Demetz

Clumber, that was a very insightful post and very well written with many very good points Machiavellianism, particularly that philosophy which is espoused in The Prince, which can be found online since its been in the public domain for centuries, is a theory I take to very well. Similar theories collectively referred to as Realism can be found in texts as ancient as Sun Tzu, or as recent as Bismarck's writings. The saying that is most generally attributed to Machiavelli is "The ends justify the means" and this is essentially accurate, but it is important to point out which ends justify using the means as well as something key to why the means are justifiable. The "ends" in this case are the formation of a stronger, more stable state, which is on the whole very beneficial for the people. A powerful stable state does not get invaded and have its people slaughtered, for instance. Additionally, a strong, stable state allows trade to flourish, strengthening the state even further as well as improving the condition of the people. What means are acceptable to achieve this end? Any means necessary, as the saying goes, but think about that statement... it does not mean that you do whatever you want. It means you do what is necessary to achieve it, and the means to achieve an end are judged by their effectiveness in doing so. Consider the example Machiavelli uses of Agathocles, as a man who uses cruelty well. Agathocles deceived a large number of political opponents, who could arguably have been considered representatives of a corrupt oligarchy, into putting themselves out into the open, he then had them all murdered. This had several beneficial effects. He was hailed as a hero by all those who hated the deceased, resulting in a gain in political authority. This was backed up by an aura of fear amongst the people that they ought not cross him, further solidifying his position as their leader. Finally, having removed all those who openly dissented his power, the people were unified under him and far better able to withstand the wars to come with Carthage. It is important to point out that Agathocles was not cruel to the people throughout his reign. Rather, the cruelty took place quickly in the beginning and through the rest he was relatively benign. This is how Machiavelli praises the use of cruelty, and for good reason. The people can shake off the shock of cruelty that does not last long, especially if it delivers beneficial results, but prolong the cruelty over a long period of time, and the people will come to resent and eventually dissent the one responsible for it, which would lead to unrest that would weaken the state.

I guess now would be a good time to point out I do not mirror my own personal philosophy off of Rand, but merely find some of the things she has to say to be of value. And I do have to agree that she can be damned long-winded... By the time I got to part 3 of Atlas shrugged there was so much reiteration going on i skipped through a good portion of it. Her ideas concerning romance... well, i agree to the extent tha you should encourage someone's talents rather than their flaws... but the interplay she has some of her characters doing.... MILD SPOILERS AHEAD . . . .

Thats an interesting point you made about the philanthropists... I'm reminded of Andrew Carnegie's essay concerning what is best to be done with an ammassed fortune. He argued very strongly against leaving fortunes to heirs, rather, he advocated, essentially, for the formation of charitable trusts to be administered by trusted and capable persons, and leaving the heir enough to start their own business, but not more. That actually makes a great deal of sense to me As for the diamonds... is it really that the diamonds are bad, or simply the excessive greed that leads so many to do terrible things to others? I have a feeling Aristotle's theories concerning staying between excess and deficiency would be pertinent here... I do have to say I think diamonds are severely over-valued. Amusingly enough, they are artificially growing diamonds in a "factory" of sorts not too far from here... they are grown to be a "perfect" as can be... except the company is required to mark them as having been grown, which reduces their market value... frankly, I don't think that's right......

I'll start it out with one that seems to make a lot of people's heads implode.... Rand. There are many areas of Ayn Rand's philosophy, particularly as espoused in the book Atlas Shrugged that I admire. Especially concerning a little essay on money... Many people say that money is the root of all evil, or barring that, they often will say the love of money is the root of all evil. Rand points out the severe error in these statements. How can money be the root of all evil when what it represents is the value of a person's productivity? Those who are very productive get more money. What is wrong with that? As for the love of money being the root of all evil... the problem with such a statement is that to love money would require an understanding of what it is and what it represents and there is absolutely nothing at all wrong with loving productivity. After all, it is through productivity that our society advances. Another point she makes is concerning the attitudes that some people will express. Many will complain when someone inherits a bunch of money, for example... as though they somehow deserved it more than the heir did. But... if the heir is fit to administer the estate, the same heir could have built his own anyway. Alternatively, if the heir is not capable, then all the money handed to him will dissolve anyway. Why should you feel jealous? If you are capable, then you will make the fortune yourself without the need for one to be handed to you, and if you are incapable, then you would just as surely fail as the pampered air-headed heir.

