germany, that a U.S.-friendly Kuomintang government -- one which, had they beat the communists with U.S. supplies, would owe the U.S. quite a lot -- would have reformed reasonably quickly and achieved relative stability. Heck, culturally speaking democracy isn't as impossible as one might assume in a nation that believes in cylical dynasties. As opposed to the dynasties of emperors, you'd ideally have transfers of power between dueling political parties.

I'd wager a bet that had Mao Zedong lost in China, the Chinese would be better off today than they were before. That's a total guess, mind you, and it's entirely possible that the truth of the matter is that the Kuomintang would have continued being just as vicious after the resolution of WW2. Heck, for all I know, had the Kuomintang stayed in power there could have been a nuclear armaggedon. However, I suspect that the Kuomintang would have initially resisted U.S. interference, but threats from the Soviet Union and North Korea would ultimately cause China to have accepted strenous U.S.-mandated measures to combat communism from becoming an issue again.

To get back to your initial point and actually answer your critique, I'm merely saying that it's the wrong sort of blanket statement to say that a political movement that resulted in the deaths of millions of Chinese -- not to mention, as you noted, the subjugation of Tibet -- was definitely a "good" thing for China. It might have been the best possible solution. It also, however, could have been the worst. And when your assumption is based on the historical evidence of how the Kuomintang acted in a previous era, you ignore the potentiality that had the Kuomintang remained in power, they would have found themselves in a very different sort of global atmosphere, and they might have changed their behaviorisms accordingly.

[Transcend]

Your argument seems to be, "Well, we have absolutely no idea what would have happened," in quite a few words. I am tempted to go through paragraph by paragraph, but fundamentally our argument is not about the specifics of Chinese history.

You believe that US, being an extremely active pro-democratic force, pressures would have forced the Kuomintang to democratize and modernize. I believe the the United States is a conservative pro-democratic force, rarely attempting to reform dictatorships except when absolutely necessary.

I believe that had Jiang Jieshi successfully turned on and eliminated Mao Zedong during the Sino-Japanese war, the United States would have continued its pre-war China policy of military support but noninterference. Taking our actions in South America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia as my basis, I believe that the United States would have provided large amounts of money--which would have been poorly-spent--to the KMT government in return for basing opportunites. They would eagerly accept our "interference". They did before and after 1949. Both the ROC and the USA would agree that the best way to keep communism out was by not rocking the boat, and by stamping out communists wherever they appeared. Our interference would not extend beyond cash, airplanes, and tanks. It rarely has.

No initial attempts would be made to democratize the ROC, as stability and defense against the USSR would be much higher priorities. The status quo would persist until the Chinese populace turned slightly against the United States for its support--the farmers angry at feudal banditry, the cities, no longer fearing 'Red Bandits,' turning their anger back towards the corruption in the KMT government--at which point real democratization would become detrimental to United States interests. Likely Soviet-sponsored Maoist guerillas would plague the countryside for decades, giving the KMT a constant excuse for its dictatorship. I see no reason for either the US or the KMT to launch reform movements at any point.

Now, West Germany and Japan are often used as analogies. Unfortunately, they rarely apply. In both Germany and Japan, the nation was well-organized and cohesive. The rule of law was well respected in the histories of both, and nationalism was a strong force. And, most importantly, the United States wiped the slate clean and drew up new governments from scratch. None of these apply to KMT China. China was fractured and divided, nationalism was burgeoning but took a back seat to regionalism, and the notion of rule of law was laughable. And the US would have to change it by slow pressure--a method that largely failed to produce results during the Cold War. Dictators do not have a history of giving up power to settle debts. Rather, they know (correctly) that the United States, constantly worried about the Soviets, will settle for merely being strong allies.

I've never seen anything that would suggest that the KMT would suddenly, radically reform itself, or that the US had more than passing interest in human-rights reform in friendly dictatorships. And so I cannot believe that the KMT would have been a better choice for the Chinese.

But as for predictions...they're largely worthless. If I were smart I would have predicted something like the Great Cultural Revolution was in the cards. After all, Mao did firmly believe in constant revolution. But I would never have predicted the Great Leap Forward. I would not have thought that a man of peasant stock, supported by peasants, who had lived as a peasant-warrior for two decades would have the idea that farming should be collectivized and run by Beijing bureaucrats or that steelworking was a job for farmers. And I would not have thought that the central leadership, with its eyes everywhere and its support coming from the grateful peasantry, would have managed to be oblivious to a famine.

So yes, I fundamentally agree that we simply don't know what the hell the KMT would have done. I believe it would have been worse for China. You believe it would have been better I stand by my original point--I still do not support claiming that China certainly would have been better served by the KMT.

[Mannix]

Actually, we can have a pretty good idea about what would have happened in China had the KMT stayed in power. That idea is called "Taiwan." That's where the KMT cadre and a large segment of the KMT-loyal population fled to after the Communists siezed power. Take what you like from that.

[Lockeownzj00]

Locke, language is not merely a meme. It is deeply hardwired into the brain. Say, Mickey Mouse is a meme. Humans will devote neurons to Mickey Mouse. But there are not Mickeycenters in the brain. There are not structures dedicated entirely to Mickey Mouse, whereas the brain does have language structures. English is a memetic construct. German is a memetic construct. The human ability to use language is genetic. Individual languages may be memes, but language is not.

I'm telling you you're wrong about language. This isn't a guess. This is what I study.

How, pray tell, do languages emerge, then? In your hypothetical world, everyone speaks the same language. No, language isn't hardwired into the brain, I'm afraid. The ability is hard-wired, and an infant will acquire what he comes across--often more than one, leading to the wonder that is bilingualism.

Also, I believe you are changing what you originally stated. I know that there's a difference between the capability in the brain and the actual language--why would an organ be a meme? I'm pretty sure you switched tracks at some point.

Thus with language, I know of only two that people sat down and created whether slowly or quickly: Korean (and only the literary aspect of it) and Esperanto. Esperanto being a laughable example for just about anything. The rest were a gradual change in usage over time. Can this be considered an invention?

There's a lot more than that. Japanese's writing system, Chinese's simplifcation, Vietnam's move to roman characters, Russian's move to cyrillic. I'm positive there's more.

On constructed languages, do a little reading. Quite interesting.

[Dasanudas]

Well, I did state that I only know of two, not that there were only two, so thank you for correcting me on that one, nor did I state anything about constructed languages other than I knew of two, and that Esperanto was laughable and by that I mean that it was heralded as being a universal second language, and now has roughly 100,000 to 2 million fluent speakers -hardly universal (just about anything being exagerration for effect). In any case, it was nice to see the articles on constructed languages, but I didn't get an answer to the question: can this be considered an invention? Is your position yes then?

Also, on the subject of China and KMC and all that, I am quickly leaning towards changing my idea for worst invention ever as to being the action of hijacking threads.