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David Rockefeller has died

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221–230 of 242 posts

Re: David Rockefeller has died

#221
post #217
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>forced immigration, cultural erasure, and overburdening of welfare states, which are conducive to increased conflict rather than increased cooperation. We have had all of those things for over a century in the US. You don't even have to be a citizen to be able to immigrate to any state in the union from any other state. "Cultural erasure" is even more nonsensical than "cultural appropriation". Overburdening of welfa…

You're arguing from the arrogant point of view that the USA is the pinnacle of civilization and other nations should strive to emulate it. European countries, and most other nations in the world, have/had native populations that enjoy cohesion through a common culture, history and ethnicity. Being American is a loose concept that a newcomer can easily adopt. Being Japanese or German carries with it more than just hav…

I'm arguing that it is incredibly hypocritical to criticise the EU without calling for the immediate dissolution of the US, just based on the arguments people use. The EU is a similar system that doesn't go nearly as far and has many things that make it more likely to be successful.

>A quarter of the population in the Netherlands is of non-Dutch origin and that number will grow significantly in the foreseeable future. That change happened in a mere 30 years or so. To say the Dutch people (and Belgians, Swedes, etc) should not worry about being displaced and made a minority in their own country is to tell them to stick their heads in the sand.

Has the EU forced this on them, or did they and their leaders want this? In Germany and Sweden it was their choice. The problem of immigration in the EU as a whole is a nonissue- that's what I'm saying. The problem of immigration in specific places is a direct result of choices made in those places.

Re: David Rockefeller has died

#222
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When Flexner researched his report, many American medical schools were "proprietary", namely small trade schools owned by one or more doctors, unaffiliated with a college or university, and run to make a profit. A degree was typically awarded after only two years of study. Laboratory work and dissection were not necessarily required. Many of the instructors were local doctors teaching part-time, whose own training l…

Is the bar really high though? I find doctors in US for common procedures use outdated methods and charge astronomical fees. My experience of going to Australian hospitals was 10x better. In US it feels like doctors want to get as much money as they can from you while proving the lowest level of service possible. A very capitalist view to human life.

I feel there is also a big difference in motivation: reducing harm versus reducing personal blame.

No doctor can be sued for a patient who doesn't see them, so raising prices high, and using it for insurance has the benefit of insuring patients who see you, while those who can't pay aren't your patients, so if they come to harm because they can't afford to see you, not your problem.

Re: David Rockefeller has died

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why globalization must necessarily mean total domination by the "elites". Yes, it's a significant risk factor in that scenario, but the two don't come in a package, bound together with epoxy. It would only happen if we continue to refuse to address the issue of inequality - this time on a global scale. Some form of globalization is actually the best case scenario, the golden path for this world. It must i…

i don't think inequality can be solved by globalization. if you look at the poor countries, you'll find a multitude of structural problems. until these structural problems are dealt with, globalization is likely to feed corruption. i agree that globalization would reduce the risk of global conflict - there would only be one side. thus, if the wrong people were in power there would be no way to fight them. that's scar…

Incidental, this is the main reason I voted for Brexit.

I see things like the hunt for Assange, (or Snowden) and am of the opinion that the more collected various governments are, the easier it is for them to prey on the divided populace.

Re: David Rockefeller has died

#224
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You really need to learn about Bill Gates before you judge him and publicly express your misguided views I don't care about any of his philanthropic deeds. As far as I'm concerned, they're all "fruit of the poisoned tree." Without his misdeeds, he'd never be in position to be the philanthropist he's become. If you want to talk misguided, you seem to think that he can atone for his past misdeeds. You're wrong. He se…

Your kind of world view is too black or white, you are lacking the continuum spectrum of gray that permeates all of human existence. I'm not the one to defend Bill Gates, I think his business practices were atrocious for a lot of industries and we are going to feel the wake of it for a while. With that said, I still think you have too much of a romanticized view of how the world "should be", the world isn't that and…

Isn't is inconsistent to say a

> world view is too black or white

yet also say:

> that ship has sailed

It is impossible to tell whatever would happen if there was no Bill Gates business practices in the world; Maybe if I burn down your house you'd find hidden gold coins in the ashes? You should still oppose me burning down your house.

Re: David Rockefeller has died

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More fake news. China was closed from roughly 1950 - 1972. In 1920 they'd just overthrown the last dynasty and were trying to establish a democracy, so, it makes sense they'd be in contact with the US at that time. Unfortunately there were some assassinations and their multi-party system never got off the ground. There are probably tons of optimistic articles about US-Chinese relationships in the mid-1970s, as well a…

Ok, I finally found a good reference: "In the 1960s and 1970s, David Rockefeller, then-chairman of Chase Manhattan, frequently visited Hong Kong and opened more branch offices there. In 1973, the bank became the Bank of China's first American correspondent bank." [0] The guy who wrote the book in 2016 has an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard, works for the Congressional Research Service and is an affiliate fac…

No, that is not fake news. The title of the book is loaded but the facts you cited are unbiased.