Pudding! hehehe Actually there are many euphemisms in the form of metaphors that are very amusing to me... but none quite come to mind tonight >_<

I remember hearing about this before... its somewhat amusing but not exactly a new concept. Basically, they used a chemical substance to alter the flies' perception. You know what they call that with humans? Beer. Come to think of it, the last story I remember about this featured using specifically alcohol to mess up the flies' perception to the effect of turning many of them "gay" Of course the flies do not self-identify as gay, they merely classify themself as msm

Tonight I was very thankful for my friend Gavin... He called me up and when he found out about my cold he offered to take me out for the evening... we went swimming and hit the hot tub... and we went out and got some food, had our meal in a park, and closed the night watching two kendo masters spar at the community center. A very pleasant evening

I have no idea what you are talking about. I find most kinds of pudding to be absolutely delicious. If you do not like pudding, then that is a personal problem

My mom caught me jacking off once... Also, in college, my roomate went the whole year without knowing about it... until the on the last day it fell out of my closet... and there it was, a great big dildo.

This one is probably my favorite, its called "To Zanarkand" http://youtube.com/watch?v=rLnZ5jcsRpc Its incredibly beautiful orchestra music

Thats one of my favorite flavors too... Though i also like pudding with some carmel flavoring...

... Pudding?

Hell no, I'm not happy with my job! :mace: I should be interning at a law firm, not serving tables at a restaurant

Well I know I'm craving a cuddly kitty cat

Hmm... you crave a cuddly kitty cat?

I often find myself craving mint chocalate chip ice cream. Also, I often crave orange, apple, or grape juice. Often, if I've gone a while without something sweet, I'll develop a craving for cake, or cookies.

Okay, so monday, i go out with my friend and her fiance. We saw vantage point.... I loved it. President Ashton... has a nice ring to it, lol. After the movie we went to dinner at Chilis.... I love their Nachos and they have this tasty fruity drink that goes 2 for 1. After dinner we went driving... didn't really care where we were going... drove all the way to the end of university parkway, then turned around and went the other direction towards the airport. It was during this time that I amused myself poking my friend in the side and making her squeak. In turn, she made a game out of attempting and failling to grab me by the crotch. We were headed to the airfield on the idea that we could watch the planes come in late at night... we looked around and saw the coppers all about and decided maybe this was not a good place to be. Eventually we ended up parked in the back of a Publix parking lot. Thats where the windows started getting foggy. You see, my friend liked the idea of seeing her fiance with another guy. Well its been a while, so I figured... why not? I was in the back seat while she was... erhm... playing with him... I started by just rubbing his shoulders and eventually she told him to join me in the back seat... it was there I made my fatal error. You see, earlier in the night his nose had been running a bit. I, like my friend, assumed it was from allergies... but when I siezed his lips, I unknowingly siezed his cold! The next day was okay, but the day after i woke up with a sore throat. I thought nothing of it really, but by the end of work that day I was at a whisper - not good since I work as a server in a restaurant. It was later that night it suddenly occurred to me that I contracted this sore throat only a couple days after being "with" my friend's fiance. I soon remembered that many stds can infect any mucus membrane they come into contact with... The thought that my friend's fiance could have just given my throat gonorrhea was not pleasant at all! I stayed up as late as I could that night. I had asked Dwayne to send me some pictures of Alex, and to call me afterward. He told me he'd be on sometime after 12:30 and would call after sending the pictures... I only managed to stay up till 1:05 before rolling over and passing out. I found out the next morning he came online only 3 minutes later. It was that morning I had to be up early to get to the doctor's office before too much of a line formed. Well it turned out that morning was special and the doctor's office didn't actually open for 3 and a half hours after their normal working hours. A little after 1 I finally saw a doctor... who promptly informed me that despite my very sore throat I was not sick enough to merit treatment and that it was probably viral and the fact that it came shortly after giving oral was probably just a coincidence. I received no treatment, not even a prescription... instead she told me to buy some over the counter claritin or zyrtec to take care of my sinuses. They don't work by the way So I managed to end up missing several days of work... I look like hell and sound like it too. I do feel a bit better now, but I can't work as a server if I appear sickly-like. If anything, this whole experience should serve as a sign that borrowing another person's significant other, even when asked to do so, is not a good idea. I caught a cold this time around. I'd rather not catch anything worse Oh, and I wrote a bit for Liberty Island, and a few pages of Nathan and David part 2. I haven't really decided posting order, but I think I'll keep writing on everything, and post only for one story at a time, and the occasional teaser so you have some idea of what I'm working on. That way, new postings will come more regularly than they have as time goes on.

Actually, I was going to suggest Orlando *cough* Disney *cough* as the next GA get together...

For my own amusement, I started keeping track of how many new reads and reviews I was getting for each of my stories as well as keeping track of how many new chapters are being put out on a week to week basis... this helps me track how popular stories are in the present, rather than just how many times they have ever been read. My good friend TL The Writing Tiger mentioned that would be an excellent thing to add to a blog... and so I tried to do just that... the thing is, it wouldn't all fit into a custom content block, so I had to cut it down some. Until I can figure out a way to display all the information, for now it shows the stories; how many new chapters they have and how many total; how many new reads they've received over the past week and how many total; and what their average rating is. I'll be updating this on a week to week basis...

http://www.gayauthors.org/efiction/viewsto...&chapter=11 I wrote this several months ago, but at that time I could not quite bring myself to actually post it among the other poems I have written for Silven... however, as time has passed, and much of the pain has eased, I think it may be suitable after all. Its not the happiest poem, it certainly took a lot out of me, though at that time it was more reflecting pain already present... even in pain though, and perhaps its just the survivalist in me, I still chose even then to end it with some words of hope, even if at the time they felt very hollow. Although I'm not yet really ready to commit myself fully to another person, I can at least see that I will be, when the time comes. From an artistic point of view, in depicting the way relationships that start out strong can sometimes fall... I think this may be one of my "best" poems to date.

I'm afraid "slept with" may already be irrevocably tainted...

For me, I prefer a rootbeer or a dr pepper most of the time...

Hehehe... well, part one of a story I intend to post there is already available here... https://www.gayauthors.org/efiction/viewsto...3&warning=5

I'm getting the sense that your friend is in pretty hard times, and his method of escape is through the bottle and sex. Sex is pleasurable, the bottle helps people, for a while at least, to not care about whatever it is that's got them down. If they get drunk enough, they wont remember the part where theyre totally miserable... I think your friend is in need of something of a re-boot... to move to a new place and start over... that would, hopefully, allow him to put behind him whatever is bothering him... at least enough that he can become more of a functional person.

The trouble with the concept of the copyright is its already flexible even in the eyes of the law. Its not an absolute right, it lasts for a set period of time before it becomes public domain. With things like books, that works a lot easier because its much easier to manage, or as appropriate, punish a publishing company. Its clear who should be allowed to print what and the product is generally in a solid ink and paper form. This may change over time as e-books become more popular, but for now books are not the focus of copyright violators. Something I would like to point out though when it comes to copyrights, when you purchase a book to read, why should you be legally forbidden from letting someone else read it? You aren't. Similarly, you aren't legally forbidden from playing your cds on a stereo if there are other people around you at the time. There is no reason why you could not set up a community library of music cds and have everyone just go and grab what they need when they want to hear it and put it back when they're done. What happens with a sharing folder is similar... a group of people put music into it and then they all listen to whatever it is they want to. Filesharing networks are this principle on a massive scale, with the difference being that a copy of the file is being made rather than physically moving the data. Because a new copy is made this is a violation of copyright and i can see how some might find it unjust the artist not be paid royalties... however, new networks are being formed which simply allow a person to play the music from their computer, using the original music file, which still does not result in more royalties being paid out yet is being encouraged by the RIAA as if it were the saviour of the music industry. Bullshit. I am baffled at how it can possibly be considered justice to bankrupt thousands of college students out of spite. Are the artists now in poverty because people listen to their songs right away instead of waiting for it to queue up on radio? No. Are new artists struggling to survive because their product is stolen? Perhaps, but not as a matter of theft by the consumer, but as a matter of signing disadvantageous contracts which funnel profits into the record companies instead of to the artist. The only difference between now and 20 years ago is people are getting the music they want when they want it, rather than waiting for it to queue up in the radio or purchasing overpriced tapes/cds for the one or two songs they actually like thrown in with a dozen they don't. Alternatively, lets consider the movie industry... I always pay to watch movies at least once. The sheer amount of time, effort, people, and resources that go into making movies makes their value far greater in my eyes. However, sometimes I just don't feel like going to the rental store to pick up a movie I've already seen and want to see again and its not playing on HBO or any of the on-demand channels (on demand my ass!). So I pop online and go to youtube or some other site and look for it to see if i can watch it there. Its just a matter of convenience and... I'm not copying anything. Nor am I doing anything illegal. It could be aruged the website is illegally distributing the material... but is it any different from having a lot of guests over to your house to watch a movie? ... And if the website is based in a country where US copyright law does not apply, then it is, literally, not illegal for them to do whatever they like with it.. is it? But you're asking about the morality of a thing... I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't be allowed to horde art, but that the artist should be given due reward for their contribution. As for how to arrange that amicably, many countries allow for government funding of the arts, perhaps something along those lines would be appropriate? And there's always private sponsorship....