There is a big difference between this and saying that Rockefeller advocated genocide, or that there's something wrong with the US and China having trade relations.

I don't think it's any secret or part of a conspiracy that Rockefeller worked to establish economic ties with China. It was part of his job. Bankers, hate them or love them, are part of the economy.

Re: David Rockefeller has died

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is bad, but eliminating extreme poverty is really, really good.

If the lower and middle classes of a country don't benefit from globalism(like the US right now), political instability and widespread disdain for globalism will result. It may be a net positive overall, but it doesn't mean much if everyone around me is losing their jobs. If globalism is that important to lift other countries out of poverty, then we need to find a more sustainable way to carry it out.

The lower and middle classes benefit from globalization by nature of not being sent off to die at war as often.

Re: David Rockefeller has died

#227
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 100M people from Africa/ME showed up in Europe, you think this would be a good thing for the world?

Over a long period of time? Why not. America is nearly 100% immigrants.

> Why not.

Because Europe is liberal, secular, literate, and (consequently) scientifically, technologically, and economically advanced. Africa is none of those things. Whatever your ideals about equality are, you cannot deny that there is something about Africans, whether it's their cultures or their religions or their DNA or some other factor. (In case you reflexively want to accuse me of racism for that last possible cause, if you'd like I can break out the list of high-quality scientific publications demonstrating that intelligence and certain measurable behaviors have been demonstrated to be strongly heritable and that those genes differ substantially across geographically separated populations.)

No matter the cause, Europe can not hope to sustain its preeminence in these matters if it gets blasted full of people who are culturally antithetical to them. You can't hope to have a functioning scientific community if certain ascientific beliefs are legally mandated, for example.

The simplest explanation for why America is successful in the exact same way as Europe is that all the people who colonized North America come from Europe, and share whatever European je ne sais quoi is conducive to that success, whether it's cultural, religious, genetic, or any other heritable condition.

I'm fairly sure this post will be shocking to you and you'll react angrily to it, but I ask you to just take a moment to consider where you think my argument falls apart factually rather than just automatically labelling it as "colonialist" or "xenophobic" or something and then completely ignoring its contents. The fact of the matter is that Africa really sucks and is really backwards, whereas Europe doesn't and isn't, and when people move somewhere they take a little bit of where they came from with them. Do you really think America would be the same, in any respect, as it is today if it was never settled by Europeans?

Re: David Rockefeller has died

#228
post #96

I am, by most metrics, an ardent globalist; I advocate absolute free trade and absolute free movement. However, it's not very hard to recognize that many people's definition of globalism effectively includes such things as forced immigration, cultural erasure, and overburdening of welfare states, which are conducive to increased conflict rather than increased cooperation.

>forced immigration, cultural erasure, and overburdening of welfare states, which are conducive to increased conflict rather than increased cooperation. We have had all of those things for over a century in the US. You don't even have to be a citizen to be able to immigrate to any state in the union from any other state. "Cultural erasure" is even more nonsensical than "cultural appropriation". Overburdening of welfa…

Are you familiar with https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict... ?

This is a good example of how relatively small populations can have huge cultural effects.

Another example is how migrants from Islamic countries can carry out terrorist attacks and completely change European and American culture for the worse. The loss of American travel culture post 9/11 is tragic, and I can't think of a better word to describe it than "erasure".

Paris is now building a wall around the Eiffel Tower, thanks entirely to recent massacres committed by strongly religious immigrants for religious reasons.

Heavily Muslim neighborhoods in the U.K. have volunteer "sharia police" that harass women for dressing "immodestly".

Swedish officials removed traditional Christmas displays from Muslim areas, and then blamed the structural integrity of lamp posts (yes, really) when asked why.

Cultural erasure doesn't take a huge influx of people; it just takes a small population with aggressively viral cultural memes and a host culture with insufficient memetic defenses.

But, of course, I must be a racist for preferring European culture over throwing gays off buildings, women being unable to drive or show their faces, etc. etc.

Re: David Rockefeller has died

#229
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>forced immigration, cultural erasure, and overburdening of welfare states, which are conducive to increased conflict rather than increased cooperation. We have had all of those things for over a century in the US. You don't even have to be a citizen to be able to immigrate to any state in the union from any other state. "Cultural erasure" is even more nonsensical than "cultural appropriation". Overburdening of welfa…

Are you familiar with https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict... ? This is a good example of how relatively small populations can have huge cultural effects. Another example is how migrants from Islamic countries can carry out terrorist attacks and completely change European and American culture for the worse. The loss of American travel culture post 9/11 is tragic, and I can't think of a better…

>But, of course, I must be a racist for preferring European culture over throwing gays off buildings, women being unable to drive or show their faces, etc. etc.

Racist is exactly what that is. That's not who Syrian refugees are, or who muslims are. This is who they are: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/female-soldier-dubbe...

Muslims are people, not culture-destroying machines. Bowing to them and throwing away a much larger group of people is wrong WHOEVER they are. It's wrong to destroy tradition, its wrong to allow vigilantes, and its wrong to turn away refugees. You're defining a huge group of people by the worst of them. If you're calling for a halt or reduction to immigration, you're denying the rest of them even a chance. That is certainly racist.

But... shops carrying halal/kosher food? Living with different cultures and religions? There's nothing wrong with that. The author is unconvincing.

>Another example is how migrants from Islamic countries can carry out terrorist attacks and completely change European and American culture for the worse. The loss of American travel culture post 9/11 is tragic, and I can't think of a better word to describe it than "erasure".

That is an alarming distortion of facts. Instability in the middle east is not the same as muslim immigration into the US. The attacks were carried out by men on visas, not immigrants. Immigration is never easier than getting a visa, and halting immigration doesn't make it harder to attack a country.

>Cultural erasure doesn't take a huge influx of people; it just takes a small population with aggressively viral cultural memes and a host culture with insufficient memetic defenses.

Tripe. The existence of other cultures does not destroy culture. This assertion is insane. When a store chooses to carry kosher meat, they make that choice. When a mexican store opens, they buy the land and their customers choose to shop there.

>Swedish officials removed traditional Christmas displays from Muslim areas, and then blamed the structural integrity of lamp posts (yes, really) when asked why.

Do you not see how the middle ground is disireable...? Muslims should not force Swedes to wear hijabs, but muslims in sweden should at least be free enough to choose to wear one. Likewise they cannot force the government to act secularly, but maybe muslim-majority areas also shouldn't be forcibly decorated for christmas. It's a small kindness, and not an extreme one. Do you get mad if your jewish neighbors don't put up stockings?

>Heavily Muslim neighborhoods in the U.K. have volunteer "sharia police" that harass women for dressing "immodestly".

Had. From 2013-2014. Those men were arrested and imprisoned. The Muslim community condemned them as "utterly unacceptable". "Christian patrol"s sprang up in response and are just as morally disgusting. You're taking an incident that everybody hated and blaming it on some mysterious them. This is the exact propaganda technique used by the KKK and pretty much every racist hate group. In short- you're being racist as fuck.

Re: David Rockefeller has died

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they do benefit from globalisation, they can all afford flatscreen TVs, and a mobile device with internet access, for example. Stuff is incredibly cheap in the US, and is getting cheaper all the time. The US has a really bad track record when it comes to distributing the gains of globalisation in terms of disposable income, it is absolutely not the case that "a rising tide lifts all boats", because the gains ha…

It is true that some electronics are cheaper, but much of the lower class is becoming unable to purchase a house or afford an education. Plus there are other expenses that didn't exist in the past, such as internet and cell phone bills. Edit: The quality of life for the lower class has also gone down, since wages have gone down & both people of a family are basically required to work nowadays. How have other western…

> How have other western countries managed this better? Can any of the methods used by those countries you speak of be used in the US?

Of course, but the American people are generally extremely skeptical of the idea that other countries might do things better, and any US politician that tried would immediately be branded a dirty, stinking, socialist. Because that's what you need, a little bit of socialism.

You need to tax the individuals and corporations that make the biggest gains from globalisation.

You need to redistribute that wealth to the individuals that are hardest hit by globalisation, those whose jobs are disappearing.

You need to invest in education, so the next generations are competitive in the global marketplace, and you need to invest in re-education, so that the indivuals whose jobs are gone can get a different job in a different industry.

(And to be fair, the US is doing these things, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Regional_Developme.... It's just not enough.)

I'm not saying the Scandinavian countries are socialist utopias, there's definitely problems, but they don't suffer from this particular problem. When in the US, inflation-adjusted income has remained steady since the 70's for the lower half of the population, in Scandianvia, the inflation-adjusted income has risen for everyone. Yes, the gap between richest and poorest has increased as well, but as long as everyone is getting it a little bit better all the time, it's easier for society to bear.

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